While he was still speaking, Laura Morland appeared at the French window, tapped on it, found it shut, waved her hand, disappeared and almost immediately reappeared in the room.
‘In trouble again, George?’ said Laura, twisting up a few odds and ends of hair and pushing them under her hat.
George Knox rolled about in his seat like Dr Johnson, preparatory to speaking, but was forestalled by his wife, who said to Laura:
‘George has to do a talk for the B.B.C., Laura, about Milton, and he can’t think how to begin. I’ve got to go to the village, so do stay with him and help him. Is Tony with you?’
‘He did come with me,’ said Laura, looking vaguely about, ‘but I expect he went round to the kitchen. Oh, no, there he is in the willow tree. I know he’ll fall off into the pond, and if it is deep he will be drowned, and if it is shallow he will suffocate in the mud. Which is it?’
‘I’ll tell him to come in,’ said Anne, soothingly. ‘And I’ll tell them to bring in some tea and cakes and you can have a good long talk.’
Laura saw her hostess cross the lawn and shout to Tony, who on hearing of cakes came down at once, though by as uncomfortable a route and one as much calculated to alarm his mother as possible, winding up with a sketch of falling into the pond, a loud shriek and a jump to earth. After a moment’s conversation with Anne, he arrived at the library door, opened it halfway and stood there, looking injured.
‘Mother,’ said Tony, ‘need I come in? I was just going to show you a new way to climb the willow. You remember the way I climbed it last summer, Mr Knox, getting up by the low branch. Well, that branch was rotten and it broke off, so I invented an awfully good new way. First you get on the boat-house roof —’
‘No, you do not,’ cried George Knox. ‘That roof is made of some material nameless to me, but fragile in the extreme, not calculated to withstand —’
‘It’s three-ply, sir, with asbestos on it, and tarred all over the outside,’ said Tony kindly. ‘It’s absolutely safe, so you needn’t worry. Besides, even if I did go through it, it would only be one leg, and I’d easily get out. Donk and I went on the roof of the bicycle shed at school last term and —’
‘What do I care for what you and your friend with the un-Christian name, that sphinx in whom silence probably conceals total vacuity, did last term?’ cried George Knox, ‘You may both fall through all the bicycle sheds in Christendom, an expression, I admit, my dear Laura, perhaps tautologous when you consider how lately I had used the word un-Christian, though tautologous is not exactly the expression I meant, for though I long ago – not with pride, Laura, not with pride do I say this, but in all humility – lapsed from the Catholic Church to which my mother, herself necessarily as devout Frenchwoman being croyante, not to say pratiquante, doomed me; though I long ago fell away from the Mother of Churches, an expression indefinitely preferable, my dear Laura, to the Scarlet Woman, or the Whore of Babylon, not that I would ever use either; this lapse, I say, does not make me unconscious that the two words Christendom and un-Christian cannot be considered as identical, so that the question of tautology does not arise; but I wander, I become confused…’
George Knox groaned and tried to light his pipe again.
‘You can’t light it, sir, unless you put some tobacco in it,’ said Tony.
George Knox’s spirit was too broken to do anything but groan again.
‘Tony, eat those cakes and look at a book or something,’ said his mother. ‘It’s all right, George, you aren’t mad, only talking too much. One often says a word that’s like another word because the first word reminds you of another word that’s like it, and then you say it. At least I often do. When is this talk about Milton that you’re doing?’
‘On Easter Tuesday,’ said George Knox firmly, ‘I fight with beasts at Ephesus.’
‘If you mean you are talking on the wireless on Easter Tuesday, George,’ said Laura, handing him a cup of tea, ‘say so.’
‘One might make a kind of joke about beasts and the B.B.C.,’ said Tony. ‘Something about the B. Beast C., or the Beast B. C.’
‘One mightn’t,’ snapped George Knox.
‘Sir,’ continued Tony, disregarding these unkind words, ‘can I listen to you talking? Oh Mother, can we listen to Mr Knox talking? We’ll have the new wireless fixed then. Oh Mother, can we? I’d love to hear you on the wireless, sir. Will it be National or Regional? There’s going to be a conference this year about wavelengths. The Droitwich wavelength is too powerful so that it cuts in on all sorts of interesting things. I daresay you’ve noticed that, sir. There are a lot of foreign stations that you can’t get, because of Droitwich cutting in on them. Shall I show you, sir? I can find practically any foreign station without knowing the wavelength. It’s a kind of instinct I have, I suppose.’
