Chapter Nine: The Painter

 

“OUT!” Nan shouted, to Lily’s delight, just as the clock struck two. She sulked out of the drawing room as she had done a thousand times before and walked slowly around the edge of the garden lightly brushing the rosetops with her hand until she came to the kissing gate. She eased it open, and, with one last glance at the drawing room window behind which Nan was still fuming about the crumbs all over the floor, she bolted toward the boundary wall. A quick scramble up and a short jump down, and nothing but the sky and the rolling hills was left between Lily and the forest.

The sun over the purple hills was bright but cold, and off to the west a small cloud had appeared on the horizon, but Lily paid very little attention to her beloved heather fields or the familiar sounds of life on the moor. She was racing north, her eyes fixed firmly on the forest.

Lily had worn one of her prettier dresses today—blue, with small yellow flowers, and a pretty white ribbon around her waist and matching ribbons in her hair. It was not often, after all, that she was invited to a proper afternoon tea all by herself, and she wanted Arthur and the rooks to think her dignified and ladylike—quite a contrast to her appearance last night.

She arrived at the edge of the forest only a few minutes late and stepped through a break in the trees very nearly treading on Arthur, who was only saved a mighty squashing by his mousey instinct for dodging human feet. He was not, after all, a stranger to that sort of experience.

“Arthur!” Lily practically screamed, partly from a rather girly inclination to be afraid of mice, and partly from the fear that she had indeed made an end of him. She froze in mid-step looking very much like an open-mouthed flamingo, and could not unfreeze herself until she saw that Arthur was well out of reach.

“Well, Miss Lily, I daresay you almost made a pancake of me,” he chuckled, brushing the dirt from his forepaws. “You look very lovely today.”

“I’m awfully sorry, Arthur! I was in a hurry because I didn’t want to leave you waiting too long,” Lily apologized.

“It is a lady’s prerogative to arrive when she wishes, my dear. Think nothing more of it. There is no harm done. Shall we be off to tea, then?”

“Oh yes!”

“I am so happy that we are able to walk this path together in the daylight. It is a beautiful forest don’t you think?” Arthur began.

“It is beautiful! I was only inside the forest once before in the daylight. It was summer and everything was green, but I think I prefer it in autumn,” Lily replied.

“I agree. Autumn is the jewel of the seasons. I love the colors, the crisp air, the melancholy drift into the cold sleep of winter. People often talk of autumn as a sad time—the trees lose their leaves, the sun loses its warmth, the day loses its light—but I find great comfort in autumn. It reminds me of home…” Arthur had slowed almost to a stop in his reverie, and Lily, knowing a happy daydream when she saw one, was reluctant to disturb him. But soon he blinked once or twice, and his whiskers twitched in turn, and he began to walk again.

“Arthur?” Lily asked. “Were you born in the forest?”

“Oh, no my dear girl,” he smiled up at her. “I was born far, far away from this forest. I have only been here a short time, in fact.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“But how did you come to be here?” Lily asked.

“Well, it is a long story, but I suppose we have time,” Arthur began. “You may be surprised to hear that I was not in fact born in England. My parents were English merchant shipmice but they traveled often between Southampton and Paris on smaller vessels doing a rather successful trade in English wheat and French cheese with mice on both sides of the Channel. Both of my parents were devoted lovers of music and they would often while away the hours in the dark corners of their ships’ hulls making tiny instruments out of whatever cast off materials they could find on board. Over time, we children were born. There were eight mouselings altogether, and I was the youngest but one. My baby sister was named Sibyl.

“One autumn, my eldest sister, Agatha, grew very ill and Mother and Father decided that it would be wise to pass the winter in Paris rather than attempting another crossing to England. We disembarked at the Ile de la Cite, just at the downstream tip of the island. We children had rarely left the boats in our short lives, and scurrying onto land was both a treat and a terror. But how could we fear when we looked up from the plateau on which we stood to see the most ravishing, heartbreakingly beautiful autumn trees? We stood in a wonderful little triangular park. To each side of us, the river flowed gently downstream to the Channel, and before us, the shadow of the giant Pont Neuf loomed, but here, we were in a perfect little hiding place, our own secret garden. Black wrought iron fences shielded the people from an accidental slip into the river on either side. Wooden benches lined the edges of the tiny tree covered park, and the grass...oh, the soft, fragrant grass! I shall never forget it.

“As we children stood, mouths hanging wide open, gazing at the wonders about us, we heard a strange sound—a man weeping. He was sitting on a bench looking at the Seine flowing serenely by, tears flowing down his face and into his beard. He was pale and thin, and oh, so sad. His tears could break your heart. We children were all drawn to him, but it was little Sibyl who ran to the bench, climbed up to the seat and perched herself, quite fearlessly on his knee.

