Helen Vardon's confession
we’ll have tea in the workroom and then we’ll polish off that
coal-scuttle.”
“Finish it! But there’s quite a lot to do.”
“Then we’ll do the lot.”
“But why this hurry? There’s no particular reason for getting it
finished to-night, is there?”
“I don’t know that there is; but we’ve had the thing hanging about
long enough. Better get it finished and start on something else. Now
you trot off and see about tea while I ring up Jackson.”
As he turned to the telephone, I hurried away to give instructions to
the maid and to set the workshop in order so that we might start
without delay on our evening’s task, concerning which a few words of
explanation would seem to be called for.
My father was by nature designed to be a craftsman. He was never so
happy as when he was making something or in some way working with his
hands; and remarkably skilful hands they were, with an inborn capacity
for the dexterous manipulation of every kind of material, tool or
appliance. And to his natural skill he had added a vast amount of
knowledge of methods and processes. He was an excellent woodworker, an
admirable mechanic, and a quite passable potter. Our house abounded in
the products of his industry; stools, cupboards, clocks, fenders,
earthenware jars; even our bicycles had been built, or, at least,
“assembled” by him, and a bronze knocker on our door had been finished
by him from castings made in our workshop. If his powers of design had
been equal to his manual skill, he would have been a first-class art
craftsman. Unfortunately they were not. Left to himself, his tendency
was to aim at a neat trade finish, at smooth surfaces and mechanical
precision. But he knew his limitations, and had been at great pains to
have me instructed in the arts of design; and, as I apparently had
some natural aptitude in that direction, I was able to help him by
making sketches and working drawings and by criticising the work as it
progressed. But my duties did not stop at that. In our happy, united
life, I was his apprentice, his journeyman, his assistant--or foreman,
as he pleased to call me--and his constant companion, in the house, in
the workshop, and in our walks abroad.
As our maid, Jessie, laid the tea-tray on a vacant corner of the
work-bench, I examined our latest joint-production, a bronze
coal-scuttle, the design of which was based on a Roman helmet that I
had seen in the British Museum. There was a good deal more than an
ordinary evening’s work to be done before it could be finished. A
portion of the embossed ornament on the foot required touching up, the
foot itself had to be brazed to the body and the handle had to be
rivetted to the lugs, to say nothing of the “pickling,” scouring, and
oxidizing. It was a colossal evening’s work.
But it was not the magnitude of the task that troubled me, for I
shared my father’s love of manual work. What had instantly impressed
me with a vague discomfort was the urgency of my father’s desire to
get this piece of work finished and done with. That was not like him
at all. Not only had he the genuine craftsman’s inexhaustible
patience, but he had a habit of keeping an apparently finished work on
hand, that he might tinker at it lovingly, smooth and polish it, and
bring it to a state of even greater completeness and finish.
Why, then, this strange urgency and impatience? And, as I asked myself
the question, all my fears came crowding back on me. Again there came
that dreadful sinking at the heart, that strangling terror of the
storm-cloud that hung over us, unseen but ready to burst and overwhelm
us in ruin at any moment.
But I had little time for these gloomy and disquieting thoughts. The
tinkling of the telephone bell in the study told me that my father had
finished his talk with his managing clerk, and a few moments later he
strode into the workshop and began taking off his coat.
“Where’s your apron, Jimmy?” he asked (the pet name “Jimmy” had been
evolved out of an ancient fiction that my name was Jemima).
“There’s no hurry, Pater, dear,” said I. “Let a person have her tea in
peace. And do sit down like a Christian man.”
He obediently perched himself on a stool as I handed him his tea, but
in less than a minute he was on his feet again, prowling, cup in hand,
around the end of the bench where the work lay.
“Wonder if I’d better anneal it a bit,” he mused, picking up the
bronze foot and examining the unfinished space. “Mustn’t make it too
soft. Think I will, though. We can hammer it up a little on the stake
after it’s brazed on. That will harden it enough.”
He laid the foot down, but only that he might apply a match to the
great gas blowpipe; and I watched him with a sinking heart as he stood
with his teacup in one hand, while with the other he held the foot,
gripped in a pair of tongs, in the roaring purple flame. What did it
mean, this strange, restless haste to finish what was, after all, but
a work of pleasure? Did it portend some change that he saw more
clearly than I? Was he, impelled by the craftsman’s instinct, turning
in this fashion a page of the book of life? Or was it---- Oh! dreadful
thought!--was it that he was deliberately writing “Finis” before
closing the volume?
But whatever was in his secret mind, he chatted cheerfully as he
worked, and submitted to be fed with scraps of bread and butter and to
have cups of tea administered at intervals; yet still I noted that the
chasing hammer flew at unwonted speed, and the depth of the
punch-marks on the work that rested on the sand-bag told of an unusual
weight in the blows.
“What a pity it is,” he remarked, “that social prejudices prevent a
middle-class man from earning a livelihood with his hands. Now, here I
am, a third-rate solicitor perforce, whereas, if I followed my bent, I
should be a first-rate coppersmith. Shouldn’t I?”
“Quite first-rate,” I replied.
