He looked eagerly round the room. A large photograph of a starving lady caught his eye. Why was she starving? The hair, the clothes and the pearls were incompatible with such a hungry face. That face was the only ugly thing in the room. The pictures on the walls were delightful. A drawing over the fireplace, a woman and a child sketched in a few firm lines, quite charmed him. He was still busy with it when Elizabeth came in, wearing the wrong clothes. She had exchanged the green dress which he had expected for some kind of grey suit. Her aspect, also, was a little chilly.
‘Is this,’ he asked, pointing to the drawing, ‘a Tiepolo?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s marvellous. It might be the real thing. I’ve never seen a reproduction that gets what the artist does with empty space so well. That woman’s face is just an empty space inside a curved line. But it’s so round you could poke your finger into her cheek.’
‘It’s not a reproduction.’
‘What? It’s a genuine Tiepolo?’
She nodded, her severity a trifle relaxed.
‘That explains … But is it yours, then?’
‘Oh no. It was downstairs, and very badly hung. I took a fancy to it and brought it up here. When I go away it will go downstairs again, I suppose.’
‘You’re going away? Soon?’
His heart took a downward plunge.
‘I’ve never lived in the same place for long.’
‘Isn’t this your house, then?’
‘No. It belongs, I believe, to some people called Cohen. My mother rents it.’
‘Er … Mrs Colleoni?’
‘Her name, now, is Mrs Blaney.’
‘I see. I’m sorry. There was so little time at the wedding. I don’t think I told you my name.’
‘I know it,’ she said, more sternly than ever. ‘Mr Potter.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Lady Myers told me.’
‘Are you angry with me?’
‘Why did you say you were Lord Byron at the wedding?’
‘I didn’t. That announcer must have been a lunatic.’
‘You must have said something.’
‘I suppose I must. I was thinking about Byron just as I came into that room, I must have muttered his name in an absent-minded sort of way.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be a joke?’
‘Good heavens no! Why? It would be an idiotic joke.’
‘I agree. But some people thought it amusing. They thought you were making fun of your hostess.’
‘But why should I? It would have been a cad’s trick. I thought it very nice of her to ask me. I didn’t even know I was going to be announced. I’d never been to a Society Wedding before.’
Suddenly she smiled.
‘At a Society Wedding,’ she said, ‘you must never be absent-minded. There’s often a lot of caddishness about.’
‘But this is awful! Did she think I’d done it on purpose? Should I write to her? Explain? Apologize?’
‘No. Don’t worry. It was rather a nasty wedding. Nothing you did could have made it much worse. I only asked because, if you had done it for a joke, I don’t think we should get on very well.’
‘I should think not! You must have been sorry you said I could come here today.’
‘I’m glad I did because now we’ve cleared it up. Let’s talk about something nicer. Go on about Tiepolo.’
He gazed at her miserably, his bright mood shattered.
‘There’s nothing to on go about,’ he muttered. ‘I ought to have known the genuine thing when I saw it.’
‘So ought I. Take me for a walk. I haven’t had a breath of fresh air for weeks and weeks.’
He followed her out of the room, giving a last glance at the starving woman.
‘That’s my mother,’ she told him. ‘Just now she’s in the States.’
This information raised his spirits a little. Such misery ought not to be sharing a roof with Elizabeth. Also, unworldly though he was, he had a faint suspicion that he might never have got into Mount Square if Mrs Blaney had not been in the States.
They went into Hyde Park and strolled by the Serpentine. He felt better in the air and the sunshine but he still remained unwontedly silent. Elizabeth had to do the talking. She told him that she had a hobby for Charlemagne, and everything to do with Charlemagne. A curiosity about the revival of Latin ordained by him had led her to look up St Quentin’s pamphlet in the Sorbonne Library. Had he been to Paris? She had lived there for some years. Had he been to Rome?
