Chapter IV The Painting of the Ship
‘Never a bird within my sad heart sings,
But heaven a flaming stone of thunder flings.’
Yet his coward pen never plucked courage to itself to write across seas of this family incubus.
The earlier letters had spoken variously of ‘Miss Macintosh,’ or ‘the lady-help’; now there was never a name given, the references being merely to ‘the lady-help.’ Even the children scrupulously followed this up.
When the Marvellous One had gone off with her entrée dishes to her new home, the father had said, ‘Children, we will not tell mother just yet that Miss Macintosh has left, it would only worry her. We will wait till we can write and say we have another one as good.’
So the tale of Hermie’s housekeeping and the mislaid cheque never crossed the sea, and the mother in her far German boarding-house continued to comfort herself with the thought of Miss Macintosh’s perfections.
When Miss Browne’s shortcomings made themselves glaringly patent, the pens again shallied in telling the story.
‘It is so close to Challis’s concert, we mustn’t worry them with our little troubles, children,’ the father said.
So Bartie and Hermie continued to write guarded letters; and if the boy’s hand at times ran on to tell how Miss Browne had put ugly patches on his clothes, or the girl’s heart began to pour itself out on the thin paper and speak of the discomfort of the new reign, recollection would come flooding, the letters would be cast aside and new ones written, short, studied, and never saying more in reference to the vexed question than ‘the lady-help had taken Floss out for a walk.’
‘I hope Miss Macintosh sees you have your little pleasures,’ the mother would write. ‘You do not tell me about birthday parties or picnics. Don’t forget mother loves to hear of it all.’
And Hermie would write back sadly:
‘The lady-help is very busy just now, but when she has more time she is going to let us have a party.’
‘I tremble each mail,’ the mother wrote once, ‘lest your letter should bring me news that Miss Macintosh is engaged and about to be married. It is strange such a woman has not been snapped up long before this.’
And Cameron answered:
‘I do not think you need worry, my darling, about the lady-help marrying. She has given me to understand she has had a disappointment, and will never marry.’
But the very guarding of the letters, the reading of them over, to be sure nothing had been let slip, made them seem poor and lifeless to the anxiously devouring eyes the other side of the world.
She wrote at last:
‘Sweetheart, from what you don’t say, more than from what you do, I learn of your loneliness. You are so dull, my poor boy, and the days rise up and sink to rest all grey like one another. Yet a little more patience, and surely there will be plenty of money to make life all sunshine for you. But just for a little brightness, darling, reach down that box of paints we put away on the cupboard top, get out your brushes, and let them help the hours to fly. While the Conservatorium has been closed for vacation Challis and I have been four days in Rome. And she found me crying one morning in a picture gallery, in front of some great picture, a Raphael, or an Andrea del Sarto—some one, at all events, who painted with hands of fire. And yet it was not the subject of the picture that moved me, unless it was that the magic canvas wrought me to the mood that is yours so often. All I thought of was the cold harsh woman, the Martha with blind eyes, who, that first day in Wilgandra, took away by force and at the same time the paint-box and the glow from your life. My boy, my sweetheart, let me give it back. Ah, would that I could stand on the chair and reach it down from the cupboard and put it into your hands myself! But do it now, my darling, this moment. I know you will be careful and not risk your position by forgetfulness. And when you are loneliest, when you miss me most, let the brushes take my place.’
Cameron had been reading his letter at the tea-table.
‘Children,’ he said, and rose up, his face working, his eyes shining strangely, ‘children, mother wants me to paint pictures again. I—she says I am to get the box down.’
The table had no comprehension of the greatness of the matter, but rose up at once, at seeing the father so moved. Roly brought his mug of sweetened milk along with him, Floss continued to bite at her crust of bread-and-jam, Miss Browne fluttered about, Hermie and Bart pressed at their father’s elbow.
‘Bring a chair, Bartie,’ Cameron said, ‘here at the cupboard in the hall.’
