‘Oh, hell,’ said Templer. ‘I suppose I shall have to see about this. Help yourselves to another drink when you’re ready.’
He followed his wife through the door. Jean and I were alone. She gave me her hand, smiling, but resisting a closer embrace.
‘Tonight?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Not a good idea.’
‘I see.’
‘Sorry.’
‘When?’
‘Any time.’
‘Will you come to my flat?’
‘Of course.’
‘When?’
‘I’ve told you. Any time you like.’
‘Tuesday?’
‘No, not Tuesday.’
‘Wednesday, then?’
‘I can’t manage Wednesday either.’
‘But you said any time.’
‘Any time but Tuesday or Wednesday.’
I tried to remember what plans were already made, and which could be changed. Thursday was a tangle of engagements, hardly possible to rearrange at short notice without infinite difficulties arising. Matters must be settled quickly, because Templer might return to the room at any moment.
‘Friday?’
She looked doubtful. I thought she was going to insist on Thursday. Perhaps the idea of doing so had crossed her mind. A measure of capriciousness is, after all, natural in women; perhaps fulfils some physiological need for both sexes. A woman who loves you likes to torment you from time to time; if not actually hurt you. If her first intention had been to make further difficulties, she abandoned the idea, but at the same time she did not speak. She seemed to have no sense of the urgency of making some arrangement quickly—so that we should not lose touch with each other, and be reduced to the delay of writing letters. I suffered some agitation. This conversation was failing entirely to express my own feelings. Perhaps it seemed equally unreal to her. If so, she was unwilling, perhaps unable, to alleviate the strain. Probably women enjoy such moments, which undoubtedly convey by intensity and uncertainty a heightened awareness of their power. In spite of apparent coldness of manner her eyes were full of tears. As if we had already decided upon some definite and injudicious arrangement, she suddenly changed her approach.
‘You must be discreet,’ she said.
‘All right.’
‘But really discreet.’
‘I promise.’
‘You will?’
‘Yes.’
While talking, we had somehow come close together in a manner that made practical discussion difficult. I felt tired, rather angry, very much in love with her; on the edge of one of those outbursts of irritation so easily excited by love.
‘I’ll come to your flat on Friday,’ she said abruptly.
4.
WHEN, IN EARLY spring, pale sunlight was flickering behind the mist above Piccadilly, the Isbister Memorial Exhibition opened on the upper floor of one of the galleries there. I was attending the private view, partly for business reasons, partly from a certain weakness for bad pictures, especially bad portraits. Such a taste is hard to justify. Perhaps the inclination is no more than a morbid curiosity to see how far the painter will give himself away. Pictures, apart from their æsthetic interest, can achieve the mysterious fascination of those enigmatic scrawls on walls, the expression of Heaven knows what psychological urge on the part of the executant; for example, the for ever anonymous drawing of Widmerpool in the cabinet at La Grenadière.
In Isbister’s work there was something of that inner madness. The deliberate naïveté with which he accepted his business men, ecclesiastics and mayors, depicted by him with all the crudeness of his accustomed application of paint to canvas, conveyed an oddly sinister effect. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Isbister set out to paint what he supposed to be the fashionable view of such people at any given moment. Thus, in his early days, a general, or the chairman of some big concern, would be represented in the respectively appropriate terms of Victorian romantic success; the former, hero of the battlefield: the latter, the industrious apprentice who has achieved his worthy ambition. But as military authority and commercial achievement became increasingly subject to political and economic denigration, Isbister, keeping up with the times, introduced a certain amount of what he judged to be satirical comment. Emphasis would be laid on the general’s red face and medals, or the industrialist’s huge desk and cigar. There would be a suggestion that all was not well with such people about. Probably Isbister was right from a financial point of view to make this change, because certainly his sitters seemed to grow no fewer. Perhaps they too felt a compulsive need for representation in contemporary idiom, even though a tawdry one. It was a kind of insurance against the attacks of people like Quiggin: a form of public apology and penance. The result was certainly curious. Indeed, often, even when there hung near-by something far worthier of regard, I found myself stealing a glance at an Isbister, dominating, by its aggressive treatment, the other pictures hanging alongside.