As he spoke, and without waiting for an answer, Tony went over to George Knox’s wireless set and turned it on. By a deft manipulation of the knobs he produced from the instrument a succession of wails, hoots, bangs, crackles and sounds as of a distant dance band of demons.
‘Don’t do that, Tony,’ said his mother, eyeing her son’s complacent face with some irritation.
‘But, Mother, that shows. What you need, sir,’ he continued, addressing George Knox, ‘is a super het. It wouldn’t cost an awful lot, and it would cut out all that sort of thing. It’s all to do with electricity and you wouldn’t understand it, especially if I explained it, but a super het gets the wavelengths and makes them so that —’
‘Turn that thing off at once,’ said Dr Ford, who had entered unnoticed in the middle of Tony’s exposition and the continued Brocken performance of the wireless.
‘But sir,’ said Tony reproachfully, ‘I was just telling Mr Knox —’
‘Shut up,’ said Dr Ford.
Laura altered the knobs so that a talk on beekeeping gently permeated the room.
‘But, sir,’ pleaded Tony, his blue eyes full of pure scientific research, ‘Mr Knox really does need a super het. You see the transformer, Dr Ford, that little box thing on the floor?’
‘I’ll admit that I see it,’ said Dr Ford cautiously, ‘but no more.’
‘Well, sir, suppose that you took the plug out and put it in here,’ said Tony, suiting the action to the word, ‘it would —’
There was another crackle, a flash and the light in the wireless set went out.
‘Now you’ve blown a fuse out,’ said Dr Ford, with gloomy triumph, ‘and thank God, we can’t hear any more about bees.’
‘Good God! Good God! Is the house on fire?’ asked George Knox.
‘No, Knox. But the lights are all out,’ said Dr Ford, trying the switch by the door. ‘You’ll have to have a new fuse put in.’
‘I’m awfully sorry, sir,’ said Tony, ‘but I was only explaining the electricity to Mr Knox and somehow the plugs got in the wrong holes. I can easily put a fuse in if you tell me where the main —’
‘Sit still and shut up,’ said Dr Ford, while Laura confounded herself in excuses for her son. ‘What’s your present trouble, Knox?’
‘Milton,’ said the still bewildered George Knox.
On the evening of Easter Tuesday, Laura brought Tony over to Low Rising. George Knox, reposing himself from the fatigues of his day in town, was sitting by the fire in a dressing-gown, with his wife and Dr Ford to keep him company.
‘Dear Laura,’ said George Knox, ‘you will forgive a worn-out and ageing man if he does not rise. That I see you again is indeed ichor, elixir, but take the will for the deed when I tell you that I am almost under orders not to exert myself, am I not, Ford?’
‘Not in the least,’ said Dr Ford.
‘Well, be that as it may,’ said George Knox with some annoyance, ‘I am glad to see you, Laura, yes, faith, heartily glad. Why should I talk like that?’ he added, glaring suspiciously round.
‘You can’t help it, George,’ said Laura, sitting down. ‘Now tell me all about the talk.’
‘Tell me first,’ said Ge
orge Knox, ‘whether you, I will not say enjoyed, for that is hardly a word to apply to Milton, but whether you found in what I said any one word, any breath, of the integral essence of that great, though domestically unpleasant poet of our notable Commonwealth?’
Tony fixed an inscrutable gaze on his mother, who replied with almost imperceptible hesitation.
‘I’m sure it was all perfectly marvellous George, but I want to hear about your part. Were you nervous?’
‘Why,’ began George Knox, settling himself comfortably, ‘why one like myself who, I say it without any mock-modesty, can purge the minds of thousands of readers with pity and contempt, no, contempt is not the word, but let that pass; why, I say, one like myself, master of the written word, should be, by the mere fact of sitting alone, or almost alone, for the presence of the charming youth who was my guide cannot be counted as in any way disturbing, with a manuscript carefully prepared, before him – though manuscript is not the word I should use when my dear wife had so exquisitely, so skilfully, typed it for me with this hand, which I humbly salute,’ said George Knox, kissing his wife’s hand, ‘why it should harrow up my soul and freeze my middle-aged blood, is beyond my power to tell.’
