Tongues of Conscience Part 12

In the late afternoon Sir Graham showed him an admirable study of the Skipper, standing with upraised arms as if ringing the church bells, his blue eyes fixed as if he scanned a distant horizon, or searched the endless plains of the sea for his lost companions.

"Forgive my abruptness this morning," the painter said. "I was afraid your presence would scare the Skipper."

Uniacke murmured a word in admiration of the painting.

"And to-morrow," he added.

"To-morrow I shall start on the picture," Sir Graham replied.

After supper he drew aside the blind and looked forth.

"The moon is rising," he said. "I shall go out for a little while. I want to observe light effects, and to think over what I am going to do.

My mind is full of it, Uniacke; I think it should be a great picture."

His eyes were s.h.i.+ning with excitement. He went out. He was away a long time. The clock in the rectory parlour struck eleven, half-past eleven, he did not return. Beginning to feel anxious, Uniacke went to the window and looked out. The night was quiet and clear, bathed in the radiance of the moon, which defined objects sharply. The dark figure of the painter was approaching the house from the church. Uniacke, who did not wish to be thought curious, drew hastily back from the window and dropped the blind. In a moment Sir Graham entered. He was extremely pale and looked scared. He shut the door very hastily, almost as if he wished to prevent some one from entering after him. Then he came up to the fire without a word.

"You are late," Uniacke said, unpleasantly affected, but trying to speak indifferently.

"Late, am I? Why--what time is it?"

"Nearly midnight."

"Indeed. I forgot the hour. I was engrossed. I--" He looked up hastily and looked down again. "A most strange, most unaccountable, thing has happened."

"What?" said Uniacke. "Surely the Skipper hasn't--"

"No, no. It's nothing to do with him. I haven't seen him. No, no--but the most unaccountable--how long have I been out there?"

"You went out at nine. It's a quarter to twelve now."

"Two hours and three-quarters! I should have said ten minutes. But then--how long was I with it?"

"With it?" repeated Uniacke, turning cold.

"Yes, yes--how long? It seemed no time--and yet an eternity, too."

He got up and went to and fro uneasily about the room.

"Horrible!" he muttered, as if to himself. "Horrible!"

He stopped suddenly in front of Uniacke.

"Do you believe," he said, "that when we think very steadily and intensely of a thing we may, perhaps, project--give life, as it were, for the moment to our thought?"

"Why do you ask me?" said Uniacke. "It has never happened to me to do such a thing."

"Why do I ask? Well, I'll--"

He hesitated, keeping his eyes fixed on Uniacke's face.

"Yes, I'll tell you what took place. I went out thinking of my picture, of its composition, of the light effect, of the faces of the drowned men, especially of the face of little Jack. I seemed to see him coming into that belfry tower--yes, to greet the Skipper, all dripping from the sea. But--but--no, Uniacke, I'll swear that, in my mind, I saw his face as it used to be. That was natural, wasn't it? I imagined it white, with wide, staring eyes, the skin wet and roughened with the salt water. But that was all. So it couldn't have been my thought projected, because I had never imagined.--"

He was evidently engrossed by his own reflections. His eyes had an inward expression. His voice died in a murmur, almost like the murmur of one who babbles in sleep.

"Never had imagined what?" said Uniacke, sharply.

"Oh, forgive me. I cannot understand it. As I paced in the churchyard, thinking of my picture, and watching the moon and the shadows cast by the church and by the stones of the tombs, I came to that grave by the wall."

"The grave of the boy I told you about?" said Uniacke with an elaborate indifference.

"Yes, the boy."

"Well?"

"I suppose I stood there for a few minutes, or it may have been longer.

I can't tell at all. I don't think I was even aware that I was no longer walking. I was entirely wrapped up in my meditations, I believe. I saw my picture before me, the Skipper, the dripping sailors--Jack first. I saw them quite distinctly with my mental vision. And then, by degrees, somehow those figures in the picture all faded into darkness, softly, gradually, till only one was left--Jack. He was still there in the picture. The moonlight through the narrow belfry window fell on him. It seemed to make the salt drops sparkle, almost like jewels, in his hair, on his clothes. I looked at him,--mentally, still. And, while I looked, the moonlight, I thought, grew stronger. The belfry seemed to fade away.

The figure of Jack stood out in the light. It grew larger--larger. It reached the size of life. And then, as I stared upon it, the face altered before my eyes. It became older, less childish, more firm and manly--but oh, Uniacke! a thousand times more horrible."

"How? How?"

"Why, it became puffy, bloated, dropsical. The eyes were glazed and bloodshot. On the lips there was foam. The fingers of the hands were twisted and distorted. The teeth grinned hideously. The romance of death dropped away. The filthy reality of death stood before me, upon the grave of that boy."

"You imagined it," muttered Uniacke.

He spoke without conviction.

"I did not. I saw it. For now I knew that I was no longer thinking of my picture. I looked around me and saw the small clouds and the night, the moon in the pale sky, the black church, this house, the graves like creatures lying side by side asleep. I saw them all. I heard the dull wash of the sea. And then I looked again at that grave, and on it stood Jack, the dead thing I sent to death, bloated and silent, staring upon me. Silent--and yet I seemed to feel that it said, 'This is what I am.

Paint me like this. Look at what the sea has done to me! Look--look at what the sea has done!'--Uniacke! Uniacke!"

He sank down into a chair and stared before him with terrible eyes. A shudder ran over the clergyman, but he said, in a voice that he tried to make calm and consolatory,

"Of course it was your fancy, Sir Graham. You had conjured up the figures in your picture. There was nothing unnatural in your seeing one--the one you had known in life--more distinctly than the others."

"I had not known it like that. I had never imagined anything so distorted, so horrible, tragic and yet almost grotesque, a thing for the foolish to--to laugh at, ugh! Besides, it stood there. It was actually there on that grave, as if it had risen out of that grave, Uniacke."

"Your fancy."

Uniacke spoke with no conviction, and his lips were pale.

"I say it is not. The thing--Jack, come to that!--was there. Had you been with me, you must have seen it as I did."

Uniacke shook his head.

"Believe me, Sir Graham," he exclaimed, "you ought to go from here. The everlasting sound of the sea--the presence of the Skipper--your idea for this terrible picture--"

"Terrible! Yes, I see it must be terrible. My conception--how wrong it was! I meant to make death romantic, almost beautiful. And it is like that. To-morrow--to-morrow--ah, Jack! I can paint you now!"

He sprang up and hurried from the room. Uniacke heard him pacing up and down above stairs till far into the night.