Infidelity
Summary
Frank Mayne’s emaciated silhouette crosses the threshold of the garret where pigment ghosts still echo his name: twenty calendar-years of stone and iron have not erased the burnt-umber memory of canvases that once drank light. Instead of solitude he finds a chiaroscuro of chaos—Elaine, his secret progeny, trembles like a torn sketch; Ford, the fiancé, barks recriminations that ricochet off cracked skylights; Delna, the mystic émigré, bleeds ochre across the floorboards; and a veiled woman—later revealed as the wife time erased—hovers like a half-erased brushstroke. The tableau reenacts the very misprision that shackled Mayne: a glance misread, a loyalty presumed criminal, a heart sentenced without trial. With the gravitas of a man who has tasted his own coffin, he unpicks the knot of blame, trading vengeance for absolution so that the younger pair may elope into pigment-bright futures while the elders, scarred yet solvent, reclaim the pigment of marriage.
Synopsis
Frank Mayne, a well-known artist, who had served a twenty-year sentence for a murder he did not commit, returns unexpectedly to his studio, where an amazing scene confronts him. Elaine Bernard, one of his pupils, is cowering over a table, her hair disheveled and her clothes all but torn off her back. Ford Maillard, her fiancé, stands over her, upbraiding her bitterly, while lying prone on the ground, his face covered with blood, is Delna, a Hindoo art student, who possesses occult powers. In the background is a woman whom he does not recognize. It develops later that she is his wife whom he had not seen since his imprisonment, and that the girl is his own daughter. Maillard had arrived at the studio in time to rescue her from the attack of Delna, but, misunderstanding her presence there, accused her unjustly. Mayne recognizes in this misunderstanding a counterpart of the situation that led to his own unhappiness, and out of the wisdom bought by his bitter experience effects a reconciliation between the young people. Chastened by adversity the older couple, too, decide to start over again, and happiness results from what seemed to be at first, unrelieved misfortune.
