that Buxton would understand it. He added, “Mrs. Post and Miss Perdy.”
And over these names, as he uttered them, there played his uncompro-
mising genteel reserve.
Buxton said with some irritation, “Well, show them in! Show them
in!”
But they were already in. At the door there appeared first a figure
of giant size, then one of fairy slightness, the one all darkness of com-
plexion and eyebrows, the other almost startlingly blond. The first figure
hesitated with a certain archness. “May we come in?” said Mrs. Post. “We
are bad, we are interrupting, we shouldn’t—but then we’ve never met
Mr. Hammell, and we’ve been wanting to for ever so long.”
the unfinished novel
“Mrs. Post, Mr. Hammell,” said Barrett promptly. “Miss Aiken, Mr.
Hammell.” But he was quite without his usual pleasure in the social
forms. The introduction was almost wrung from him.
Vincent had risen at the sound of Mrs. Post’s arch voice. He bowed.
He saw that there was nothing gigantic about Mrs. Post. She was really
not much taller than many women are. But she bulked large beside the
girl and there was a degree of force in her bearing as she stood there
smiling that suggested the gigantic. As for the girl, she would naturally
be accompanied by giants, or dwarfs, or elves, or witches, for she looked
as if she had stepped from the illustrations of a book of fairy tales. She
was amazingly slim, she wore a bright green dress, she had a large red
mouth in a tiny face which was made the smaller, which seemed almost
crushed, by a massive coif of blond curls. Two large eyes looked out from
under the startling pile of her hair and two little apple-like breasts lift-
ed the green dress. The great eyes were turned to Vincent when Barrett
made the introduction, but what they signified, or whether they signified
anything at all, or whether the little breasts were anything more than
the expectable details in the representation of the princess who had felt
the pea through the thirty mattresses, or of any well-known picture-book
princess, Vincent could not tell. But upon seeing her, his heart quick-
ened with astonishment and excitement, for he was seeing here in reality
the pictured fantasy of his early boyhood.
But the quickening was stilled almost as soon as begun. The vague-
ness and insubstantiality that had once charmed his dreams now chilled
him when he saw it in a literal actuality. Still, she made a very charming
figure as she stood there with her sweet, inconclusive smile, leaning a
little forward, standing almost on tiptoe.
To Mrs. Post Buxton said cordially, “Do sit down, Claudine,” and to
the girl he said, “How do you do, Perdita?” and to her he gravely held out
his large dry hand into which she placed her little bright one. She did not
actually drop a courtesy, but her attitude suggested that she was on the
point of doing so. Buxton regarded her with a quiet tolerant pleasure,
“How are you getting on, my dear?” he said.
Perdita turned her head to look at Claudine Post. “Dr. Buxton means
with your lessons, dear,” said Mrs. Post. “Perdy has a lovely voice, Mr.
Hammell, and Dr. Buxton has—”
Buxton lifted his hand in imperious admonition, but Mrs. Post was
not to be checked. She shook a finger at Buxton and said, “No, no, I’ll not
have you disclaiming it. No indeed. If Mr. Hammell is your biographer,
then you can hide nothing from him. Mr. Hammell should especially
1
the unfinished novel
know it, he of all people should know it.” And she made a gay and affec-
tionate gesture of flouting Buxton’s wish to deprecate himself. Now she
became perfectly and defiantly explicit. “Mr. Hammell—Dr. Buxton has
arranged for Perdy to have singing lessons. And her teacher has great
hopes of her. No, I’ll not have it hidden. Nor will Perdy. Will you, dear?”
There had of course been affection in Buxton’s effort to keep Mrs.
Post from disclosing his kindness. But he did give up the effort very eas-
ily as Mrs. Post refused to permit it, and he seemed visibly to relax into
geniality under her praise. And when Perdy responded to Mrs. Post’s
question by giving Buxton a timid little smile and shaking her ringlet-
massed head, the old man quite glowed with the gentle satisfaction of
his benevolence.
Now that Vincent had the opportunity of finding out about Claudine
Post for himself, there was nothing about her that he liked. Neither in ap-
pearance nor in manner was there anything to approve of, from her jutting
nose and too-quick eye to her voice which was both loud and consciously
polite, a demonstrative voice which seemed to evoke an unseen listener
to whom the demonstration was being made over the heads of whom-
ever else might be present. Yet whatever his judgment of Mrs. Post might
be, Vincent found that there was some unnameable charm to which he
responded. When, after this first meeting, she began to force the acquain-
tanceship, to insist that he come to tea at her house, sometimes sending
Perdy to fetch him at Buxton’s when his work was done, sometimes her-
self waylaying him as he passed, he became increasingly aware of this
charm. He used that word of her, not in the usual metaphoric sense, but
literally. She was not delightful—she had a charm, in the sense of a magic
which had no connection with anything visibly hers, with any observable
grace or interest. It was, as it were, something concealed under her dress,
like the battery of a hearing-aid or a religious medal, or an amulet. It was a
power, and Vincent understood what Garda Thorne had meant when she
spoke of Claudine Post as an enchantress. For Vincent found that if he
looked at her dark face or her body clothed in dark fabrics which always
seemed to have been worn a little too long, he was on the whole repelled;
but when she began to talk to him the charm asserted itself. The charm
of flattery has nothing to do either with the grace of the flatterer or with
the truth of what is said, but only with the intention of the flatterer, and
Vincent found that in some way he was flattered by Claudine Post. When
he was with her he found that he was relaxed and gratified. When she
centered him in the conversation and directed all her energy of attention
upon him, he could not resist the feelings that came. They puzzled him,
150
the unfinished novel
these feelings, because mingled with the glow of pleasure was some ele-
ment of almost physical fear.