‘Mine cubbub,’ interjected Floss; ‘me’s hat in dere. Go ‘way, daddie.’
‘I’ll climb up,’ said eager Bart. ‘What is it up there, dad?’
‘Give me the chair—let me reach it down myself,’ Cameron said, and stepped up and stretched his long arm to the top.
A dusty mustard-box! The children’s eyes brightened with swift thoughts of treasure, then dulled when the lid was flung back and displayed nothing but a chaos of dirty oil-tubes and brushes.
But when they saw their father’s glistening eyes, saw him fingering the same tubes with a tender, lingering touch, looking at the brushes’ points, they did not tell him they were disappointed in the treasure. Instead, Bart led off with a cheer.
‘Hurrah for daddie the artist!’ he shouted.
‘Hurrah!’ cried Hermie.
‘’Rah!’ shrilled Roly.
Floss claimed a kiss.
‘Me dive daddie dat,’ she said in her kindest way, ‘out mine cubbub.’
And thus was the painting of the ship begun.
‘Can you see what I mean, Bart?’ Cameron said two months later, when the picture was almost finished, so desperately had he worked at it.
‘You mean it for a ship, don’t you?’ Bart said. ‘If I’d been you, though, dad, I’d have painted a steamship with two funnels. People don’t think much of sailing-boats now.’
‘Can you see what I mean, Hermie?’ Cameron said, and wistfulness had crept into his eyes.
Hermie’s blue-flower eyes were regarding the great canvas dubiously.
‘Couldn’t you have made the water blue, papa?’ she said; ‘the sea is blue, you know. P’raps, though, you hadn’t enough blue paint. But I like it to be a sailing-boat; steamships aren’t so clean.’
The man’s heart clamoured for his wife, who had never been at a loss to find what he meant. For a moment it seemed intolerable to him that she was not there at his elbow, to share the exaltation of the moment with him.
‘Run away, run away,’ he said irritably to Hermie and Bart; ‘you shake my elbow, you worry me; run away.’
Miss Browne made a hysterical noise in her throat.
‘It is so sad,’ she said; ‘what is it you have done to it? It is only a ship and a man, and yet—do you know I can hardly keep the sobs back when I look at it.’
To her amaze her employer turned eagerly round, shook her hand again and again in warmest gratitude, and fell to painting once more with feverish haste.
The canvas showed a livid stretch of coast and ocean, and a spectre ship with a spectre captain at the helm.
The ship had an indescribably sad effect. You saw her straining through the strong, repellent waves, you heard her cordage creaking, you saw her battling stem struggling to push a way. She was a living thing, breaking her heart over the black hopelessness of her task. The captain’s face burnt flame-white out from the canvas; his desperate eyes stared straight ahead; his long hand held the helm in a frightful grip. You knew he was aware he would never round his cape; you knew he would fight to do so through all eternity.
The Camerons celebrated the day of the finishing of the picture as a high holiday. The children had ten shillings tossed to them to spend as they liked. They bought a marvellous motley of edible things, and dragged their father and Miss Browne up the Jib to partake of them. It were sheer madness to suppose a whole half-crown’s worth of Brazil nuts; to say nothing of chocolates, tarts and other extreme dainties, could be discussed within the cramped walls of a house in a street. The whole width of the heavens was needed, and a thousand gum-trees, and the smell of earth and grass.
Cameron walked about on the heights as if on air. He had not painted that canvas that stood, still wet, down below in the straggling town. He had entertained a spirit, something stronger, fiercer, more triumphantly capable than himself. He could have flung up his arms and run shouting up and down, shouting thanks to the winds, the trees, the sailing skies, that the spirit had taken its dwelling in him. Magnificent fancies came bursting upon him; now and again he held his head, so rich were the conceptions, so strong felt his hand to bring them into instant being.
