Doves of Venus

by Olivia Manning

  Ellie, confused, could not cease to protest: ‘But why did my studio job come to an end? I had lots to do.’

  Daze sighed and leaned back in his chair. ‘Mrs Primrose did not employ you as an artist, Miss Parsons. When you first came here you were working in the packaging department.’

  ‘But I am an artist. I only took the packaging job until I could get my own sort of work. Mrs Primrose did not complain about my work. I thought I was doing well.’

  Daze began to look as though Ellie were becoming a nuisance. While she talked, he leaned forward again and placed the paper-clips in a row on his blotter. When she stopped, he cleared his throat and said: ‘You know, Miss Parsons, London isn’t your home. You’re not forced to earn your living here. Your mother wants you back. Why don’t you return to her?’

  ‘Has my mother written to you?’

  ‘No. Mrs Primrose told me about you. Why don’t you go back, eh?’ Daze urged her kindly enough.

  ‘I won’t go back. I’ve come to London to stay.’

  Daze put his hand down flat on the paper-clips and pushed them off the blotter: ‘That’s all, then, Miss Parsons, I’m afraid. We don’t usually give leave in the first year, but you’ve been here nearly a year, so Mrs Primrose has kindly agreed that you can have next week. Miss Senior will give you two weeks’ salary on Friday evening. That’s by way of a helping hand. You need not come in again after that.’

  He looked at Ellie expectantly. She said: ‘Thank you.’

  He nodded dismissal, but as she went he added: ‘If you’re in difficulties in the autumn, there may be another vacancy in the packaging department.’

  She did not reply.

  During her last days at Primrose’s, when, from habit, she kept up a show of being occupied in J50, Ellie saw and heard nothing of Bertie. She never saw the girl who had displaced her in the studio. Only Klixon came once or twice to speak to her. When she found he had come to commiserate and not to say ‘I told you so’, she was grateful. She knew she had never appreciated Klixon.

  He said: ‘What are you thinking of doing when you leave here, kiddo?’

  ‘I’ll go to the labour exchange. They’ll give me something to keep going.’

  ‘Did Daze tell you you could come back as a packer?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m not coming back.’

  ‘Now, don’t be a silly girl . . .’

  ‘I’d never come back here, Mr Klixon.’

  ‘That’s up to you, of course. Here, kiddo, cheer up! I’ll tell you something funny. This’ll make you laugh. You know how Mrs P. thought her boy-friend had died? Well, he isn’t dead at all.’

  ‘Not dead? You mean Quintin Bellot?’ Ellie’s expression caused Klixon to burst out laughing.

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you? Well, it was Mrs Q.B. – she was just taking a slap at Primrose. No doubt well-deserved. I know our Mrs P. Bellot, it seems, had cleared off with a rich girl-friend. He knew how to line them up. Mrs Bellot was in such a state, she took it out on Primrose.’

  Ellie was slow in realising what she had been told. After a long pause, she vaguely asked: ‘You mean he is not dead?’

  ‘No more than me or you. He just cleared off. He’s living abroad somewhere with this rich floozie. But the whole story’s damned funny, don’t you think?’

  ‘I suppose so. Was Mrs P. upset?’

  ‘Upset? She was hopping mad. She’d been made to look such a fool.’

  ‘How did she discover the truth?’

  ‘She rang his solicitor. She thought, after a decent interval, she’d better find out what was happening to Bellot’s shares in the firm. The solicitor hooted with laughter at her. You can imagine how she took that.’

  ‘Mrs Bellot said he was dead? How could anyone do that?’

  ‘She was crazy. I’m told she’s a bit off her nut at the best of times. She wanted to give Gem Primrose a slap in the eye. And she did it! Bellot had been too great with our lady boss. Everyone knew that.’

  ‘Still, it was a strange thing to do.’

  ‘Ah!’ Klixon’s lips went suddenly askew with disgust. ‘I could tell you some funny things about that lot.’ He exited effectively as he finished speaking.

  Ellie sat down. Contemplating Klixon’s news, she said to herself: ‘Of course he wasn’t dead. The story didn’t fit together.’ She tried to imagine she had known that all the time, but she had not known it. For her, he had been dead. She had been emptied by grief.