His dislike of Claudine Post soon became a settled thing with him.
Yet the force of that charm was always able to reach him. Part of the
charm, perhaps, was the presence of young Perdita Aiken. Perdita had
no attraction for Vincent, although, whenever he saw her he found a cu-
rious thin pleasure in her story-book beauty, but whenever the two wom-
en were together, Claudine Post’s charm was the surer and more potent.
And Vincent, aware of the girl’s odd dependence on the older woman,
wondered whether the awareness of the bawds in the
old plays of lechery
was merely a comic awareness, whether the old woman who provided
the occasion for the sexual act in which she did not participate did not in
some way contribute perversely to its enjoyment, for hers was the task
of serving the masculinity of her customers, of bringing it to conscious-
ness, of reassuring it.
“Perhaps, darling,” said Mrs. Post, “you’d sing for Dr. Buxton now.”
Perdita smiled and rose without any protest or hanging back.
“Canterbury Bells?” she asked. It was the first time she had spoken.
“No, dear,” Mrs. Post said, as if Perdita should have known a great
deal better than that, “Not Canterbury Bells.” The tone was as to an intel-
ligent child. For the first time Vincent made specific calculation of Perdi-
ta’s age. She was surely eighteen.
“Voi che s’ appete?” Perdita asked. But she pronounced “voi” as if it
were French.
“Not ‘vwa,’ dear— voi as in boy.” Mrs. Post’s voice was kind.
Perdita made a pretty little gesture of impatience with herself, snap-
ping her fingers and ducking her head.
Mrs. Post arose and went to the piano. With a somewhat too large
air of preparation, she stripped off a sizable onyx ring and a wedding
ring and laid them down. How the sheet of music had got into Perdita’s
hands was impossible to say, but she stood there holding it and no doubt
Mrs. Post had brought it for the purpose of putting it there. Mrs. Post sat
at the piano in a masterly way. Her back was to Buxton and Vincent and
Perdita, but before striking the first notes she turned and said, “This is
an aria from Mozart’s opera, The Marriage of Figaro. Cherubino sings it
to the Countess in her apartment. Cherubino is a charming boy, but the
part is always sung by a soprano, a girl.”
Buxton said drily, “Thank you, Claudine. You are quite right, as I
know—I have heard seven Cherubinos and, as you say, they were all so-
pranos and females.”
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the unfinished novel
Vincent had never heard Buxton use irony. Its effect upon Mrs.
Post was startling. She rose from the piano seat. “Oh you mustn’t—!”
she cried. “I was explaining only for Perdita. She has never heard the
opera. I wanted to help her visualize the part.” A deep dark flush over-
spread her face and neck and that part of her chest that was exposed
by the V of her dress. “Please don’t misunderstand,” she said. “You
mustn’t. If I didn’t know your feeling for Mozart, would I have chosen
this for Perdy?”
Buxton waved away the fault and the explanation, grandly, kindly.
But it had been clear that his vanity had been touched. Mrs. Post stood
there deeply troubled. She would have gone on with her apology, but
Buxton’s hand had turned into a gesture that was a command to leave
off. She turned back to the piano and Perdy came and stood beside her.
The piano sounded the few opening notes and Perdy began to sing
her Voi che s’ appete. Vincent had always thought the song a strange one,
for it begins in a falsetto and even in an affected manner—it is an in-
terpolated song, intended to have the manner of a performance, and it
had even occurred to Vincent that it was intended by Mozart as a parody
on a certain mincing style of his day. But the song moves beyond that
style to an intensity of feeling that is almost martial, so deep-throated
and affirmative does it become. Perdy’s voice was reed-like, thin, sweet
and wholly without flow. She sang the opening bars with a pedantic pre-
cision, nodding her head to each of the clearly marked phrases. Mrs.
