Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day

'I will read anything you wish me to read,' she replied.

'I will send you some more books. You ought to know something about the world of to-day. Addison and Goldsmith will not teach you that. But I don't know what to send you. Novels are supposed to represent life; but then they pre-suppose a knowledge of the world, to begin with. You want an account of modern society as it is, and the thing does not exist. I will consider about it.'

'I will read whatever you send me. Roland, when I have read all the books and learned to draw, shall I have grown to my full height? Remember what you said about yourself.'

'I don't know, Armorel. It is not reading. But – ' He left the sentence unfinished.

'Who is to tell me – on Samson?' she asked.

In the afternoon of this day Roland planted his easel on the plateau of the northern hill, where the barrows are, and put the last touches to the sketch, which he afterwards made into the first picture which he ever exhibited. It appeared in the Grosvenor of '85: of course everybody remembers the picture, which attracted a very respectable amount of attention. It was called the 'Daughter of Lyonesse.' It represented a maiden in the first blossom of womanhood – tall and shapely. She was dressed in a robe of white wool thrown over her left shoulder and gathered at the waist by a simple belt of brown leather: a white linen vest was seen below the wool: round her neck was a golden torque: behind her was the setting sun: she stood upon the highest of a low pile of granite boulders, round the feet of which were spread the yellow branches of the fern and the faded flowers of the heather: she shaded her eyes from the sun with her left hand, and looked out to sea. She was bare-headed: the strong breeze lifted her long black hair and blew it from her shoulders: her eyes were black and her complexion was dark. Behind her and below her was the splendour of sun and sky and sea, with the Western Islands rising black above the golden waters.

The sketch showed the figure, but the drapery was not complete: as yet it was a study of light and colour and a portrait.

'I don't quite know,' said the painter, thoughtfully, 'whether you ought not to wear a purple chiton: Phœnician trade must have brought Phœnician luxuries to Lyonesse. Your ancestors were tin-men – rich miners – no doubt the ladies of the family went dressed in the very, very best. I wonder whether in those days the King's daughter was barefooted. The caliga, I think – the leather sandal – would have been early introduced into the royal family on account of the spikiness of the fern in autumn and the thorns of the gorse all the year round. The slaves and common people, of course, would have to endure the thorns.'

He continued his work while he talked, Armorel making no reply, enacting the model with zeal.

'It is a strange sunset,' he went on, as if talking to himself, 'a day of clouds, but in the west a broad belt of blue low down in the horizon: in the midst of the belt the sun flaming crimson: on either hand the sky aglow, but only in the belt of clear: above is the solid cloud, grey and sulky, receiving none of the colour: below is also the solid, sulky cloud, but under the sun there spreads out a fan of light which strikes the waters and sets them aflame in a long broad road from the heavens to your feet, O child of Lyonesse. Outside this road of light the waters are dull and gloomy: in the sky the coloured belt of light fades gradually into soft yellows, clear greens, and azure blues. A strange sunset! A strange effect of light! Armorel, you see your life: it is prefigured by the light. Overhead the sky is grey and colourless: where the glow of the future does not lie on the waters they are grey and colourless. Nothing around you but the waste of grey sea: before you black rocks – life is always full of black rocks: and beyond, the splendid sun – soft, warm, and glowing. You shall interpret that in your own way.'

Armorel listened, standing motionless, her left hand shading her eyes.

'If the picture,' he went on, 'comes out as I hope it may, it will be one of those that suggest many things. Every good picture, Armorel, as well as every good poem, suggests. It is like that statue of Christ which is always taller than the tallest man. Nobody can ever get above the thought and soul of a good picture or a good poem. There is always more in it than the wisest man knows. That is the proof of genius. That is why I long all day for the mysterious power of putting into my work the soul of everyone who looks upon it – as well as my own soul. When you come to stand before a great picture, Armorel, perhaps you will understand what I mean. You will find your heart agitated with strange emotions – you will leave it with new thoughts. When you go away from your desert island, remember every day to read a piece of great verse, to look upon a great picture, and to hear a piece of great music. As for these suggested thoughts, you will not perhaps be able to put them into words. But they will be there.'

Still Armorel made no reply. It was as if he were talking to a statue.

