THE RETURN--VENICE
It was sunset when John arrived. The gondolas were riding on a sea of rose; the houses were standing, quietly, silently, as you will see cattle herd, knee-deep in the burning water. Here and there in the distance, the fiery sun found its reflection in some obscure window, and burnt there in a glowing flame of light. Then it was a city of rose and pink, of mauve and blue and grey, one shading into the other in a texture so delicate, so fine that the very threads of it could not be followed in their change.
John took a deep breath as he stepped into his gondola. It needed such colour as this to wash out the blackness of that night in London. It needed such stillness and such quiet to soothe the rancour of his bitterness; for the stillness of Venice is the hushed stillness of a church, where all anger is drugged to sleep and only the sorrow that one learns of can hold against the spell and keeps its eyes awake.
Now, in the desolation of his mind, John was learning, of the things that have true value and of those which have none. It is not an easy lesson to acquire, for the sacrifice of pre-conceived ideas can only be accomplished on the altar of bitterness and only the burning of despair can reduce them to the ashes in which lies the truth concealed.
Having deposited his belongings in his rooms in the _Rio della Sacchere_, where he always stayed, he set off on foot by the narrow little pathways to the _Palazzo Capello_.
That was always a moment in John's life when, upon his arrival every year, he first opened the big gate that closed on to the _fondamenta_.
It was always a moment to be remembered when first he beheld, from beneath the archway, the glow of the flaming sunset in that old Italian garden, framed in the lace-worked trellises of iron.
Life had these moments. They are worth all the treasure of the Indies.
The mind of a man is never so possessed of wealth as when he comes upon them; for in such moments as these, his emotions are wings which no sun of vaunted ambition can melt; in such moments as these, he touches the very feet of God.
Closing the big door behind him, John stood for a moment in contemplation. The great disc of the sun had just sunk down behind the cypress trees. Their deep black forms were edged with a bright thread of gold. Everything in that old garden was silhouetted against the glowing embers of the sunset, and every bush and every shrub was rimmed with a halo of light.
This was the last moment of his warfare. Had his ideal not lifted again before the sight of such magnificence as this, it would inevitably have been the moment of defeat. Through the blackness of the tunnel, it is inviolably decreed that a man must pass before he shall reach the ultimate light; but if, when that journey is accomplished, the sight of beauty, which is only the symbol of the good, if that does not touch him and, with a beckoning hand, raise his mind into the mystery of the infinite, then that immersion in the darkness has not cleansed his soul.
He has been tainted with it. It clings like a mist about his eyes, blurring all vision. He has been weighed in the balance that depends from the nerveless hand of Fate, and has been found--wanting.
But as a bird soars, freed from the cage that held it to earth, John's mind rose triumphantly. Acknowledging all the credit that was Amber's due--and but for her, he could not have seen the true beauty, the beauty of symbolism, in that sunset there--he yet had passed unscathed from the depth of the shadow into the heart of the light.
Here was a moment such as they would have known had the story of the City of Beautiful Nonsense come true. Here was a moment when they would have stood, hands touching, hearts beating, seeing God. And yet, though she was hundreds of miles from him then, John's mind had so lifted above the bitterness of despair, had so outstripped the haunting cries of his body, that he could conjure Jill's presence to his side and, in an ecstasy of faith, believe her with him, seeing the beauty that he saw; there.
In the text-books of science, they have no other name for this than hysteria; but in those unwritten volumes--pages unhampered by the deceptive sight of words--a name is given to such moments as these which we have not the eyes to read, nor the simplicity of heart to understand.
Forcing back the rush of tears to his eyes, John passed under the little archway in the wall, mounted the dark stone steps, dragged down the chain, and with the clanging of the heavy bell was brought back, tumbling to reality.
With a rattling of the rings, the heavy curtain was pulled, the little door was thrown open. The next moment, he was gripping Claudina's hand--shaking it till her earrings swung violently to and fro.
Then came his father, the old white-haired gentleman, looking so old to have so young a son.
They just held hands, gazing straight, deep down into each other's eyes.
"God bless you, my boy," said the old man jauntily. He stood with his back to the light. He would not for the world have shown that his eyes were filled with tears. Old men, like little boys, think it babyish to cry--perhaps it is partly because the tears rise so easily.
And last of all, walking slowly, because her paralysis had affected her whole body, as well as rendering powerless her hands, came the little old white-haired lady. There was no attempt from her to hide the tears.
They were mixed up in a confusion of happiness with smiles and with laughter in the most charming way in the world.
