‘Oh, by the way, Monsieur Chapparelle. I should like you to do a portrait of my wife.’
‘Ah!’ said Chapparelle, slowly, in his heavily accented English. ‘The lady on my right? Quite so. Well, Lord Croppingford, I will think of it.’
Croppingford, taken aback, said in stiff and incredulous tones, ‘Not, of course, if you don’t like the idea. I am sorry I mentioned it.’
‘Monsieur Chapparelle,’ said Peter, ‘reserves to himself the artist’s privilege of caprice. The wind of inspiration carries him whither it will. If he is in a mood to be idle, nothing will make him work, not even the most beautiful subject, n’est-ce pas?’
‘Beauty?’ said the painter. ‘I snap my fingers at beauty. That is for commercial artists. The true beauty, maybe; but that is not what you mean when you use the word in this country. Beauty-parlours, beauty-spots, bathing-beauties – it stands for everything that is commonplace.’
‘Can’t stick all these grinning girls in bathing-dresses,’ said Lord Grummidge, helpfully. ‘Nothing else in the papers nowadays.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Peter, ‘that you paint everybody with green complexions and triangular busts. Or has that fashion gone out?’
‘Come, Wimsey,’ said Drummond-Taber, ‘are you going to confess that you don’t know Chapparelle’s work?’
‘I am. Openly. Shamelessly. I haven’t been in town since last March. Give me full marks for candour, monsieur, and tell me what you do paint.’
‘With pleasure. I paint women. Sometimes men, but usually women. I should like to paint your wife.’
‘Would you, begad!’
‘She is not beautiful,’ pursued Chapparelle, with startling frankness. ‘There are at least two other ladies here tonight who would look better on the picture page of the daily paper. But she is paintable. That is not the same thing. She has character. She has bones.’
‘God bless my soul!’ said the Marquis of Grummidge.
‘She interests me. Will you let her sit to me?’
‘Look out, Uncle,’ said St George, with sudden, unexpected malice. ‘His motto is “Where I paint, I sleep.”’
‘St George!’ said the Duke, awfully.
‘Sleep,’ said Peter, ‘is a singularly harmless occupation, though an inactive one.’
‘Young devil!’ said the painter. ‘But your nephew has got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I do not care whom my sitter loves, provided she loves somebody. Her husband, another woman’s husband, myself at a pinch. But I prefer that it should not be myself. It saves complication and is less fatiguing.’
‘I am obliged to you,’ returned Peter, ‘for that very frank and manly statement, which clears the ground for negotiations. Your proposal is that my wife should provide the bones, you provide the paint, while I do my best – I hope I understand this part of it correctly – to provide the human interest.’
‘I also,’ said Chapparelle, ‘provide the genius, which you seem to have forgotten.’
‘That is an important item, of course. Can you paint?’
‘I am a very good painter,’ said Chapparelle, simply. ‘If you will visit my studio any day, I will show you.’
‘It will give me very great pleasure.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Chapparelle, ‘you will be pleased. I speak with confidence. I may then say to your wife that you permit me to paint her?’
‘I don’t know that I should recommend that form of words. It’s her permission that you want. But I am ready to hover sympathetically in the background and lend you my moral support.’
Chapparelle met the mocking eyes with an exaggerated humility. ‘Favoured by your alliance, I shall hope for success.’
Lord Croppingford, feeling obscurely that everybody had behaved rudely except himself, refilled his glass.
‘Peter,’ said the Duke, as the men rose to rejoin the ladies, ‘now you’re here, I’d like to have a word with you. Do you mind going on up without us, Grummidge? We won’t be long. Gerald, ask your mother to excuse us.’
He waited till the door was shut, and then said, ‘Look here. How much money have you lent Gerald?’
‘Not a penny,’ replied Peter, coolly. ‘This is the Tuke Holdsworth, isn’t it?’
The Duke reddened between the eyebrows.
‘It’s no good your trying to shield the boy. I made him admit that you’d been paying his debts and helping him out of a scrape with some woman or other.’
