when eve had left for latimer, the routine of canterton’s working day ran with the same purposefulness, like a familiar path in a garden, yet though the scene was the same, the atmosphere seemed different, even as a well-known landscape may be glorified and rendered more mysterious by the light poured out from under the edge of a thunder cloud. a peculiar tenderness, a glamour of sensitiveness, covered everything. he was more alive to the beauty of the world about him, and the blue hills seemed to hang like an enchantment on the edge of the horizon. he felt both strangely boyish and richly mature. something had been renewed in him. he was an elizabethan, a man of a wonderful new youth, seeing strange lands rising out of the ocean, his head full of a new splendour of words and a new majesty of emotions. the old self in him seemed as young and fresh as the grass in spring. his vitality was up with the birds at dawn.
the first two days were days of dreams. the day’s work was the same, yet it passed with a peculiar pleasureableness as though there were soft music somewhere keeping a slow rhythm. he was conscious of an added wonder, of the immanence of something that had not taken material shape. a richer light played upon the colours of the world about him. he was conscious of the light, but he did not realise its nature, nor whence it came.
on the third day the weather changed, and an absurd restlessness took possession of him. rain came in rushes out of a hurrying grey sky, and the light and the warmth seemed to have gone out of the world. mysterious outlines took on a sharp distinctness. figures were no longer the glimmering shapes of an arthurian dream. canterton became more conscious of the physical part of himself, of appetites, needs, inclinations, tendencies. something was hardening and taking shape.
he began to think more definitely of eve at latimer, and she was no longer a mere radiance spreading itself over the routine of the day’s work. was she comfortable at the old red-faced “george”? was the weather interfering with her work? would she write to lynette, and would the letter have a word for him? what a wonderful colour sense she had, and what cunning in those fingers of hers. he liked to remember that peculiar radiant look, that tenderness in the eyes that came whenever she was stirred by something that was unusually beautiful. it was like the look in the eyes of a mother, or the light in the eyes of a woman who loved. he had seen it when she was looking at lynette.
then, quite suddenly, he became conscious of a sense of loss. he was unable to fix his attention on his work, and his thoughts went drifting. he felt lonely. it was as though he had been asleep and dreaming, and had wakened up suddenly, hungry and restless, and vaguely discontented.
even lynette’s chatter was a spell cast about his thoughts. having created a heroine, the child babbled of her and her fascinations, and canterton discovered a secret delight in hearing lynette talk of eve carfax. he could not utter the things that the child uttered, and yet they seemed so inevitable and so true, so charmingly and innocently intimate. it brought eve nearer, showed her to him as a more radiant, gracious, laughing figure. lynette was an enchantress, a siren, and knew it not, and canterton’s ears were open to her voice.
“i wonder if my letter will come to-day, daddy?”
“perhaps!”
“it’s over two—three days. it ought to be a big letter.”
“a big letter for a little woman.”
“i wonder if she writes as beautifully as she paints?”
“very likely.”
“and, oh, daddy, will she be back for our garden party?”
“i think so.”
“mother says i can’t behave nicely at parties. i shall go about with miss eve, and i’ll do just what she does. then i ought to behave very nicely, oughtn’t i?”
“perfectly.”
“i do love miss eve, daddy, don’t you?”
“we always agree, miss pixie.”
on the fourth day lynette had her letter. it came by the morning’s post, with a little devil in red and black ink dancing on the flap of the envelope. lynette had not received more than three letters in her life, and the very address gave her a beautiful new thrill.
miss lynette canterton,
fernhill,
basingford,
surrey.
lessons over, she went rushing out in search of her father, and, after canvassing various under-gardeners, discovered him in a corner of the rose nursery.
“miss eve’s written, daddy! i knew she would. would you like to read it? here’s a message for you.”
he sat down on a wooden bench, and drawing lynette into the hollow of one arm, took the letter in a big hand. it was written on plain cream paper of a roughish texture, with a little picture of the “george hotel” penned in the right upper corner. eve’s writing was the writing of the younger generation, so different from the regular, sloping, characterless style of the feminine victorians. it was rather upright, rather square, picturesque in its originality, and with a certain decorative distinctness that covered the sheet of paper with personal and intimate values.
“dear lynette,—i am writing to you at a funny little table in a funny little window that looks out on latimer green. it has been raining all day—oh, such rain!—like thousands of silver wires falling down straight out of the sky. if you were here we would sit at the window and make pictures of the queer people—all legs and umbrellas—walking up and down the streets. here is the portrait of an umbrella going out for a walk on a nice pair of legs in brown gaiters.
