The Merciless Ladies (38 page)

Climb stiffly out, tired now, and chilled and hungry and afraid. Go to the door and knock. An outrage in breaking this peace.

The door opened and Holly stood there in a dressing-gown. Her face lit up and she uttered a squeak of pleasure.

‘Bill! … I thought you were Mrs Dawson with the milk. Come in, come in. How did you … In that car? Was the snow bad? It's
so
unusual so early. Paul's still asleep. Paul! Paul! Why didn't you wire us you were coming?'

She kissed me and I went in and sat back in an easy chair while she bent to set the fire in the grate and chattered.

‘Where did you spend last night? Could you drink a cup of tea? I was going to make one. Paul usually comes down, but he was working late, so I've stolen a march on him. How long can you stay?'

I stared at the pleasant room, at the morning light striking a glint from Holly's hair. She bent prayer-mat fashion before the fire and began to blow through the bars.

‘Let me do that', I said, going down beside her.

‘Where did you stop the night?'

‘Lancaster.'

‘And why so pale and wan, young lover, prithee why so pale? Did they turn you out without breakfast?'

‘I was afraid of further snow. I was afraid the pass might be impracticable.'

‘You came over Long Neck? You might have been stuck there all day!' She leaned back on her heels. ‘You look
tired
.'

‘I've had a touch of flu, so took a couple of days off. I thought the drive would do me good. How are things with you?'

She smiled. ‘I never felt better, Bill. Paul is still painting as if he hadn't a moment to lose, painting as if … What a tragic end for poor Olive … I
was
sorry.'

‘They wired you, then.'

‘Yes. I told Paul he ought to go to the funeral. He said he couldn't.'

‘It wouldn't do any good.'

Their mixed-up cocker spaniel, Ethelred, came bounding into the room and, finding my face accessible, licked it with enthusiasm.

‘It'll make a big difference to us, but one tries not to look at it that way.'

‘There's no reason why you shouldn't look at it that way. There's no reason not to be thankful.'

She looked at me. ‘It wasn't about that that you came? Has the inquest been held?'

‘It'll be just a matter of form … I think I would like a cup of tea, Holly. Can I make it?'

She scrambled to her feet. ‘ The kettle's on the oil stove. Let's go and see if it's boiling.'

‘It's boiling and I've brewed the tea', said Paul from the door.

It was interesting to note the way in which he was recalling North-country phrases into his speech.

II

That was perhaps the strangest day of my life.

We were happy together, even high-spirited, while the shadow of little Olive hung over us.

Or rather it hung over me, not over them.
Their
concern with her had ended.

After lunch Paul asked me the same question as Holly had. Both of them in their hearts perhaps had a feeling that my visit to them in this hurried manner was not purely a chance impulse. Mr Rosse's telegram had stated that Olive had shot herself; but Paul at least was not satisfied with the bare statement; when we were alone he began to question me to find out all I knew. Parrying his questions was a difficult matter, for we understood each other too well.

At length he seemed satisfied that I was as ignorant as I seemed.

‘Well', he said, ‘I can't begin to pretend I'm sorry. Why be a hypocrite? It was my fault in the first place for marrying her; but we can't go on for ever paying for our mistakes. I can't believe yet that it's all over. I can't get away from the feeling that wherever she's gone she'll contrive to send me a solicitor's letter.'

‘Are you still talking about that?' said Holly, coming in. ‘It's past. Now you've only me to maintain. Isn't that enough to talk about?'

‘Indeed, yes.' He laughed and stretched his legs to the fire. His eyes followed her. ‘ When I can believe it's true I shall feel like a millionaire. No, that's wrong. I shall feel like myself, but twice as free.'

‘You look like a tramp', said Holly.

Paul laughed again. ‘That's part of the fun.'

I eyed him, and wondered whether some of his old companions of the successful years would have identified their friend. His cheeks were thin and tanned and sallow; clothes hung loosely on him; his hair needed cutting; his speech was a natural compromise between its too-rough origin and its too-smooth cultivation. His hands were stained with pigment, he looked worn and tired.