‘Whatever I let him have was a gift. I don’t believe in hanging millstones round a boy’s neck. The other business cost nothing but a letter from my solicitor. I wish you hadn’t tackled him about it. Unless, of course, he told you of his own accord.’
‘He tells me nothing. He’ll go to anybody rather than to his parents. But I’m damned if I’ll have him sponging on you. I’ve made out a cheque, and you’ll have the decency to take it. I made him tell me the amount – though I dare say he was lying.’
‘No,’ said Peter, accepting the cheque. ‘That’s quite correct. But look here, old man, why don’t you make him a really adequate allowance? He’s bound to play the fool when he’s kept so short.’
‘He’s not fit to handle money.’
‘If he doesn’t learn now, he never will be. After all, he knows he’s got to come into the money some day. And if you can’t trust him now, what’s going to happen to the land when you go?’
‘God knows,’ said the Duke, gloomily. ‘He doesn’t give a damn for anything. Nothing but girls and fast cars. Now he says he wants to take up flying. I won’t have it, and I’ve told him so. He’s got to have some sense of responsibility. If anything happens to him—’ He broke off and fiddled with the stem of his glass; then said, almost angrily, ‘I suppose you realise that you’re next.’
‘I realise it perfectly,’ said Peter. ‘I assure you I have no wish to see Jerry break his neck. Country estates aren’t in my line and never were.’
‘You run your London property pretty well, though.’
‘Yes, but it is London. I rather like handling houses, and people. But pig and plough – no.’
‘Well,’ said the Duke, ‘I’m glad you’re married, anyway.’
Peter’s eyes narrowed. ‘I didn’t marry with the idea of founding a dynasty.’
‘I did,’ said the Duke. He got up and walked heavily across to the fireplace. ‘Don’t blame Helen. I made several kinds of fool of myself, and she got fed up with me. But I wish Winifred had been another boy.’
‘Looking at the matter logically,’ said his brother, ‘either one is the parish bull, or one is not. But our generation is neither one thing nor the other. You want me to secure the collateral line for you in case of accident. All right. A Victorian would simply have ordered his wife to do her duty. The young man and woman of today would refuse to recognise any duty in the matter.’
‘It’s you I’m asking, Flim.’
‘I know,’ said Peter, moved in spite of himself by the school nickname. ‘And I see your point. But the decision isn’t in my hands and I don’t intend that it shall be. If my wife has children, she shall have them for fun and not as a legal instrument for securing the orderly devolution of property.’
‘Have you mentioned the matter to Harriet?’
‘She once mentioned it to me.’
The Duke’s face expressed a lively apprehension: ‘Do you mean that she definitely objected to the idea?’
‘No. Nothing of the kind. But see here, Denver, I will not have you saying anything to her about it. It would be damnably unfair to both of us.’
‘I’m not goin’ to interfere,’ said the Duke, hastily.
‘Then why the devil do you interfere?’
‘I’m not. I only asked you. You needn’t be so dashed touchy.’ He was sorry Peter had been so quick to frustrate his idea of speaking to Harriet and putting the thing to her in a straightforward manner. A sensible modern woman surely would not mind, and her attitude at dinner had given him encouragement to hope for the b
est. But his brother had always been full of queer, baffling reluctance. Still, if the thing had been for any reason impossible, Peter would have said so. He ventured: ‘Harriet’s made quite a conquest of Croppingford. He told me she was a damn fine woman.’
‘With no bigad nonsense about her! I’m obliged to Croppingford.’
‘Well, I say you did dead right,’ said the Duke. ‘Good luck to it.’
‘Thanks, old man.’
The Duke hoped something would be forthcoming, but Peter’s usually busy tongue was well bridled tonight. A queer business, thought the Duke. Independence. Silence. Reservations. Modern marriage. Was there any sort of mutual confidence? A slippery affair, and he could get no grip on it. He led the way upstairs. At the turn of the landing he paused, and said with an air of defiance, ‘I’ve been planting oaks in Boulter’s Hollow.’
Oaks! Peter met his eyes firmly and said without emphasis, ‘They should do very well there.’
At the door of the house the Daimler was waiting for them. Peter said, ‘Would you mind very much if I walked home? I’d like the breath of air.’