If things had turned out as they should, The Art of Horace Isbister would have been on sale at the table near the door, over which a young woman with a pointed nose and black fringe presided. As things were, it was doubtful whether that volume would ever appear. The first person I saw in the gallery was Sir Gavin Walpole-Wilson, who stood in the centre of the room, disregarding the pictures, but watching the crowd over the top of huge horn-rimmed spectacles, which he had pushed well forward on his nose. His shaggy homespun overcoat was swinging open, stuffed with long envelopes and periodicals which protruded from the pockets. He looked no older; perhaps a shade less sane. We had not met since the days when I used to dine with the Walpole-Wilsons for ‘debutante dances’; a period now infinitely remote. Rather to my surprise he appeared to recognise me immediately, though it was unlikely that he knew my name. I enquired after Eleanor.
‘Spends all her time in the country now,’ said Sir Gavin. ‘As you may remember, Eleanor was never really happy away from Hinton.’
He spoke rather sadly. I knew he was confessing his own and his wife’s defeat. His daughter had won the long conflict with her parents. I wondered if Eleanor still wore her hair in a bun at the back and trained dogs with a whistle. It was unlikely that she would have changed much.
‘I expect she finds plenty to do,’ I offered.
‘Her breeding keeps her quiet,’ said Sir Gavin.
He spoke almost with distaste. However, perceiving that I felt uncertain as to the precise meaning of this explanation of Eleanor’s existing state, he added curtly:
‘Labradors.’
‘Like Sultan?’
‘After Sultan died she took to breeding them. And then she sees quite a lot of her friend, Norah Tolland.’
By common consent we abandoned the subject of Eleanor. Taking my arm, he led me across the floor of the gallery, until we stood in front of a three-quarter-length picture of a grey-moustached man in the uniform of the diplomatic corps; looking, if the truth be known, not unlike Sir Gavin himself.
‘Isn’t it terrible?’
‘Awful.’
‘It’s Saltonstall,’ said Sir Gavin, his voice suggesting that some just retribution had taken place. ‘Saltonstall who always posed as a Man of Taste.’
‘Isbister has made him look more like a Christmas Tree of Taste.’
‘You see, my father-in-law’s portrait is a different matter,’ said Sir Gavin, as if unable to withdraw his eyes from this likeness of his former colleague. ‘There is no parallel at all. My father-in-law was painted by Isbister, it is true. Isbister was what he liked. He possessed a large collection of thoroughly bad pictures which we had some difficulty in disposing of at his death. He bought them simply and solely because he liked the subjects. He knew about shipping and finance—not about painting. But he did not pose as a Man of Taste. Far from it.’
‘Deacon’s Boyhood of Cyrus in the hall at Eaton Square is from his collection, isn’t it?’
I could not hel
p mentioning this picture that had once meant so much to me and to name the dead is always a kind of tribute to them: one I felt Mr. Deacon deserved.
‘I believe so,’ said Sir Gavin. ‘It sounds his style. But Saltonstall, on the other hand, with his vers de societé, and all his talk about Foujita and Pruna and goodness knows who else—but when it comes to his own portrait, it’s Isbister. Let’s see how they have hung my father-in-law.’
We passed on to Lord Aberavon’s portrait, removed from its usual place in the dining-room at Hinton Hoo, now flanked by Sir Horrocks Rusby, K.C., and Cardinal Whelan. Lady Walpole-Wilson’s father had been painted in peer’s robes over the uniform of a deputy-lieutenant, different tones of scarlet contrasted against a crimson velvet curtain: a pictorial experiment that could not be considered successful. Through french windows behind Lord Aberavon stretched a broad landscape—possibly the vale of Glamorgan—in which something had also gone seriously wrong with the colour values. Even Isbister himself, in his own lifetime, must have been aware of deficiency.
I glanced at the cardinal next door, notable as the only picture I had ever heard Widmerpool spontaneously praise. Here, too, the reds had been handled with some savagery. Sir Gavin shook his head and moved on to examine two of Isbister’s genre pictures. ‘Clergyman eating an apple’ and ‘The Old Humorists’. I found myself beside Clapham, a director of the firm that published St. John Clarke’s novels. He was talking to Smethyck, a museum official I had known slightly at the university.
