Unfinished Portrait

by Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott, Agatha

  Celia pressed Mrs Steadman to accept some slices of it when cooked, and after a proper reluctance Mrs Steadman consented.

  ‘Just for once – though not wishing to impose on you.’

  So free had been Mrs Steadman’s admiration that Celia herself felt quite excited when ‘the joint’ was placed proudly on the table.

  For lunch Celia usually went out and fetched something from a national kitchen near by. She did not dare to use up the gas ration too early in the week. By using the gas stove only morning and evening, and reducing baths to twice a week, they could just keep within it and allow for firing in the sitting-room.

  In the matter of butter and sugar Mrs Steadman was a valuable ally, producing supplies of these commodities much in excess of the ration tickets.

  ‘They know me, you see,’ she said to Celia. ‘Young Alfred, he always tips me the wink when I come in. “Plenty for you, Ma,” he says. But he doesn’t go handing it out to every fine lady that comes in. He and I know each other.’

  Thus cared for by Mrs Steadman, Celia had her whole day practically to herself.

  And she found it increasingly difficult to know what to do with it!

  At home there had been the garden, the flowers to do, her piano. There had been Miriam …

  Here there was nobody. Such friends as she had in London were either married or gone elsewhere or were engaged in war work. Most of them, too, were frankly too rich now for Celia to keep up with. As an unmarried girl she had been asked freely to houses, to dances, to parties at Ranelagh and Hurlingham. But now, as a married woman, all that ceased. She and Dermot could not entertain people in return. People had never meant much to Celia, but she did feel the inactivity of her days. She proposed to Dermot taking up hospital work.

  He negatived the idea violently. He hated the idea of it. Celia gave in to him. In the end he agreed to her taking up a course of typewriting and shorthand. Also bookkeeping which, as Celia pointed out, would be useful to her if she wanted a job afterwards.

  She found life much pleasanter now she had some work to do. She took an extreme pleasure in bookkeeping – the neatness and accuracy of which pleased her.

  And then there was the joy of Dermot’s return. They were both so excited and happy in their new life together.

  Best of all was the time when they would sit in front of the fire before going to bed, Dermot with a cup of Ovaltine, Celia with a cup of Bovril.

  They could as yet hardly believe it was true – that they were really together for always.

  Dermot was not demonstrative. He never said, ‘I love you,’ hardly ever attempted a spontaneous caress. When he did break through his reserve and say something, Celia treasured it up as something to remember. It was so obviously difficult for him that she prized these chance words and sayings all the more. They always startled her when they came.

  They would be sitting talking of the oddities of Mrs Steadman when suddenly Dermot would clutch her to him and stammer:

  ‘Celia – you’re so beautiful – so beautiful. Promise me you’ll always be beautiful.’

  ‘You’d love me just the same if I weren’t.’

  ‘No. Not quite. It wouldn’t be quite the same. Promise me. Say you’ll always be beautiful …’

  6

  Three months after settling in, Celia went home for a week’s visit. She found her mother looking ill and tired. Grannie, on the other hand, was looking blooming and had a splendid repertoire of German atrocity stories.

  Miriam was like a drooping flower placed in water. The day after Celia’s return she had revived – was her old self again.

  ‘Have you missed me so terribly, Mummy?’

  ‘Yes, darling. Don’t talk about it. It had to come some day. And you’re happy – you look happy.’

  ‘Yes, oh, Mummy, you were quite wrong about Dermot. He’s kind – he’s so kind that nobody could be kinder … And we have such fun. You know how I adore oysters. For a joke he got a dozen and put them in my bed – said it was an oyster bed – oh, it sounds silly told, but we laughed and laughed. He’s such a dear. And so good. I don’t think he’s ever done a mean or dishonourable thing in his life. Pender, that’s his batman, thinks the world of “the captain”. He’s rather critical of me. I don’t believe he thinks I’m good enough for his idol. He said the other day, “The captain’s very fond of onions, but we never seem to have them here.” So we had fried ones at once. Mrs Steadman’s on my side. She always wants me to have the food I like. She says men are all very well, but if she once gave in to Steadman where would she be? she’d like to know.’