Normally he would have had a good deal to say about both, but he was earthbound, still brooding over poor Lady Myers. At last, when they had found themselves two chairs, he burst out:
‘I can’t get over it. That poor woman! She looked so terribly tired. I noticed it in church. She must have worked herself to death over that wedding. And then to have it rather ruined because I was a blockhead! It’s too cruel.’
‘Lots of things are cruel. Tell me … how did you get to be a blockhead?’
‘Me? I just am one.’
‘I don’t think so. Not really.’
‘Don’t you? Don’t you?’
‘No. But who are you? I mean tell me the story of your life.’
‘There isn’t one. A story … it must have a beginning and a development and a climax and a conclusion.’
‘Perhaps. But I don’t expect all that. I’d like the first chapter. You must have been born somewhere, sometime, to somebody.’
He admitted as much and explained that he could remember neither of his parents. His mother had been Greek. Her father, according to Mrs Blackett, had kept a restaurant. He offered a few sparse details about the Blackett household. His childhood had left no impression on him at all; he remembered it as a frog might recall its tadpole existence. He had really been born when he learnt to read. He had always believed himself to be happy. Why should he be otherwise? He had enjoyed himself a great deal and had made many friends of whom he had lately seen nothing at all. He had gone abroad whenever he could, hitch-hiking and singing for his supper in various ways. He had managed to get a month in Athens by taking a job as night porter in a hotel. He liked working for Richardson but regretted the loss of opportunities for travel, since he would now have only a fortnight’s holiday in the year.
‘About as eventful, all this, as a piece of string?’ he suggested after a while.
‘I must say I should have liked a little more about early struggles. Why do you work for a publisher?’
‘One must have a job. And I like books.’
‘Too much. You’ve used them instead of people. I believe you ought to get a job that has nothing to do with them. What sort of birthday presents did they give you? These Blacketts?’
He tried to remember and realized that he had never got any.
‘I never expected them,’ he explained. ‘And what you don’t expect you don’t miss.’
‘Exactly. Blessed is he that expecteth nothing. I believe they call that the Eighth Beatitude. And that’s how you got to be a blockhead.’
Her smile robbed the word of its harshness. Beatitude! he thought. There was no other term for his condition at the moment. It seemed hard that this bliss should be entirely one-sided.
The willows in their spring green were exquisite. She would do much better to enjoy them than to inquire why he was a blockhead. He said so, and she agreed that they were very lovely.
‘You’re looking at the wrong ones. I mean those ones behind the bridge.’
‘Why those? They’re all lovely.’
‘The curve of the bridge and the curve of the willows – they cut across each other in just the right place. And there’s the hardness of the stone against their softness.’
He pulled a pencil out of his pocket, looked about for paper, fished a sandwich bag out of a near-by litter basket, and drew a line or two to show her.
‘That’s very good,’ she said. ‘You’ve got the hardness and the softness. I can’t think how. Why aren’t you
an artist?’
‘Because I can’t draw pictures.’
‘Yes, you can. This is a picture.’
‘No, it’s not. You couldn’t put it in a frame and hang it on a wall.’
‘I see what you mean. But if you did rather more to it….’
‘I couldn’t. That’s just it. Anything I do, it needs something more and I don’t know what. Sometimes that makes it into a thing.’
‘I think it might look nice on a bowl. No! Don’t tear it up.’ She took it from him, adding: ‘I’d like to show it to a man I know.’
‘A man?’
‘Quite quite bald,’ she told him soothingly. ‘One of his fourteen children went to school with me in Stockholm.’
‘Oh!’ He felt better. ‘Very well. But that bag is a bit smelly.’
‘I must go home. No, we haven’t been here only five minutes. It’s been two hours. What is your telephone number?’
This inquiry made up for her determination to go home alone. He gave her the number of the house where he lodged. She did not promise to ring him up, but he took her request as an assurance. Without much diminution of beatitude he watched her walk away until she vanished among the crowds at the eastern end of the Serpentine. Then he went home to await, in complete confidence, a telephone call.