Post’s head nodded to keep time for her. The first few bars suited the
strange unreal innocence of Perdita and the gauche little pedantry with
which she nodded them out was most beguiling. But this same manner,
which might almost have been an inspired one for the beginning of the
song, continued through to its end and what had been beguiling became
absurd and pathetic. The song was utterly beyond the child’s powers of
voice. But she went most courageously on to the end, borne up by the
piano and carried along by Mrs. Post’s nodding head. The piano and the
voice sounded their last notes together and the silence of absurdity filled
the room.
Or did it? For Mrs. Post said to Perdita, “Sweet, dearest,” and turned
to Buxton for his appreciation. And Buxton said, “Perdita, my dear, that
was very charming.” He got up and went to the girl. The sheet of music
was still trembling in her hands. “Your hands are cold,” he said. “Does it
frighten you to sing?”
She shook her head. “No, not really frighten,” she said.
“Doesn’t she have a lovely voice, Mr. Hammell?” said Mrs. Post.
15
the unfinished novel
Vincent gave his answer to Perdy herself. “I enjoyed it very much,”
he said. “It was so nice.” He felt very kind and mature, the girl was so
strangely young. For the first time she looked at him with a personal rec-
ognition, a bashful, small responsiveness. He smiled to her and felt no less
paternal than Buxton. But part of his paternal feeling arose from his pity
for the perfect hopelessness of that thin, foolish voice of hers. He did not
know whether Buxton had the same reason for tenderness or whether an
old man, even one who had heard seven Cherubinos, had lost the ability to
tell a good voice from a bad, or any interest in discriminating, and found
his pleasure in the mere sight of the singing girl. And certainly Perdita,
standing in her green dress, with the sheet of music in her hand, and her
large tender mouth articulating the Italian words, was, in a way, in her way,
a pretty and touching sight. And the two of them, Buxton in his achieved
oaklike age, Perdy in her odd, excessive youth, their hands meeting, all of
Buxton’s warmth flowing toward this ungrown, unrealized child, made for
Vincent a moment of the strangest intensity, the more intense because he
could attach no significance to it, could not understand what generaliza-
tion could be drawn from it about youth, age, about life and death—could
not, because Buxton stood in the perfection of his existence and Perdita
in the odd inadequacy of hers. The intensity of the moment seemed to
become the greater when Claudine Post stood beside Perdita and put her
arm about the girl’s shoulder. “It was lovely, wasn’t it?” she said.
“Yes, lovely,” Buxton said.
The grouping was close and intimate. As if aware of it, Mrs. Post said
with a large inclusive benignity, “I’m so glad you liked it, Mr. Hammell,”
and leaned her head sideways, mild and tender.
Vincent left. On the lawn outside Brooks Barrett stood lean as a rake
and leaning on one. Barrett made a few tidying passes with the rake and
Vincent had already walked down the path and was on the road before
Barrett spoke. “Mr. Hammell,” he said in a low voice. Vincent stopped.
Barrett made a gesture with his head and eyes back to the house. “Now
you know, Mr. Hammell, what I meant when I used the expression t
o
you, ‘human relations.’ Do you remember that I said to you on the occa-
sion of our first meeting that I could be of help to you and you thought
that I meant science. I said that the only help I could give you was in hu-
man relations. Do you happen to remember that?”
“Yes, I do remember.”
The “assistant” made another gesture with his head back to the
house. “That was what I had in mind. Those relations, Mr. Hammell, are
not—harmless.”
15
the unfinished novel
That moment when Buxton stood with Perdita, her hands in his, was
too charged for Vincent for him to permit Barrett to intrude into it. Not
harmless—as Barrett uttered those words, Vincent could suppose that
they were accurate, that any human relation that Claudine Post presided
over was not a harmless one, that what Claudine Post had brought to the
moment to intensify it was precisely the possibility of harm.
But the sense he had had of life summarized in that moment was his
own and he rejected Barrett’s intrusion into it. So he dropped his eyes
rather haughtily and said, “Indeed?” And then, to crush Barrett he said,
“All human relations, Mr. Barrett, have their dangers, you know.”
Barrett consented to be crushed. He shrank back into himself, hum-
ble, sorry and submissive. But having thus suppressed and effaced him-
self, he permitted himself to murmur, “Later, perhaps,” and he gave Vin-
cent a glance that was bolder than his words, a glance that had irony and
knowledge in it and that seemed to say, “You are not yet ready for what
you could know, but perhaps you will be.”
But perhaps the glance was bolder than Barrett meant, for when Vin-
cent had turned to go, Barrett came after him and said, “By the way, I
should tell you that I am a typist and nothing would give me more plea-
sure—I assure you, nothing—than to make your task lighter by typing
your manuscript when you are ready.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Vincent said. “Thank you very much.”
“Oh, don’t thank me—it would be a privilege,” Barrett said.
15
trilling’s commentary
The time of the story is, let us say, 1937—or any time after 1929 and
before 1939 in which it is possible to think about life without the most
The Journey Abandoned_The Unfinished Novel Page 29