Part 8 (2/2)
The clergyman breathed a sigh of relief.
In the evening Uniacke turned his pipe two or three times in his fingers and said, looking down:
”That picture of yours--”
”Yes. What of it?”
”You will paint it in London, I suppose?”
”How can I do that? The imagination of it came to me here, is sustained and quickened by these surroundings.”
”You mean to paint it here?” the clergyman faltered.
Sir Graham was evidently struck by his host's air of painful discomfiture.
”I beg your pardon,” he said hastily. ”Of course I do not mean to inflict myself upon your kind hospitality while I am working. I shall return to the inn.”
Uniacke flushed red at being so misunderstood.
”I cannot let you do that. No, no! Honestly, my question was only prompted by--by--a thought--”
”Yes?”
”Do not think me impertinent. But, really, a regard for you has grown up in me since you have allowed me to know you--a great regard indeed.”
”Thank you, thank you, Uniacke,” said the painter, obviously moved.
”And it has struck me that in your present condition of health, and seeing that your mind is pursued by these--these melancholy sea thoughts and imaginings, it might be safer, better for you to be in a place less desolate, less preyed upon by the sea. That is all. Believe me, that is all.”
He spoke the last words with the peculiar insistence and almost declamatory fervour of the liar. But he was now embarked upon deceit and must crowd all sail. And with the utterance of his lie he took an abrupt resolution.
”Let us go away together somewhere,” he exclaimed, with a brightening face. ”I need a holiday. I will get a brother clergyman to come over from the mainland and take my services. You asked me some day to return your visit. I accept your invitation here and now. Let me come with you to London.”
Sir Graham shook his head.
”You put me in the position of an inhospitable man,” he said. ”In the future you must come to me. I look forward to that. I depend upon it.
But I cannot go to London at present. My house, my studio are become loathsome to me. The very street in which I live echoes with childish footsteps. I cannot be there.”
”Sir Graham, you must learn to look upon your past act in a different light. If you do not, your power of usefulness in the world will be crushed.”
The clergyman spoke with an intense earnestness. His sense of his own increasing unworthiness, the fighting sense of the necessity laid upon him to be unworthy for this sick man's sake, tormented him, set his heart in a sea of trouble. He strove to escape out of it by mental exertion. His eyes shone with unnatural fervour as he went on:
”When you first told me your story, I thought this thing weighed upon you unnecessarily. Now I see more and more clearly that your unnatural misery over a very natural act springs from ill-health. It is your body which you confuse with your conscience. Your remorse is a disease removable by medicine, by a particular kind of air or scene, by waters even it may be, or by hard exercise, or by a voyage.”
”A voyage!” cried Sir Graham bitterly.
”Well, well--by such means, I would say, as come to a doctor's mind. You labour under the yoke of the body.”
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