The Judgment Books

"What have I been saying?" he asked.

"You said, 'Give me the daggers!' – oh no, Lady Macbeth says that. Well, here they are. Come to me, Frank, and I'll give you them."

Frank walked obediently up to her, as she stood in the entrance to the passage, and as soon as he was outside the studio she banged the door and stood in front of it triumphantly.

"Here are the daggers," she said, "but you are not going to use them now. You shall finish that picture, but not like a madman. And if you look like Macbeth any more I shall simply die of it; or I shall behave like Lady Macbeth, and then there will be a pair of us. I shall walk in my sleep down to the sea, and wash my hands all day till it gets quite red. Now you're coming out. March!"

CHAPTER VIII

After lunch Frank and Margery went down to the river and cruised about in a little boat, exploring, as they had explored a hundred times before, the unexpected but well-known little creeks which ran up between the hummocks of the broad-backed hills, shut in and shadowed by delicate-leaved beech-trees. When the tide was high it was possible to get some way up into these wooded retreats, and by remaining very still, or going quickly and silently round a corner, you might sometimes catch sight of a kingfisher flashing up from the shallows and darting along the lane of flecked sunlight like a jewel flung through the air. There had been a frost, the first of the year, the night before, and the broad-leaved docks and hemlocks lining the banks had still drops of moisture on their leaves like pearls or moon-stones semées on to green velvet. The woods had taken a deeper autumnal tint in the last two days, and already the five-ribbed chestnut leaves, the first of all to fall, were lying scattered on the ground. Every now and then a rabbit scuttled away to seek the protection of thicker undergrowth, or a young cock pheasant, as yet unmolested, stood and looked at the intruders.

Margery was surprised to find how great the relief of getting Frank away from his picture was. The horrible guilty look on the portrait's face, and, more than that, the knowledge that it was a terribly true realization of her husband's expression, disturbed her more than she liked to admit even to herself.

But nothing, she determined – not if all the ghosts out of the Decameron sat in her husband's eyes – should make her abandon her resolution of compelling Frank to finish it. She did not believe in occult phenomena of this description; no painting of any portrait could alter the painter's nature. To get tired and anxious was not the same as losing your personality; the first, if one was working well and hard, was inevitable; the second was impossible, it was nonsense. Decidedly she did not believe in the possibility of his losing his personality. But with all her resolutions to the contrary, she could not help wondering what the other fear, which she had forbidden him to tell her, was. Vaguely in her own mind she connected it with that strange shudder she had felt when she saw him the night before; and quite irrelevantly, as it seemed to her, the image came into her mind of something hidden rising to the surface – of the sea giving up its dead…

It was on this point alone she distrusted herself and all the resolutions she had made. She did not yet know clearly what she feared, but she realized dimly that there was a possibility of its becoming clearer to her, and that when it became clearer she would have to decide afresh. At present her one desire was that he should finish the portrait, and finish it as quickly as possible. But at any rate she had Frank with her now, as she had known him and loved him all their life together. That love she would not risk, but at present she did not see where the risk could come in. With her, and away from the portrait, he was again completely himself. He looked tired and was rather silent, and often when she turned from her place in the bow (where she was looking for concealed snags or roots in the water) to him, as he punted the boat quietly along with an oar, for the stream was narrow to row in, she saw him standing still, oar in hand, looking at her, and when their eyes met he smiled.

"It is like that first afternoon we were here, Margy, isn't it?" he said on one of these occasions. "Do you remember? We got here on a September morning, after travelling all night from London, and after lunch we came up this very creek."

"Yes, Frank, and I feel just as I did then."

"What did you feel?"

"Why – why, that I had got you all to myself at last, and that I did not care about anything else."

"Ah, my God!" cried Frank, suddenly.

"What is it?" asked she.

Frank ran the boat into a little hollow made in the side of the creek by a small stream, now nearly summer dry, and came and sat down on the bank just above her.

"Margy dear," he said, "I want to ask you something quite soberly. I am not excited nor overwrought in any way, am I? I am quite calm and sensible. It is not as if that horrible thing were with us. It is about that I want to talk to you – about the picture. All this morning, as I told you, I knew I ought not to go on with it, but I went on because it had a terrible evil fascination for me. And now, too, I know I ought not to go on with it. It is wicked. This morning I thought of that afternoon we spent here before, and I knew I was sacrificing that. Then I did not care, but now you are all the world to me, as you always have been except when I am with that thing. It was that first day we came here to this very spot that was fixed in my mind. And now we are here in the same place, and on just such another day, let us talk about it."