'I have painted you,' he said, 'with the golden torque round your neck: the red gold is caught by the sunshine: as for your dress, I think it must be a white woollen robe – perhaps a border of purple – but I don't know – There are already heaps of colour – colour of sky and of water, of the granite with the yellow lichen, and of brown and yellow fern and of heather faded – No – you shall be all in white, Armorel. No dress so sweet for a girl as white. A vest of white linen made by yourself from your own spinning-wheel, up to the throat and covering the right shoulder. Are you tired, child?'

'No – I like to hear you talk.'

'I have nearly done – in fact,' he leaned back and contemplated his work with the enthusiasm which is to a painter what the glow of composition is to the writer, 'I have done all I can until I go home. The sun of Scilly hath a more golden glow in September than the sun of St. John's Wood. If I have caught aright – or something like it – the light that is around you and about you, Armorel – The sun in your left hand is like the red light of the candle through the closed fingers. So – I can do no more – Armorel! you are all glorious within and without. You are indeed the King's Daughter: you are clothed with the sun as with a garment: if the sun were to disappear this moment, you would stand upon the Peak, for all the island to admire – a flaming beacon!'

His voice was jubilant – he had done well. Yet he shaded his eyes and looked at canvas and at model once more with jealousy and suspicion. If he had passed over something! It was an ambitious picture – the most ambitious thing he had yet attempted.

'Armorel!' he cried. 'If I could only paint as well as I can see! Come down, child; you are good indeed to stand so long and so patiently.'

She obeyed and jumped off her eminence, and stood beside him looking at the picture.

'Tell me what you think,' said the painter. 'You see – it is the King's Daughter. She stands on a peak in Lyonesse and looks forth upon the waters. Why? I know not. She seeks the secrets of the future, perhaps. She looks for the coming of the Perfect Knight, perhaps. She expects the Heaven that waits for every maiden – in this world as well as in the next. Everyone may interpret the picture for himself. She is young – everything is possible to the young. Tell me, Armorel, what do you think?'

She drew a long breath. 'A – h!' she murmured. 'I have never seen anything like this before. It is not me you have painted, Roland. You say it is a picture of me – just to please and flatter me. There is my face – yet not my face. All is changed. Roland, when I am grown to my full height, shall I look like this?

'If you do, when that day comes, I shall be proved to be a painter indeed,' he replied. 'If you had seen nothing but yourself – your own self – and no more, I would have burnt the thing. Now you give me hopes.

Afterwards, Armorel loved best to remember him as he stood there beside this unfinished picture, glowing with the thought that he had done what he had attempted. The soul was there.

Out of the chatter of the studio, the endless discussions of style and method, he had come down to this simple spot, to live for three weeks, cut off from the world, with a child who knew nothing of these things. He came at a time when his enthusiasm for his work was at its fiercest: that is, when the early studies are beginning to bear fruit, when the hand has acquired command of the pencil and can control the brush, and when the eye is already trained to colour. It was at a time when the young artist refuses to look at any but the greatest work, and refuses to dream of any future except that of the greatest and noblest work. It is a splendid thing to have had, even for a short time, these dreams and these enthusiasms.

'The picture is finished,' said Armorel, 'and to-morrow you will go away and leave me.' The tears welled up in her eyes. Why should not the child cry for the departure of this sweet friend?

'My dear child,' he said, 'I cannot believe that you will stay for ever on this desert island.'

'I do not want to leave the island. I want to keep you here. Why don't you stay altogether, Roland? You can paint here. Have we made you happy? Are you satisfied with our way of living? We will change it for you, if you wish.'

'No – no – it is not that. I must go home. I must go back to my work. But I cannot bear to think of you left alone with these old people, with no companions and no friends. The time will come when you will leave the place and go away somewhere – where people live and talk – '

He reflected that if she went away it might be among people ignorant of Art and void of culture. This beautiful child, who might have been a Princess – she was only a flower-farmer of the Scilly Islands. What could she hope or expect?

'I do not want to go into the world,' she went on. 'I am afraid, because I am so ignorant. People would laugh at me. I would rather stay here always, if you were with me. Then we would do nothing but sail and row and go fishing: and you could paint and sketch all the time.'