“there is an old raven in the garden here. i tried to make friends with him, but he pecked my ankles. and they say he uses dreadful language. wicked old bird! here is a picture of him pretending to be asleep, with one eye open, waiting for some poor puss cat to come into the garden.
“there is a nice old gardener who makes me tea in the afternoon, but i don’t like it so much as tea in the wilderness.
“i want to be back to see you in your new party frock next friday. i feel quite lonely without the queen of the fairies. if you were here i would buy you such cakes at the little shop across the road.
“please tell mr. canterton that the weather was very good to me the first two days, and that i hope he will like the pictures that i have painted.
“good-bye, lynette, dear,
much—much love to you, from
“miss eve.”
lynette was ecstatic.
“isn’t it a lovely letter, daddy? and doesn’t she write beautifully? and it’s all spelt just as if it were out of a book.”
canterton folded the letter with meditative leisureliness.
“quite a lovely letter.”
“i’m going to put it away in my jewel case.”
“jewel case? we are getting proud!”
“it’s only a work-box, really, but i call it a jewel case.”
“i see. things are just what we choose to call them.”
canterton went about for the rest of the day with a picture of a dark-haired woman with a sensitive face sitting at a white framed georgian window, and looking out upon latimer green where all the red-tiled roofs were dull and wet, and the rain rustled upon the foliage of the latimer elms. he could imagine eve drawing those pen-and-ink sketches for lynette, with a glimmer of fun in her eyes, and her lips smiling. she was seventy miles away, and yet——he found himself wondering whether her thoughts had reached out to him while she was writing that letter to lynette.
at latimer the rain was the mere whim of a day, a silver veil let down on the impulse and tossed aside again with equal capriciousness. eve was deep in the latimer gardens, painting from nine in the morning till six at night, taking her lunch and tea with her, and playing the gipsy under a blue sky.
save for that one wet day the weather was perfect for studies of vivid sunlight and dense shadow. latimer abbey set upon its hill-side, with the dense woods shutting out the north, seemed to float in the very blue of the summer sky. there was no one in residence, and, save for the gardeners, eve had the place to herself, and was made to feel like a child in a fairy story, who discovers some enchanted palace all silent and deserted, yet kept beautiful by invisible hands. as she sat painting in the upper italian garden with its flagged walks, statues, brilliant parterres, and fountains, she could not escape from a sense of enchantment. it was all so quiet, and still, and empty. the old clock with its gilded face in the turret kept smiting the hours with a quaint, muffled cry, and with each striking of the hour she had a feeling that all the doors and windows of the great house would open, and that gay ladies in flowered gowns, and gentlemen in rich brocades would come gliding out on to the terrace. gay ghosts in panniers and coloured coats, powdered, patched, fluttering fans, and cocking swords, quaint in their stilted stateliness. the magic of the place seemed to flow into her work, and perhaps there was too much mystery in the classic things she painted. some strange northern god had breathed upon the little sensuous pictures that should have suggested the gem-like gardens of pompeii. clipped yews and box trees, glowing masses of mesembryanthemum and pelargonium, orange trees in stone vases, busts, statues, masks, fountains and white basins, all the brilliancy thereof refused to be merely sensuous and delightful. there was something over it, a spirituality, a slight mistiness that softened the materialism. eve knew what she desired to paint, and yet something bewitched her hands, puzzled her, made her dissatisified. the gothic spirit refused to be conjured, refused to suffer this piece of brilliant formalism to remain untouched under the thinner blue of the northern sky.
eve was puzzled. she made sketch after sketch, and yet was not satisfied. was it mediævalism creeping in, the ghosts of old monks moving round her, and throwing the shadows of their frocks over a pagan mosaic? or was the confusing magic in her own brain, or some underflow of feeling that welled up and disturbed her purpose?
moreover, she discovered that another personality had followed her to latimer. she felt as though canterton were present, standing behind her, looking over her shoulder, and watching her work. she seemed to see things with his eyes, that the work was his work, and that it was not her personality alone that mattered.
the impression grew and became so vivid that it forced her from the mere contemplation of the colours and the outlines of the things before her to a subtle consciousness of the world within herself. why should she feel that he was always there at her elbow? and yet the impression was so strong that she fancied that she had but to turn her head to see him, to talk to him, and to look into his eyes for sympathy and understanding. she tried to shake the feeling off, to shrug her shoulders at it, and failed. james canterton was with her all the while she worked.