  Celia sat on her mother’s bed, chatting happily.

  It was lovely to be home – home looked so much lovelier than she remembered. It was so clean – the spotless cloth for lunch, and the shining silver and the polished glasses. How much one took for granted!

  The food, too, though very plain, was delicious, appetizingly cooked and served.

  Mary, her mother told her, was going to join the WAACS.

  ‘I think it’s quite right that she should. She’s young.’

  Gregg had proved unexpectedly difficult since the war. She grumbled unceasingly at the food.

  ‘A hot meat dinner every day is what I’ve been used to – these insides and this fish – it’s not right and it’s not nourishing.’

  In vain Miriam tried to explain the restrictions in war time. Gregg was too old to take it in.

  ‘Economy’s one thing – proper food’s another. And margarine I never have eaten and never will. My father would turn in his grave if he knew his daughter was eating margarine – and in a proper gentleman’s house too.’

  Miriam laughed when telling this to Celia.

  ‘At first I was rather weak and used to give her the butter and eat margarine myself. Then, one day, I wrapped the butter in the margarine paper, and the margarine in the butter paper. I took them both out and told her this was unusually good margarine – just like butter – would she taste it? She did and pulled a face at once. No, indeed, she couldn’t eat stuff like that. So then I produced the real margarine in the butter paper and said did she like that better? She tasted it and said, “Ah, yes, that was the right thing.” So then I told her the truth and I was rather fierce – and since then we share the butter and margarine equally, and we’ve had no fuss.’

  Grannie was also adamant on the subject of food.

  ‘I hope, Celia, you take plenty of butter and eggs. They’re good for you.’

  ‘Well, one can’t get very much butter, Grannie.’

  ‘Nonsense, my dear, it’s good for you. You must have it. That beautiful girl, Mrs Riley’s daughter, died only the other day. Starved herself. Out working all day – and all these scraps at home. Pneumonia on top of influenza. I could have told her how it would be.’

  And Grannie nodded cheerfully over her knitting needles.

  Poor Grannie, her sight was failing badly. She only knitted on big pins now, and even then she often dropped a stitch or made a mistake in the pattern. Then she would sit weeping quietly – the tears running down her old roseleaf cheeks.

  ‘It’s the waste of time,’ she would say. ‘It makes me so mad.’

  She was getting increasingly suspicious of her surroundings.

  When Celia came into her bedroom in the morning she would often find the old lady crying.

  ‘It’s my earrings, dearie, my diamond earrings your grandfather gave me. That girl has taken them.’

  ‘Which girl?’

  ‘Mary. She tried to poison me too. She put something in my boiled egg. I tasted it.’

  ‘Oh, no, Grannie, you couldn’t put anything in a boiled egg.’

  ‘I tasted it, my dear. Bitter on my tongue.’ Grannie made a face. ‘A servant girl poisoned her mistress only the other day, I heard about it in the paper. She knows I know about her taking my things. Several things I’ve missed. And now my beautiful earrings.’

  Grannie wept again.

  ‘Are you sure, G
rannie? Perhaps they’re in the drawer all the time.’

  ‘It’s no use your looking, dear, they’re gone.’

  ‘Which drawer was it?’

  ‘The right-hand one – where she passed with the tray. I rolled them up in my mittens. But it’s no use. I looked carefully.’

  Then Celia would produce the earrings rolled up in a strip of lace, and Grannie would express delighted surprise and say that Celia was a good, clever girl, but her suspicions of Mary remained unabated.

  She would lean forward in her chair and hiss excitedly.

  ‘Celia – your bag. Your handbag. Where is it?’

  ‘In my room, Grannie.’

  ‘They’re up there now. I heard them.’

  ‘Yes, they’re doing the room.’

  ‘They’ve been a long time. They’re looking for your bag. Always keep it with you.’

