Maryvale’s canvas was about four feet each way, and save for an irregular space in the centre, every inch had been drawn and coloured with minute care. Almost it might be said that the one derogatory criticism was that overloaded detail diminished the interest of the principal subject. For the picture was no mere daub of good intentions. Though even my inexpert eye saw deficiencies in technique, they were faults due to a long unpractised hand—they were nothing. Once on a time, indeed, Maryvale must have studied his art to advantage, for now in spite of imperfect materials at his command, and in spite of long unacquaintance with the medium, the power of his idea overrode the difficulties, and the magnificent though intentionally uncompleted painting drove its impression home.
Only, as I have said, the background and lesser adjuncts demanded a greater share of interest than usual. A peculiar circumstance abetted this fact. The central figure had no face.
The scene was above a valley so deep that its bottom was lost in darkness, where the whole middle air was drenched with rain to the colour of smoke, through which the sun, westering and low, sent a shaft of dripping light. Higher, against a black and sullen mountain-side, the thunder-heads were gathered in inky monochrome, and down the sky wriggled a huge worm of lightning, so dazzling that it affected the eye with torture keen as that which a loud shrill sound inflicts upon the ear. And round about, outside the clouds and within them, flickered the suggestions of menacing shapes, skinny arms, abysmal eyes, demonic smiles.
In the centre, a solitary figure hung in the track of the storm, not upright, not poised as if for swooping flight, but horizontal in the turgid air, resting with four limbs widespread, like some unholy ghost brooding over the nether gulfs of hell—Parson Lolly. The pitch-black cloak flapped restless in the tempest, and from the indistinguishable murk below came up the scarlet gleams from unknown forges.
Parson Lolly’s neck was twisted upward and the face turned toward the beholder, save that there was no face. Examining closely, I saw that not the faintest lines had been drawn for one, that Maryvale had simply ceased at that place in his design. The sinister suggestion was enforced by the bulk of the decapitated figure against the livid storm, by the hands with their hint of feline claws, by the shadows cast downward by those hands, like the doom of pestilence scattered down the gulf.
The artist stood by the window, his back to the light, but I could see the high glint of satisfaction in his eye.
“You do approve, I can tell.”
“Maryvale, this is—well, it’s beyond anything I expected. Where did you study?”
“Two years with Coselli in Milan. But that was long ago; I could not have done this then.”
“What are you going to do about the face?”