“Or even a silversmith,” he continued, “if I could have my mate, Jim,
to do the art with a capital A while I did the work with a capital W.
Hm?”
He looked up at me with a twinkle, and I took the opportunity to pop a
piece of bread and butter into his mouth, which occasioned a pause in
the conversation.
I had entertained faint--very faint--hopes that he might say something
to me about his difficulties. Not that I was inquisitive on the
subject; but, in view of a resolution that was slowly forming in my
mind, I should have liked to have some idea what his position really
was. It seemed pretty plain, however, that he did not intend to take
me into his confidence; notwithstanding which I decided in a tentative
way to give him an opening.
“Wasn’t that Mr. Otway who was with you this afternoon?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “How did you know?”
“I heard his voice in the hall as you let him out,” I answered, with
something of a gulp at the implied untruth.
The chasing hammer was arrested for a moment in mid-air, and, as my
father’s eye fixed itself reflectively on the punch that he held, I
could see that he was trying to remember what Mr. Otway had said in
the hall.
“Yes,” he replied, after a brief pause, “it was Mr. Otway. I should
hardly have thought you would have known his voice. Queer fellow,
Otway. No brains to speak of, but yet an excellent man of business in
his way.”
“What does he do--by way of profession, I mean?”
“The Lord knows. He was originally a solicitor, but he hasn’t
practised for years. Now he is what is called a financier, which is a
little vague, but apparently profitable. And I think he does something
in the way of precious stones.”
“Do you mean that he deals in them?”
“Yes, occasionally; at least, so I have heard. I know that he is
something of a connoisseur in stones, and that he had a collection,
which he sold some time ago. I have also heard--and I believe it is a
fact--that his name was originally Levy, and that he is one of the
Chosen. But why he changed his name I have no notion, unless it was an
undesirable one to present to the financial world.”
I was half disposed to pursue my enquiries further, but as he finished
speaking, he once more began to ply the hammer with such furious
energy that I became quite uneasy.
“You mustn’t exert yourself so much, Pater,” I remarked. “Remember
what Dr. Sharpe said.”
“Bah!” he replied. “Sharpe is an old woman. My heart is sound enough.
At any rate, it will last as long as the rest of me. An old fellow
like me cannot expect to go in for sprinting or high jumping, but
there’s no need for him to live in splints and cotton wool.”
“Nor to endanger his health by perfectly unnecessary exertion. Why on
earth are you in such a fever to get this thing finished?”
“I’m not in a fever, my dear,” he answered; “I’m only tired of seeing
this thing lying about unfinished. You see, as it stands, it is only
so many pounds of old bronze, whereas a couple of hours’ work turns it
into a valuable piece of furniture, fit to take a dignified place in
the catalogue when we are sold up. Just consider how finely it would
read: ‘Handsome bronze scuttle, in form of Roman helmet, the work of
the late owner and his charming and talented daughter, capable of
serving either as a convenient receptacle for coal or as a becoming
head-dress for a person with a suitable cranium.’ Don’t you think that
would sound rather alluring?”
“Very,” I replied; “but as we are not going to be sold up----”
The rest of my sentence was drowned in the din of the beaten metal as
my father returned to his hammering, and I only watched in mute
discomfort until this part of the work was done and the great brazing
jet was once more set a-roaring.
The work progressed apace, for my father was not only skilful and
neat, but could be very quick on occasion; and as I watched the
completion of stage after stage, I was conscious of a growing
uneasiness, a vague fear of seeing the work actually finished; as if
this mere toy--for it was little more--held some deep and tragic
symbolism. I felt like one looking on at the slow wasting of one of
those waxen effigies which the sorceresses of old prepared with
magical rites for the destruction of some victim, whose life should
slowly wane and flicker away with the wasting of the wax.
And meanwhile, above the roar of the blowpipe flame, my father’s voice
sounded, now in a cheerful stave of song, and now in lively jest or
playful badinage. But yet he did not deceive me. Behind all this show
of high spirits was a sombre background that was never quite hidden.
For the eye of love is very keen and can see plainly, despite quip or
joke or jovial carol, when “Black Care rides behind the horseman.”
What a miserable affair it was, this pitiful acting of two poor,
leaden-hearted mortals, each hiding from each the desperate resolve
with smiles and jests that were more bitter than tears! For I, too,
had now my secret, and must needs preserve it with such a show of
gaiety as I could muster by sheer effort of will. The resolution of
which I have spoken was growing--growing, even as the toy that we were
making was growing towards completion, and as I seemed to see, as if
symbolized by it, the sands of destiny trickling out before my eyes.
So I, too, had my part to play in this harrowing comedy.
Works which have consumed much time in the doing have a way of coming
to an end with disconcerting suddenness. When I mixed the acid for the
“pickle” in the great earthenware pan, it seemed that a great deal
still remained to be done, in spite of my father’s feverish energy and
swift dexterity. And then, but a few minutes later, as it appeared to
me, behold the finished piece standing on the bench, its embossed
ornament telling boldly against the sulphur-browned background, and my
father stretching himself and wiping the blackened oil from his hands;