‘Tony,’ said Dr Ford, seeing that his young friend was preparing to correct this quotation, ‘just go and see if my lights are on.’
‘But why,’ continued George Knox, ‘should I harrow your blood Laura, blood to which I hesitate to affix an epithet, for though you are not young, nay, Laura, no longer young, you are yet young to me, or is it rather that we grow old together and so do not see the greying, or in my case, the receding hair, the sunken eye, the missing, or in your case, the false, teeth —’
‘That’s enough, George,’ said his wife placidly. ‘Laura, dear, do tell us if you liked George’s talk.’
‘Oh, it’s too dreadful,’ said Laura, ‘but we never heard it. Tony did something with the electricity and everything burst.’
‘Mother!’ said Tony, who had returned and was standing in the door twisting himself about. ‘Mother, I only just plugged in Mr Mallow’s set. They oughtn’t to make different voltages.’
‘I have it! I have it!’ cried George Knox, suddenly getting up and striding about.
Everyone looked at him with interest.
‘Anne – No, Laura,’ said George Knox, ‘do you remember this morning, or do I mean last week, when one or perhaps both of you left that door open and I was cudgelling what poor brains I have to remember the allusion that so persistently escaped me?’
‘Say “yes”,’ whispered Anne to Laura.
‘Yes, George,’ said Laura, trying to make a face at Tony that would make him shut the door.
‘Il faut qu’une porte soit ouverte ou fermée,’ said George Knox with conviction, ‘though even that does not – alas! – include the name of the author; which will doubtless return to me when least required, in the bath, at a railway junction, alone on the windy moor; what do I know, but to return to earth; come in at once, my boy, and shut the door, and tell me, without technicalities, for they are as naught to me, or less than naught, though I might as well say more than naught, for how can aught be more than naught, or less if it comes to that – Anne, Anne,’ he called to his wife, ‘what is it that I want to say?’
‘You want to ask Tony what he did to put the wireless out of order,’ said Anne calmly. ‘What happened, Tony?’
‘Well, I didn’t do anything,’ said Tony in an aggrieved tone. ‘Mr Mallow lent me his set, and the voltage was a bit different, but it wasn’t much, so I plugged it in upstairs in the play-room, because I wanted to hear the electric organ from the Wigan Trocette cinema, and then all the lights went out.’
‘I yet fail to grasp the cause and effect,’ said George Knox.
‘I’ll show you, sir,’ said Tony, warming to the subject. ‘You see, lots of people have different voltages, and you need a transformer if you are going to plug in. It’s just the same here, you see, if I took this plug out of your wireless transformer and plugged it in here, all the lights would go out.’
From the black-out which followed three voices emerged.
‘Well,’ said Dr Ford, as he felt in his pocket for the matches, ‘it’s a pity we aren’t all blind like Milton. He wouldn’t have noticed a little thing like this.’
‘Your lights were out, sir,’ said Tony to Dr Ford, ‘and I expect the battery’s run down.’
‘Alfred de Musset!’ cried George Knox with the joy of one who has solved a world problem.
First published in Harper’s Bazaar, January 1937
The Private View
It is true that old Sir Dighton Phelps of Phelps’s Galleries knew all about old paintings, and middle-aged Mr Dighton Phelps knew all about modern paintings, and young Mr Dighton Phelps, known as Mr Dighton, knew all about everything, but it was Miss Brown who kept everyone steady. After the rather disastrous season in which the Old Master purchased by Sir Dighton had not ripened into a genuine Mantegna as thoroughly as one would wish, Miss Brown had soothed Mr Phelps and Mr Dighton, and persuaded them that the ripening process was only deferred. In the same unlikely season, Mr Phelps had backed an extremely unsuccessful show by a young man who had roused his temporary and unjustified enthusiasm, and Mr Dighton had managed to offend William Hay, who could make and unmake Mantegnas with a line from his pen. But good Miss Brown had comforted everyone, and though she could not make good the loss in which Mr Phelps’s ill-advised investment had landed them, nor conciliate William Hay who was in South America, she was so understanding and so competent and so sympathetic that everyone felt things might have been worse. And now a fresh season had begun, and the Gallery was to open with a memorial loan exhibition of the drawings and paintings of Charles Wilson, an eminent Victorian whose romantic works were a complete drug in the market.
