Unfinished Portrait

by Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott, Agatha

  ‘Well,’ said Dermot good-humouredly, ‘you can’t cling to me. I’m not going to let you.’

  ‘Do you mind very much, Dermot, my being dreamy and fancying things and imagining things that might happen and what I should do if they did?’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind, if it amuses you.’

  Dermot was always fair. He was independent himself, and he respected independence in other people. He had, presumably, his own ideas about things, but he never put them into words or wanted to share them with anyone else.

  The trouble was that Celia wanted to share everything. When the almond tree in the court below came into flower it gave her a queer ecstatic feeling just under her heart, and she longed to put her hand into Dermot’s and drag him to the window and make him feel the same. But Dermot hated having his hand taken. He hated being touched at all unless he was in a recognizably amorous mood.

  When Celia burnt her hand on the stove and immediately after pinched a finger in the kitchen window she longed to go and put her head on Dermot’s shoulder and be comforted. But felt that that sort of thing would annoy Dermot – and she was perfectly right. He disliked being touched, or leaned on for comfort, or asked to enter into other people’s emotion.

  So Celia fought heroically against her passion for sharing, her weakness for caresses, her longing for reassurance.

  She told herself that she was babyish and foolish. She loved Dermot, and Dermot loved her. He loved her, probably, more deeply than she loved him since he needed less expression of love to satisfy him.

  She had passion and comradeship from him. It was unreasonable to expect affection as well. Grannie would have known better. ‘The men’ were not like that.

  2

  At week-ends Dermot and Celia went into the country together. They took sandwiches with them and then went by rail or bus to a chosen spot and then walked across country and came home by another train or bus.

  All the week Celia looked forward to the week-ends. Dermot came back from the City every day thoroughly tired, sometimes with a headache – sometimes with indigestion. After dinner he liked to sit and read. Sometimes he told Celia of incidents that had happened during the day, but on the whole he preferred not to talk. He usually had some technical book that he wanted to read uninterrupted.

  But at week-ends Celia got her comrade back. They walked through woods and made ridiculous jokes, and sometimes, going up hill, Celia would say, ‘I’m very fond of you, Dermot,’ and put her hand through his arm. This was because Dermot raced up hills and Celia got out of breath. Dermot didn’t mind his arm being held if it was only a joke and really to help her up the hill.

  One day Dermot suggested that they should play golf. He was very bad, he said, but he could play a little. Celia got out her clubs and cleaned the rust off them – and she thought of Peter Maitland. Dear Peter – dear, dear Peter. That warm affection she felt for Peter would stay with her to the end of her life. Peter was part of things …

  They found an obscure golf links where the green fees were not too high. It was fun to play golf again. She was frightfully rusty, but then Dermot wasn’t much good either. He hit terrific long shots but they were pulled or sliced wildly.

  It was great fun playing together.

  It didn’t just remain fun, though. Dermot, in games as in work, was efficient and painstaking. He bought a book and studied it deeply. He practised swings at home and bought some cork balls to practise with.

  The next week-end they didn’t play a round. Dermot did nothing but practise shots. He made Celia do the same.

  Dermot began to live for golf. Celia tried to live for golf too, but not with much success.

  Dermot’s game improved by leaps and bounds. Celia’s stayed much the same. She wished, passionately, that Dermot was a little more like Peter Maitland …

  Yet she had fallen in love with Dermot, attracted by precisely those qualities which differentiated him from Peter.

  3

  One day Dermot came in and said:

  ‘Look here, I’m going down to Dalton Heath with Andrews next Sunday. Is that all right?’

  Celia said of course it was all right.

  Dermot came back enthusiastic.

  Golf was wonderful; played on a first-rate course. Celia must come down next week and see Dalton Heath. Women couldn’t play at the week-ends, but she could walk round with him.

  They went once or twice more to their little cheap course, but Dermot took no further pleasure in it. He said that that sort of place was no good to him.

  A month later he told Celia that he was going to join Dalton Heath.

  ‘I know it’s expensive. But, after all, I can economize in other ways. Golf is the only recreation I’ve got, and it’s going to make all the difference to me. Both Andrews and Weston belong there.’

  Celia said slowly:

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be any good your belonging. Women can’t play at week-ends and I don’t suppose you’d care to go down by yourself in the week.’

  ‘I mean, what am I going to do at the week-ends? You’ll be playing with Andrews and people.’

  ‘Well, it would be rather silly to join a golf club and not use it.’

  ‘Yes, but we’ve always spent the week-ends together, you and I.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, you can get someone to go about with, can’t you? I mean, you’ve got lots of friends of your own.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Not now. The few friends I had who lived in London have all married and gone away.’

  ‘Well, there’s Doris Andrews, and Mrs Weston, and people.’

  ‘Those aren’t exactly my friends. They’re your friends’ wives. It isn’t quite the same thing. Besides, that isn’t it at all. You don’t understand. I like being with you. I like doing things with you. I liked our walks and our sandwiches, and playing golf together, and all the fun. You’re tired all the week, and I don’t worry you or bother you to do things in the evening, but I looked forward to the week-ends. I loved them. Oh, Dermot, I like being with you, and now we shall never do anything together any more.’

  She wished her voice wouldn’t tremble. She wished she could keep the tears back from her eyes. Was she being dreadfully unreasonable? Would Dermot be cross? Was she being selfish? She was clinging – yes, undoubtedly she was clinging. Ivy again!

  Dermot was trying hard to be patient and reasonable.

  ‘You know, Celia, I don’t think that’s quite fair. I never interfere with what you want to do.’

  ‘But I don’t want to do things.’

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t mind if you did. If any week-end you’d said that you wanted to go off with Doris Andrews or some old friend of yours, I should have been quite happy. I’d have hunted up somebody and gone off somewhere else. After all, when we married we did agree that each side should be free and do just what they wanted to do.’

  ‘We didn’t agree or talk about anything of the kind,’ said Celia. ‘We just loved each other and wanted to marry each other and thought it would be perfectly heavenly always to be together.’

  ‘Well, so it is. It isn’t that I don’t love you. I love you just as much as ever. But a man likes doing things with other men. And he needs exercise. If I was wanting to go off with other women, well, then you might have something to complain about. But I never want to be bothered with any other woman but you. I hate women. I just want to play a decent game of golf with another man. I do think you’re rather unreasonable about it.’

  Yes, probably she was being unreasonable …

  What Dermot wanted to do was so innocent – so natural …

  She felt ashamed …

  But he didn’t realize how terribly she was going to miss those week-ends together … She didn’t only want Dermot in her bed at night. She loved Dermot as play-fellow even better than Dermot as lover …

  Was it true what she had so often heard women say that men only wanted women as bedfellows and housekeepers? …

&nb
sp; Was that the whole tragedy of marriage – that women wanted to be companions, and that men were bored by it?

  She said something of the kind. Dermot, as always, was honest.

  ‘I think, Celia, that that is true. Women always want to do things with men – and a man would always rather have another man.’

  Well, she had got it flat. Dermot was right, and she was wrong. She had been unreasonable. She said so, and his face cleared.

  ‘You are so sweet, Celia. And I expect you’ll really enjoy it better in the end. I mean you’ll find people to go about with who enjoy talking about things and feelings. I know I’m rather bad at all that kind of thing. And we’ll be just as happy. In fact, I shall probably only play golf either Saturday or Sunday. The other day we’ll go out together as we did before.’

  The next Saturday he went off, radiant. On Sunday he suggested of his own accord that he and she should go for a ramble.

  They did, but it was not the same. Dermot was perfectly sweet, but she knew that his heart was at Dalton Heath. Weston had asked him to play but he had refused.

  He was full of conscious pride in his sacrifice.

  The next week-end Celia urged him to play golf both days, and he went off happily.

  Celia thought: ‘I must learn to play by myself again. Or else – I must find some friends.’

  She had scorned ‘domestic women’. She had been proud of her companionship with Dermot. Those domestic women – absorbed in their children, their servants, their house running – relieved when Tom or Dick or Fred went off to play golf at the week-end because there was no mess about the house – ‘It makes it so much easier for the servants, my dear –’ Men were necessary as breadwinners, but they were an inconvenience in the house …

  Perhaps, after all, domesticity paid best.

  It looked like it.

  14 Ivy

  1

  How lovely to be at home. Celia lay full length on the green grass – it felt deliciously warm and alive …

  The beech tree rustled overhead …

  Green – green – all the world was green …

  Trailing a wooden horse behind her, Judy came toiling up the slope of the lawn …

  Judy was adorable with her firm legs, her rosy cheeks and blue eyes, her thickly curling chestnut brown hair. Judy was her own little girl, just as she had been her mother’s little girl.

  Only, of course, Judy was quite different …

  Judy didn’t want to have stories told to her – which was a pity, because Celia could think of heaps of stories without any effort at all. And, anyway, Judy didn’t like fairy stories.

