The Merciless Ladies (8 page)

I moved on.

‘Well, personally, Nigel, I find the whole collection here quite nauseating. We're in the Nineteen-Twenties, not the Eighteen-Eighties. These people who toe the academic line …'

‘Well, some of them don't know any better, my dear, just not any better. But in the early days one had had hopes of Stafford.'

I moved on again.

‘… They say the one thing Sargent couldn't do was paint a pretty face. Well, very soon that'll be all Stafford
can
do …'

‘I don't know. I think one can pardon him the juggler's tricks. His work always has such a distinct personality …'

A hand touched my arm and I turned to face Jeremy Winthrop, my ‘boss' in Italy, with whom from that country I had had to beat an ignominious retreat, not even quite sure until we had crossed the frontier that some thugs from the OVRA might not come along with belts and truncheons to help us on our way.

‘What', I said, ‘are
you
doing here?'

‘Passing an hour. And deciding whether to go to Washington.'

I'd heard that he had been offered the post.

‘Why not?'

‘Oh, it's a plum job but it's too far
away
. Europe is where it's still all going to happen over the next few years, Bill. I've a feeling in my bones.'

‘Well, I'm stuck here now for a bit, chained to the desk, whether I like it or not.'

‘And picking up on culture.'

‘Sort of.'

‘Stafford's a friend of yours, isn't he?'

‘Yes.'

‘Ever read Stacy Auraonier?'

‘Occasionally.'

‘In a recent short story he called success a beautiful, merciless lady. One woos her at one's own risk. A sort of modern La Belle Dame Sans Merci, pursued by all and gained by few. And she has a knack of destroying those she accepts as lovers. They flourish and flower for a year or two and then suddenly it's all gone to the devil.'

‘I think', I said, ‘if I were Paul I might point out that failure is another merciless lady. Only she's not even beautiful; she's an ugly hag. Who wouldn't prefer the beautiful whore?'

‘Who indeed? Give me the tart carrying the champagne every day.' Winthrop looked at me. ‘You've faith in Stafford, haven't you?'

‘Faith? I don't know. But he's a tough nut.'

‘Maybe it's not just success I mean as such
quick
success. What is he going to do with the rest of his life?'

‘Paint, I imagine.'

‘But you think we're wasting our metaphors.'

‘I believe so.'

During my absence a very strange thing had happened to the Lynns. Dr Lynn had been given a knighthood. This occurrence might have shaken a lesser man, but Sir Clement bore the affliction bravely and refused to be put off his stroke.

As Bertie said to me in a letter, the KBE would have been more welcome if it had had a few golden guineas dangling from the ribbon.

In fact, the breadwinner seemed capable of many things but not of earning bread; and in the end, reluctantly brought to face up to the question of his finances, Sir Clement had been persuaded much against his will to make a lecture tour of America. Lady Lynn – save the mark with her horse's bonnet and ankle socks – refused to accompany him. She had, she said, far too many interests in Reading and district to jettison them at short notice and catch the first boat to New York like a girl of twenty. Let Holly go. Holly had got her expected scholarship for Oxford and her mathematical progress was absurdly rapid. Missing one term wouldn't hurt her. She seemed to enjoy looking after Clem and was just the right age.

So they left England the month before I returned and I didn't see them.

Bertie had left England at about the same time. The story sounded typically eccentric, so I went down to Reading on my first free week-end to discover what it was all about.

I found Lady Lynn there with her sister to keep her company. Lady Lynn greeted me effusively but vaguely, and her sister, tall and ragged as a fir-tree, offered me a limp hand.

‘Clem's away', said Lady Lynn. ‘He's in Cleveland, I think. Lecturing on Röntgen rays. As if he knew.' She pulled down the front of her jumper, which was too short and immediately sprang up again. ‘ Holly's gone with him to see he changes his collars. Leo—'

‘What's this about Bertie?' I said. ‘Giving up his job and—'

‘Yes, he wrote to you, I'm sure. Perhaps it's gone to Turkey, or Rome, is it? He told us over tea one Sunday. ‘‘I'm giving up this insurance racket'', he said. Those were his words. Slang phraseology was always one of his weak points.'