Charles Wilson had been dead for a good many years, but this year, being the centenary of his birth, had seemed to the Phelps family a good peg to hang an exhibition on, especially as they had been quietly buying up Wilsons for some time past. So for several months Sir Dighton and Mr Phelps and young Mr Dighton had been hunting up owners of pictures, and trying to follow changes of ownership through old catalogues, and in fact, short of putting advertisements in The Times, which would have roused the suspicion of other dealers, doing all that could be done to get together a representation exhibition. And whichever of them forgot to do a job, or did it badly, or offended an owner, which was easy to do because some picture owners are offended if you do ask for the loan of their pictures and some if you don’t, Miss Brown was always at hand to remind, to carry out, to placate. And it was Miss Brown who supplied Amelia Wilson.
‘I think, Mr Phelps,’ said she to the middle member of the firm, ‘it might be useful if we asked Miss Wilson to help us. Charles Wilson was her great-uncle, and she has some of his pictures and would know where others are.’
‘How do we get at her?’ asked Mr Phelps.
‘She is an old friend of mine,’ said Miss Brown, ‘and I will ask her to lunch and put in a good word.’
Mr Phelps wasn’t quite sure if Miss Brown ought to have any acknowledged existence, or any friends outside the galleries, but for the good of the firm he overlooked this individualistic outbreak and not only encouraged the idea, but told Miss Brown to stay as long as she liked at lunch and take it out of petty cash.
So that is why we find Miss Brown and Amelia Wilson having lunch together at Gunter’s. A most reckless and unbalanced lunch it was, consisting of brioches and croissants with a great deal of butter, and hot chocolate with a great deal of sugar and cream.
‘You see, I’m really on a diet,’ said Amelia to Miss Brown, ‘but I’m not counting this as one of the days.’
‘I’m on a diet too,’ said Miss Brown, with much interest. So she and Amelia stuffed themselves with fattening, indigestible, starchy, delicious food, and talked about their strict régime, and how they were living entirely on grilled chops with no fat, toma
toes, lettuce, eggs and grapefruit.
‘My diet is practically the same as the Hollywood slimming diet,’ said Amelia, ‘but of course I don’t dream of slimming. People are so silly to starve themselves.’
‘My diet is the Hollywood slimming diet,’ said Miss Brown firmly while she ate a large piece of butter with a crumb of brioche sticking to it, ‘and I do try to slim.’
As both of these ladies were very nice ordinary-shaped people, neither fat nor thin, it all seemed unnecessary, but evidently gave satisfaction.
‘Now, about this exhibition of your uncle’s things,’ said Miss Brown. ‘We can’t trace some of his important pictures, and perhaps you will help us. It will be pure kindness on your part, but it may do you good too, because if we get a good boom for Charles Wilsons, you will be able to sell yours if you want to. Only don’t sell any, even to our Mr Phelps, without letting me know, because in your case I shall bite the hand that feeds me and see that it doesn’t do you down. I suppose you remember your uncle quite well. He must have been an interesting man.’
‘I often wish,’ said Amelia pensively, ‘that my uncle Charles were boiled in a pot, and all his pictures with him. It is quite sickening to go through life as the original of Charles Wilson’s Wide-eyed Innocence. I don’t remember Uncle Charles much except that he had a beard and was rather cross, and I only sat to him once for that picture, and I was six years old and sat very badly and he told Mother for goodness’ sake to take the child away, and finished it out of his own head, or from his charwoman’s little girl, I forget which. If you were always being introduced as Charles Wilson’s niece who sat for Wide-eyed Innocence, you’d know what I feel like. It never seems to give one a chance of being oneself, and one is expected to have rather a sacred face about Uncle Charles.’
‘But you will help us with the show, won’t you? You appear to be Only Surviving Relative, and it will make a good effect.’
Christmas at High Rising: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC) Page 5