After a week she rang him up to ask if he had any more sketches which might look nice on bowls. If so, would he post them to her immediately? He rummaged through his papers and found several. Two suggested wind: the last leaves of autumn whirled away from tree-tops blowing, and a flock of birds raising from a stubble field, shaped by a gale into a half-circle against a cloudy sky. Another showed London roof-tops and chimney-pots under long shafts of light from a hidden sun. He posted them all to Mount Square.
At Richardson he was admonished by Mrs Gray, who took a proprietary interest in the whole business. He should be the one to ring up, she said; he should do so, suggesting dinner and a theatre.
‘I think,’ he explained, ‘she goes out as much as she wants.’
‘Very popular, is she?’
Mrs Gray’s hopes sank again. Any serious competition would be fatal to poor Selwyn.
He, however, had no misgivings. Every morning he awoke to fresh hope. No night quenched his faith. Moreover, he was much preoccupied with a new idea for a bowl. The design, on the inside surface, was to show, upside down, a water-front, hills, trees, and houses, reflections in some landlocked harbour. The conception excited him, but, whenever he imagined it inside a bowl, it lacked the limpidity which might suggest reflections. He feared that it would all look too solid.
After another week he got a note from her. Her bald-headed friend from Sweden was in England and had asked them both to lunch on Sunday, at the Barchester Hotel. His name was Hagstrom, and his line was glass.
Glass! thought Selwyn. Glass! Of course!
4
‘Swedish?’ said Mrs Gray, when he reported this latest development. ‘Oh, but Swedish glass is lovely. You remember that vase we all gave to Miss Skinner for a wedding present? That was Swedish.’
‘Umph!’ said Selwyn.
The vase given to Miss Skinner had thick white lumpy figures on it. Great skill was doubtless needed to put them there but he had wondered why they should have been put there at all.
‘And I had a bowl from Sweden. Only it was bombed. A lovely blue-green, with mermaids in very high relief swimming round it. I wish you could have seen it.’
‘Umph!’
He was glad that he had not. By some ill chance he was continually confronted by nasty pieces of glass. They caught his eye in shop windows. He had never thought about the stuff before. Now that he had begun to do so it was only to conclude that a great deal of it had been a ghastly mistake.’ All these colours and lumps and curls and twirls would never serve for anything that he wanted to do.
Sunday, however, was rushing towards him. He had not many hours in which to ponder upon glass. He must take his other suit to the cleaners.
Elizabeth had told him to call for her at half past twelve in Mount Square. He duly presented himself and was shown into a room on the ground floor. It seemed to be some kind of ante-room; a larger, brighter expanse was visible through an arch. After waiting for a few seconds he became aware that there were people in there. He heard mutterings, gigglings and scufflings.
He took a couple of paces towards the arch and then paused, recalling some advice that Elizabeth had given him. At the wedding he had behaved like a blockhead partly because he had not been prepared to encounter a lot of caddishness. The noises now audible sounded uncommonly like a romp in the hay. Had this been a barn he might have gone to investigate. Since it was Mount Square he had better not stick his neck out.
The romp gathered impetus. There were thumps, squeaks, and a crash. The squeaks became squeals. A well-built blonde rushed through the arch. Her pursuer, thudding close behind, caught her half-way down the room, up-ended her on one of the chairs, threw her dress over her head, and smacked her with mounting zest until Selwyn gave a squawk of protest.
Silence fell. Two faces peered at him in amazement. The nymph rolled off the chair and pulled her dress down. The satyr asked Selwyn who in hell he was.
‘I’m waiting for Miss Colleoni.’
‘Liz, d’you mean? She hangs out upstairs. You should have gone up in the lift.’
‘I was told to wait here.’
‘Bloody fools …’
‘Who’s Liz?’ demanded the girl, as her companion went back into the other room.
