Devil's Tor (18 page)

"In Peter Copping's case the thing is complicated by the virtues he derives from his mother, a woman of high principle, who died too young. I knew her. She herself had a double nature, and he has received from both sides. On the one hand, she had a rigid puritanism that set the
idea
for her high above all considerations of personal advantage—and this, in Peter, repeats itself in his impatience of popularity and determination to paint nothing that shall bring him in money. And on the other hand Sarah Copping, of all the women I have met in the course of a long lifetime, was the one possessing the deepest passion for pure beauty, in all its spheres. This passion, I am of opinion, Peter has inherited in full measure; and it should at last save him."

There was a slow reminiscent mournfulness in the old man's mention of John Copping's wife, that caused Helga to glance over to him strangely. He had hardly ever named her before, but if really he had had this wonderful admiration for her, it might throw a different light on his affairs. His rather incongruous business association with the husband would be explained better. Any special intimacy between the two—the wife and the partner—could have been only ideal, yet it cleared other things as well—his liking for Peter's company, his settling down in this part of the country at all... and something in his attitude towards Ingrid, which hitherto had always puzzled Helga, but now she suddenly realised that perhaps he had long since reserved her in his mind for Peter's wife, thus romantically consummating his own prevented attachment. The failure of his supposed misogyny surprised her less than she could have thought possible. She forgave the deceit, for the sake of the interest of his human weakness. She loved him more for having been able to love this woman; Helga had never met her, but she would choose a quiet occasion to ask Peter about her—she had been told that she was a lovely creature.

She asked herself why her uncle was going into this elaborate analysis of Peter's parts. Evidently it gave him pleasure to refer even in such an oblique way to the qualities of the mother; but there must be something else. He must feel himself to be weakening, and must be intending to use Peter's present stay to promote his scheme of a match between the two young people. If so, this speech of his still proceeding should lead up to some handsome praise of Peter's gifts—it would be put to the proof at once. … It was all so very unlike her uncle's usual style. She feared it signified his approaching end. Thus two out of the four at this table were occupied with death, while
her
part everlastingly was that of onlooker and knower, and Ingrid sat there like some mysterious dawning young sun.

So many thoughts passed through her head so swiftly, that she was still in time to lose nothing of her uncle's concluding remarks.

"It should save him at last," he repeated, "though in the meantime he may have a weary dance to lead. For till now he possesses that blessed faith in his own nonsense, that historically has nearly always succeeded in imposing on the world. The world is very anxious for new beauties and truths; it loves excitement, but the old is dry and dull. So any apparent opposition that his work may meet will be but in the nature of an added incitement; and years may pass before he discovers for himself that in art manner matters nothing—that the underlying ancient eternal beauty alone matters, which he might have sought at first.

"He will come to it, because he is his mother's son. Only let him not imagine until it is shown that he has it in him to set up a landmark in art, for that belongs to but one man in a century, and it remains improbable that he is
it.

"He should marry. A noble girl, of known race and character, would not hinder, but help him in his chosen career. She would anchor him, so that he would not always be running after undesirable other women, wasting both time and money in the process. She would be his perpetual model, in case he wishes to paint the mystic height of womanhood. She would shield him from many of the roughnesses of life, that irritate beyond endurance, and may eventually destroy, so large a number of men whose idealising tendencies unfit them for contact with the vulgar. And she would even stimulate him, because a pure and good woman has virtues not to be found elsewhere; and though it would not always be fitting for a man to imitate these virtues, yet it must increase him to contemplate their existence, and little by little come to understand their true relation to the distinctive virtues of a man, that will spring up within himself from the knowledge."

His eye, as he ended, rested for a single instant on Ingrid, who had coloured faintly. Drapier intercepted the look.

He thought it very transparent that these last words of old Colborne were being directed at the girl, who somehow had become drawn so much closer to himself since last evening. He did not know indeed if the singularly inept allusion to her case in general company was seriously displeasing her, but anyhow it was manifest that she could not openly notice it. So instinctively he shook off his abstraction, to come to her assistance.

"I saw his painting of
you
, Ingrid, last night; and found it extraordinarily impressive. Only his choice of a Scandinavian type for the Virgin—who surely was Jewish—struck me as a rather essential blunder. Of course he may have his own ideas on realism in art."

"I don't think such an inconsistency would bother him, Hugh. Also he seems to wish to believe that Christ was blue-eyed, belonging by descent to the North."

"What grounds can he have for supposing that?"

"Christ's nature was so exotic. He was loving, and simple, and natural."

"So you assent?"

"I've always thought that all good things have come from the North."

Her background of other reflection broke through to the front of speech, and she brought him back to Devil's Tor.

"That accident of yours with the torch, Hugh—how exactly did it happen?"

"I fancy my foot caught in a tail of the mackintosh over my arm; and I got a tumble."

"In the burial chamber itself?"

"Yes."

"Had anything startled you?"

"No."

She stole a last glance at him, but said no more. Magnus Colborne on the other hand was eyeing his nephew with an ominous ambiguous grin.

"You are sure, for instance," he demanded, "that it was no apparition you saw, or thought you saw, in that place which caused your mishap?"

Drapier shifted in his seat, to return him the shadow of a cold bow.

"I am quite sure, sir."

"You believe I am joking?"

"I can't tell that, sir. I merely know that, coming straight from such a tomb as I have done, I personally feel anything but in the mood for indulging in jokes about it."

The old man grabbed at his napkin which threatened to escape from his knees, and flapped it out angrily before restoring it to position.

