‘Of course,’ said Templer.
‘This way?’
We tried again. Before Quiggin had reached the door, the board had moved and stopped. This time the result was disappointing. Planchette had written a single word, monosyllabic and indecent. Mona blushed.
‘That sometimes happens,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh, calmly.
She spoke as if it were as commonplace to see such things written on blue ruled accounting paper as on the door or wall of an alley. Neatly detaching that half of the sheet, she tore it into small pieces and threw them into the waste-paper basket.
‘Only too often,’ said Stripling with a sigh.
He had evidently accepted the fact that his enjoyment for that afternoon was at an end. Mona giggled.
‘We will stop now,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh, speaking with the voice of authority. ‘It is really no use continuing when a Bad Influence once breaks through.’
‘I’m surprised he knew such a word,’ said Templer.
We sat for a time in silence. Quiggin’s action in going to the telephone possessed the force of one of those utterly unexpected conversions, upon which a notorious drunkard swears never again to touch alcohol, or a declared pacifist enlists in the army. It was scarcely credible that Planchette should have sent him bustling out of the room to enquire after St. John Clarke’s health, even allowing for the importance to himself of the novelist as a livelihood.
‘We shall have to be departing soon, mon cher’, said Mrs. Erdleigh, showing Stripling the face of her watch.
‘Have some tea,’ said Templer. ‘It will be appearing at any moment.’
‘No, we shall certainly have to be getting along, Pete,’ said Stripling, as if conscious that, having been indulged over Planchette, he must now behave himself specially well. ‘It has been a wonderful afternoon. Quite like the old days. Wish old Sunny could have been here. Most interesting too.’
He had evidently not taken in Quiggin’s reason for hurrying to the telephone, nor had any idea of the surprising effect that Planchette’s last few sentences had had on such a professional sceptic. Perhaps he would have been pleased to know that Quiggin had acquired at least enough belief to be thrown into a nervous state by those cryptic remarks. More probably, he would not have been greatly interested. For Stripling, this had been a perfectly normal manner of passing his spare time. He would never be able to conceive how far removed were such activities from Quiggin’s daily life and manner of approaching the world. In Stripling, profound belief had taken the place of any sort of halting imagination he might once have claimed.
Quiggin now reappeared. He was even more disturbed than before.
‘I am afraid I must go home immediately,’ he said, in some agitation. ‘Do you know when there is a train? And can I be taken to the station? It is really rather urgent.’
‘Is he dying?’ asked Mona, in an agonised voice.
She was breathless with excitement at the apparent confirmation of a message from what Mrs. Erdleigh called ‘the Other Side’. She took Quiggin’s arm, as if to soothe him. He did not answer at once, apparently undecided at what should be made public. Then he addressed himself to me.
‘The telephone was answered by Mark,’ he said, through his teeth.
For Quiggin to discover Members reinstated in St. John Clarke’s flat within a few hours of his own departure was naturally a serious matter.
‘And is St. John Clarke worse?’
‘I couldn’t find out for certain,’ said Quiggin, almost wretchedly, ‘but I think he must be for Mark to be allowed back. I suppose St. J. wanted something done in a hurry, and told the maid to ring up Mark as I wasn’t there. I must go at once.’
He turned towards the Templers.
‘I am afraid there is no train for an hour,’ Templer said, ‘but Jimmy is on his way to London, aren’t you, Jimmy? He will give you a lift.’
‘Of course, old chap, of course.’
‘Of course he can. So you can go with dear old Jimmy and arrive in London in no time. He drives like hell.’
‘No longer,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh, with a smile. ‘He drives with care.’
I am sure that the last thing Quiggin wanted at that moment was to be handed over to Stripling and Mrs. Erdleigh, but there was no alternative if he wanted to get to London with the least possible delay. A curious feature of the afternoon had been the manner in which all direct contact between himself and Mrs. Erdleigh had somehow been avoided. Each no doubt realised to the full that the other possessed nothing to offer: that any exchange of energy would have been waste of time.
