Miss Buncle Married (16 page)

It was the night of the Marvells' dinner party. Arthur and Barbara decided to walk, for the house was next door and the night was fine. There were bright stars in the sky, and the moon would rise—so Arthur said—at eight-forty-five. It would light them home. Barbara hoped there would be no ping-pong; she was sure Arthur would not take to it kindly, and all her evening frocks had “tails.” She was carrying her “tail” now, and her other hand was held securely in the crook of Arthur's arm. Barbara enjoyed the little walk; she loved a starry night, and she loved the feeling of being taken care of by her nice big husband.

“We needn't stay late if you're bored,” she assured him, as they turned in at the Marvells' gate and walked up the little drive.

“My dear lamb,” said Arthur, in his “smiling voice,” “I don't go out to dinner expecting to be bored, do I?”

“I thought you were, a little,” Barbara explained, and then she added with her usual desire to be strictly truthful, “in fact I know you were.”

Arthur laughed.

Mrs. Marvell was alone in the drawing-room when the Abbotts were announced. She had intended to invite people to meet the Abbotts, but she had put it off from day to day, and had finally decided that it was too late. She explained this to Barbara. Barbara found it difficult to think of the right reply. Should she say “What a pity!” or should she say “How nice to be just ourselves!” or should she merely say that it didn't matter? Eventually the moment for saying anything passed, and she had said nothing—which, perhaps, was best of all.

Mr. Marvell came in with a tray of glasses which he handed round, remarking that it was his own invention—a cocktail with a real kick. He was extremely upset by Barbara's refusal to try it, but she was adamant. Mr. Marvell looked bigger than ever in his own house (for his house was extremely small), and he was massive, bigger than Arthur, both in height and girth.

“What a night!” he exclaimed, in his loud booming voice, “what a glorious night!”

They all agreed that it was.

Unfortunately there was not much to say about the night, except that it was glorious, and marvelous for the time of year, and that the stars were extraordinarily bright, and the air as clear as crystal, and when all this had been said, the conversation flagged a little. The Abbotts and the Marvells had not very much in common. Mrs. Marvell never bothered to talk for talking's sake, and Barbara was an observer rather than a conversationalist. She liked to be with people who talked a lot, so that she could listen, or not, as she felt inclined. Mr. Abbott knew nothing about art. Mr. Marvell knew nothing about business. It was all rather difficult.

The food was not very nice. It was pretentious and inadequate; but Mr. Marvell produced some excellent claret, which was a help, and, when he had had a few glasses of it, he began to warm up. Mr. Abbott also began to feel better, and he decided that it was up to him, as a man of the world, to get in touch with his host. He can't talk about business, so I must talk about painting, thought Mr. Abbott with three glasses of Château Lafite 1917 warming the cockles of his heart.

“What is your opinion of this new art?” he inquired.

“There is nothing new in art,” replied Mr. Marvell didactically. “It has all been done before, but I suppose you are alluding to cubism?”

Mr. Abbott said he
was—
he really had very little idea as to what he had been alluding to, but this answer seemed fairly safe. Mr. Marvell evidently expected a reply in the affirmative and Mr. Abbott felt he deserved it—the claret was excellent.

“All art,” said Mr. Marvell in his resonant voice, “all art is a mystic experience of its creator. I cannot allow that cubism is art, for here we find the technical devices, instead of being aids to the transmission of experience, becoming the aim and the end of their users.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Abbott, “yes. I've always thought there was something lacking in it.”

“Lacking!” boomed Mr. Marvell. “Of course there's something lacking. It lacks soul. Technical proficiency is not enough. If a man has the virility to break away from the main stream of tradition he can be forgiven for his boldness if he has something important to say—but not otherwise, not otherwise.”

“Exactly,” agreed Mr. Abbott. He was really doing splendidly. He caught Barbara's eye, and saw that she was tremendously impressed by his cleverness.

“Let us go back,” suggested Mr. Marvell. “Let us return and find a parallel in the history of art, or, if we cannot find a parallel, let us at least try to find something of the same nature.”

“That would be difficult,” suggested Mr. Abbott boldly.

“Difficult but not impossible,” said Mr. Marvell. “Not impossible, I think.”

Mr. Abbott tried to look as if he were considering the history of art with a view to finding something approaching the modern situation.

“Take the vertiginous figures of El Greco,” offered Mr. Marvell generously. “What do we find there?”

Mr. Abbott had no idea what they found there, so, very wisely, he said nothing.

