The Beckoning Lady (15 page)

“And two grave-diggers, I mean robbers,” continued Minnie defiantly, her eyes flashing.

“Who?”

“Burke and Hare.”

“Burt
and Hare? The body-snatchers? Really? Both of them?” Tonker began to laugh, his fury evaporating. “Oh what a lark. Oh, all the better. Yes indeed, he didn't tell me that. Oh dear me, Minnie, you little know what a clever old duck you are.” He jerked her apron-strings undone and she put a long arm round his neck in a wrestler's hold.

“You are a silly man,” she said.

“Huh,” said Tonker, disengaging himself. “With luck this is going to be a very, very satisfactory story. I don't like Smith. Campion doesn't like Smith. We will proceed to deal with Smith. Smith is about to be done.”

“I think Minnie should be preserved from Smith,”
remarked Amanda. “He treated her exactly as if she was letting rooms.”

Minnie laughed. “I enjoyed him,” she said sincerely. “He's the new style gate-crasher, the one who won't take pot-luck. Kindly notice the electric lights over my pictures.”

To be taken round a show by the painter is not always the easiest way of enjoying pictures, but Mr. Campion possessed the advantage of having followed the career of Miranda Straw since they had been young together, so that he could pick up the story, as it were, and perceive at once what she was about. In this collection pride of place had been given to the portrait of Westy. She had painted him full length, standing against the arch of the drawing-room fireplace. He was smiling and a thought shy, and his young leanness was brilliantly suggested, despite the formality of his first tailored suit.

“Oh my God,” said Minnie without impiety, “that dreadful suit. He wanted it so much. We don't go in for custom tailoring for boys over there, you know, but he'd set his heart on it so I pulled up my socks and made a job of it. It's come off, hasn't it?”

“It has indeed.” Mr. Campion was looking at the picture, his eyes narrowed. “Is that for Boston?”

“Yes. I wanted it to go to Belinda, but it can't be helped. I'll do him again later. Goodness aren't they ugly, though, these modern clothes?”

“Wait till you see my party raiment,” murmured Tonker. “That's the gal I like, Campion. Minnie's made something of her, hasn't she?”

They went on down the line and the history of long industrious and sometimes exalted days was gradually unfolded. Tonker was very proud of Minnie. His delight was almost touching at times, and she basked in it. They were supremely happy. But just before they reached the end of the room she turned to him.

“If you got one of those glübs out of the granary, Tonker, you could show Rupert exactly what you want. There isn't much more here.”

“Very well,” he agreed obligingly. “But I want to see Jake's stuff. And they must, repeat must, see the secret.”

He went off taking Rupert with him, and the others went on.

“What is that?” demanded Amanda suddenly. “Is that one of your father's paintings, Minnie?” She had been brought to a standstill by a small portrait which was quite different from anything else in the show even to its frame, which was uncompromisingly Edwardian baroque. It was the head of a man, set against a background of crumpled paper. The face was not particularly distinguished inasmuch as it was a typical twentieth-century mask, close cropped and shaven. The chin was obstinate and the small pursed mouth was smiling in a faintly pitying way which was disconcerting. But the outstanding quality of the work was the ruthless masculine venom with which it was executed. Mr. Campion stared at it. He felt he knew the man, and it occurred to him that it must be one of old Straw's more famous pieces. Minnie stood looking at it thoughtfully.

“Horrid, isn't it?” she said at last. “I did that.”

“But who is it?” Amanda was as puzzled as Albert and in exactly the same way.

“A model.” Minnie made it clear that she was not going to be more specific. “He owns it and he's delighted with it. He lent it to me to show. It's some years old now.” Her snorting laugh took her by surprise again. “There really is nothing like creative work to get that kind of thing out of your system,” she observed unexpectedly and swept off across the room to the opposite wall, where a second row of hooded lights displayed Jake Bernadine's pictures, half a dozen very small canvases and one medium-sized one.

Mr. Campion lingered and was still frowning in an effort of recollection when he joined the others some seconds later. Minnie and Amanda were looking at the small canvases when he came up. They were very very small, some of them postcard size, and were painted with
myopic thoroughness all over, in every corner and, one felt uneasily, possibly round the back. The larger picture was exactly as Westy had reported it save that the grey background was not paint at all.