“The rest of us trembled in the shadows, fearful for our sweet sister. And then, the strangest thing happened...The thing that changed our lives...”

“What was it?” Lily cried, desperate for the answer.

“The sad man began to smile. He said hello to Sibyl. And she said hello back.”

“Oh dear! What happened?” Lily cried.

“Nothing happened. He didn’t start. He didn’t run. He didn’t even look surprised! He just smiled and tickled her behind her ear. Before I knew it, all my brothers and sisters had crowded around the bench, and one by one they climbed up to the seat and were introduced by my sister. My mother and father and I came last, and before I knew it, the man and my father had struck up a friendship, much like yours and mine. Once he discovered that we had nowhere to live, he invited us to stay with him in his rented rooms near the great cathedral of Notre Dame. That idea suited us all very well, and we climbed into his pockets for our first journey through Paris.

“When we arrived in his rooms, it was early afternoon. The sun was streaming in through the windows, and as we scrambled out of his pockets, we each in turn uttered a cry of surprise. Covering almost every inch of the man’s walls hung the most glorious paintings of blue and gold and red and green that I dare say you have ever seen. It was a garden of colors! Springtime and autumn thrust together in one room. And to make the day an even greater success, in the corner stood a dusty old piano.

“My mother and father leapt for joy. The man smiled a tiny smile when my father asked him if he was a musician. ‘No,’ he replied shyly, ‘I am only a painter with a love for music. I don’t have the skill to make it myself. I once engaged a teacher to help me learn to play, but he became frustrated and refused to teach me after only a few lessons. You see, in each note I hear a different color. In the low tones the deep greens and blues, in the high, the red and yellow, and when they play together, they paint the most wonderful pictures in my mind. My teacher could not appreciate that I must paint what I see in music, no matter how often it interrupted his lesson. Now, alas, the piano sits alone and unused.’

“‘It’s a pity,’ my father replied, ‘but perhaps we can help.’ That very afternoon, my parents began to fulfill a dream—a dream they had long dreamed but had never had opportunity to bring to life. That afternoon, my parents began teaching us to play the piano.

“Ten mice was a very convenient number for playing the piano, as you might imagine. We worked and worked, each of us playing the part of one finger, putting together whole sonatas one note at a time, and by early winter we had begun to build up quite a repertoire.

“Every evening we sat with the painter eating our dinner, and after dinner he would lean back in his ragged armchair and close his eyes, and we would play. Sometimes we played Wagner or Debussy. Sometimes we would compose our own melodies. As we played, we could tell that the notes were creating pictures in his head, and long before we finished he would have become immersed in his paints. Oh, the things that came from that man’s brush! It was like, like...like autumn in a way. One minute all was plain and comfortable like summer, and the next, brilliant color had spread across the world and taken your breath away. In those moments, he seemed a little less sad.

“Winter came and went and my sister Agatha blossomed with the spring. We were all overjoyed that she had regained her health, but my father’s joy seemed tinged with sorrow. One morning I found myself intruding on a private moment between my father and our host. My father stood on the painter’s shoulder, patting his neck as if to comfort him. And this time, they were both crying.

“’I am so sorry, Vincent,’ my father sniffed. ‘I wish we could stay, but we were not made for land, we mice. Our home is on the sea. I know you understand.’

“’Of course I understand,’ he replied as he shifted uncomfortably in his armchair. ‘You are at home on the sea as I am at home in a wheat field or under a cypress tree. This place is no home for any of us. Perhaps I will go away too.’

“’But your paintings!’ my father cried. ‘You have a gift my friend! Don’t give up on Paris yet.’

“’Paris has given up on me, I’m afraid. No one appreciates my work. I might just as well hurl my paintings into the Seine,’ he sobbed, dropping his head into his hands.

“And I’m afraid he did just that, Miss Lily. Over the next two weeks, his glorious paintings began to disappear, one by one. He never broke down in tears again (I think it was love for our family that compelled him to put on a brave face), but his eyes were full of sorrow. We mice cried often, though, especially my little sister, Sibyl.

“’Father, don’t you see that he needs us?’ she would plead, but our duty to our family overruled our hearts’ desire, and we made preparations to leave.

“The painter’s rooms were empty on the day we left. Not a scrap of paint, not a strip of canvas, not a sign was left that anyone had lived there, save the old piano standing in the corner. Our parting had come—but none of us could have known that an even more difficult parting was just ahead.

“We climbed into his pocket that spring afternoon and made the short but sad journey back to the park at the tip of the island. There we sat together on the bench where we had met and we all wept together. Then we kissed his tear-streaked face one by one and climbed to the ground. We watched as he walked, downhearted, to the staircase leading up to the bridge and out of our lives.

“But oh, if only the sorrow of that day had ended there!” Arthur’s whiskers had begun to twitch just a little.