‘When is your book on Isbister appearing?’ Clapham asked at once. ‘You announced it some time ago. This would have been the moment—with the St. John Clarke introduction.’
Clapham had spoken accusingly, his voice implying the fretfulness of all publishers that one of their authors should betray them with a colleague, however lightly.
‘I went to see St. John Clarke the other day,’ Clapham continued. ‘I was glad to find him making a good recovery after his illness. Found him reading one of the young Communist poets. We had an interesting talk.’
‘Does anybody read St. John Clarke himself now?’ asked Smethyck, languidly.
Like many of his profession, Smethyck was rather proud of his looks, which he had been carefully re-examining in the dark, mirror-like surface of Sir Horrocks Rusby, framed for some unaccountable reason under glass. Clapham was up in arms at once at such superciliousness.
‘Of course people read St. John Clarke,’ he said, snappishly. ‘Though perhaps not in your ultra-sophisticated circles, where everything ordinary people understand is sneered at.’
‘Personally, I don’t hold any views about St. John Clarke,’ said Smethyck, without looking round. ‘I’ve never read any of them. All I wanted to know was whether people bought his books.’
He continued to ponder the cut of his suit in this adventitious looking-glass, deciding at last that his hair needed smoothing down on one side.
‘I don’t mind admitting to you both,’ said Clapham, moving a step or two closer and speaking rather thickly, ‘that when I finished Fields of Amaranth there were tears in my eyes.’
Smethyck made no reply to this; nor could I myself think of a suitable rejoinder.
‘That was some years ago,’ said Clapham.
This qualification left open the alternative of whether St. John Clarke still retained the power of exciting such strong feeling in a publisher, or whether Clapham himself had grown more capable of controlling his emotions.
‘Why, there’s Sillery,’ said Smethyck, who seemed thoroughly bored by the subject of St. John Clarke. ‘I believe he was to be painted by Isbister, if he had recovered. Let’s go and talk to him.’
We left Clapham, still muttering about the extent of St. John Clarke’s sales, and the beauty and delicacy of his early style. I had not seen Sillery since Mrs. Andriadis’s party, three or four years before, though I had heard by chance that he had recently returned from America, where he had held some temporary academical post, or been on a lecture tour. His white hair and dark, Nietzschean moustache remained unchanged, but his clothes looked older than ever. He was carrying an unrolled umbrella in one hand; in the other a large black homburg, thick in grease. He began to grin widely as soon as he saw us.
‘Hullo, Sillers,’ said Smethyck, who had been one of Sillery’s favourites among the undergraduates who constituted his salon, ‘I did not know you were interested in art.’
‘Not interested in art?’ said Sillery, enjoying this accusation a great deal. ‘What an idea. Still, I am, as it happens, here for semi-professional reasons, as you might say. I expect you are too, Michael. There is some nonsense about the College wanting a pitcher o’ me ole mug. Can’t think why they should need such a thing, but there it is. ‘Course Isbister can’t do it ’cos ’e’s tucked ’is toes in now, but I thought I’d just come an’ take a look at the sorta thing that’s expected.’
‘And what do you think, Sillers?’
‘Just as well he’s passed away, perhaps,’ sniggered Sillery, suddenly abandoning his character-acting. ‘In any case I always think an artist is rather an embarrassment to his own work. But what Ninetyish things I am beginning to say. It must come from talking to so many Americans.’
‘But you can’t want to be painted by anyone even remotely like Isbister,’ said Smethyck. ‘Surely you can get a painter who is a little more modern than that. What about this man Barnby, for example?’
‘Ah, we are very conservative about art at the older universities,’ said Sillery, grinning delightedly. ‘Wouldn’t say myself that I want an Isbister exactly, though I heard the Warden comparing him with Antonio Moro the other night. ‘Fraid the Warden doesn’t know much about the graphic arts, though. But then I don’t want the wretched picture painted at all. What do members of the College want to look at my old phiz for, I should like to know?’
We assured him that his portrait would be welcomed by all at the university.
