The Untilled Field | Page 8

and their back windows overlooked the mews in which Rodney had his studio.
"How late you work! Sometimes your light does not go out until twelve o'clock at night."
Henceforth he met her at tea in the afternoons, and they went to the museum together, and she promised to try to get leave from her father and mother to sit to him for a bust. But she could only sit to him for an hour or two before she went to Mr. Lawrence, and Rodney said that she would be doing him an extraordinary favour if she would get up some hours earlier and sit to him from eight till ten. It was amusing to do the bust, but the bust was only a pretext. What he wanted her to do was to sit for the nude, and he could not help trying to persuade her, though he did not believe for a moment that he would succeed. He took her to the museum and he showed her the nude, and told her how great ladies sat for painters in the old times. He prepared the way very carefully, and when the bust was finished he told her suddenly that he must go to a country where he could get models. He could see she was disappointed at losing him, and he asked her if she would sit.
"You don't want a nude model for Our Blessed Lady. Do you?"
There was a look, half of hesitation, half of pleasure, and he knew that she would sit to him, and he guessed she would have sat to him long ago if he had asked her. No doubt his long delay in asking her to sit had made her fear he did not think her figure a good one. He had never had such a model before, not in France or in Italy, and had done the best piece of work he had ever done in his life. Harding had seen it, and had said that it was the best piece that he had done. Harding had said that he would buy it from him if he got rid of the conventional head, and when Harding had left him he had lain awake all night thinking how he should model Lucy's head, and he was up and ready for her at eight, and had done the best head he had ever done in his life.
Good God! that head was now flattened out, and the child was probably thrown back over the shoulders. Nothing remained of his statue. He had not the strength to do or to think. He was like a lay figure, without strength for anything, and if he were to hear that an earthquake was shaking Dublin into ruins he would not care. "Shake the whole town into the sea," he would have said.
The charwoman had closed the door, and he did not hear Lucy until she was in the studio.
"I have come to tell you that I cannot sit again. But what has happened?"
Rodney got up, and she could see that his misfortune was greater than her's.
"Who has done this?" she said. "Your casts are all broken."
"Who, indeed, has done this?"
"Who broke them? What has happened? Tell me. They have broken the bust you did of me. And the statue of the Virgin--has anything happened to that?"
"The statue of the Virgin is a lump of clay. Oh, don't look at it. I am out of my mind."
She took two or three steps forward.
"There it is," he said. "Don't speak about it, don't touch it."
"Something may be left."
"No, nothing is left. Don't look at me that way. I tell you nothing is left. It is a lump of clay, and I cannot do it again. I feel as if I never could do a piece of sculpture again, as if I never wanted to. But what are you thinking of? You said just now that you could not sit to me again. Tell me, Lucy, and tell me quickly. I can see you know something about this. You suspect someone."
"No, I suspect no one. It is very strange."
"You were going to tell me something when you came in. You said you could not sit to me again. Why is that?"
"Because they have found out everything at home, that I sat for you, for the Virgin."
"But they don't know that--"
"Yes, they do. They know everything. Father McCabe came in last night, just after we had closed the shop. It was I who let him in, and mother was sorry. She knew he had come to ask father for a subscription to his church. But I had said that father and mother were at home, and when I brought him upstairs and we got into the light, he stood looking at me. He had not