Westwood (7 page)

‘Next Monday, Mrs Wilson. Mother,’ said Margaret abruptly, ‘I’m going to show Hilda my room – coming, Hilda?’ and with murmurs the two escaped.

‘Doesn’t it look nice!’ exclaimed Hilda, looking round Margaret’s domain.

Margaret laughed. ‘Bless you, you know you don’t like it a bit,’ she said, and Hilda laughed too.

‘Well, it is rather sort-of-monk-like, if you know what I mean.’

‘The most highly bred Japanese, with the purest taste, never wear any colours, only shades of
grey.’

‘Japanese!’

‘Why not?’

‘Margaret, they’re
awful
!’

Margaret shrugged her shoulders. ‘No worse than any other nation.’

‘You ought to go about with some Service boys,’ was all Hilda could say, examining her curls in the mirror.

Margaret sat down on the bed, which had a coverlet of pale brown patterned with large brown leaves, and gazed about her with satisfaction. The only pictures were a pastel of some grazing deer in the same soft tint, and a large monochrome of the Mona Lisa, and the grey curtains were stencilled by herself with a conventional design in darker grey.

‘Then I s’pose you think
my
bedroom is lousy?’ said Hilda, turning away satisfied from the mirror.

‘All pink, and calendars, and photographs of boys. No I don’t; it’s just like you.’

‘Thanks. You know,’ stopping in front of the Mona Lisa and gazing up at her, ‘honestly, I don’t know how you can bear to have that fat pan looking at you when you wake up in the morning. It would brown me off for the day.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ said Margaret, but even as she spoke a faint doubt assailed her. Was it?

‘It’s a fat, awful pan,’ repeated Hilda vigorously. ‘Now, I’ll tell you a picture I saw once (by an Old Master too, so you see I’m not so low-brow) that I simply adored; it was the Virgin Mary in a blue cloak on a cloud, holding the Baby, and some old saint, and a sort of angel in one corner, and a cupid –’

‘A cherub.’

‘Cherub then – it’s all the same thing – leaning on his elbow at the foot of the picture looking up at them. It was
lovely
– she had such a beautiful face, and her hand coming right round the Baby, holding Him tight – it was so lifelike. Now that’s my idea of a
picture
. It was on a Christmas card Iris Morrison sent me. You wouldn’t think she’d have such good taste, would you, though?’

‘It sounds like the Sistine Madonna.’

‘I don’t know what it was, but it was lovely. Do you really like all these Japanesy colours?’ she demanded suddenly, staring at her friend. ‘This room isn’t a bit
like
you, you know.’

‘Of course, or I shouldn’t have them,’ answered Margaret decidedly, but suddenly she thought of the flowers she loved best; rich old-fashioned pansies, wall-flowers like sombre velvet, crimson roses, and Sweet Williams of so dark a red that they were almost black; she seemed to breathe their summer scent in the chill of autumn, and the colours in her room seemed cold and pale.

‘Well, sooner you than me. Got any new clothes to show me?’

Margaret shook her head.

‘Eaten all your sweet ration?’

Margaret nodded.

‘Then I think I’ll be going. Walk down the road with me?’

‘Yes, I’ve got some letters to post.’

She put on a coat which she had not worn since she had house-hunted in London, and as they went downstairs she slipped her hands, as was her habit, into the pockets.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed.

‘What’s up?’

‘How awful! That ration book – I never sent it back!’

‘What ration book?’

‘The one I found on the Heath when I was staying with you.’

‘But that’s nearly a month ago!’

‘I know, that’s what makes it so awful.’

‘Wasn’t the address on it?’ asked Hilda. They had paused in the hall outside the drawing-room door and both had lowered their voices.

‘Of course.’ Margaret handed her the book. ‘I meant to send it back at once, only I didn’t wear this coat again and there were so many things to see to that I forgot.’

‘Hebe Niland,’ Hilda read aloud. ‘What an extraordinary name. Is it a girl or a man?’

‘A girl. Hebe was the cupbearer of the Gods in Ancient Greece.’

‘Sounds like a refugee,’ mused Hilda. ‘N. W. 3 – that’s Hampstead. Probably is a refugee, then; Hampstead’s alive with them. What’ll you do about it?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t just send it back with a note after all this time; it looks so rude. I expect it’s given them a lot of trouble, too.’