“That's lino.” Minnie touched it gingerly with an experimental forefinger. “That's a mercy. I was afraid he'd been painting out. If his original canvas is in existence I can get hold of it, or Emma can. Dear me, I hope that poor snail was dead . . . Why, Tonker!” Her final exclamation was in response to a ferocious tearing sound which had been released just behind her and was accompanied by delighted squeals from Rupert. The three swung round to find themselves confronted by the creator of the glübalübalum and his instrument.

There have been many attempts to describe the glübalübalum and even the one submitted to the Patents Office was not particularly successful. As Tonker had pointed out, it was very large. It was also very simple, being in effect a very long tube with an immense horn at one end and a cork at the other. In between there were, so to speak, digressions. The newspaper which is called by its detractors the
Daily Bibful
had once employed a psychiatrist to explain to its readers the mechanics of their own reactions to it, but the articles were not convincing. It was only at Oxford that it was noted that the position of a person playing the glübalübalum approximated very closely to the attitude of the central figure of the Laocoon. Children, on the other hand, observed at once that its true charm was that it had obviously got out of hand.

At the moment all three adults were laughing and Rupert was hysterical. Tonker was peering out at them from a monstrous embrace.

“Two bladders gone,” he said. “E flat and an A. We'll have to make up with spares from the others.”

Mr. Campion was drawn forward. “How do you blow it?” he demanded.

“You don't.” Tonker was slightly breathless. “You pump it up first, see?” He turned sideways to reveal a
window in the tube and by its side a slot in which nestled a perfectly ordinary bicycle pump. Through the window, a line of bladders, now a trifle flabby, were plainly visible. “Listen.” Tonker seized the mouthgrip. “Tum-ti-tee, tum-ti-squish, on my glü-bal-ü-bal-squish. Not quite good enough, is it? Don't be silly, you ape, you've heard it before.”

Mr. Campion pulled himself together. “It's horrible,” he said. “A pornograph, Tonker.”

“Not at all,” said Amanda seriously. “It's very remarkable, and as far as I can see an entirely original mechanical principle. Could we take it to bits?”

“We'll have to,” he assured her earnestly, “tomorrow, to get the repairs done.” He paused and eyed Rupert. “Boy,” he demanded suddenly, “do you realise that if I had been your father you would have been this?”

Rupert smiled politely but moved over to Mr. Campion, and Tonker was turning away when he caught sight of the snail picture and edged himself closer to peer at it.

“My God, Minnie!” His explosion was sincerely furious. The hampering coils of his invention were entirely forgotten. His face became scarlet and his eyes blazed. “Yes, well, that's simply a damned insult.” He spoke with a suppressed hatred. “I suppose you realise that, Minnie? I suppose you're not going to subject our helpless guests. . . .?”

“If you got out of that thing,” said Minnie with equal venom, “you could strike me. I hope you burst another bladder.”

“Oh, all right.” Tonker tore himself out of the contraption and caught sight of Mr. Campion's expression. “Well,” he said sheepishly, “they're both damn silly things. Take the picture down, Minnie dear. Dear Minnie, will you?”

“Of course I must,” she said, patting him and his glübalübalum. “Jake doesn't want to show at all, that's his difficulty.”

“I do.” Tonker spoke with sudden enthusiasm, all his
anger gone. “Get the secret picture, Minnie. See what they think.”

“I'm going to.” She went off at once and they moved up to the other end of the giant table, which shone like the slide the children had made of it. The lights went on in the inner studio, and presently she reappeared carrying a canvas.

“Now,” she said, coming down the stairs, her long gown accenting her angularity, “I'll have that easel, Tonker.”

He pulled it out for her and together they adjusted its position to the light. It occurred to Mr. Campion that he had always seen them like this, their heads together, up to something. At last Minnie stood back.

“Mind you,” she said, “this is an experiment.”

The visitors stood looking at the picture for a long time. After the first shock of surprise the eye lingered. It was a sort of meticulously executed doodle enclosed in a formal vase shape. Presumably it was a portrait of Annabelle, since the child appeared within it many times. The effect was strangely stimulating and in an indefinable way joyous. After a while Minnie laughed and took it away.

