Unfinished Portrait

by Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott, Agatha

  Celia was very upset over her friend’s trouble.

  ‘What a lot of sad things there are in the world,’ she said to Dermot.

  ‘That husband of hers must be rather a rotter,’ said Dermot. ‘You know, Celia, you sometimes seem to think that I’m selfish – but you might have much worse things to put up with. At any rate, I am a good, straight, undeceiving husband, aren’t I?’

  There was something comic in his tone. Celia kissed him and laughed.

  Three weeks later she went home, taking Judy with her. The house had got to be turned out and gone through. It was a task she dreaded. But no one else could do it.

  Home without her mother’s welcoming smile was unthinkable. If only Dermot could have come with her.

  Dermot himself tried in his own fashion to cheer her up. ‘You’ll enjoy it really, Celia. You’ll find lots of old things you’ve forgotten all about. And it will be lovely down there this time of year. It will do you good to have a change. Here am I having to grind along in an office every day.’

  Dermot was so inadequate! He persistently ignored the significance of emotional stress. He shied away from it like a frightened horse.

  Celia cried out – angry for once:

  ‘You talk as though it was a holiday!’

  He looked away from her.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘so it will be in a way …’

  Celia thought: ‘He’s not kind … he’s not …’

  A great wave of loneliness passed over her. She felt afraid …

  How cold the world was – without her mother …

  3

  Celia went through a bad time in the next few months. She had lawyers to see, all kinds of business questions to settle.

  Her mother had, of course, left hardly any money. There was the question of the house to consider – whether to keep it or sell it. It was in a very bad state – there had been no money for repairs. A fairly large sum would have to be spent on it almost immediately if the whole place were not to go to rack and ruin. In any case, it was doubtful if a purchaser would consider it in its present condition.

  Celia was torn by indecision.

  She could not bear to part with it – yet common sense whispered that it was the best thing to do. It was too far from London for her and Dermot to live in it – even if the idea had appealed to Dermot (and Celia was sure it would not appeal to him). The country, to Dermot, meant a first-class golf course.

  Was it not, then, mere sentiment on her part to insist on clinging to the place?

  Yet she could not bear to give it up. Miriam had made such valiant struggles to keep it for her. It was she herself who had dissuaded her mother from selling it long ago … Miriam had kept it for her – for her and her children.

  Did Judy care for it as she had done? She thought not. Judy was so aloof – so unattached – she was like Dermot. People like Dermot and Judy lived in places because they were convenient. In the end Celia asked her daughter. Celia often felt that Judy, at eight years old, was far more sensible and practical than herself.

  ‘Will you get a lot of money for it if you sell it, Mummy?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. You see, it’s an old-fashioned house – and it’s right in the country – not near a town.’

  ‘Well, then, perhaps you’d better keep it,’ said Judy. ‘We can come here in the summer.’

  ‘Are you fond of being here, Judy? Or do you like the Lodge best?’

  ‘The Lodge is very small,’ said Judy. ‘I’d like to live in the Dormy House. I like big – big – houses.’

  Celia laughed.

  It was true what Judy had said – she would get very little for the house if she sold it now. Surely even as a business proposition it would be better to wait until country houses were less of a drug in the market. She went into the question of the minimum repairs that were absolutely necessary. Perhaps, when they were completed, she could find a tenant for the house furnished.

  The business side of things had been worrying, but it had kept her mind away from sad thoughts.

  Now there came the part she had dreaded – the turning out. If the house was to be let, it must first be cleared. Some of the rooms had been locked up for years – there were old trunks, drawers, and cupboards, all crammed with memories of the past.

  4

  Memories …

  It was so lonely – so strange in the house.

  No Miriam …

  Only trunks full of old clothes – drawers full of letters and photographs …

  It hurt – it hurt horribly.

  A japanned box with a stork on it that she had loved as a child. Inside it folded letters. One from Mummy. ‘My own precious lamb pigeony pumpkin …’ The scalding tears fell down Celia’s cheeks …

  A pink silk evening dress with little rosebuds – shoved into a trunk – in case it might be ‘renovated’ – and forgotten. One of her first evening dresses … She remembered the last time she had worn it … Such a gauche, eager, idiotic creature …

  Letters belonging to Grannie – a whole trunk full. She must have brought them with her when she came. Photograph of an old gentleman in a Bath chair, ‘Always your devoted admirer,’ and some initials scrawled on it. Grannie and ‘the men’. Always ‘the men’ even when they were reduced to Bath chairs on the sea front …

  A mug with a picture of two cats on it that Susan had once given her for a birthday present …

  Back – back into the past …

  Why did it hurt so?

  Why did it hurt so abominably?

  If only she wasn’t alone in the house … If only Dermot could be with her!

  But Dermot would say: ‘Why not burn the lot without looking through them?’

  So sensible, but somehow she couldn’t …

  She opened more locked drawers.

  Poems. Sheets of poems in flowing faded handwriting. Her mother’s handwriting as a girl … Celia looked through them.