“We find,” continued Mr. Marvell, “we find a lack of humanity which we now account for by the conclusion that El Greco was an anaphrodite.”

“Really!” said Mr. Abbott. He looked at Mrs. Marvell and his wife, sitting there listening—but perhaps they had not understood.

“Yes,” said Mr. Marvell with relish, “an anaphrodite. It is impossible to paint a human body without experiencing it humanly, hence the inhumanity of El Greco's art. His art, I say, because he was a true artist in that he expressed his own experience in his chosen medium.”

“Very interesting,” murmured Mr. Abbott, politely.

“Thus we get El Greco treating the human body as a decoration—to him it was a decoration and no more. He became more and more indifferent to fact, and the figures lost what little humanity they possessed. It was blasphemy,” added Mr. Marvell. “
It was blasphemy
.”

“Blasphemy!” exclaimed Mr. Abbott in surprise.

“He thought he knew what was beautiful better than God,” explained Mr. Marvell simply.

Mr. Abbott was really interested now; he saw the point. He looked at his host with new eyes. The man was not a charlatan after all; he was sincere, and he knew what he was talking about. Mr. Abbott felt as if Mr. Marvell had taken him by the hand and was leading him into a new country, a country of which he had never suspected the existence. It would be rather interesting to explore the country, to climb its hills and view the land under the guidance of Mr. Marvell. He was about to penetrate further into the new country when Barbara took a hand in the conversation.

“Have you painted your children's portraits, Mr. Marvell?” she inquired.

Mr. Marvell groaned. “My children are unpaintable,” he lamented. “Absolutely unpaintable. If ever a miserable painter was cursed with unpaintable children—”

“But Ambrose is so pretty!” Barbara exclaimed.

Mr. Marvell nearly tore his hair, but not quite, for he was very proud of its thickness and luxuriance. “Ambrose!” he cried. “Paint Ambrose! For the lid of a chocolate box, I presume. Trivona is paintable, I admit (her bones are good, and the texture of her skin takes the light well). Trivona, I say, is paintable, but what use is that when she cannot pose for two consecutive minutes without fidgeting? Ambrose could pose for an hour but has the face of a Botticelli angel—My God!” said Mr. Marvell, violently, “I could paint Ambrose with my eyes shut. An art school would leap at Ambrose. Here am I, stuck in the depths of the country with no models to be had for love or money, and God afflicts me with Trivona and Ambrose.”

Barbara was dumbfounded; she was even a little frightened by Mr. Marvell's genuine distress. She was wondering what topic she could introduce to change the subject, when Arthur came to the rescue.

“You have another son, haven't you?” he inquired. “We haven't seen him yet.”

“Lancreste has been away from home off and on,” replied Mr. Marvell, wiping his forehead with a large bandana handkerchief. “Yes, he has been staying with some of our relations near the sea—Bournemouth in fact. Lancreste is not strong; he takes after his mother's side in that.”

“I like their names,” Barbara said. “So very unusual, aren't they?”

“Very unusual and somewhat foolish,” replied their father. “Tell me the name of a child, and I will tell you the age of its parents. Young parents burden their offspring with fantastic sobriquets—Lancreste, Trivona, Ambrose, these are the choice of a callow mind. If I had a child, now, I should christen it William or Mary, Henry or Jane—or Ellen—”

“Not Ellen,” said Mrs. Marvell, suddenly, in her deep, rather husky voice. “Not Ellen, dear.”

“Yes, Ellen,” said Mr. Marvell firmly. “Why not Ellen? It is a beautiful name, simple as an Ionic column.”

“But so housemaidy,” objected his wife. “And, anyway, if you like it so much, why didn't you say so when Trivona was born? You were not so very much younger then.”

“Ten years,” Mr. Marvell reminded her.

It was another
cul
de
sac.
An embarrassed silence fell on the ill-assorted party. Mrs. Marvell rose from the table suddenly and made for the door, and Barbara, realizing that the meal was over, followed. Despite the fact that she was still hungry, she was quite glad to leave the table.

“Would you like to see the children?” Mrs. Marvell inquired.