  Writing cheques was another thing Grannie found very difficult with her failing eyesight. She would get Celia to stand over her and tell her where to start and when she was reaching the end of the paper.

  Then, with a sigh, the cheque written, she would give it to Celia to take to the bank to cash.

  ‘You’ll notice I’ve made it out for ten pounds, although the bills come to just under nine. But never make out a cheque for nine pounds, Celia, remember that. It’s so easily altered into ninety.’

  Since Celia herself was cashing the cheque, she was the only person who could have had the opportunity of altering it, but Grannie had not perceived that. It was merely part of her fury for self-preservation.

  Another thing that upset her was when Miriam gently told her that she must have some more dresses made.

  ‘You know, Mother, the one you’ve got on is almost frayed through.’

  ‘My velvet? My beautiful velvet?’

  ‘Yes, you can’t see. But it’s really in a terrible state.’

  Grannie would sigh piteously, and tears would come into her eyes.

  ‘My velvet. My good velvet; I got this velvet in Paris.’

  Grannie was suffering from having been uprooted from her surroundings. She found the country terribly dull after Wimbledon. So few people dropped in, and there was nothing going on. She never went outside into the garden, for fear of the air. She sat in the dining-room as she had sat in Wimbledon. Miriam read the papers to her, and after that the days passed slowly for both of them.

  Almost Grannie’s only relaxation was the ordering in of large quantities of foodstuffs, and after they had arrived the discussion and selection of a good hiding place for them so that they should not be convicted of ‘hoarding’. The tops of the cabinets were filled with tins of sardines and biscuits; tinned tongues and packets of sugar were concealed in unexpected cupboards. Grannie’s own trunks were full of tins of golden syrup.

  ‘But, Grannie, you really oughtn’t to hoard food.’

  ‘Tchah!’ Grannie gave a good-humoured laugh. ‘You young people don’t know about things. In the siege of Paris people ate rats. Rats. Forethought, Celia, I was brought up to have forethought.’

  And then Grannie’s face would go suddenly alert.

  ‘The servants – they’re in your room again. What about your jewellery?’

  7

  Celia had been feeling slightly sick for some days. Finally she took to her bed and was prostrate with violent nausea.

  She said:

  ‘Mummy, do you think this means I’m going to have a baby?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Miriam looked worried and depressed.

  ‘Afraid?’ Celia was surprised. ‘Don’t you want me to have a baby?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Not yet. Do you want one yourself very much?’

  ‘Well –’ Celia considered – ‘I hadn’t thought about it. We’ve never talked about having a baby, Dermot and I. I suppose we knew we might have one. I wouldn’t like not to have one. I should feel I’d missed something …’

  Dermot came down for the week-end.

  It was not at all like in books. Celia was still being violently sick the whole time.

  ‘Why are you so sick, do you think, Celia?’

  ‘Well, I expect I’m going to have a baby.’

  Dermot was terribly upset.

  ‘I didn’t want you to have one. I feel a brute – an absolute brute. I can’t bear you to be sick and miserable.’

  ‘But, Dermot, I’m very pleased about it. We’d hate not to have a baby.’

  ‘I wouldn’t care. I don’t want a baby. You’ll think of it all the time and not of me.’

  ‘I shan’t. I shan’t.’

  ‘Yes, you will. Women do. They’re forever being domestic and messing about with a baby. They forget about their husbands altogether.’

  ‘I shan’t. I shall love the baby because it’s your baby – don’t you understand? It’s because it’s your baby that it’s exciting – not because it’s a baby. And I shall always love you best – always – always – always …’

  Dermot turned away – tears in his eyes.

  ‘I can’t bear it. I’ve done this to you. I could have prevented it. You might even die.’

  ‘I shan’t die. I’m frightfully strong.’

  ‘Your grandmother says you’re very delicate.’

  ‘Oh, that’s just Grannie. She can’t bear to believe anyone enjoys rude health.’

  Dermot took a lot of comforting. His anxiety and misery on her behalf touched Celia deeply.

  When they returned to London he waited on her hand and foot, urging her to take patent foods and quack medicines to stop the sickness.