there was a second italian garden at latimer, a recreation, in the spirit, of the garden of the villa d’este at tivoli, a hill garden, a world of terraces, stone stairways, shaded walks, box hedges, cypresses and cedars, fountains, cascades, great water cisterns. here was more mystery, deeper shadows, a sadder note. eve was painting in the lower garden on the day following the rain, when the lights were softer, the foliage fresher, the perfumes more pungent. there was the noise of water everywhere. the sunlight was more partial and more vague, splashing into the open spaces, hanging caught in the cypresses and cedars, touching some marble shape, or glittering upon the water in some pool. try as she would, eve felt less impersonal here than in the full sunlight of the upper garden. that other spirit that had sent her to latimer seemed to follow her up and down the moss-grown stairways, to walk with her through the shadows under the trees. she was more conscious of canterton than ever. he was the great, grave lord of the place, watching her work with steady eyes, compelling her to paint with a touch that was not all her own.
sometimes the head gardener, who had tea made for her in his cottage, came and watched her painting and angled for a gossip. he was a superior sort of ancient, with a passion for unearthing the history of plants that had been introduced from distant countries. canterton’s name came up, and the old man found something to talk about.
“i don’t say as i’m an envious chap, but that’s the sort of life as would have suited me.”
eve paused at her work.
“whose?”
“why, mr. canterton’s, miss.”
“you know mr. canterton by name?”
“know him by name! i reckon i do! didn’t he raise eileen purcell and jem gaunt, and bring all those chinese and indian plants into the country, and hybridise mephistopheles? canterton! it’s a name to conjure with.”
eve felt an indefinable pleasure in listening to the fame of the man whose work she was learning to share, for it was fame to be spoken of with delight by this old latimer gardener.
“mr. canterton’s writing a book, is he?”
“yes, and i am painting some of the pictures for it.”
“are you now? i have a notion i should like that book. aye, it should be a book!”
“the work of years.”
“sure! none of your cheap popular sixpenny amateur stuff. it’ll be what you call ‘de lucks,’ won’t it? such things cost money.”
eve was silent a moment. the old man was genuine enough, and not touting.
“perhaps mr. canterton would send you a copy. you would appreciate it. i’ll give him your name.”
“no, no, though i thank you, miss. a good tool is worth its money. i’m not a man to get a good thing for nothing. i reckon i’ll buy that there book.”
“it won’t be published for two or three years.”
“oh, i’m in no hurry! i’m used to waiting for things to grow solid. sapwood ain’t no use to anybody.”
eve had a desire to see the hill garden by moonlight, and the head gardener was sympathetic.
“we lock the big gate at dusk when his lordship’s away. but you come round at nine o’clock to the postern by the dovecot, and i’ll let you in.”
the hill garden’s mood was suited to the full moon. eve had dreamt of such enchantments, but had never seen them till that summer night. there was not a cloud in the sky, and the cypresses and cedars were like the black spires of a city. the alleys and walks were tunnels of gloom. here and there a statue or a fountain glimmered, and the great water cisterns were pools of ink reflecting the huge white disc of the moon.
eve wandered to and fro along the moonlit walks and up and down the dim stairways. the stillness was broken only by the splash of water, and by the turret clock striking the quarters.
it was the night of her last day at latimer. she would be sorry to leave it, and yet, to-morrow she would be at fernhill. lynette’s glowing head flashed into her thoughts, and a rush of tenderness overtook her. if life could be like the joyous eyes of the child, if passion went no further, if all problems remained at the age of seven!
how would canterton like the pictures she had painted? a thrill went through her, and at the same time she felt that the garden was growing cold. a sense of unrest ruffled the calm of the moonlit night. she felt near to some big, indefinable force, on the edge of the sea, vaguely afraid of she knew not what.
she would see him to-morrow. it was to be the day of the fernhill garden party, and she had promised lynette that she would go.
she felt glad, yet troubled, half tempted to shirk the affair, and to stay with her mother at orchards corner.
a week had passed, and she could not escape from the knowledge that something had happened to her in that week.
yet what an absurd drift of dreams was this that she was suffering. the moonlight and the mystery were making her morbid and hypersensitive.
to-morrow she would walk out into the sunlight and meet him face to face in the thick of a casual crowd. all the web of self-consciousness would fall away. she would find herself talking to a big, brown-faced man with steady eyes and a steady head. he was proof against such imaginings, far too strong to let such fancies cloud his consciousness.
moreover they were becoming real good friends, and she imagined that she understood him. she had been too much alone this week. his magnificent and kindly sanity would make her laugh a little over the impressions that had haunted her in the gardens of latimer.