‘Given me a lot, you mean,’ said Hilda, who worked in a Food Office. ‘Why don’t you ’phone her up?’

‘If she’s a refugee (but I don’t believe she is, somehow) she won’t be in the book.’ Margaret stopped and her eyes grew wider. ‘There’s a famous artist called Niland,’ she said. ‘I suppose she couldn’t be anything to do with him?’

‘Might be. It isn’t a common name. Why don’t you walk over to Hampstead and see?’

‘Oh, I’d love to!’ Then she hesitated, and went on: ‘Only it might seem – it’s rather a queer thing to do – going to see someone you don’t know.’

‘Whereabouts did you find it?’

‘On the path down by the lower ponds – it was a man who dropped it, I’m almost sure. I noticed two men walking past, and then I saw it on the path.’

‘Perhaps it was him – the artist.’

‘It might have been. Alexander Niland,’ she repeated to herself, ‘the Modern Renoir, the papers call him. I don’t know, I’ve never seen a photograph of him.’

‘Well, if it is his wife it will make it more of a thrill for you,’ said Hilda, slightly bored. ‘I’d certainly walk over; you might get another peek at him.’

‘Perhaps I will.’ Margaret put the book carefully away in her bag. ‘Don’t say anything about it –’ she jerked her head towards the drawing-room door.

‘I get you,’ murmured Hilda, and opened the door and inquired dulcetly:

‘Mum? Are you staying the night? Pardon me, Mrs Steggles, if I collect my parent.’

‘I’m just going out to post these, Mother,’ said Margaret, holding up the letters. The three elders were sitting in silence with flushed faces, and Mrs Wilson looked slightly embarrassed and relieved when Hilda entered.

‘Yes, we
must
be going,’ she said, getting up quickly. ‘Well, good night, and thank you for that welcome cup of tea, and mind you give us a ring if we can be of any help in any way.’

‘That’s very kind of you, thank you, we won’t forget,’ said Mr Steggles heartily, following her out of the room. Mrs Steggles said clearly, ‘Good night, and thank
you
. You and Mr Wilson must come round to tea properly one Sunday after we’re straight,’ and knelt down once more in front of the box. Mr Steggles shut the door on the visitors and came back into the drawing-room. He stood by the mantelpiece looking down at the pipe he was refilling in silence for a few moments.

‘Well?’ said his wife, without looking up.

‘Well?’

‘Aren’t you going to tell me how you think it looks?’

‘Yes, of course. I think it looks fine, old girl,’ glancing round the room. ‘Of course, it’s all a bit strange at first, but you’ve got it quite home-like already. I like the old ship over the mantelpiece; it shows her up.’ (The old ship was a reproduction of a painting of a vessel with very white sails on a very blue sea, which had been painted to please the thousands of people who think that a sailing-ship on a blue sea is one of the most beautiful sights to be seen in this world – as, Heaven knows, it is.)

‘Well, there’s a lot to be done still,’ sighed Mrs Steggles, carefully lifting some book-ends in the shape of Highland terriers from the box and putting them down beside a statuette of a girl tennis-player, ‘and it’s been the worst move we’ve had yet for losses and breakages. There’s the glass clean gone out of our wedding group, and that green vase with the red spots on smashed to atoms, and I can’t find Aunt Chrissie’s teaspoons anywhere and the green and yellow tea-cosy is missing too.’

‘Perhaps some of them will turn up to-morrow. Do you think you’re going to like it here, old girl; that’s the main thing?’

‘I can’t possibly tell yet, Jack. We haven’t been here twenty-four hours. The house
seems
all right. I wish we hadn’t got that great hill at the back, it makes me feel overlooked, but I expect I shall get used to that. It seems a nice quiet road.’

He nodded. He had sat down in an arm-chair and was watching his wife as she slowly and carefully unwrapped each treasure, and thinking that now they were alone she was natural again; no longer talking him down and interrupting him and making the spiteful little jokes at his expense that had caused Mrs Wilson, at last, to look embarrassed, and an uneasy silence to fall. Now the devil of jealousy had gone, and his wife was Mabel again; complaining, not very happy, but giving the brighter side its due and enjoying in her own way the anxieties and adventures of the move. At this moment, she hasn’t a thought in her head except what’s happened to the tea-cosy, he thought, and made the best of that brief peaceful moment.