‘But West Africa', I said, ‘to work among lepers?'

‘Put the kettle on, dear. We can have tea now. It's this Toc H, Bill. They called for six volunteers from all over England. They'd only funds for six, and Bertie was one of the chosen. Sounds like the New Testament, doesn't it? He's looking forward to it frightfully; he says he'll be the only white man in the camp.'

‘There's no gas', said her sister.

‘I must have forgotten to wind it up this morning. We'll light a fire. There should be some sticks somewhere.'

‘How do you feel about it?' I asked.

‘Well, Clem said, had he really looked at it all round and did it justify giving up a steady living, and Bertie said yes, so of course there was nothing more to be done.'

‘How long has he gone for?'

‘Two years, to begin. Of course Holly said to Bertie, ‘‘Suppose you get it'', but Bertie says hardly any body ever
dies
of leprosy. They've some new thing now, the juice of some tree. Works wonders.'

‘Does he know anything about medicine?'

‘He's been going to night-school. Unknown to us. Very secretive of him. Could you lend me a match, Bill?'

I pictured Bertie arriving home hours late for dinner two or three nights a week and nobody bothering to ask what he'd been doing.

‘All this unrest', said Lady Lynn. She had picked up an old newspaper to use in the fire, but had become engrossed in the leading article. ‘Why don't they build the
Queen Mary
? Bankers think man was made to fit money, not money to fit man. One thing I'm pleased about, this Toe H thing has a Christian basis. Some sort of a secret society, founded by the early Christians. Double cross of the catacombs.'

‘I'm sorry I wasn't able to see him before he left.'

‘I'm all alone', said Lady Lynn. ‘Except for Vera, who doesn't count. Have you put water in the kettle, dear? No, well, it's burnt its bottom. How was Leo when you saw him?'

‘He told you about his job in the orchestra, I suppose?' I said. ‘Pot-boiling, he called it, in order to work at composition in his spare time.'

‘Holly's growing into a big girl', said Lady Lynn. ‘Strange how all the angles become curvilinear. Don't know quite what we're going to do with her. The trouble with Leo, of course, is that he wants to find a short cut to success. All glory, like that artist friend of yours.'

‘Paul Stafford?' I said cautiously. ‘Have you met him?'

‘Leo and Bertie were at the same school, didn't you know? Vera and I went to a show of his pictures last week in Bond Street. Very dull, I thought. So many faces.'

Lady Lynn, I reflected, had a talent for summary. But a couple of months afterwards, when Paul Stafford's second portrait of Diana Marnsett was to be seen, I wondered if Lady Lynn would have used the same adjective.

A couple of days after Newton, Olive Stafford rang me and said she was having a few people for drinks next Friday, would I come? All my preferences were to think up a hurried excuse, but I weakly accepted, hoping something would really crop up at the office to stop me. Of course it didn't, and I went along, and about two dozen people were there and we drank White Ladies and talked the usual nonsense that is the lingua franca of the cocktail set.

I hadn't seen the flat before and realized that Paul
must
have been generous with his money if with nothing else. It was all white rectangular furniture with expensive fur rugs on a parquet floor; an easel tastefully decorated one corner and in the other, scintillacing with photographs, a baby grand on which at the moment a man called Peter Sharble, who I understood later was an MP, was strumming a tune or two. When I was about to take the first polite opportunity to leave she whispered: ‘Stay on a bit, Bill. You've not got a date? I want to talk.'

So I was stuck until the last guest left and she said: ‘ I'm going to change my drink: how about you?'

I joined her in a stiff whisky and we talked in a desultory way in the smoke-laden room. The conversation turned to Paul. She treated it lightly. Pity the ice had cracked so quickly: the thaw had come unseasonably fast. Was it true Paul was painting Diana Marnsett again? He must be getting short of ideas. Or was it just short of money? She hadn't been to the exhibition at the Grosvenor Galleries. It all seemed
vieux jeu
to her.