  ‘It gets better after three months. The books say so.’

  ‘Three months is a long time. I don’t want you to be sick for three months.’

  ‘It is rather beastly, but it can’t be helped.’

  Expectant motherhood, Celia felt, was distinctly disappointing. It was so different in books. She had visualized herself sitting sewing little garments while she thought beautiful thoughts about the coming child.

  But how could one think beautiful thoughts when one was in the condition of one on a Channel steamer? Intense nausea blots out all thought! Celia was just a healthy but suffering animal.

  She was sick not only in the early morning, but all day long at irregular intervals. Apart from the discomfort, it made life somewhat of a nightmare to her, since she never knew when the fit would seize her. Twice she jumped off a bus in the nick of time and was sick in the gutter. Under these circumstances, invitations to people’s houses could not safely be accepted.

  Celia stayed at home feeling miserably ill, occasionally going for a walk for exercise. She had to give up her secretarial training. Sewing made her giddy. She lay in a chair and read, or listened to the rich obstetric reminiscences of Mrs Steadman.

  ‘It was when I was carrying Beatrice, I remember. It come over me in the greengrocer’s sudden like (I’d dropped in for a half of sprouts). I’ve got to have that pear! Big and juicy, it was – the expensive kind that rich people has for dessert. Before you could say knife, I’d up and ate it! The lad who was serving me, he stared – and no wonder. But the proprietor, he was a family man, he knew what it was. “That’s all right, son,” he said. “Don’t you take no notice.” “I’m ever so sorry,” I said. “That’s all right,” he said. “I’ve got seven myself, and the missus had a fancy for nothing but pickled pork the last time.”’

  Mrs Steadman paused for breath, and added:

  ‘I wish your Ma could be with you, but of course there’s the old lady, your grandmother, to be considered.’

  So did Celia wish her mother could come to her. The days were a nightmare. It was a foggy winter – day after day of fog. So terribly long till Dermot returned.

  But he was so sweet when he did. So anxious about her. He had usually some new book he had bought on pregnancy. After dinner he used to read out extracts from it.

  ‘Women sometimes have a craving for strange and exotic food at these times. In olden days suc
h cravings were always supposed to be satisfied. Nowadays they should be controlled when of a harmful character. Do you feel any longings for strange exotic foods, Celia?’

  ‘I don’t care what I eat.’

  ‘I’ve been reading up about twilight sleep. It seems quite the thing to have.’

  ‘Dermot, when do you think I shall stop being sick? It’s past four months.’

  ‘Oh, it’s bound to stop soon. All the books say so.’

  But in spite of what the books said, it didn’t. It went on and on.

  Dermot, of his own accord, suggested that Celia should go home.

  ‘It’s so dreadful for you here all day.’

  But Celia refused. He would, she knew, feel hurt if she went. And she didn’t want to go. Of course, it was going to be all right; she wouldn’t die, as Dermot so absurdly suggested, but – just in case – after all, women sometimes did – she wasn’t going to miss a minute of her time with Dermot …

  Sick as she was, she still loved Dermot – more than ever.

  And he was so sweet to her – and so funny.

  Sitting one evening, she watched his lips moving.

  ‘What is it, Dermot? What are you saying to yourself?’

  Dermot looked rather sheepish.

  ‘I was just imagining that the doctor said to me, “We can’t save both the mother and the child.” And I said, “Hack the child in pieces.”’

  ‘Dermot, how brutal of you.’

  ‘I hate him for what he’s doing to you – if it is a he. I want it to be a she. I wouldn’t mind having a blue-eyed long-legged daughter. But I hate the thought of a beastly little boy.’

  ‘It’s a boy. I want a boy. A boy just like you.’

  ‘I shall beat him.’

  ‘How horrid you are.’

  ‘It’s the duty of fathers to beat their children.’

  ‘You’re jealous, Dermot.’

  He was jealous, horribly jealous.

  ‘You’re beautiful. I want you all to myself.’

  Celia laughed and said: