“My dear lady!” he said. “My dear lady, there are different kinds of beauty, you’ll grant me that, I hope.”
Barbara granted it to him willingly.
“Beauty,” said Mr. Marvell, “beauty is a dangerous word to use. What is beauty? Tell me that.”
Barbara remained dumb. She knew what beauty was, but she was now aware that Mr. Marvell thought it was something quite different, and she was a little frightened of him again.
“Beauty,” continued Mr. Marvell in his resonant voice, “is the greatest force in the world. Take a woman with beauty. She has in her hands an extremely powerful weapon, which she can use for good or evil. If all the beautiful women in the world could combine they could change the whole world; nothing would be beyond them, literally nothing. But beauty and intelligence rarely go hand in hand (for intelligence writes upon a face), and perhaps this is fortunate. Marry intelligence to beauty and beget ambition. A king’s mistress!” cried Mr. Marvell (so carried away by his theme as to become somewhat incoherent). “Was Maintenon beautiful? Was Mary of Scotland beautiful? Or Nell Gwynne? What is beauty? A mere question of bones.”
“Bones?” inquired Barbara in amazement.
“Bones,” said Mr. Marvell firmly. “I could paint you,” he continued, looking at her with a strangely impersonal stare, “I could paint you. You have good bones; your face is well constructed; the proportions are almost right. I could paint you and make you ‘beautiful’—as you call it—are you offended?”
“I think it’s rather a compliment,” said Barbara slowly.
Mr. Marvell laughed. “Some people would say it was ‘rather an insult,’” he told her.
“Well, of course, if they were beautiful it would be,” said Barbara with strict justice, “because they wouldn’t need any alteration, would they? But I still don’t see how you could paint me, and make me beautiful, and it would still be me.”
“I would add on a little to your nose, and subtract a little from your mouth,” said Mr. Marvell, grinning at her impudently. “There are one or two other small details, of course, but these are the main alterations I would make. Are you offended now?”
“No,” said Barbara, smiling at him. “I know my mouth’s too big, you see.”
“Then it’s hopeless,” Mr. Marvell told her. “Quite hopeless. You are absolutely unique among women.”
“Did you want to offend me?” she inquired.
“I thought you deserved it,” he replied. “But now I’m not so sure. In fact, I’m almost sure you didn’t.”
He looked at her to see if she understood, but it was obvious that she had no idea what he was getting at. Her eyes met his with childlike honesty—it was almost impossible to flirt with a woman who was so unaware. What had she wanted when she lured him out here, wondered Mr. Marvell. It almost looked as if she had wanted to see his work—and yet how could she have wanted to see his work? The woman scarcely knew one end of a paintbrush from the other.
She was looking round the studio again, now, and realizing, with surprise, that all these women, clothed, partially clothed, and completely unclothed, were Mrs. Marvell.
“Why is it?” she inquired. “Why is it that the pictures are all different? I mean they’re all Mrs. Marvell and yet, if you saw them without knowing, you’d think they were all different people. I hope you don’t mind me asking,” she added, a trifle diffidently.
“Most interesting,” said Mr. Marvell gazing at her, “you find them so different. The answer to your question is—I am an artist.”
Barbara had known that before. She looked at him blankly.
“We then ask ourselves,” continued Mr. Marvell in his booming voice, “we then ask ourselves—what is an artist? What manner of creature is this that sees his wife differently every time he looks at her? And we find the answer here,” said Mr. Marvell, striking himself on the chest with a dull thump. “The artist is a creature of moods—what he experiences, that he expresses. I experience my wife as a large stately woman—I paint a Juno. I experience my wife as a languorous beauty—I paint a Récamier. I experience my wife as a sparkling courtesan—I paint a Ninon de L’Enclos. I experience the gamin in my wife—I paint a guttersnipe.”
“Yes,” said Barbara breathlessly.