‘I don’t know about Brightman,’ said Sillery, showing his teeth for a second. ‘I don’t at all know about Brightman. I don’t think Brightman would want a picture of me. But what have you been doing with yourself, Nicholas? Writing more books, I expect. I am afraid I haven’t read the first one yet. Do you ever see Charles Stringham now?’
‘Not for ages.’
‘A pity about that divorce,’ said Sillery. ‘You young men will get married. It is so often a mistake. I hear he is drinking just a tiny bit too much nowadays. It was a mistake to leave Donners-Brebner, too.’
‘I expect you’ve heard about J. G. Quiggin taking Mark Members’s place with St. John Clarke?’
‘Hilarious that, wasn’t it?’ agreed Sillery. ‘That sort of thing always happens when two clever boys come from the same place. They can’t help competing. Poor Mark seems quite upset about it. Can’t think why. After all, there are plenty of other glittering prizes for those with stout hearts and sharp swords, just as Lord Birkenhead remarked. I shall be seeing Quiggin this afternoon, as it happens—a little political affair—Quiggin lives a very mouvementé life these days, it seems.’
Sillery chuckled to himself. There was evidently some secret he did not intend to reveal. In any case he had by then prolonged the conversation sufficiently for his own satisfaction.
‘Saw you chatting to Gavin Walpole-Wilson,’ he said. ‘Ought to go and have a word with him myself about these continuous hostilities between Bolivia and Paraguay. Been going on too long. Want to get in touch with his sister about it. Get one of her organisations to work. Time for liberal-minded people to step in. Can’t have them cutting each other’s throats in this way. Got to be quick, or I shall be late for Quiggin.’
He shambled off. Smethyck smiled at me and shook his head, at the same time indicating that he had seen enough for one afternoon.
I strolled on round the gallery. I had noted in the catalogue a picture called ‘The Countess of Ardglass with Faithful Girl’ and, when I arrived before it, I found Lady Ardglass herself inspecting the po
rtrait. She was leaning on the arm of one of the trim grey-haired men who had accompanied her in the Ritz: or perhaps another example of their category, so like as to be indistinguishable. Isbister had painted her in an open shirt and riding breeches, standing beside the mare, her arm slipped through the reins: with much attention to the high polish of the brown boots.
‘Pity Jumbo could never raise the money for it,’ Bijou Ardglass was saying. ‘Why don’t you make an offer, Jack, and give it me for my birthday? You’d probably get it dirt cheap.’
‘I’m much too broke,’ said the grey-haired man.
‘You always say that. If you’d given me the car you promised me I should at least have saved the nine shillings I’ve already spent on taxis this morning.’
Jean never spoke of her husband, and I knew no details of the episode with Lady Ardglass that had finally separated them. At the same time, now that I saw Bijou, I could not help feeling that she and I were somehow connected by what had happened. I wondered what Duport had in common with me that linked us through Jean. Men who are close friends tend to like different female types; perhaps the contrary process also operated, and the fact that he had seemed so unsympathetic when we had met years before was due to some innate sense of rivalry. I was to see Jean that afternoon. She had borrowed a friend’s flat for a week or so, while she looked about for somewhere more permanent to live. This had made things easier. Emotional crises always promote the urgent need for executive action, so that the times when we most hope to be free from the practical administration of life are always those when the need to cope with a concrete world is more than ever necessary.
Owing to domestic arrangements connected with getting a nurse for her child, she would not be at home until late in the afternoon. I wasted some time at the Isbister show, before walking across the park to the place where she was living. I had expected to see Quiggin at the gallery, but Sillery’s remarks indicated that he would not be there. The last time I had met him, soon after the Templer week-end, it had turned out that, in spite of the temporary reappearance of Members at St. John Clarke’s sick bed, Quiggin was still firmly established in his new position. He now seemed scarcely aware that there had ever been a time when he had not acted as the novelist’s secretary, referring to his employer’s foibles with a weary though tolerant familiarity, as if he had done the job for years. He had quickly brushed aside enquiry regarding his journey to London with Mrs. Erdleigh and Jimmy Stripling.
Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 1 Page 58