‘I wouldn’t mind; but may I come with you?’
‘You won’t be cold?’
‘In the bride’s mink cloak? I don’t think so.’
Peter dismissed the car with a wave of the hand, and drew Harriet’s arm through his. They passed the top of the Duke of York’s Steps, and saw in the pallid lamplight a number of people passing up the Mall. Without a word they descended the steps, and joined the tide of people flowing towards the Palace. Harriet was glad of her cloak, for there was a brisk wind under a clear sky, dry and threatening frost. There were cars parked all along the Mall. The monument to Queen Victoria was covered with people standing; people were clustered in front of the Palace railings; some of them had climbed up and were holding on to the bars. The crowd stirred, moving round the bulletin board which was hanging at the gates.
Peter said, ‘Stand just here, Harriet, under this lamp-post, and I’ll see if I can get through and read it.’
Harriet leaned against the lamp-post. The crowd around her were of every possible kind of person: men and women, some in evening dress, some poorly clad enough to be shivering in the wind. They spoke to each other in a curious muted and reverent excitement. A group of men speaking German pushed past. Then a policeman passed Harriet in the throng.
‘What is the latest bulletin?’ she asked him.
‘It has not been issued,’ he said, and moved on.
There was a stirring in the crowd next to the Palace. Peter returned to her. ‘It says: “His Majesty’s life is drawing to a peaceful close”,’ he said.
‘Do you want to keep watch here?’ she asked.
‘No need,’ he said, and taking her arm again he led her away. They walked silently up St James’s, stepping from pool to pool of lamplight, crossed Piccadilly, and into Mayfair. As they turned into Audley Square he said, ‘It’s an odd thing how people come out on the streets, how they gather at the scene.’
‘Like a chorus in a Greek tragedy,’ she said. ‘Perhaps that’s why the chorus seems perfectly natural to us – people have always gathered . . .’
‘When times change,’ he said, turning his key in the lock.
Extract from the diary of Honoria Lucasta, Dowager Duchess of Denver:
21st January
Up late listening to the wireless for news of the poor dear King. No change in the bulletins, but Franklin came in from her night off saying that the street was full of people, just milling around. Woken later by shouting in the street. The little carriage-clock beside my bed showed three in the morning. A newsboy was hallooing, ‘King dies! Read all abaht it – King dead!’ Opened window to call out to him for a paper, but only to see Franklin in her dressing-gown running after him to get one. We had cocoa together reading the front-page report – all in black borders. Remember him very well as a little boy in a sailor suit at Windsor, when I was taken there to play with him. Remember how difficult it was to let him win at Battledore. Seems only yesterday. Cried a little on going back to bed, not for the dignified old King but for the little boy. So silly. Often can’t help being silly . . .
3
Oh, Mrs Corney, what a prospect this opens! What a opportunity for a jining of hearts and housekeepings!
CHARLES DICKENS
Matrimony . . . is no more than a form of friendship recognised by the police.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Although, with the academic person’s deceptive tendency to understatement, Harriet tended to dismiss her own share in the household management as negligible, she was discovering that domesticity had its problems. There was, for instance, the delicate affair of Emmanuel Griffin, the footman. It had been decided (partly in his own interests) that he should be known as ‘William’; but a number of politically minded friends had persuaded him to see in this arrangement a manifestation of upper-class tyranny. He had taken umbrage and been impertinent to Meredith. The matter having been adjusted by an apology on his part to the butler and his restoration (by consent) to his baptismal name, there ensued trouble between him and the chauffeur, Alfred Farley. Farley, Emmanuel complained, would bring the car to the front door and ‘sit singing Christmas hymns to it, quiet-like’, while Emmanuel, immobilised in attendance with his arms full of rugs, was in no position to make his resentment felt. The quarrel came to a head at a moment when Peter had been called away to Denver by family business. Harriet, left in authority, suggested that the affair should be honourably settled in the boiler-house. The result was satisfactory: one black eye, one cut lip, and Emmanuel’s spontaneous decision to adopt the name of Thomas for everyday wear.