“I have, therefore, in my wife a variety of models,” said Mr. Marvell complacently, “and the fact that I live in the backwoods, where professional models are unprocurable, is less of a disadvantage to me than it would be to another. I think I may say that I have made a virtue of necessity, for I have now painted Feodore so often that I can appreciate her finer shades. The small difference, for instance, between the Feodore of today and the Feodore of last week—amazing!” added Mr. Marvell, shaking his leonine head. “Amazing!”
Barbara agreed that it was.
“Art is always amazing,” he continued. “All art,” he cried, throwing out his arms as if to embrace a Universe of Art. “I am not one of those moribund creatures who deny inspiration to my fellowmen. My own medium satisfies me, but who am I that I should limit art to one medium? Take the musician, the composer—he perceives the spirit of art through the organ of hearing; he experiences emotion through the ear, and, through the ear, he gives himself to the world. Take the author—he appeals to a different sense. With what care and judgment he builds his book. Keeping in view a sustained line from start to finish, with every part in due relation to the whole. Stone by stone he—”
“Oh no, he doesn’t!” Barbara interrupted.
“I beg your pardon—”
“I said no, he doesn’t,” repeated Barbara firmly. “It isn’t like that at all; it isn’t like building—not a bit. In building, you see, you know beforehand what it’s going to be like; at least, I suppose you do. I mean, it would never do to start off building a house and find you’ve built a bridge, or something, when it was all finished. It’s more like hunting, really,” said Barbara, warming up to her subject. “Yes, it’s really rather like hunting. You start out to hunt a stag and you find the tracks of a tiger. It’s an adventure, you see, that’s the beauty of it. You don’t know a bit what you’re going to find until you come to the end, and, even then, you don’t know what you’ve found. At least you know what you’ve found for yourself but you don’t know if you’ve found anything for anybody else, but that doesn’t matter, really. The only thing that matters is that you must find something—some sort of—well—prey. Otherwise it’s no good, of course. You go questing about, like a—like a hound, and sometimes you get lost, and sometimes you find things you never knew were there. I can’t explain properly—” said Barbara waving her hands wildly, and almost bursting in her efforts to get it out.
Mr. Marvell stood and listened to all this with his mouth open. To say he was surprised is ludicrously to understate the case—was Balaam surprised when the ass spoke?
“You write,” he said at last, when he could find a voice to say it in. The description to which he had listened was extremely muddled, and somewhat incoherent, and Mr. Marvell—although he knew very little about the art of writing—was pretty certain that the method described by Mrs. Abbott was an extremely unorthodox method of producing a well-written book; but he was intelligent enough to realize that nobody, who had not gone through the adventures described, could possibly have described them in such a vivid manner. It was, therefore, not as a question but as a positive assertion, that Mr. Marvell said, “You write.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Barbara, aghast at what she had done. “Oh well—well, sometimes—I used to, I mean. I don’t, now, ever.”
“Why not?” inquired Mr. Marvell with interest.
“Oh well, you see, I’m married now. There’s no need—”
“Did you go hunting for the pot, or for pleasure?”
Barbara giggled. “Well, if you really want to know,” she said, “I started hunting for the pot, b
ut, quite soon, it sort of got me. But it’s all over now,” added Barbara seriously, rather as if she were a reformed drunkard and had signed the pledge. “It’s all over and done with now, and I don’t really like people to know about it.”
“A secret, eh?” inquired Mr. Marvell smiling.
“Yes—”
“I wonder why.”
Barbara was not going to tell him that. Oh no, she had told him far too much already. I must have been mad to let the cat out of the bag to Mr. Marvell, she thought, and then she looked rather pensive for a little, for her outburst to Mr. Marvell had stirred her up; and she reflected that it was really rather a pity that it was all over so completely, because, really and truly, it had been rather fun.
Mr. Marvell found her abstracted; he saw that for tonight, at any rate, Mrs. Abbott had nothing to give him. He suggested that they should return to their spouses.