"You younger people," he began in his deliberate, precise way, "imagine that the world belongs to you. But I have sometimes been beyond my own front gate, and you are to learn that but for a certain experience of mine on top of this same Devil's Tor some five-and-twenty years ago, not one of you probably would so much as ever have heard of its existence—certainly none of us here assembled would now be seated at this breakfast table. To that extent the fates of all three of you have depended upon an incident occurring to me when two were still in or hardly out of childhood and the third was unborn. So you may securely consider that the subject is the very last I would select as a mine for jests."

He fixed a look on Helga, who accordingly answered him.

"May we hear, Uncle?"

"You know something of my life previous to that time, but Hugh Drapier doubtless has never troubled to concern himself with it, so that I had better address my introduction to him—if you will not be bored?" he demanded of his nephew suddenly, and nearly savagely. Drapier, however, pushing back his plate with a movement of finality, nodded without reply, and gazed away.

"You're interested, Hugh?" intervened Helga. She feared that her uncle's open temperamental dislike of him would find food in this unfortunate appearance of negligence.

"Yes, if it relates to Devil's Tor itself, I would like to know."

Colborne's glare subsided. He ceased to look at Hugh, although it was to him that he now went on to speak.

"As an example, you should be ignorant that my taking up my residence in the south-west of England was quite by chance; or if you prefer it, by fate. I never had a sentimental predilection for Devonshire. I sought at the time a house to live in. Properties roughly answering my requirements were offered me in half a dozen counties, and Whitestone, on Dartmoor, was one.

"My father died when I was turned thirty. His shipping business passed to his widow—my mother and your grandmother—and yours, Helga. Until her death in turn three years later I continued to manage it for her, when it came to me in my own right, less certain deductions in favour of your respective parents. I disposed of it as quickly as so complicated and flourishing a going concern may be disposed of, without foolishly throwing it away; and went abroad.

"During the next five or six years I indulged my taste for the arts. I travelled; and may confidently affirm that within that period I visited every European gallery of note, every considerable mediaeval religious structure, all the more important Continental Roman remains, classical Greece in its entirety, the Egyptian temples over the navigable length of the Nile, and much of Asia Minor. Only Palestine I did not visit; for the aesthetic culture of the original Jews has always appeared to me both barbaric and frivolous. We know that the
best
of the race have scorned graven images.

"But one cannot be acted upon by the world forever, one must also act, so by the time I was forty, my head being already full of philosophical devils, I returned to England to relieve myself in some volumes. There is assumed to be an intelligent public that interests itself in cosmical problems. It seems, however, that it has failed hitherto to hear of my books; at least, it has not bought them. Understand well, I never was in need either of money from my writings or of literary glory; still, you may conceive the small inclination I felt to go on spending myself in a vacuum. As a second motive to once more changing my mode of life, I was by now surfeited with the eternal daily spectacle of mean modern city faces, the indices of meaner souls. The contrasted solitariness of a country existence sang its song of enchantment to me.

"There is no need to describe how I came to enter into partnership with John Copping, the Tavistock land agent, on whose list was Whitestone. Within his limits he was a very fine fellow, if no saint, and it suffices to say that we afterwards bought and sold residential estates and farm properties together. Yet let me assure you that, sharp and far-sighted though he was, he was never able to trip his colleague! His son, an idle scamp, is the youngster who is expected here this afternoon. I have already spoken of him sufficiently."

He glanced again half involuntarily at Ingrid, who, however, continued sitting in absent thought like a statue, her fingers propping her cheek.

"So that is my history," rounded off the old man, suddenly showing his yellowish teeth to Drapier in an ironic grimace, that as abruptly vanished. "But as to the incident on Devil's Tor, I do not profess to be a Psalmist, and you will doubtless consider my report inadequate."

"If, as I suppose, it is a case of wonder, sir, the shortest and baldest account should be the most effective of all."

"I am reassured! ... You are to understand, then, that I had already on the spot decided
against
Whitestone, yet still stayed on at Plymouth pending an expected communication from other Shropshire agents, when, to pass the time of waiting somehow, I came up again to view the house. As recently as then there were no cars, or none for hire, while the trains were infrequent; so before returning I had yet a few hours on my hands, which I used in walking out to Devil's Tor. It was, I remember, a warm, grey day in June—fine, clear and windless. Lying at length on top of the hill, I dozed. And in this state I experienced what one perhaps would call a dream, but another a vision—I mean only that my condition was doubtful between sleeping and waking."

Drapier seemed somewhat paler than usual, as he interrupted him.

"You saw that same apparition, sir, you were asking me about?"

"I saw no ghost, or shape. What I did see was—the hill in
glory. …
You have no inkling of my meaning. However, as a traveller upon the grand scale, you have witnessed notable sun-risings among the Asiatic mountains and elsewhere?"

"I have so."

"And have been struck to silence and worship, supposing that you have the common feelings of a man. Then you will grasp better than your cousins the sort of spectacle I have it in my mind to convey; and what my corresponding sensations necessarily were. There was a very slow
crescendo
of rosy light, turning to gold, and later to a magnificent refulgence that was less like any passage of the solar rays through the terrestrial atmosphere than the radiance of heaven itself. It seemed to me that I was outstretched on the ground, rather awkwardly raising myself on one arm—hardly for the purpose of
beholding
the phenomenon, for in fact there was nothing to interrupt the prospect of the eye; but rather to steep myself more entirely in its amazing beauty and invitation. I have said—or think I have—that the day was grey, without sun; the sun, in any case, does not rise at noon. The appearance therefore was phantasmal. If it were dream, I have known no such dream before or since. If vision, then I was in a holy place. Then, as well as afterwards, I believed that the splendour was supernatural.

"I wished to buy the hill, but it was not for sale. Instead, I bought this house, as its available near neighbour. And still you will find it noteworthy that between that overtaking of mine on Devil’s Tor and the present moment, I have chosen to pay it no second visit."