'It is impossible, Armorel. You talk like a child. In a year or two you will understand that it is impossible. Besides, we should both grow old. Think of that. Think of two old people going about sailing among the islands for ever: I, like Justinian Tryeth, bald and bowed and wrinkled: you, like Dorcas – no, no; you could never grow like Dorcas: you shall grow serenely, beautifully old.'

'What would that matter?' she replied. 'Some day, even, one of us would die. What would that matter, either, because we should only be parted by a year or two? Oh! whether we are old or young the sea never grows old, nor the hills and rocks – and the sunshine is always the same. And when we die there will be a new heaven and a new earth – you can read it in the Book of Revelation – but no more sea, no more sea. That I cannot understand. How could angels and saints be happy without the sea? If one lives among people in towns, I dare say it may be disagreeable to grow old, and perhaps to look ugly like poor Dorcas; but not, no, not when one lives in such a place as this.'

'Where did you get your wisdom, Armorel?'

'Is that wisdom?'

'When I go away my chief regret will be that I kept talking to you about myself. Men are selfish pigs. We should have talked about nothing but you. Then I should have learned a great deal. See how we miss our opportunities.'

'No, no; I had nothing to tell you. And you had such a great deal to tell me. It was you who taught me that everybody ought to try to grow to his full height.'

'Did I? It was only a passing thought. Such things occur to one sometimes.'

She sat down on a boulder and crossed her hands in her lap, looking at him seriously and gravely with her great black eyes.

'Now,' she said, 'I want to be very serious. It is my last chance. Roland, I am resolved that I will try to grow to my full height. You are going away to-morrow, and I shall have no one to advise me. Give me all the help you can before you go.'

'What help can I give you, Armorel?'

'I have been thinking. You have told me all about yourself. You are going to be a great artist: you will give up all your life to your work: when you have grown as tall as you can, everybody will congratulate you, and you will be proud and happy. But who is to tell me? How shall I know when I am grown to my full height?'

'You have got something more in your mind, Armorel.'

'Give me a model, Roland. You always paint from a model yourself – you told me so. Now, think of the very best actual girl of all the girls you know – the most perfect girl, mind: she must be a girl that I can remember and try to copy. I must have something to think of and go by, you know.'

'The very best actual girl I know?' he laughed, with a touch of the abominable modern cynicism which no longer believes in girls. 'That wouldn't help you much, I am afraid. You see, Armorel, I should not look to the actual girls I know for the best girl at all. There is, however' – he pulled his shadowy moustache, looking very wise – 'a most wonderful girl – I confess that I have never met her, but I have heard of her: the poets keep talking about her – and some of the novelists are fond of drawing her; I have heard of her, read of her, and dreamed of her. Shall I tell you about her?'

'If you please – that is, if she can become my model.'

'Perhaps. She is quite a possible girl, Armorel, like yourself. That is to say, a girl who may really develop out of certain qualities. As for actual girls, there are any number whom one knows in a way – one can distinguish them – I mean by their voices, their faces, and their figures and so forth. But as for knowing anything more about them – '

'Tell me, then, about the girl whom you do know, though you have never seen her.'

'I will if I can. As for her face – now – '

'Never mind her face,' she interrupted, impatiently.

'Never mind her face, as you say. Besides, you can look in the glass if you want to know her face.'

'Yes; that will do,' said Armorel, simply. 'Now go on.'

'First of all, then, she is always well dressed – beautifully dressed – and with as much taste as the silly fashion of the day allows. A woman, you know, though she is the most beautiful creature in the whole of animated nature, can never afford to do without the adornments of dress. It does not much matter how a man goes dressed. He only dresses for warmth. In any dress and in any rags a handsome man looks well. But not a woman. Her dress either ruins her beauty or it heightens it. A woman must always, and at all ages, look as beautiful as she can. Therefore, she arranges her clothes so as to set off her beauty when she is young: to make her seem still beautiful when she is past her youth: and to hide the ravages of time when she is old. That is the first thing which I remark about this girl. Of course, she doesn't dress as if her father was a Silver King. Such a simple stuff as your grey nun's cloth, Armorel, is good enough to make the most lovely dress.'

'She is always well dressed,' his pupil repeated. 'That is the first thing.'