  Sentimental – stilted – very much of the period. Yes, but something – some quick turn of thought, some sudden originality of phrase – that made them essentially her mother’s. Miriam’s mind – that quick, darting, bird-like mind …

  ‘Poem to John on his birthday …’

  Her father – her bearded, jolly father …

  Here was a daguerreotype of him as a solemn cleanshaven boy.

  Being young – growing old – how mysterious – how frightening it all was. Was there any particular moment at which you were more you than at any other moment?

  The future … Where was she, Celia, going in the future? …

  Well, it was clear enough. Dermot growing a little richer … a large house … another child … two, perhaps. Illnesses – childish ailments – Dermot growing a little more difficult, a little more impatient still of anything interfering with what he wanted to do … Judy growing up – vivid, decided, intensely alive … Dermot and Judy together … Herself, rather fatter – faded – treated with just a touch of amused contempt by those two … ‘Mother, you are rather silly, you know …’ Yes, more difficult to disguise that you were silly as your looks left you. (A sudden flash of memory: ‘Don’t ever grow less beautiful, will you, Celia?’) Yes, but that was all over now. They’d lived together long enough for such things as the beauty of a face to have lost its meaning. Dermot was in her blood and she in his. They belonged – essentially strangers, they belonged. She loved him because he was so different – because though she knew by now exactly how he reacted to things, she did not know and never would know why he reacted as he did. Probably he felt the same about her. No, Dermot accepted things as they were. He never thought about them. It seemed to him a waste of time. Celia thought: ‘It’s right – it’s absolutely right to marry the person you love. Money and outside things don’t count. I should always have been happy with Dermot even if we’d had to live in a tiny cottage and I’d had to do all the cooking and everything.’ But Dermot wasn’t going to be poor. He was a success. He would go on succeeding.
He was that kind of person. His digestion, of course, that would get worse. He would continue to play golf … And they’d go on and on and on – probably at Dalton Heath or somewhere like it … She’d never see things – far-away things – India, China, Japan – the wilds of Baluchistan – Persia, where the names were like music: Ispahan, Teheran, Shiraz …

  Little shivers ran over her … If one could be free – quite free – nothing, no belongings, no houses, or husband or children, nothing to hold you, and tie you, and pull at your heart …

  Celia thought: ‘I want to run away …’

  Miriam had felt like that.

  For all her love of her husband and children she had wanted, sometimes, to get out …

  Celia opened another drawer. Letters. Letters from her father to her mother. She picked up the top one. It was dated the year before his death.

  Dearest Miriam: I hope you will soon be able to join me. Mother seems very well and is in good spirits. Her eyesight is failing, but she knits just as many bedsocks for her beaux!

  I had a long talk with Armour about Cyril. He says the boy is not stupid. He is just indifferent. I talked to Cyril too, and, I hope, made some impression.

  Try and be with me by Friday, my dearest – our twenty-second anniversary. I find it hard to put into words all that you have meant to me – the dearest, most devoted wife any man could have. I am humbly grateful to God for you, my darling.

  Love to our little Poppet.

  Your devoted husband, John.

  Tears came again to Celia’s eyes.

  Some day she and Dermot would have been married twenty-two years. Dermot wouldn’t write a letter like that, but, deep down, he would perhaps feel the same.

  Poor Dermot. It had been sad for him having her so broken and battered this last month. He didn’t like unhappiness. Well, once she had got through with this task she would put grief behind her. Miriam, alive, had never come between her and Dermot. Miriam, dead, must not do so …

  She and Dermot would go forward together – happy and enjoying things.

  That was what would please her mother best.

  She took all her father’s letters out of the drawer, and making a pile of them on the hearth, she set a match to them. They belonged to the dead. The one she had read she kept.

  At the bottom of the drawer was a faded old pocketbook embroidered in gold thread. Inside it was a folded sheet of paper, very old and worn. On it was written: ‘Poem sent me by Miriam on my birthday.’

  Sentiment …

  The world despised sentiment nowadays …

  But to Celia, at that moment, it was somehow unbearably sweet …

  5

  Celia felt ill. The loneliness of the house was getting on her nerves. She wished she had someone to speak to. There were Judy and Miss Hood, but they belonged to such an alien world that being with them brought more strain than relief. Celia was anxious that no shadow should cloud Judy’s life. Judy was so vivid – so full of enjoyment of everything. When she was with Judy, Celia made a point of being gay. They had strenuous games together with balls, and battledores, and shuttlecocks.

  It was after Judy had gone to bed that the silence of the house wrapped itself round Celia like a pall. It seemed so empty – so empty …

  It brought back so vividly those happy, cosy evenings spent talking to her mother – about Dermot, about Judy, about books and people and ideas.

  Now, there was no one to talk to …

  Dermot’s letters were infrequent and brief. He had gone round in seventy-two – he had played with Andrews – Rossiter had come down with his niece. He had got Marjorie Connell to make a fourth. They’d played at Hillborough – a rotten course. Women were a nuisance in golf. He hoped Celia was enjoying herself. Would she thank Judy for her letter?

  Celia began to sleep badly. Scenes came up out of the past and kept her awake. Sometimes she awoke frightened – not knowing what it was that had frightened her. She looked at herself in the glass and knew she looked ill.

  She wrote to Dermot and begged him to come down for the week-end.