An urgent craving for his wife took hold of him—he strode away from the children’s shouts, away from Miss Browne, who sat wretched because she had forgotten the tin-opener, and the tea, and the sugar.
He found himself down near the creek, with the gums waving eighty feet above his head, gums with snow patches of blossoms on them, stern gums, smiling gums, red, silver, blue. And he called, ‘Molly,’ and the trees encouraged him.
And again, ‘Molly,’ ‘Molly,’ and there burst up to his lips from his heart all the words he had had to stifle away since the sailing of her ship. All that he would have poured out to her these last two years, all that had lain quiet and kept his being stagnant since that last agonised clinging of her arms.
‘I thought I could bear it,’ the man said to the trees, ‘but I can’t—it is too much! Are you listening to me, Molly? I must have you again to talk to. She has had you long enough—Challis has had her share of you; now I must have you again. These children take us from each other, Molly. We are very fond of them, but we should have more time to love each other without them, to love like we did twelve years ago. I want you, to tell you about the picture, Molly, Molly. Can you hear, darling, can you hear?’
And sometimes she seemed near to him, seemed a part of the air, the trees, the earth, and he raved to her and talked joyously.
And sometimes he lost her, the delicate spirit webs broken by the world’s machinery, and he dropped his head on his arms and wept.
But when the thread snapped finally, and nothing could bring her to him again, he groped his way upwards, for now the loneliness, after the speaking, was a thing he dared not bear. The children welcomed him eagerly. They had wanted him so badly, they said, for dinner, and here he came only just in time for tea. Would he please open that tin of jam—there was no opener, but perhaps he could do it with a bit of broken bottle? And there were no matches; would he please use his and light the fire? The tea was forgotten, but hot milk and water would be nice, perhaps, but there was only a little milk remaining, and the sugar had been left behind. He fell to laughing, and was thereby restored to more normal mind. He lighted the fire, and water and milk circulated round the little party, and refreshed it. He attended to the wounded—Bart had gashed his hand attempting the opening of that tin of jam, Hermie had a tick in her arm, Roly had stirred up a nest of bull-dog ants, and had met with his due reward, Floss had eaten too many chocolates, and Miss Browne had been stuck in the mud, attempting to get water from a pot-hole; her large shabby shoes looked pathetically ridiculous.
So by the time he had helped all his lame dogs over their stiles, and got them ready for marching home, his mood was quite a happy one again. He went down the mountain-side, Floss in his arms, Bart and Hermie on either side, Miss Browne and Roly close at hand.
And with a flushed face and happy eyes and a fluent tongue he told them all manner of wonderful things; in very truth he could keep them to himself no longer. How the world was going to be very pleased indeed with his picture, and hang it in so famous a place that Challis would not be the only one making the name of Cameron celebrated. And how a whole mint of gold was going to be given to him for it—Hermie and Miss Browne would be able to order all they liked and more from the family grocer. And how he was going to send for mamma to come at once to stay with them again, so that they could all live happily to the end of their days.
Through the little town they wound with eyes shining at the thought.
Hermie’s order-loving soul was soothed at the vision of domestic peace once more. Bart resolved to keep his best knickerbockers for the mother-fingers to mend.
‘Can she make puddings?’ said Roly, who despised the culinary skill of Miss Browne. And ‘Mam-mam,’ murmured little sleepy Floss, not because her mind held recollection of using the name, but because a baby next-door spoke it incessantly, and it seemed pleasant. Only Miss Browne looked wistful-eyed; a mother such as this seemed would never deem her capable enough; Christmas would see her back in Sydney, weariedly waiting occupation in the registry office.
They turned the key of the door—Lizzie had had holiday also. And on the threshold, pushed beneath the door by the post-boy, lay another long blue envelope with no stamp upon it, and only printed letters instead.
Cameron picked it up, quite without suspicion—his cheque for the quarter, he supposed.
But the reading told him he was dismissed the service for his carelessness and the culpable neglect of his duties during the past four months.