'She is accomplished, of course,' Roland added, airily, as if accomplishments were as easy to pick up as the blue and grey shells on Porth Bay. 'She understands music, and plays on some instrument. She knows about art of all kinds – art in painting, sculptures, decorations, poetry, literature, music. She can talk intelligently about art; and she has trained her eye so that she knows good work. She is never carried away by shams and humbug.'

'She has trained her eye, and knows good work,' Armorel repeated.

'Above all, she is sympathetic. She does not talk so as to show how clever she is, but to bring out the best points of the man she is talking with. Yet when men leave her they forget what they have said themselves, and only remember how much this girl seems to know.'

'Seems to know?' Armorel looked up.

'One woman cannot know everything. But a clever woman will know about everything that belongs to her own set. We all belong to our own set, and every set talks its own language – scientific, artistic, whatever it is. This girl does not pretend to enter into the arena; but she knows the rules of the game, and talks accordingly. She is always intelligent, gracious, and sympathetic.'

'She is intelligent, gracious, and sympathetic,' Armorel repeated. 'Is she gracious to everybody – even to people she does not like?'

'In society,' said Roland, 'we like everybody. We are all perfectly well-bred and well-behaved: we always say the kindest things about each other.'

'Now you are saying one thing and meaning another. That is like your friend Dick Stephenson. Don't, Roland.'

'Well, then, I have very little more to say. This girl, however, is always a woman's woman.'

'What is that?'

'Difficult to explain. A wise lady once advised me when I went courting, first to make quite sure that the girl was a woman's woman. I think she meant that other girls should speak and think well of her. I haven't always remembered the advice, it is true, but – ' Here he stopped short and in some confusion, remembering that this was not an occasion for plenary confession.

But Armorel only nodded gravely. 'I shall remember,' she said.

'The rest you know. She loves everything that is beautiful and good. She hates everything that is coarse and ugly. That is all.'

'Thank you – I shall remember,' she repeated. 'Roland, you must have thought a good deal about girls to know so much.'

He blushed: he really did. He blushed a rich and rosy red.

'An artist, you know,' he said, 'has to draw beautiful girls. Naturally he thinks of the lovely soul behind the lovely face. These things are only commonplaces. You yourself, Armorel – you – will shame me, presently – when you have grown to that full height – for drawing a picture so insufficient of the Perfect Woman.'

He stooped slightly, as if he would have kissed her forehead. Why not? She was but a child. But he refrained.

'Let us go home,' he said, with a certain harshness in his voice. 'The sun is down. The clouds have covered up the belt of blue. You have seen your splendid future, Armorel, and you are back in the grey and sunless present. It grows cold. To-morrow, I think, we may have rain. Let us go home, child: let us go home.'

CHAPTER X

MR. FLETCHER RETURNS FOR HIS BAG

Half an hour later the blinds were down, the fire was brightly burning, the red firelight was merrily dancing about the room, and the table was pushed back. Then Dorcas and Justinian came in – the two old serving-folk, bent with age, grey-headed, toothless – followed by Chessun – thin and tall, silent and subdued. And Armorel, taking her violin, tuned it, and turned to her old master for instructions, just as she had done on the first and every following night of Roland's stay.

'"Barley Break,"' said Justinian.

Armorel struck up that well-known air. Then, as before, the ancient dame started, moved uneasily, sat upright, and opened her eyes and began to talk. But to-night she was not rambling: she did not begin one fragment of reminiscence and break off in the middle. She started with a clear story in her mind, which she began at the beginning and carried on. When Armorel saw her thus disposed, she stopped playing 'Barley Break,' which may amuse the aged mind and recall old merriment, but lacks earnestness.

'"Put on thy smock o' Monday,"' said Justinian.

This ditty lends itself to more sustained thought. Armorel put more seriousness into it than the theme of the music would seem to warrant. The old lady, however, seemed to like it, and continued her narrative without interrupting it at any point. Armorel also observed that, though she addressed the assembled multitude generally, she kept glancing furtively at Roland.

