2
For some time after I came to my senses and saw the position as it actually was, I walked aimlessly round the room, accomplishing nothing. I knew vaguely there were things to be done, but I could not recognise what they were. For a minute I think I expected the door to burst open and all the family to come rushing in pell-mell, in their dressing-gowns, their hair wild, their faces creased with suspicion. Indeed, I even had a vision of them, like a tail-piece to some child’s story. But nothing happened, and I forgot them again. I began to shiver, but that, I think, was only because of the fierce wind raging outside. The Manor at King’s Poplars is built on the side of a steep slope, and is quite unprotected from any rough weather. In the mornings the grass in the pasture is like glass when the sun catches it, and the streams are all frozen over. This Christmas night the earth was as hard and rugged as Christina Rossetti pictures it in her carol. “Wind made moan, Earth was hard as iron, Water like a stone.” There were no cattle in the fields now (they’d have been frozen, I think), and no fowl on the ice-bound lakes and streams. The whole aspect was peculiarly desolate. A good many of the neighbouring houses are farms, and here there has been any amount of distress during the hard winter. The land is a tricky employer at the best of times, and this black season had followed a bad harvest; the valleys beneath our windows were full of unemployed men, and there had been ugly stories of rioting near by. For the past twenty-four hours a fierce gale had raged. If you stood still for a moment and listened, it seemed as if the house must come down about your ears; there was so much noise and confusion beyond the window, where the shrubs and trees creaked and groaned in the wind. Indeed, when at last I came back to the body by the window, I had very distinctly the impression of being the only living thing in the place. At that thought, there came to me the curious impression everyone knows, that someone was actually in the room with me, and, lifting my head with a jerk, I saw, with a shock of horror, another face staring into mine. I did not recognise it at first, that dark-skinned face with the head flung back, the lips curled and set, the dark hair swept back with a clean hard decision, the dominant chin, the eyes dark and blazing, the whole countenance irradiated with a vitality that held me dumb. Then I knew who it was. Since my last visit here my father had acquired a French mirror of very beautiful workmanship, that now hung on the opposite wall. And the face that I saw was my own, flashing back at me. I was so much fascinated to know what I looked like when I was off my guard, unconscious and alert, that I stepped over the body and went closer, moved by a curiosity that was even greater than my admiration. So this was the personality I habitually concealed beneath the shabby dress and bearing of a clerk at four pounds ten a week. This was the essential man I had intended to be, who was intended to be myself (I kept twisting the words round to hammer the fact into my startled consciousness), and who had, it seemed, not been entirely conquered by the circumstances of my personal life.
When I saw that keen thrusting face, I thought immediately, “It’s infamous that such a man should spend his life drawing faked plans for Higginsons.” Already, so powerful was the force of the revelation, I was eager to be out and doing my own work. I thought I could detect a new suppleness of wrist, an enlarging of vision, a greater ease of imagination, a more swiftly thronged brain. I foresaw my future, thick, not with success—I anticipated neither that nor the money that accompanies it—but with new conceptions, with experiments, with colossal ideas. As if a dam had burst, or some gate been flung down, I felt these new forces filling me, submerging my timidities and anxieties. I owed it to the self that mirror had revealed to give that man his opportunity. Instinctively I determined to preserve his expression and purpose, to strengthen my own resolution in the days ahead. I always carry about with me a sketch-book and pencil, and this pencil I lend to no one. I’m not precisely superstitious about it, but I don’t lend it for ordinary note-taking. In fact, I don’t lend it at all.
My brain seemed on fire. My hand had a new assurance and zest. I soon transferred to paper that memorable face, and when I had finished I stood admiring my own work, the bold economy of line, the clean strength, the neatness of detail, the sense of vigorous personality the sketch conveyed.
I signed it as usual, with what Sophy calls my melodramatic monogram, and glanced at the calendar for the date. It has always been an idiosyncrasy of mine to sign and date even quite insignificant studies. When I saw the figures “24” on the calendar I remembered that this was Christmas Eve, would soon be Christmas Day. And, looking at the clock, I saw with surprise that the hands pointed to half-past one, and that Christmas Day had actually dawned. I began to scribble 25.12… when I was startled by a sudden tremendous commotion behind me. I turned, dropping the pencil, prepared to face some terrific onslaught. But it was only the wind, that had torn open one of the casement windows, sent the curtains billowing into