  Now her grief was gone completely: she had nothing now but a bitter flavour on the tongue. She knew why she had been turned out of the studio. She knew why Mrs Primrose had resented her: why she had no job now.

  She felt she had been injured by people much more powerful than herself. They had had knowledge and power. She had never stood a chance against them. But it would not always be like that. Already she felt herself changed. Something warm and molten in her had hardened as though from cold. She told herself: ‘They will not defeat me in the end.’ Contrasting the behaviour of the Bellots and Mrs Primrose with her mother’s sombre morality, she thought with pride: ‘I come from a different world.’ Someone who had grown up pampered, in comfort, might be destroyed: she would not be destroyed.

  When she considered how she had treated her mother, she burnt with remorse. And she could never return to her home! Maybe they would never meet again!

  Klixon paid his second visit to J50 on the day Ellie was leaving Primrose’s. His manner had changed. He spoke quickly and importantly as though too busy to waste much time on her: ‘Would you like to make a bit of lolly? Bit of lolly?’ He rubbed together his first finger and thumb so Ellie would understand what he meant.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s a lady, see! Lady of title. A customer. Wants a bit of work done on the side. She happened to have a word with me last time she was in and I said I’d see what could be arranged. I’m doing this for you as a favour, mind, so keep your trap shut. Name’s Countess Slanski. Here’s her number. Give her a tinkle and tell her you’re free.’

  Into Ellie’s breathless thanks Klixon broke with: ‘Well, so long, kiddo. Be good. Be seeing you,’ and he passed out of her life for ever.

  Looking at the telephone number on the paper, Ellie said: ‘I shall survive.’

  6

  Monday, the first day of Ellie’s enforced freedom, was as brilliant as mid-summer. Exhilarated by the weather, she began to believe that a new liberty must bring a new life. Because she had nothing, she could hope for anything. There was no knowing what the future might offer.

  She telephoned Countess Slanski and was told to call at three o’clock. After the heat and sunlight of the streets, the countess’s Belgravia flat seemed very dark. It was on the ground floor of a modern block. Light and air were excluded by the balcony of the flat above. In the sitting-room where Ellie waited, the gloom was deepened by the ponderous Spanish furnishings. Looking at the wrought-iron work, the high-backed chairs, the dark decorated leather and velvet and the fringes tacked on with ornate tacks, Ellie was surprised that anyone who could afford to furnish as she pleased should choose any period but Mrs Primrose’s ‘Regency’. After waiting for half-an-hour and finding nothing to read but the Financial Times, Ellie was discouraged by so much gloom and began to feel fearful of the countess. The countess, when she arrived, was reassuring. She had a soft, dimpled prettiness that seemed especially sweetened and dimpled for Ellie’s sake.

  ‘Poor darling, you’ve been waiting so long,’ she said, her voice and manner revealing that, in spite of her babyish prettiness, she was an experienced woman of thirty. She was dressed in a suit of cream silk and her boater hat, set on hair the colour of pinchbeck, was decorated with a row of crimson velvet rosebuds. ‘This luncheon party went on and on. It’s such a darling day, isn’t it? The end of summer – but quite perfect.’

  The countess gazed deeply, with intense pleasure, into Ellie’s face: and Ellie felt as though delight were being drawn from her towards the countess, whose
eyes were flecked green and brown like mignonette.

  ‘The thing is this,’ said the countess: ‘we have a spare room that I’m doing up. I just want something painted on the walls. Some little thing. You see, it’s only a guest room. Make it fun. Of course, I mustn’t be naughty and spend a lot of money. Come and look at it.’ The room to be decorated was some sixteen feet long and ten wide: it was painted white and looked out bleakly on to brick-work. ‘You see it needs . . . well, just something to make it distinctive. How much do you think it would cost?’

  Ellie, forewarned, was afraid of asking too much. She put off the moment of naming a sum. Looking with longing at the bare white walls, she said: ‘A jungle. You know, lions and tigers and dark trees. Like Rousseau. I’d love to do it.’

  ‘Oh yes – a jungle!’ The countess clapped her hands. ‘That would be darling! But wouldn’t it be rather – expensive?’

  ‘It would take a lot of paint, and I’m afraid I haven’t much money. Mrs Primrose let me have two weeks’ wages, but I’ll have to live on that.’