Paul noticed my scrutiny and turned his head and grinned. ‘Don't quote myself against me.'

‘I wasn't going to.'

‘It's been a devious route, I admit. And not yet ended. But it looks a bit straighter from now on.'

‘Not so many of your pictures about.'

‘It's all upstairs.'

Some of his work, when I saw it, still looked unfinished, tentative. But I was much struck by the colours, which had suddenly released themselves from the occasional muddiness of the past and become altogether brilliant.

One of the paintings that impressed me that morning was of a spinning wheel and an old cane armchair, done in a farmhouse down the valley. It is now in the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and I have in front of me an early gallery note about it written by Anthony Pride White.

‘One has to examine this picture at a distance, for its strength at close quarters is a little overpowering. The cane of the chair looks as if it has supported all humanity, and grown sere and yellow with the passage of so much time and stress. The colour of the shawl hanging over its back makes ordinary crimsons anaemic: there never was such a shawl in Cumberland. The sunlight falling through the window is butter yellow, as if coming from a warmth and radiance unknown to ordinary men.'

It is of course the function of the critic to express himself in language of this sort, but for once I would not quarrel with the sentiment.

Of another I saw that day, of two mackerel on a plate, now well known, and now in Cardiff in the National Museum of Wales, A. H. Jennings writes: ‘The blues and greens of this picture are more alive, more radiant than that of almost any painter since Vermeer. His use of white pigment is particularly impressive. Two fish on an old kitchen plate, glinting luminously as if still dripping from the sea. That is all. Yet one imagines that in the dark the painting will be phosphorescent.'

A third, of which nobody has written, and the one I found most illuminating of a change in development and mood, was a large canvas of Holly standing by the window in his studio wearing a grey woollen frock. She had her back to the painter and the light shone through her hair. Her slim, tall figure was painted in soft, very heavy strokes of grey and green. The figure is too simplified to be a likeness, yet it is unmistakably Holly. Paul has painted the essence of her more than just her physical form. He seems to have seen her with the half-blindness, the half-clairvoyance of a lover and in so doing to have expressed both the individual and the universal.

I have to write about this painting myself, for it has never been exhibited and is still on the wall of my bedroom.

We left Paul pottering with some canvases he had primed, deciding whether they were fit for use, and returned to the sitting-room with the welcome warmth of its peat fire. Ethelred lay nose on paws against the fender. Outside the sky had cleared and the sun, less etiolated than at dawn, glistened over the thin white landscape.

‘This snow', she said. ‘We've
never
had it so early.'

‘It'll pass', I said, ‘like everything else.'

‘That's rather a depressing remark.'

‘Think nothing of it.'

‘His work', she said. ‘It's different, isn't it? I believe he's happy for the first time in his life.'

‘And you?'

She stooped to fondle Ethelred's ear.

‘Women are primary producers, aren't they? Great discovery of mine. Now I'm going to have a baby everything seems more complete. Old and puzzling pieces have fitted in. I've done the jig-saw.'

‘Any plans yet?'

‘About? … I think we may go a bit nearer civilization for the Event. Where we haven't decided. I thought I'd stay with Ma, but Paul thought she wasn't the type to have the responsibility put on her.'

‘Thank God for that', I said.

‘Well, we might have had to. But now – with this happening to Olive …'

We listened to the wind moving down the valley. She was sitting on the window side of the fire so that her face was in shadow. The light struck the curve of her cheek. Her long fingers clasped and unclasped.

‘And you, Bill?'

‘What?'

‘What about you? Are you happy? Or at least content?'

‘… I'm always more content for seeing you.'

‘Is that an answer? … I see it's the only answer I shall get.' She leaned forward and poked the fire. Sparks and a blaze broke reluctantly from the peat. Ethelred cocked a bloodshot eye. ‘Anyway … it's nice to chatter.'

‘Chatter on.'

The invitation brought silence. I thought of men in London painstakingly reconstructing the events of a crime.