Selwyn turned away and looked out of the window at Mount Square. A voice through the arch, obviously telephoning, said:
‘Liz? A boy-friend of yours has been let loose down here. Come and remove him, will you?’
The stranger returned. He was a handsome fellow of indeterminate age, wearing an artificial boyishness just as he wore an expensive suit and an Irish brogue.
‘Who’s this Liz?’ repeated the blonde.
He grinned at her, pondered, and said:
‘She’s me stepdaughter.’
‘Your what?’
‘I said stepdaughter. You knew I had one, didn’t you?’
There was a long pause.
‘And she lives here?’
‘Of course. Why wouldn’t she?’
‘Not gone back to America with her mother?’
‘Gone back? Amanda has only gone to the States for a few weeks. She’ll be in England for my Première.’
The door opened. Elizabeth sailed in, bringing with her a breath from the North Pole. The atmosphere became glacial. Taking no notice of the other two, she said to Selwyn:
‘I’m so sorry you were kept waiting. Let’s go.’
A moment later they were in the Square. He choked back a number of questions which, a month ago, would have been asked forthwith. Was that heel really her stepfather? Had she been abandoned to his guardianship while her mother went to the States?
He must not be a blockhead, and he was feeling a little frightened of her. That so sweet and gentle a creature could feel, and convey, such a degree of icy contempt was disturbing; nor was it pleasant to reflect that she might have a good deal of practice.
After a while she said:
‘Don’t worry. I’m leaving Mount Square on 14 June.’
His heart rose. His heart sank. If she was going to America he might never see her again.
‘On 14 June I’ll be twenty-one and I can live where I like. The world is all before me.’
‘Which … which bit of it?’
‘I haven’t decided. I want to get a job.’
‘You?’
‘I couldn’t hold down a job, you think?’
‘I shouldn’t have thought you’d need one.’
‘Why not?’
He spied barbed wire ahead. It would be indelicate to say that he had thought her very rich.
‘Did you think I’m very rich?’ she asked, so nicely that they were over that fence without a scratch.<
br />
‘That house … those pictures … all those servants …’
‘Did anyone tell you I was rich before you saw the house?’
‘One of the … at the wedding … one of the …’
More barbed wire! She took over.
‘One of the cads at the wedding told you I’m Amanda Kreutzer’s daughter. Had you ever heard of her before?’
‘No. But he seemed to think I would have. He said she was a millionairess.’
‘She was. I don’t think she is now. What else did he say?’
‘That you were a … a … very prominent Deb.’
‘Ex-Deb. I came out last year. Now I’ve gone in again. His dentist must only keep very, very old Tatlers in his waiting-room.’
‘I didn’t know they went in again, Debs.’
‘They don’t generally. They go on, or up, or off. Not in. But I like to be different. I want to consult you, as a matter of fact. I think you might help me.’
‘Could I? Oh, could I?’
‘Yes. I’ll explain some other time. Listen now while I tell you about Olaf Hagstrom. He and all his family were very kind to me when I lived in Stockholm. His glass-house is ten miles out of Stockholm, on the lake. Do you know anything about glass?’
Selwyn declared that he knew nothing and had, in the course of the past week, taken a dislike to a great deal of it.
‘Oh, colours and lumps. I know what you mean. It’s engraving on white glass that you ought to think about. Just lines, like you draw. Olaf is making a great drive … he’s looking for designs. He’s got some people who are first-class at wheel engravings, but rather commonplace when it comes to ideas for designs. And he has nobody really good at diamond point. Did you never take a look at diamond point?’
‘I’ve always given glass a miss in galleries and museums. One can’t look at everything. I’ve seen it being blown, at Murano, of course. Very good fun to watch. But I never had the slightest wish to know more about it.’
‘I can’t understand that, when you’re so quick to spot things. That Tiepolo … Oh well! I mightn’t have got to know anything about it myself if I hadn’t made friends with Linda Hagstrom.’
The Forgotten Smile Page 11