  ‘Two weeks’ wages! Is that all you have in the world?’ The countess gazed at Ellie with pained and sympathetic surprise. ‘You poor thing! How will you manage? I know! You can have your luncheon with Miss Horsepin in the nursery: and we can get the paint on my account at Harrods. Now, it shouldn’t cost too much, should it?’

  Ellie reflected and nervously suggested: ‘Eight pounds?’ When the countess looked vague, Ellie quickly said: ‘Or six pounds?’

  ‘I know!’ the countess, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, broke in. ‘Let us go straight to Harrods and buy lots of gorgeous reds and greens and yellows. I’ve just got time before tea.’

  They went out to the car. ‘This is Mottram.’ The countess waved at an ugly little man in chauffeur’s uniform. ‘Mottram dear, just drive us to Harrods, will you?’ She smiled as though asking a favour, and Ellie, catching the sweetness of the smile, thought her the most delightful woman in the world. As they drove, she questioned Ellie with sympathetic interest about her work at Primrose’s – how long had she been there? Why had she left? Where did she live in London? Where was her family?

  Ellie answered eagerly.

  ‘But how brave!’ said the countess when she heard of Ellie’s move from Eastsea to London: and ‘What fun!’ when Ellie described her room in Chelsea: and ‘How horrid! How really horrid!’ when she learnt how Mrs Primrose had deprived her of the studio job. Ellie thought if only Mrs Primrose had been like the countess, the studio job would have been hers for ever.

  ‘Now,’ said the countess when they reached the counter. ‘Some of those large, beautiful tubes – the best, of course. But, no! It’s only a spare room. Student’s Colours! What are they? Won’t they do?’

  ‘The colour isn’t so brilliant,’ said Ellie, holding to the pure madder, the viridian, the carmine.

  ‘I’m sure they’ll look lovely.’

  On the return journey the countess became silent. She pulled off the little white hat with the velvet roses and leant back in the corner of the car as though exhausted. She threw aside the hat and did not pick it up when she left the car.

  ‘Your hat,’ said Ellie.

  ‘Oh, leave it. I’m bored with it. I shall throw it away.’

  Ellie held it, gazing at the velvet rose-buds that perfectly imitated reality, her desire showing on her face so that the countess laughed and snatched the hat from her and carried it into the house.

  In no time, Ellie saw herself as part of the household. She knew Miss Horsepin, the ‘nanny’, Mottram, the chauffeur, and a large, strong-featured girl called Désirée, the housemaid, to whom Ellie had to apply for step-ladders, dusters and papers for the floor. Whenever Désirée brought what was needed, she looked as though Ellie were committing some inexcusable folly: ‘Painting the spare room walls! I don’t know, I’ve never been in such a place. And I’m not here now because I have to be. I’ve got a young man. I’m getting married. I’m just here for my own convenience.’ She threw down a bundle of newspapers: ‘You see that floor’s all covered up. I’m not cleaning off no paint.’

  Ellie was not much moved by Désirée’s attitude. Life had taught her that disapproval was the common attitude of the employed towards the employed. She took the bundles of Daily Telegraphs and Financial Times and carpeted the floor. Her mind full of paintings by Gauguin and the douanier Rousseau, she sketched a jungle on one wall before the bell rang for luncheon. She was extremely hungry, too hungry to work any more. She moved around restlessly, longing for someone to appear and invite her to eat in the nursery. When no one came, she set out through the dark passages of the flat to find the nursery for herself. The first door she opened showed her a black, sunken bath whose taps were golden dolphins. In the same room there was a black water-closet with a yellow seat and this seemed to Ellie more astonishing than the bath. The next door discovered a bed of taut pink satin shaped like a scallop shell. From the other side of the passage came the sounds of the dining-room. Ellie hurried across the hallway and at last opened a door to meet the pale, blank eyes of Miss Horsepin, who was at table with the small boy Peter.

  ‘Countess Slanski said I was to have lunch with you.’

  ‘You’d better tell Désirée.’

  Désirée, with the look of someone reminded of something forgotten, went off angrily and returned more angrily. She put down a plate containing a chop, potatoes and cabbage: ‘Cook says that means no second helpings,’ she said.

  When the door slammed after her, Miss Horsepin said with scorn: ‘Perhaps they get second helpings, but I never get second helpings. Not that I want it. This nursery food’s not up to much.’