“Just as the sad man passed out of sight, a crowd of noisy children ran down the staircase and into the park. There were so many of them. We tried to run for cover, but it was too late. They had seen us, and they began to scream—some with delight, some with terror. They chased my brothers and sisters around the park squealing. The women with them could do no more than stand on the benches and scream, as women tend to do. I couldn’t see clearly what was happening to my family, but before I knew it, all I could see was the inside of a child’s pocket, his chubby hand squeezing me tightly as I tried to escape. Soon the squealing died down, and I could hear the women rushing the children back toward the staircase. I bumped along violently inside the child’s pocket, unable to escape because he had buttoned me in. I tried to call for my family, but could hear nothing over the twitter of the children’s voices.”

 “I finally escaped the boy’s pocket when he opened it to show a friend. I ran frantically back to the park, but night had already fallen and I knew I was alone. I waited all night, but my family never came. Early the next morning, I ventured back to the painter’s apartment, hoping that he might be there, or that my family had found their way back. He had gone, but my baby sister’s tailbow was sitting on middle-C on the piano. She had been wearing it in the park, so I knew she had made it back to the apartment alive.

“I waited for a week, but she never returned. I can only imagine that she—and the rest of my family, if they survived—thought that I was lost. I reasoned that they must have sailed for England, so I boarded a ship, which I thought was bound for Southampton. But I was mistaken. It docked instead at the port not too far from here. Oh, the sorrow, Miss Lily! The dejection! I was a ruined mouse, and my heart had split in two. I wandered the docks, searching for news of my family, or of the painter, but no one had heard of any of them. I was alone in the world and too weary to go on. That’s when I met Titus.”

“Titus?” Lily said, wrinkling her nose.

“Yes, Miss Lily, Titus was the one who found me. At first, he admitted, he wanted to eat me. But seeing the sorrow in my eyes, he couldn’t bear to do it. Instead, he brought me to the forest. I told him the story of my family, and he told me much the same story that he told you about the rooks, but I could tell that something in my sorrow had touched a part of his heart that he had long neglected. Nevertheless, he soon flew away, leaving me alone in the hollow of an old oak tree near the sea.

“I lived alone in the forest for several months, foraging for food and trying to make friends with the other forest creatures, but none of them seemed able to relate to me. Then one afternoon I heard a great rattling crash screaming through the trees above me. Titus had been gone for many weeks, but when I looked up, I could see plainly that it was Titus himself making such a ruckus. He practically bounced from limb to limb in his descent, but when he landed in front of me with an almighty thud, there was music in it. He was carrying an enormous parcel, and was grinning from ear to ear, as I am sure you know rooks very rarely do.

“‘Hullo, Arthur!’ he beamed. ‘Package for you.’

“‘For me? I thought you had left me! Why have you returned?’ I replied, shocked nearly to death.

“‘I did leave you, but now I’m back, as you can see. Open it!’ he cried, hopping from foot to foot like he does when he is excited.

“I tore open the wrapping, and there before me was the very piano you have seen in the Rookery. It was crafted from the tiniest slivers of ivory and wood and its perfectly tuned strings and golden finish bore the marks of a true craftsman. But that was not the only mark my piano bore, Miss Lily, oh no. On the side panel was the mark of the painter—the mark I had seen him scribble on every one of his paintings.

“Titus came with a story. Having heard my tale, he had returned to the Rookery, but he couldn’t get thoughts of my family out of his mind. As I said, something changed in Titus that day. So the very next day he flew to France, where he searched high and low for news of my family and news of the painter. (A rook, of course, is a much better investigator than a mouse, simply because he travels so freely.) He flew further and further south until he met some rooks who had seen the man painting in a garden in Arles. Titus was sure that he was the same man because the rooks had mentioned, oh joy of joys, a little girl-mouse sitting on his knee as he painted. It was my sister Sibyl! Titus found them and told my tale, and both the man and my sister were so overjoyed that they at once set about together making my lovely piano.

“Not long after the piano came, Titus invited me to live at the Rookery. He had been reluctant before, not being able to guarantee my safety, but he guessed rightly (and luckily for me) that if I would play my music, the rooks would be kept at bay. As you saw last night, the power of the music is great indeed. And for now, that is the end of my tale. One day soon I hope to go and find my family, but that day is still to come. It is part of another story not yet written. And for now I am needed at the Rookery.”

Lily did not remember having sat down on a bed of leaves as Arthur was talking, but she found herself hugging her legs, staring with wide, moist eyes at Arthur who had climbed up to her left knee as he spoke. She gazed into his eyes, marveling at the courage of her tiny new friend.

“Now, Miss Lily,” he smiled, his big brown eyes shining. “I’m afraid we have come to the briar patch once again. Let’s see if we can line the ground with some of these leaves so we can keep that beautiful dress clean.”