Then there was Harriet’s personal maid, an experimental novelty embarked on with gingerly reluctance. To a naturally untidy person with an ingrained habit of impatient independence the very idea of a trained lady’s-maid was intimidating. Even the resourceful dowager had been at a loss. It was Peter who, from an unexpected quarter of his illimitable acquaintance, had produced Juliet Mango. She was the daughter of a cinema attendant, and had attracted the unenviable notice of authority by pinching illustrated magazines from bookstalls. Her record and character were otherwise good, and her thefts limited to magazines; and it appeared on enquiry that her sole motive for misdoing was to imagine herself into that strange world of the titled and wealthy whose clothes and houses and activities decorated the pages of Vogue and Country Life. Of the cinema (a more usual sublimation of such appetites) she complained that ‘mostly the people were dressed all wrong and the real top-liners didn’t behave like that.’
Peter, feeling that anyone of such natural discrimination should be encouraged, had consulted with the probation officer and got her work with a dressmaker, where she had done very well. In the September of his engagement, finding his mother at her wit’s end, and his bride in a state of suppressed panic, he had sought out Miss Mango, and brought her home on approval. The interview being satisfactory, he had obtained her release from the dressmaking establishment and packed her off to learn the art of hairdressing, and now here she was in Audley Square, accompanied by a whole library of manuals on etiquette and the complete works of Mr P.G. Wodehouse whom, not without justice, she took seriously as an infallible guide to high life above and below stairs. Like d’Artagnan, she had no practice but a profound theory of her profession; like a university scholar, she absorbed information readily from the printed text; she had, in short, the kind of mind that Harriet knew how to cope with.
For Miss Mango herself, there was the excitement of living her own dream. She was a stickler for propriety. To be addressed by her surname gave her a thrill of exquisite satisfaction; the severity of her garments and the primness of her manner made Mrs Trapp appear over-dressed and Bunter expansive. In her time off, she attended theatres and talkies, noting errors of social procedure and writing condemnatory letters to producers. She seemed to look upon Peter as a cinematograph entertainment that had been, by some miracle
, correctly produced in every detail, and accorded him a prostrate admiration accordingly. Her reverence for Mr Bunter as his producer, though profound, was tinged with rivalry. She was so eager that her own show should compete with his, that Harriet felt bound in decency to co-operate by taking a hitherto unwonted interest in dress.
There were mysteries as well as problems in the running of the house. Meredith, it seemed, was called upon by his station in life to clean the silver, whereas Mrs Trapp in person washed the Sèvres dinner service. Only the lowly dishes came within the competence of the kitchen maid. Harriet applied herself to learning this domestic lore with an anthropological curiosity – for surely she was of a different tribe – and then was nonplussed one day to find Bunter cleaning an austerely beautiful pair of silver candlesticks that adorned the library side table.
‘Why doesn’t Meredith see to those, Bunter?’ she asked.
‘His lordship is particularly attached to these, my lady,’ said Bunter, pausing in his task. ‘He has had them, I believe, since his father gave them to him to brighten his rooms at Balliol. They are by Paul de Lamerie, my lady, a London silversmith, circa 1750. I have always cleaned them myself.’
Apart from a lien to a pair of candlesticks, the master of the house himself offered fresh fields for discovery. His wife had already realised that he had other interests in life besides cricket, crime and old printed books; she now saw these interests take the practical form of conferences with the estate agent, occupying an average of two mornings a week. The estate agent was on the outer border of north London, in a rapidly growing district. Peter, it seemed, was not merely the ground landlord but the actual landlord of the greater number of the properties, and had architects and builders at his command. Mr Simcox the agent bustled about continually, bringing estimates and correspondence and blueprints. Peter took infinite care of even the smallest details, as though, Harriet noticed, fascinated, he were particularly determined to refute allegations that his wealth and title put him out of touch with the everyday world and the ordinary concerns of plainer people. On the other hand he was aesthetically ruthless, so that features of the Wimsey Estate were the roomy comfort of its public houses, the exceptional splendour of its scullery sinks, and the landlord’s ferocious veto upon bungalows, galvanised iron, and bastard Tudor half-timbering.
Thrones, Dominations Page 4