  To Ellie it seemed so richly flavoured that she thought back on canteen fare as a mere imitation of food. Miss Horsepin pushed her plate away fretfully. ‘I can tell you,’ she said, ‘this isn’t what they get in the dining-room. There it’s just a question of “What d’you fancy today, dear?”’

  ‘What d’you fancy today, dear?’ Peter yelled and threw over his glass of milk.

  ‘Oh, look at that!’ Miss Horsepin dragged herself to her feet and, with painful dilatoriness, began mopping up the milk with a bath towel.

  Peter sustained his bellow on a diminishing note until he caught Ellie’s eye, then he squirmed down, giggling, into his seat.

  Ellie said: ‘Isn’t he like the countess!’

  ‘He’s the spit of his father, ac-tually.’ Miss Horsepin spoke reprovingly, then, with sudden surprising strength, she hoisted up Peter, carried him into the next room and shut the door sharply.

  The next morning Countess Slanski came to the spare room. She brought with her a small, sharp-eyed, darkly dressed, elderly woman who was her mother, Mrs Harris. Mrs Harris had a stiff, suspicious atmosphere about her that oppressed Ellie and made the countess’s gaiety ring false.

  ‘Isn’t it fun?’ The countess surveyed Ellie’s mural. ‘Look, a lion! What a funny face! And monkeys! How darling! Aren’t they all fun?’

  Coldly, Mrs Harris said: ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, do tell Mamma what you told me about Mrs Primrose. Mother knows her, you know.’

  Ellie was unwilling to tell Mrs Harris anything: her instinct was against this woman. When the countess insisted, she told the story in a self-conscious, unsatisfactory way, with her glance on the floor. When, at the end, she looked up, she found Mrs Harris watching her with eyes shrewd, critical and sharp as ice. She turned quickly and surprised in the countess’s beautiful green-brown eyes a shadow of the same ice-sharp shrewdness. Mrs Harris covered her expression with a thin smile, and the countess dropped her eyelids and said: ‘There! Isn’t it a horrid story?’ Then she looked at her watch and said: ‘Lunch will be late today. Cook’s being tiresome.’

  ‘If that’s so, dear,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘I think we should drop into Pragner’s for some chicken broth and a sandwich. I expect Miss Parsons wants to get on with her work.’

  Ellie had started on the jungle with excitement
, trying to reproduce the effect the douanier’s paintings had on her. To the countess her work was a joke:

  ‘It’s so funny. I’m sure all our guests will roar with laughter.’

  Ellie, feeling a chilly drop in confidence, said: ‘I’m afraid it’s not very good.’

  ‘Oh, I adore it. How long will it take? You must finish it before I go away.’

  The countess came once or twice every day to see the mural. Sometimes Mrs Harris came too, but she came without enthusiasm, her attention only for her daughter, whom she watched with a sort of bleak satisfaction. On Saturday morning the countess brought her husband, a tall man, pallid and very fair, already growing stout. She squeezed his arm and whispered: ‘Really, isn’t it funny? Look at this one—’ she pointed to one of the monkeys and leant her head against him and laughed. The count smiled gravely. Before they left, he gave Ellie a single, brief glance that seemed to hold compassion but may not have had any reference at all to her. When the door closed behind them, Ellie heard the deep, wordless murmur of his voice: the countess’s reply rose clear as the luncheon bell: ‘But, darling, it costs almost nothing.’

  Ellie felt relief at this reference to cost, for the countess had made no other. Ellie had paid two weeks’ of her rent in advance, fearful of owing anything. She had had to buy her week-end meals. After the first week her money was so low that she walked to and from Belgravia. It did not occur to her she could ask for payment until her work was completed. She began to wish the countess would not delay her with so many visits, but the countess found the mural diverting and, when her mother was not with her, would often spend half-an-hour chatting.

  ‘I love all this sort of thing,’ she said. ‘I’ve often thought of opening an antique shop, or an interior decorator’s, or a shop for beautiful materials. What fun if you could run it for me!’

  ‘Oh, I should love it. I should love it.’ Ellie blushed and sparkled at such a solution to her fortunes.

  They talked about the shop for an hour – what it should sell: where it should be situated: how it should be decorated. They decided the walls must be lobster-pink and the carpet the colour of green Chartreuse.