In Quiggin’s mind, the question of St. John Clarke’s worsened state of health, as such, had now plainly given place to the more immediate threat of Members re-entering the novelist’s household on a permanent footing. His fear that the two developments might be simultaneous was, I feel sure, not necessarily based upon entirely cynical premises. In a weakened state, St. John Clarke might easily begin to regret his earlier suspension of Members as a secretary. Sick persons often vacillate. Quiggin’s anxiety was understandable. No doubt he regarded himself, politically and morally, as a more suitable secretary than Members. It was, therefore, reasonable that he should wish to return as soon as possible to the field of operations.
Recognising at once that he must inevitably accompany the two of them, Quiggin accepted Stripling’s offer of conveyance. He did this with a bad grace, but at the same time insistently, to show there must be no delay now the matter had been decided. This sudden disintegration of the party was displeasing to Mona, who probably felt now that she had wasted her opportunity of having Quiggin in the house; just as on the previous day she had wasted her meeting with him in the Ritz. She seemed, at any rate, overwhelmed with vague, haunting regrets for the manner in which things had turned out; all that unreasoning bitterness and mortification to which women are so subject. For a time she begged them to stay, but it was no good.
‘But promise you will ring up.’
She took Quiggin’s hand. He seemed surprised, perhaps even rather touched at the warmth with which she spoke. He replied with more feeling than was usual in his manner that he would certainly communicate with her.
‘I will let you know how St. J. is.’
‘Oh, do!
‘Without fail.’
‘Don’t forget.’
Mrs. Erdleigh, in her travelling clothes, had reverted to my first impression of her at the Ufford as priestess of some esoteric cult. Wrapped about with scarves, veils and stoles, she took my hand.
‘Have you met her yet?’ she enquired in a low voice.
‘Yes.’
‘Just as I told you?’
‘Yes.’
Mrs. Erdleigh smiled to herself. They piled into the car, Quiggin glowering in the back, hatless, but with a fairly thick overcoat. Stripling drove off briskly, sending the crisp snow in a shower from the wheels. The car disappeared into the gloomy shadows of the conifers.
We returned to the drawing-room. Templer threw himself into an armchair.
‘What a party,’ he said. ‘Poor old Jimmy really has landed something this time. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have to marry that woman. She’s like Rider Haggard’s She—She who must be obeyed.’
‘I thought she was wonderful,’ said Mona.
‘So does Jimmy,’ said Templer. ‘You know, I can see a look of Babs. Something in the way she carries herself.’
I, too, had noticed an odd, remote resemblance in Mrs. Erdleigh to his elder sister. However, Mona disagreed strongly, and they began to argue.
‘It was extraordinary all that stuff about Marx coming up,’ said Templer. ‘I suppose it was swilling about in old Quiggin’s head and somehow got released.’
‘Of course, you can never believe anything you can’t explain quite simply,’ said Mona.
‘Why should I?’ said Templer.
Tea merged into drinks. Mona’s temper grew worse. I began to feel distinctly tired. Jean had brought out some work, and
was sewing. Templer yawned in his chair. I wondered why he and his wife did not get on better. It was extraordinary that he seemed to please so many girls, and yet not her.
‘It was a pretty stiff afternoon,’ he said.
‘I enjoyed it,’ said Mona. ‘It was a change.’
‘It certainly was.’
They began to discuss Planchette again; ending inevitably in argument. Mona stood up.
‘Let’s go out tonight.’
‘Where to?’
‘We could dine at Skindles.’
‘We’ve done that exactly a thousand and twenty-seven times. I’ve counted.’
‘Then the Ace of Spades.’
‘You know how I feel about the Ace of Spades after what happened to me there.’
‘But I like it.’
‘Anyway, wouldn’t it be nicer to eat in tonight? Unless Nick and Jean are mad to make a night of it.’
I had no wish to go out to dinner; Jean was noncommittal. The Templers continued to argue. Suddenly Mona burst into tears.
‘You never want to do anything I want,’ she said. ‘If I can’t go out. I shall go to bed. They can send up something on a tray. As a matter of fact I haven’t been feeling well all day.’
She turned from him, and almost ran from the room.
‘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 aesthetic 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 help 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.