“It's not very commercial, is it?” she said. “But it was something I felt I wanted to say about her that I couldn't express in any other way. It's a purely personal picture of my own mind. Can you see at all what I meant?”

“I can.” Mr. Campion felt oddly elated. “I don't know why. Leave it here for a bit.”

“No my dear, I mustn't.” Minnie was already halfway up the staircase. “I shall only get keen on it and that really would be fatal. It's not permitted just now. A pity, but there it is.”

“Who won't permit it?” demanded Mr. Campion.

“Circumstances.” Minnie ran up the stairs and vanished into the smaller studio behind the balcony.

“Circumstances, my boot!” said Tonker. “It's my fault again.” He was sitting in the shabby armchair which he had pulled out from the wall the better to admire the canvas. The glübalübalum was beside him, standing
upside down on the rim of the horn looking like some embarrassing optical illusion. Rupert was sprawled behind it, trying to get a trap-door, which he had found in it, undone.

“My boot,” Tonker repeated, cocking an eye at the balcony.

There was no response from Minnie, who had taken her secret into some further fastness, and after a pause he cast a thoughtful glance at his old friends. “It's all part of the same silly business,” he said with uncharacteristic bitterness. “All part of the same seven-year-old row. I think Minnie's mad and she thinks I'm dishonest, and we're both explosive personalities. They'll do what they're setting out to do, you know. They'll split us.”

“Who is this?”

Tonker considered and finally decided to confide. “Minnie's horrible chums, the tax-gatherers. I told you the start of it in the other room. I made a fearsome blob over my glüb money and Minnie lost confidence in me in a big way.” He sighed. “We're neither of us great financial brains, let's face it. When the bad news broke we had the first real dust-up of our lives. It was a rotten present to receive, but it was also a highly irritating present to have
given.
Minnie didn't altogether appreciate that point.”

“What happened about it?” Mr. Campion sounded apprehensive. “You've been paying up ever since, I suppose?”

“Minnie has,” said Tonker. “I don't come into it. I'm a salaried worker and I keep just under sur-tax, so they filch my bit at source without my even stroking it. Minnie does the rest. Since the glüb fiasco she won't have any interference from me. It's a bit complicated because we don't live together, you see. Never have.”

Mr. Campion laughed. “You have in the legal sense, you idiot.”

“We haven't in the literal sense.” Tonker spoke with unanswerable logic. “That's the whole tragedy. Before we were married, over twenty-five years ago, Minnie and I,
being astute youngsters—we were both nineteen—perceived that all the difficulties, partings and troubles in married life arose directly—
directly,
mark you—from nothing more nor less than money and housekeeping. How right we were. We decided, very reasonably that we wouldn't have any. We were both able to keep ourselves then and we have ever since. When we were young we lived near each other, and as we grew older we visited one another frequently. We've each got our own work to do and we don't ask any more of marriage than the tie itself. We've had plenty of fights but never any real bitterness until now. And why has it happened at all? Because some silly official first decides that we're the same person for income-tax, and then starts trying to split us because even he can see that we're not. We don't conform to the blue-print, so we've got to be altered. And they're doing it, too. Minnie's off her head, you know.”

Mr. Campion glanced towards Amanda and saw that she had wandered away and was looking at the pictures again. He returned to Tonker.

“In what way?”

The sandy man studied the toes of his wide shoes. “Haven't you noticed it?” he enquired at last. “She's given herself over to them. She's let them into her life, so that her existence is a lunatic farce. There are only two good bedrooms in this house and she's not allowed to sleep in either of them. She employs a gardener but he's not allowed to grow vegetables because she only paints flowers. She hates champers but she's not allowed to drink anything else, and then only when some dreary customer is present. She has to account for all her clothes. My word, I get savage!” He grunted. “Then of course I say things, and so does she.” He frowned and cast a sidelong glance of reproach at his stupendous invention. “Normally I curb myself,” he went on presently, “but sometimes there's too much provocation, and this last business seemed to me to be the end. I may have overstepped the mark. They've had everything the woman could lay her hands on,
Campion: William's bit, the silver, the Cotman, and God knows what else. And now if you please they want
me
. She says they want us to divorce. I did kick at that. It's not civilised.”