At least he can’t go out anywhere this evening, Mrs Steggles was thinking as she worked. Thank God, that Bettie creature and that other wicked devil are left behind in Lukeborough.

‘Well,’ she said at last, leaning back with a sigh and rubbing her hands on her overall, ‘I shan’t do any more to-night. I’m tired. I shall go up. What about you?’

‘Oh – I’ve got some letters to write,’ he said, taking the evening paper from his pocket and unfolding it without looking at her, ‘and I want to finish this; I didn’t get a seat in the train. I shan’t be long.’

She went slowly out of the room without answering, and in a moment he was reading through the news-stories he had sub-edited that day, and had forgotten her. It did not seem strange to him that she had not asked him more about his first day’s work on a London daily, because he was used to the mixture of genuine indifference and conventional respect for ‘your dad’s job’ which she felt towards his work; and besides, he did not want any woman, let alone his wife, bothering him about his work. That was not what he wanted from women.

‘
Whatever
was the matter with you all? Sitting in a row exactly like Madame Tussaud’s,’ burst out Hilda the instant Margaret was out of ear-shot. ‘Had he been getting fresh with you or something?’

‘That’s not a nice way to talk, Hilda,’ said Mrs Wilson firmly, but spoiling the reproof with a giggle. ‘Of course not, but she’s so dreadfully jealous, poor thing, she can’t bear him even to be polite.’

‘
Poor thing!
I like that.’

‘Oh, but she is, Hilda. Jealousy’s a real disease, you know; it’s wrecked many a marriage. You and Dad and I are so happy; we never think of homes where there isn’t any happiness.’

‘What would you do, Mum, if Dad was to get jealous of you?’

‘Laugh,’ said Mrs Wilson briefly.

Mother and daughter, arm-in-arm in the starlight, laughed delightedly at the mere thought.

‘No, but it’s ever so sad,’ said Mrs Wilson, sobering. ‘It makes me feel quite bad to see them; I don’t think I shall go there much.’

‘It gets me down too. Never mind, we’ll have Margaret round to our place and find her a specially nice boy. Oh, there’s Dad.’

As they approached the house a dim figure could be discerned in the porch, making shooing movements towards a smaller and motionless form.

‘He’s putting Geoffrey out,’ said Hilda. (Geoffrey was the cat, named after the rear-gunner who had given her to Hilda as a kitten three years ago.)

‘Hullo, Dad! Gorgeous night!’

Mr Wilson, abandoning the attempt to get Geoffrey to move on, glanced up at the brilliant stars and observed that he thought it would freeze before morning.

Margaret walked quickly homewards, absently noticing the beauty of the night while her excited thoughts played about the idea of going over to Hampstead on the following afternoon, and trying to recall everything she had ever heard or read about Alexander Niland. She had seen a reproduction in colour of his best-known picture: a soldier and a woman lying embraced in long grass full of clover, under a dark tree whose branches hung down against the evening sky. The popular press had called its greys and greens and purples daring, while praising it. She herself had thought it beautiful, but it had shocked her. She had felt while looking at it as if she were spying on the kisses of those closely embraced figures, and it had made her remember every pair of twilit lovers she had ever seen.

This feeling was not peculiar to Margaret. The common denominator was felt in all Niland’s paintings, and it was this, apart from their beauty and his genius, which gave them their popularity. For they were popular. Thousands of reproductions of them had found their way into homes all over England and America, and the strange, simple juxtaposition of their colours, unexpected yet immediately felt to be inevitable, had helped thousands of ordinary people to look at ordinary yet beautiful objects with refreshed eyes.

Somerset Maugham has written of ‘the animal serenity of great writers.’ Niland possessed the visual serenity of the greatest painters. His work was untormented, and charged with his pleasure in the world he saw about him, and while there was no deliberate rejection of pain and ugliness in it, both were transmuted as they passed from his vision to his canvas. His paintings were not old-fashioned in the slighting sense of the words, but they resembled those of the painters of three or four hundred years ago, in that they were created in an age full of horrors and violence, yet breathed a calm loveliness which was timeless. In those medieval paintings the best of earth and the vision of the celestial were blended; on Niland’s canvases, his feeling for life penetrated the countenances and limbs of his happy mothers, his sleeping children and laughing girls, and made them glow. To an indifferent public, long confronted by a surfeit of guitars and swollen legs depicted either singly or in determined conjunction, the result was as refreshing as it was surprising.