'The night was terrible,' said the ancient dame, speaking distinctly and connectedly; 'never was such a storm known – we could hear the waves beating and dashing about the islands louder than the roaring of the wind, and we heard the minute-gun, so that there was little sleep for anyone. At daybreak we were all on the shore, out on Shark Point. Sure enough, on the Castinicks the ship lay, breaking up fast – a splendid East Indiaman she was. Her masts were gone and her bows were stove in – as soon as the light got strong enough we could see so much – and the shore covered already with wreck. But not a sign of passengers or crew. Then my husband's father, who was always first, saw something, and ran into the water up to his middle and dragged ashore a spar. And, sure enough, a man was lashed to the spar. When father hauled the man up, he was quite senseless, and he seemed dead, so that another quarter of an hour would have finished him, even if his head had not been knocked against a rock, or the spar turned over and drowned him. Just as father was going to call for help to drag him up, he saw a little leather bag hanging from his neck by a leather thong. There were others about, all the people of Samson – fifty of them – men, women, and children – all busy collecting the things that had been washed ashore, and some up to their waists in the water after the things still floating about. But nobody was looking. Therefore, father, thinking it was a dead man, whipped out his knife, cut the leather thong, and slipped the bag into his own pocket, not stopping to look at it. No one saw him, mind – no one – not even your father, Justinian, who was close beside him at the time.'

'Ay, ay,' said Justinian: 'if father had seen it, naturally – ' But his voice died away, and Roland was left to wonder what, under such circumstances, a native of Samson would have done.

'No one saw it. Father thought the man was dead. But he wasn't. Presently he moved. Then they carried him up the hill to the farm – this very house – and laid him down before the fire – just at your feet, Armorel – and I was standing by. "Get him a cordial," says father. So we gave him a dram, and he drank it and opened his eyes. He was a gentleman – we could see that – not a common sailor: not a common man.'

Here her head dropped, and she seemed to be losing herself again.

'Try her with a Saraband,' said Justinian, as if a determined effort had to be made. Armorel changed her tune. A Saraband lends itself to a serious and even solemn turn of thought. As a dance it requires the best manners, the bravest dress, and the most dignified air. It will be seen, therefore, that to a mind bent upon a grave narrative of deeds lamentable and fateful, the Saraband, played in a proper frame of mind, may prove sympathetic. The ancient lady lifted her head, strengthened by the opening bars, which, indeed, are very strong, and resumed her story. Armorel, to be sure, and all her hearers, knew the history well, having heard it every night in disjointed bits. The Tale of the Stolen Treasure was familiar to her: it was more than familiar – it was a bore: the Family Doom seemed unjust to her: it disturbed her sense of Providential benevolence: yet she threw all her soul into the Saraband in order to prolong by a few minutes the waking and conscious moments of this remote ancestress. A striking illustration, had the others understood it, of filial piety.

'But I was standing close by father,' she went on – 'I was beside him on the beach, and I saw it. I saw him cut the thong and slip the bag into his pocket. When he came to himself, I whispered to father, "There's his bag: you've got his bag in your pocket." "I know," he said, rough. "Hold your tongue, girl." So I said no more, but waited. Then the man opened his eyes and tried to sit up; but he couldn't, being still dizzy with the beating of the waves. But he looked at us, wondering where he was. "You are ashore, Master," said father. "The only one of all the ship's company that is, so far." "Ashore?" he asked. "Ay, ashore: where else would you be? Your ship's in splinters: your captain and your crew are dead men all. But you're ashore." With that the man shut his eyes and lay quiet for a time. Then he opened them again. "Where am I?" he asked. "You are on Samson, in Scilly," I told him. Then he tried to get up again, but he couldn't. And so we carried him upstairs and laid him on the bed.

'He was in bed for nigh upon six weeks. Never was any man so near his latter end. I nursed him all the time. He had a fever, and his head wandered. In his rambling he told me who he was. His name was Robert Fletcher – Robert Fletcher,' she repeated, nodding to Roland with strange significance. 'A brave gentleman, and handsome and well-mannered. He had been in the service of an Indian King; and, though he was only thirty, he had made his fortune and was bringing it home, thinking that he would do nothing more all his life but just sit down and enjoy himself. All his fortune was in the bag. When he recovered he told me that the last thing he remembered, before he was washed off the ship, was feeling for the safety of his bag. And it was gone. And he was a beggar. Poor man! And I knew all the time where the bag was and who had it. But I could not tell him. If father sinned when he kept the bag, I sinned as well, because I knew he kept it. If father was punished when his son was drowned, that son was my husband, and I was punished too.'