***
Mr. Abbott had had a very trying time with Mrs. Marvell. He found her a most inarticulate person, amorphous as a jellyfish. She laid herself upon the divan in the drawing-room, settling the cushions very comfortably behind her head and into the curves of her body. Two long, beautifully molded legs were exposed to Mr. Abbott’s view, clad in the finest of sheer silk stockings. This done, she left the rest of Mr. Abbott’s entertainment to Fate. It might have been enough entertainment for some people, but Mr. Abbott did not find it enough. He was not interested in Mrs. Marvell’s legs—not in the least. He was not interested in Mrs. Marvell at all. But Mrs. Marvell was his hostess and he felt bound to converse with her. He tried her on every subject he could think of, but she had no ideas to offer upon any of them. It was uphill work. It was frightful toil. And, all through this frightful toil, Mr. Abbott was conscious of an even more frightful uneasiness at the back of his mind. Should he have allowed Barbara to be led away to Mr. Marvell’s studio like that? Should he? Was it perfectly all right, or was it not? Artists, Mr. Abbott knew, were rather queer—not like other people at all—and Barbara was so extraordinarily innocent, so ignorant of the big, wicked world.
“They’re a long time,” said Mr. Abbott at last.
“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Marvell, unhelpfully.
“I wonder what they’re doing,” essayed Mr. Abbott, with an apologetic laugh.
Mrs. Marvell considered this for a moment or two, and then said she didn’t know.
“I think I’ll go and see,” said Mr. Abbott, rising to his feet.
“I shouldn’t do that.”
“No?”
“No, James wouldn’t like it.”
Mr. Abbott was even more uneasy at this ominous statement. “Wouldn’t like it!” he repeated anxiously.
“No.”
“I think I’ll go all the same.”
“Sit down, they’ll be back soon,” Mrs. Marvell said. She rolled over on the divan, and settled herself more comfortably among the soft down cushions (just as if she were in bed! Mr. Abbott thought).
“Sit down,” said Mrs. Marvell again. “They won’t be long now.”
Mr. Abbott was defeated. He sat down on the edge of the chair. It was absurd that he could not go after his own wife and find her, quite absurd, but, somehow or other, he couldn’t. He sat and frowned at the fire; he was not going to look at Mrs. Marvell, horrible woman, detestable woman!
“Why are you worried?” inquired Mrs. Marvell in her queer husky voice. “Can’t you trust your wife?”
Mr. Abbott couldn’t believe his ears. “What did you say?”
“Can’t you trust your wife?” repeated Mrs. Marvell in a conversational tone.
“Of course I can trust my wife,” said Mr. Abbott angrily. “What an extraordinary thing to say!”
“I thought you were worried,” explained Mrs. Marvell casually.
“It’s your husband I don’t trust,” added Mr. Abbott, who was so upset that he scarcely knew what he was saying.
“I don’t think you need worry,” said Mrs. Marvell, quite unmoved. “She’s too old for James, really. He does take fancies to people sometimes, but only if they’re young and pretty.”
Mr. Abbott was dumb with astonishment and fury—the woman must be mad! He looked at her, and saw her peering at him with her queer brown eyes. Her untidy brown head was burrowed deep into a green cushion, so deeply burrowed that she had to hold down the edge of the cushion to see Mr. Abbott at all. The rest of her body was humped in curves along the whole length of the divan. Mr. Abbott looked at her—he had never seen a lady behave like this in her drawing-room before, or in any other room for that matter—he looked at her and came to the conclusion that she was either mad or bad—possibly both. He was wrong, of course. Mrs. Marvell was a good wife and perfectly sane and respectable. She had merely been brought up differently from Mr. Abbott’s friends. Mrs. Marvell was completely natural in her body; her body was to her what an animal’s body is to an animal. She sprawled upon the divan, and burrowed into the cushions, because it was comfortable and she was extremely tired. Posing for hours at a time for an exacting man like Mr. Marvell is no light work; it tires the body and dulls the mind. At least this was the effect it had upon Mrs. Marvell. If you pose for hours you must either think a great deal or not at all—she found it better not to think at all. If you pose for hours, not thinking at all, your mind becomes a complete blank; it atrophies. Mrs. Marvell’s mind had atrophied to a certain extent; it was subsidiary to her body. Her body was her chief asset, and was therefore her chief care. She cultivated her body assiduously; she massaged it, exercised it, dieted it, manicured it, and anointed it with various oils and lotions. She was fully aware that, when her body was no longer beautiful, James would insist (with perfect right) upon having a model in the house—and, once that started, where were you? So Mrs. Marvell lived for her body, and tended it carefully, and neglected her mind.