‘Tell me, Bill: when I married Paul, did you think the marriage would be a success?'

‘If you must know', I said, ‘no.'

‘And have I given you the impression that it is a success now?'

‘You have.' I shifted in my seat. ‘ It wasn't unnatural to feel at first …'

‘Yes, I know. Well, that's all right. It's because I'm happy now and begin to see things more straightforwardly, and because of everything, that I'd like to tell you more than you already know. I – hope it won't spoil anything. I expect I should really keep my mouth shut.'

She got up and stood by the fire. Under her light and casual manner she was finding it difficult to express something. For a few moments I forgot the patient men.

‘I married Paul', she said, ‘not at the time because I was fearfully in love with him, but because his feeling for me was stronger than anything I could work up in myself either for or against. And he needed me: I knew that, could feel that. All the time he has needed me. It's funny how things work out, isn't it? For these three years of our marriage there's been that in addition to my affection for him to keep me – in contact. It's kept me content. I've been happy in all sorts of things – in his feeling for me, in the knowledge that I was indispensable ro the creation of something greater than either of us. Isn't that enough for anyone?'

‘But …'

She looked at the door to make sure it was shut.

‘And now I feel in a short time he'll have begun to do what he set out to do. I may always be necessary to him, but not to the same extent. If I were to die tomorrow he'd still go on painting like this. So, in a way, feeling that, I might have begun to – to slack off. Is that the way to put it? Do you see what I mean? But this year I've felt more – and now there's this. There have always been two Pauls I've been concerned about: the ordinary human Paul who is just as weak and easily disorganized and responsive to praise, and generous and fractious and fallible as any of us; and the creative, slightly more than human Paul who is prepared to ride roughshod over anything and everything in pursuit of his aims, and can be quite a devil to live with. Now I feel that one, the second one, can get along on his own; but instead I've got a young Paul to think of and to care about. It's a fair exchange and I'm more than content.'

I rose too and went to the window. The brilliance of the sun dazzled my eyes. I had hardly slept for three nights. I couldn't be concerned with the finer shades of phrasing.

‘Do you mean you don't love Paul?'

She made a brief gesture. ‘It isn't as simple as
that
. I've always been fond of him. From the first, something … But it wasn't more than that at first.' I caught the gleam of her teeth again, but wasn't sure if the glint betokened amusement. She had obviously begun with the intention of speaking lightly, objectively. But every now and then something else crept into her voice. ‘At the start – you see, I was – it seemed such a tall order. The idea of being the wife of a fashionable portrait painter didn't attract a bit. Yet I knew – I felt he'd never get where he ought if I said no. And he seemed to love me – with such intenseness and such restraint. But I was scared. That seems funny now. I think Lady Jane Grey must have felt like that when someone went in and told her she was going to have to be a queen. Those months while we were waiting for the divorce – they were a bit wearing to us all, but they were trying to me in a way no one suspected. D'you know what I used to do? We can both laugh at it now.'

‘No', I said.

‘I didn't say any prayers. It didn't seem quite fair to make a convenience of somebody I wasn't sure about. So every morning I used to cross my fingers and make a wish that before the day was out you'd ask me to marry
you
instead.'

There was a pause.

‘Oh?' I said.

‘Yes. It does seem pretty quaint now, doesn't it? But it was very much in earnest then. And even afterwards for a time …' She bent again to the fire. ‘ Fortunately you didn't guess. You see, I wasn't a bit ambitious in the sense of wishing to paint London red or see the lights till the small hours every morning. I just wanted to get married in a quiet way and settle down in a quiet way, and a journalist's income would have done.'

‘I suppose', I said. ‘I suppose it was a case of any port in a storm.'

She moved somewhere behind me. ‘Dear Bill. Always so modest. If it won't embarrass you to know it now, the answer is, no. For two years I'm afraid I felt rather badly about you. If you had felt the same, things would have turned out different; but who's to say they would have turned out better? I suppose you never suspected anything?'