She just held open her thin, frail arms, and there John buried himself, whispering over and over again in her ear--
"My dearest--my dearest--my dearest----"
And who could blame him if Jill were there still in his mind. There comes a time when a man loves his mother because she is a woman, just as the woman he loves. There comes a time when a mother loves her son, because he is a man just as the man she has loved.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE TRUE MOTHER
It was not that evening that she plied her questions, this gentle, white-haired old lady. That first evening of his arrival, there was John's work to talk of, the success of his last book to discuss, the opinions upon his criticisms to lay down. The old gentleman had decided views upon such matters as these. He talked affirmatively with wise nods of the head, and the bright brown eyes of his wife followed all his gesticulations with silent approval. She nodded her head too. All these things he was saying then, he had said before over and over again to her. Yet they every one of them seemed new when he once more repeated them to John.
This critic had not understood what he had been writing about; that critic had hit the matter straight on the head. This one perhaps was a little too profuse in his praise; that one had struck a note of personal animosity which was a disgrace to the paper for which he wrote.
"Do you know the man who wrote that, John?" he asked in a burst of righteous anger.
John smiled at his father's enthusiasm. One is so much wiser when one is young--one is so much younger when one is old.
"I know him by sight," he said--"we've never met. But he always reviews me like that. I suppose I irritate him."
His mother felt gently for his hand. Without looking down, he found the withered fingers in his.
"How could you irritate him, my darling?" she asked. It seemed an impossibility to her.
"Well--there are always some people whom we irritate by being alive, my dearest. I'm not the only one who annoys him. I expect he annoys himself."
"Ah, yes!" The old gentleman brought down his fist emphatically upon the arm of his chair--"But he should keep these personal feelings out of his work. And yet--I suppose this kind of thing will always exist.
Oh--if it only pleased the Lord that His people should be gentlemen!"
So his father talked, giving forth all the enthusiasm of his opinions which for so long had been stored up in the secret of his heart.
It was no longer his own work that interested him; for whatever contempt the artist may have for his wage, he knows his day is past when the public will no longer pay him for his labour. All the heart of him now, was centred in John. It was John who would express those things his own fingers had failed to touch. He had seen it exultantly in many a line, in many a phrase which this last book had contained; for though the mind which had conceived it was a new mind, the mind of another generation than his own, yet it was the upward growth from the thoughts he had cherished, a higher understanding of the very ideas that he had held.
He, Thomas Grey, the artist, was living again in John Grey, the writer, the journalist, the driver of the pen. In the mind of his son, was the resurrection of his own intellect, the rejuvenescence of his own powers, the vital link between him, passing into the dust, and those things which are eternal.
It was not until John had been there two or three days, that his mother found her opportunity.
The old gentleman had gone to the _Merceria_ to look after the Treasure Shop. Foscari, it seemed, had been selling some more of his beloved curios. A packet of money had been sent to him the evening before for a set of three Empire fans, treasures he had bought in Paris twenty years before. With a smothered sigh, the little old lady had consented to their going to the _Merceria_. Only to make a show, he had promised her that. They should never be purchased by anyone, and he put such a price upon them as would frighten the passing tourist out of his wits. It was like Foscari to find a man who was rich enough and fool enough to buy them. With his heart thumping and, for the first time in his life, not quite being able to look John in the eyes, he had made some excuse--a picture to be framed--and gone out, leaving them alone.
This was the very moment John had dreaded. He knew that those bright brown eyes had been reading the deepest corners of his heart, had only been biding their time until such moment as this. He had felt them following him wherever he went; had realised that into everything he did, they were reading the hidden despair of his mind with an intuition so sure, so unerring, that it would be quite useless for him to endeavour to hide anything from her.
And now, at last they were alone. The sun was burning in through the windows into the little room. The old garden below was pale in the heat of it.
For a little while, he stood there at the window in nervous suspense, straining to think of things to say which might distract her mind from that subject which he knew to be uppermost in her thoughts. And all the time his face was turned away as he gazed down on to the old garden, he could still feel her eyes watching him, until at last the growing anticipation that she would break the silence with a question to which he could not reply, drove him blindly to speak.
He talked about his father's pictures; tried in vain to discover whether he had sold enough for their wants, whether the orders he had received were as numerous, whether his strength permitted him to carry them all out. He talked about the thousand things that must have happened, the thousand things they must have done since last he was with them. And everything he said, she answered gently, disregarding all opportunity to force the conversation to the subject upon which her heart was set. But in her eyes, there was a mute, a patient look of appeal.
The true mother is the last woman in the world to beg for confidence.
She must win it; then it comes from the heart. In John's silence on that one subject that was so near as to be one with the very centre of her being, it was as though she had lost the power of prayer in that moment of her life when she must need it most.
At last she could bear it no longer. It could not be want of confidence in her, she told herself. He was hurt. Some circumstance, some unhappiness had stung him to silence. Instinctively, she could feel the pain of it. Her heart ached. She knew his must be aching too.
"John," she said at length and she laid both those poor withered hands in his--"John--you're unhappy."
He tried to meet her eyes; but they were too bright; they saw too keenly, and his own fell. The next moment, with straining powerless efforts, she had drawn him on to his knees beside her chair, his head was buried in her lap and her hands were gently stroking his hair in a swift, soothing motion.