Barbara said she would—what else could she say—and they went upstairs and looked at Trivona and Ambrose asleep in their beds. Ambrose looked much the same, asleep or awake, peaceful, and adorably pretty, with his fair hair and rounded pink cheeks. Barbara, looking at him, could understand
even
less
why his father would not paint him. He would make such a lovely picture, she thought. As she turned from him and looked at Trivona, she was assailed by a vague feeling of discomfort, for there was something very pathetic in the sleeping Trivvie. By day she was a rebel, full of the lust of life, battling for power, and yet more power, for freedom and yet more freedom; but, asleep, she was innocent, helpless, vulnerable. Barbara felt it was wrong to see Trivvie thus; it was like a treachery. Trivvie would hate to be seen without her armor on.

“Sweet, aren't they?” Mrs. Marvell whispered.

“Sweet,” agreed Barbara, thinking of the elephant pit.

She looked round the nursery for Miss Foddy, but Miss Foddy was not to be seen. She had not appeared at dinner, and was still invisible. Barbara wondered where she was. The house was very small, and, although Miss Foddy was not very big, there did not seem sufficient cover to conceal her. Her bed was in the children's room; a small chaste bed, discreetly decked in a white-linen coverlet; and Miss Foddy's nightwear was carefully hidden in a white linen case with her initials worked in the corner. On the table beside her bed lay Miss Foddy's Bible, and a candle in a candlestick of white china, and a small tuppenny packet of bicarbonate of soda which Miss Foddy resorted to when visited by indigestion—it was all rather pathetic, Barbara thought.

“What would you like to do?” inquired Mrs. Marvell, vaguely, as they came down the steep stairs in single file. Barbara had suspected all the evening that Mrs. Marvell was not a very good hostess—she was now sure of it. If I don't say something, it will be ping-pong, Barbara thought, and anyhow she's
asked
me.

“I'd like to see Mr. Marvell's studio,” she said, boldly.

“Would you?” inquired Mrs. Marvell. “Well, ask him, then.”

“Will he mind?”

“He may, or he may not. It depends upon whether he's taken a fancy to you,” replied Mrs. Marvell with devastating frankness.

Apparently Mr. Marvell
had
taken a fancy to Barbara (however unlikely it might have appeared in view of the way he had squashed her at dinner). He agreed at once to show her his studio. They left Mr. Abbott and Mrs. Marvell in the drawing-room, and went along a little passage and down three steps into the garden. It was bitterly cold. The moon had risen—as Arthur had so cleverly predicted—and shone down upon the Marvells' garden with a round, smooth, kindly face.

“How white a woman is, under the moon!” exclaimed Mr. Marvell in his sonorous voice as they went down the little path together toward a large barn-like building, which loomed up among the leafless trees. Barbara was a trifle startled at his words, but she comforted herself with the reflection that Mr. Marvell was probably quoting poetry—she hoped it was that.

Mr. Marvell unlocked the door of his studio, switched on the light, and motioned Barbara to enter.

The studio was a large rectangular room, full of the usual impediments. There was a dais, several easels, and canvases in various stages of completion, lay figures with colored draperies, chairs, stools, a divan, and a large solid table covered with paints and bottles and dirty rags and knives and brushes and palettes of different shapes and sizes. There were one or two good rugs, and an electric stove with a long flex. Mr. Marvell turned on the stove, remarking that it was cold.

Barbara was too interested in what she saw to notice the cold. She said so, adding with her usual naivety that she had never known “a real artist” before. The admission pleased Mr. Marvell, who read into the phrase rather more than was intended. Barbara had meant that she had never known a professional artist before. Mr. Marvell thought she meant that she had never known a true artist.

“We are rare,” admitted Mr. Marvell with a self-satisfied purr.

“Oh, you
are
,” Barbara agreed.

Mr. Marvell proceeded to show his guest some of his work. He kept up a running commentary during the process, pointing out the various effects, and talking glibly about the grouping and the angle of light. He thought he was talking down to the level of Barbara's obvious ignorance, but, even so, his listener only understood about a quarter of what she was hearing. What she did understand was rather embarrassing. One particular study of his wife seemed to Mr. Marvell particularly interesting. Barbara was invited to admire the richness of the impasto, the subtle flesh tones, and the balance of light and shade. She tried to admire all these truly admirable effects, but the subject of the picture was too breathtaking to allow her to bring her critical faculties into play. It was a back view of Mrs. Marvell with nothing on at all; she was lying on the divan, and was, presumably, asleep. The picture was extraordinarily lifelike, but this only added to Barbara's discomfort. Mr. Marvell proceeded to tear the picture to pieces (metaphorically, of course). He pointed out its merits and defects with sincerity; he pointed out how the light fell upon the different portions of the model's anatomy, referring to these portions with a total lack of euphemism.