  He wrote back:

  Dear Celia: I’ve looked up the train service and it really isn’t worth it. I’d either have to go back Sunday morning or else land in town about two in the morning. The car’s not running very well now, and I’m having her overhauled. I know you’ll realize that I feel it a bit of a strain working all the week. I feel dog-tired by the week-end – and don’t want to embark on train journeys.

  In another three weeks I shall get off for my holiday. I think your idea of Dinard is quite a good one. I’ll write about rooms. Don’t do too much and overtire yourself. Get out a good deal.

  You remember Marjorie Connell, rather nice dark girl, niece of the Barretts? She’s just lost her job. I may be able to get her one here. She’s quite efficient. I took her to a theatre one night as she was down on her luck.

  Take care of yourself and go easy. I think you’re right not to sell the house now. Things may improve and you might get a better price later. I don’t see that it’s ever going to be much use to us, but if you feel sentimental about it I don’t suppose it would cost much to shut it up with a caretaker – and you might let it furnished. The money you get in from the books would pay the rates and a gardener, and I’ll help towards it, if you like. I’m working frightfully hard and come home with a headache most nights.

  It will be good to get right away.

  Love to Judy.

  Your loving,

  Dermot.

  The last week Celia went to the doctor and asked him to give her something to make her sleep. He had known her all her life. He asked her questions, examined her, then he said:

  ‘Can’t you get someone to be with you?’

  ‘My husband is coming in a week’s time. We are going abroad together.’

  ‘Ah, excellent! You know, my dear, you’re heading for a breakdown. You’re very run down – you’ve had a shock, and you’ve been fretting. Very natural. I know how attached you were to your mother. Once you get away with your husband into fresh surroundings you’ll be as right as rain.’

  He patted her on the shoulder, gave her a prescription, and dismissed her.

  Celia counted the days one by one. When Dermot came, everything would be all right. He was to arrive the day before Judy’s birthday. They were to celebrate that, and then they were to start for Dinard.

  A new life … Grief and memories left behind … She and Dermot going forward into the future.

  In four days Dermot would be here …

  In three days …

  In two days …

  Today!

  6

  Something was wrong … Dermot had come, but it wasn’t Dermot. It was a stranger who looked at her – quick sideways glances – and looked away again …

  Something was the matter …

  He was ill …

  In trouble …

  No, it was different from that.

  He was – a stranger …

  7

  ‘Dermot, is anything the matter?’

  ‘What should be the matter?’

  They were alone together in Celia’s bedroom. Celia was doing up Judy’s birthday presents with tissue paper and ribbon.

  Why was she so frightened? Why this sick feeling of terror?

  His eyes – his queer shifty eyes – that looked away from her and back again …

  This wasn’t Dermot – upright, handsome, laughing Dermot …

  This was a furtive, shrinking person … he looked – almost – like a criminal …

  She said suddenly:

  ‘Dermot, there isn’t anything – with money – I mean, you haven’t done anything –?’

  How put it into words? Dermot, who was the soul of honour, an embezzler? Fantastic – fantastic!

  But that shifty evasive glance …

  As though she would care what he had done!

  He looked surprised.

  ‘Money? Oh, no, money’s all ri
ght. I’m – I’m doing very well.’

  She was relieved.

  ‘I thought – it was absurd of me …’

  He said:

  ‘There is something … I expect you can guess.’

  But she couldn’t. If it wasn’t money (she had had a fleeting fear the firm might have failed) she couldn’t imagine what it could be.

  She said: ‘Tell me.’

  It wasn’t – it couldn’t be cancer …

  Cancer attacked strong people, young people, sometimes.

  Dermot stood up. His voice sounded strange and stiff.

  ‘It’s – well, it’s Marjorie Connell. I’ve seen a lot of her, I’m very fond of her.’

  Oh, the relief! Not cancer … But Marjorie Connell – why on earth Marjorie Connell? Had Dermot – Dermot who never looked at a girl –

  She said gently:

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Dermot, if you’ve been rather silly …’

  A flirtation. Dermot wasn’t used to flirting. All the same, she was surprised. Surprised and hurt. While she had been so miserable – so longing for Dermot’s comfort and presence – he had been flirting with Marjorie Connell. Marjorie was quite a nice girl and rather good-looking. Celia thought: ‘Grannie wouldn’t have been surprised.’ And the idea flashed through her mind that perhaps Grannie had known men rather well, after all.

  Dermot said violently:

  ‘You don’t understand. It’s not at all as you think. There has been nothing – nothing –’

  Celia flushed.

  ‘Of course. I didn’t think there had …’

  He went on:

  ‘I don’t know how to make you see. It isn’t her fault … She’s very distressed about it – about you … Oh, God!’

  He sat down and buried his face in his hands …

  Celia said wonderingly:

  ‘You really care for her – I see. Oh, Dermot, I am so sorry …’

  Poor Dermot, overtaken by this passion. He was going to be so unhappy. She mustn’t – she simply mustn’t be beastly about it. She must help him to get over it – not reproach him. It hadn’t been his fault. She hadn’t been there – he’d been lonely – it was quite natural …