Mrs. Marvell and Mr. Abbott misunderstood each other completely. Mr. Abbott thought that Mrs. Marvell was mad or bad. Mrs. Marvell thought Mr. Abbott was a Philistine—a dull, hypocritical old donkey, as she put it to herself—and they were both wrong. It is very unfortunate when people misunderstand each other so completely, and the saddest part of this particular case of misunderstanding was that there was no possibility of their ever coming to a better understanding of each other, because they were divided by a miasma of prejudice and ignorance.
It was into this atmosphere of prejudice and ignorance that Mr. Marvell and Barbara returned. They were delighted with each other, not so much because they understood each other any better than the other couple, but because they misunderstood each other differently. Mr. Abbott was thankful to behold his wife, apparently safe and sound. His one idea was to go home and take her with him. He rose and said that they must go. It was really Barbara’s privilege to determine the hour of their departure, but Barbara showed signs of settling down in the drawing-room, and Mr. Abbott was desperate. I shall be rude to that dreadful woman in a minute, he thought, in fact I have been rude to her already, only she doesn’t seem to mind. He rose and dragged Barbara away.
The Marvells were a little surprised at their guests’ departure; they begged them to stay a little longer, and offered various inducements, such as ping-pong, or the wireless, but Mr. Abbott scarcely listened. All he wanted was to get home.
Chapter Eighteen
The Christmas Dinner Party
Sam spent Christmas with his mother, it was only right that he should; he would have enjoyed it more if he had not had to attend quite so many services in church. Sam liked church in moderation, but he did not like spending his entire holiday in the sacred edifice. He escaped as soon as was decent, and came down to The Archway House feeling more chastened than usual after his ordeal. Barbara was worried about Sam; he was not like himself at all. Unrequited love and too much church had worn out and subdued the gay young man out of all recognition. Barbara insisted on
giving him breakfast in bed and Sam enjoyed it. He was in the mood for a little petting and pampering—somewhat tired, and not a little miserable. Barbara was a good soul.
The Abbotts had postponed their Christmas dinner for Sam’s benefit; it was to be a party. Barbara had wanted to invite the Marvells—to return their hospitality—but Arthur wouldn’t hear of it, so they had asked Jerry Cobbe and her brother (who was with her for the festive season) and Monkey Wrench.
The party took place the night following Sam’s arrival. Dr. Wrench rang up at about seven o’clock and left a message to say he had had an urgent call, but would come later if he could get away. The remaining five dined off turkey and plum pudding, and pulled crackers afterward. The dinner was excellent, and the party ought to have been a success, but, somehow or other, it fell rather flat. The host and hostess were the only people who really enjoyed it, and their enjoyment was tempered, unconsciously, by the fact that their guests were not in tune. Their guests were, in fact, thoroughly out of tune, not only with each other, but also with themselves.
Jerry and Archie Cobbe had just had a frightful row. They had actually had it on the way to the party, as they were driving over in Archie’s small car. The row was all the more frightful because it was a rare thing for them to quarrel. Jerry was a sweet-tempered person, as a rule; she was very fond of Archie, in spite of his delinquencies, and was tactful and soothing and indulgent by turns. But, tonight, she had been none of these things, and each had said enough to make it plain that they were completely at variance with each other upon the Ethics of Life. Jerry’s view of Life was that “you should be independent and stand on your own feet”; and Archie’s view was that your relations should “take an interest in you, especially if they have Plenty of the Needful, like Aunt Matilda.”
“Why should Aunt Matilda?” Jerry had inquired, and Archie had replied, “Why shouldn’t she? I’m her heir, aren’t I? You’d think the old brute would be glad to fork out a bit now, instead of keeping me hanging on, longing for her to pip.”
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