"Oh, Frank, don't be a coward," said Margery, appealingly. "You know exactly what I think about it. Of course all my inclination goes with you, but, but – "

She raised herself from the boat and put her hand on his knee.

"Frank, you don't doubt me, do you? There is nothing in the world I could weigh against you and your love, but we must be reasonable. If you had a very strong presentiment that you would be drowned as we sailed home I should very likely be dreadfully uncomfortable, but I wouldn't have you walk back instead for anything. There are many things of which we know nothing – presentiments, fears, all the horrors, in fact – and it would be like children to take them into our reckoning or let them direct us. It is for your sake, not mine, that I want you to go on with that portrait. If I followed my inclination I should say, 'Tear it up and let us sit here together for ever and ever.'"

Frank leaned forward and spoke entreatingly.

"Margy, tell me to tear it up – ah, do, dear, and you may do with me whatever you wish – only tell me to destroy it!"

Margery shook her head hopelessly.

"Don't disappoint me, Frank," she said. "I care for nothing in the world compared to you; but what reason could I give for doing this? I think you often get excited and upset over your work, but that is worth while, because you do good work and you are not permanently upset. You wouldn't give up being an artist for that. And if I saw any reason for telling you to stop this, I would do it. It is because I care for you and all your possibilities that I tell you to go on with it."

Margery thought for a moment of the portrait and the terrible likeness it bore to her husband, and she hesitated. But no; the whole thing was too fantastic, too vague. She did not even know what she was afraid of.

"It isn't the pleasant or the easy course I am taking," she continued. "That wasn't a pleasant look on your face when you shouted at me to give you your palette this morning?"

Frank looked puzzled.

"What did I do?" he asked. "When did I shout at you?"

"This morning, just before we came out. You shouted awfully loud, and you looked like Macbeth. It is just because I don't want you to look like Macbeth permanently that I insist on your going on with it. I want you to get Macbeth out of your system. That fantastic idea of yours, that you would run a risk, was the original cause of all this nonsense, and when you have finished the picture and seen that you have run no risk, you will know that I am right."

Frank stood up.

"To-morrow may be too late," he said. "Do you really tell me to go on with it?"

"Frank, dear, don't be melodramatic. You were just as nice as you could be all the way up here. Yes, I tell you to go on with it."

Frank's arms dropped by his side, and for a moment he stood quite still. The leaves whispered in the trees, and the rippling stream tapped against the boat. Then for a moment the breeze dropped, and the boat swung round with the current. The water made no sound against it as it moved slowly round, and there was silence – tense, absolute silence.

Then Margery lay back in the boat and laughed. Her laugh sounded strange in her own ears.

"I am sure this is one of the occasions on which we ought to hear only the beating of our own hearts; but, as a matter of fact, I don't. Come, Frank, don't stand there like a hop-pole."

Frank slowly let his eyes rest on her, but he did not answer her smile.

Margery paused a moment.

"Come," she said again, "let us go a little higher. There is plenty of water."

Frank pushed the boat out from the bank and jumped in.

"Then it is all over," he said. "I must go home at once. I must get on with the portrait immediately. I cannot last if I am not quick. There's no time to lose, Margy. Please let me get back at once."

He paused a moment.

"Margy, give me one kiss, will you?" he said. "Perhaps, perhaps – Ah, my darling, cannot you do what I ask?"

He had raised himself and clung round her neck, kissing her again and again. But she, afraid of yielding, afraid of sacrificing her reason even to that she loved best in the world, unwound his arms.

"No, Frank, I have said I cannot. Oh, my dear, don't you understand? Frank, Frank!"

But he shook his head and took up the oar.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" she asked, after a moment, seeing he did not look at her again. "What time is it?"

"I don't know," said Frank, quickly. "I only know that if I am to finish it I must finish it at once. It will take us nearly an hour to get home, and it is too dark to work after five."

The wind, since that sudden lull, had blown only fitfully by gusts, and by the time they had emerged into the estuary it had died out altogether.

"The wind has dropped," said he. "The winds and the stars fight against me. We sha'n't be able to sail."

He took up the sculls, and rowed as if he were rowing a race.