Olive was growing her hair. The tight chestnut auburn curls – they had been darkened a shade – were falling out, becoming softer; they gentled her face, made her less elfin, more feminine. The stresses of marriage, and a failed marriage, had done no harm to her looks at all.

She said: ‘It's
good
to have you back. I
rely
on you. Did you know that?'

I smiled. ‘Come off it.'

‘Well it's true! We were – sweethearts for a time, if one can still use the expression. I like –
après
Paul – to think I still have my friends.'

‘You must have many, Olive. You're better looking, more glamorous than ever.'

‘Oh, that. Yes. Well, I have my little side-amours. But that's not quite what I mean. You're something
more
.'

I sipped my drink again, wondering where this was leading.

I said: ‘Does it have to be
après
Paul?'

‘Well, what do you suggest? I can tell you he's hell to live with.'

‘You didn't give it a very long try.'

‘Two
years
. It seemed a lifetime!'

She was sitting with a puckered frown, her face tightened as if to resist inquiry. I said: ‘ These things don't always fall right the first time. Why not give it a second throw?'

She shrugged. ‘ Did he tell you he was willing?'

‘No.'

‘No. Nor is he likely to while he's got that bitch Marnsett in tow.'

‘But
you
might be willing?'

She got up. ‘What d'you think I am, Bill – a squaw, waiting for the Big Chief to lift his finger? To hell with him and his cheap entourage!'

I looked at her standing by the window in her flimsy emerald-green frock and wondered – not altogether idly – if Paul ever
bad
painted her naked. She was a very attractive woman. And could be a dangerous one.

‘What are you thinking, Bill?'

The question came sharply. ‘Thinking? About myself.'

‘That must be quite a change.'

‘Don't you believe it. I'm constantly in my thoughts. But sometimes you intrude on them.'

‘Do I?' She smiled. ‘Tell me.'

I shook my head. ‘It's time I went. Is Maud still here?'

Maud was a plump spotty woman who had let me in and handed round the drinks.

‘Why? D'you need a chaperon?'

‘No … She put my coat away somewhere.'

‘She's in the kitchen. I'll call her in a moment.'

We looked at each other. Olive came across and stood on. tip-toe, hands on my shoulder. I bent and kissed her, my hands moving up and down her back. She gave her whole body to me, like something without bone. After a long time she used her hands to push me away.

‘Yes', she said, ‘I see what you mean. You
do
need a chaperon.'

I said: ‘ Perhaps you need Paul.'

It was a queer note to part on, half sexual, half antagonistic, but that was the way it went between us.

II

I was busy for a while and did not see any of them. I was sent up to cover one of the Jarrow unemployment marches, and after that the prosperity and the quarrels of my friends did not seem quite real for a while. When I
did
call
on
Paul, Diana Marnsett was there and had just been sitting for him, so I proceeded to back out, but Paul gripped my arm.

‘There's a drink behind you, old boy. What's the worst the Press can do these days?'

‘I'm an amateur', I said. ‘ Refer you to the society editor.'

‘It must be healthy to be a journalist', Diana said, blowing smoke rings. ‘One can work off one's lower nature in print. Sort of spiritual purge taken daily. I wish—'

‘One thing', Paul said. ‘ Printer's ink smells better than turps. My stomach is beginning to turn.'

I raised my eyebrows. It seemed as if I had come at a time when feelings were roused.

‘Is this the conventional complaint of a rich man?' I asked. ‘Or is it some special private gloom I've intruded on?'

‘D'you know John Connor?' Paul asked.

‘The yachtsman? I think I've met him once.'

‘We were talking at the Hanover Club last night. He's sailing to the Canaries later this summer and asked if I'd like to go with him. I'm seriously considering it.'

‘It's the idea of a simpleton', said Diana. ‘At the first storm you'd be swamped – or pooped – or whatever the word is.'

Paul stared at her. ‘You forget, woman – or maybe you don't know – that in another incarnation, before I became the darling of the
beau monde
, there was a war. And in the war I sailed in boats. And even in wartime the sea took absolutely no notice but was just as temperamental, just as difficult, just as stormy as—'