  Judy wasn’t any good at make-believe. When Celia told Judy how she herself had pretended that the lawn was a sea and her hoop a river horse, Judy had merely stared and said: ‘But it’s grass. And you bowl a hoop. You can’t ride it.’

  It was so obvious that she thought Celia must have been a rather silly little girl that Celia felt quite dashed.

  First Dermot had found out that she was silly, and now Judy!

  Although only four years old Judy was full of common sense. And common sense, Celia found, can be often very depressing.

  Moreover, Judy’s common sense had a bad effect upon Celia. She made efforts to appear sensible in Judy’s eyes – clear blue appraising eyes – with the result that she often made herself out sillier than she was.

  Judy was a complete puzzle to her mother. All the things that Celia had loved doing as a child bored Judy. Judy could not play for three minutes in the garden by herself. She would come marching into the house declaring that there was ‘nothing to do’.

  Judy liked doing real things. She was never bored in the flat at home. She polished tables with a duster, assisted in bed making, and helped her father to clean his golf clubs.

  Dermot and Judy had suddenly become friends. A thoroughly satisfying communion had grown up between them. Though still deploring Judy’s well-covered frame, Dermot could not but be charmed by her evident delight in his company. They talked to each other seriously, like grown-up people. When Dermot gave Judy a club to clean, he expected her to do it properly. When Judy said, ‘Isn’t that nice?’ about anything – a house she had built of bricks – or a ball she had made of wool, or a spoon she had cleaned – Dermot never said it was unless he thought so. He would point out errors or faulty construction.

  ‘You’ll discourage her,’ Celia would say.

  But Judy was not in the least discouraged, and her feelings were never hurt. She liked her father better than her mother because her father was more difficult to please. She liked doing things that were difficult.

  Dermot was rough. When he and Judy romped together, Judy nearly always got damaged – games with Dermot always ended in a bump or a scratch or a pinched finger. Judy didn’t care. Celia’s gentler games seemed to her tame.

  Only when she was ill did she prefer her mother to her father.

  ‘Don’t go away, Mummy. Don’t go away. Stay with me. Don’t let Daddy come. I don’t want Daddy.’

  Dermot was quite satisfied for his presence not to be desired. He didn’t like ill people. Anybody ill or unhappy embarrassed him.

  Judy was like Dermot about being touched. She hated to be kissed or picked up. One good-night kiss from her mother she bore, but nothing more. Her father never kissed her. When they said good night they grinned at each other.

  Judy and her grandmother got on very well together. Miriam was delighted with the child’s spirit and intelligence.

  ‘She’s extraordinarily quick, Celia. She takes a thing in at once.’

  Miriam’s old love of teaching revived. She taught Judy her letters and small words. Both grandmother and grandchild enjoyed the lessons.

  Sometimes Miriam would say to Celia:

  ‘But she’s not you, my precious …’

  It was as though she were excusing herself for her interest in youth. Miriam loved youth. She had the teacher’s joy in an awakening mind. Judy was an abiding excitement and interest to her.

  But her heart was all Celia’s. The love between them was stronger than ever. When Celia arrived she would find her mother looking a tiny old woman – grey – faded. But in a day or two she would revive, the colour would come back to her cheeks, the sparkle to her eyes.

  ‘I’ve got my girl back,’ she would say happily.

  She always asked Dermot down too, but she was always delighted when he didn’t come. She wanted Celia to herself.

  And Celia loved the feeling of stepping back into her old life. To feel that happy tide of reassurance sweeping over her – the feeling of being loved – of being adequate …

  For her mother, she was perfect … Her mother didn’t want her to be different … She could just be herself.

  It was so restful to be yourself …

  And then she could let herself go – in tenderness – in saying things …

  She could say, ‘I am so happy,’ without having to catch back the words at Dermot’s frown. Dermot hated you to say what you were feeling. He felt it, somehow, to be indecent …

  At home Celia could be as indecent as she liked …

  She could realize better at home how happy she was with Dermot and how much she loved him and Judy …

  And after an orgy of loving and saying all the things that came into her head, she could go back and be a sensible, independent person such as was approved of by Dermot.

  Oh, dear home – and the beech tree – and the grass – growing – growing – against her cheek.

  She thought dreamily: ‘It’s alive – it’s a Great Green Beast – the whole earth is a Great Green Beast … it’s kind and warm and alive … I’m so happy – I’m so happy … I’ve got everything I want in the world …’

  Dermot drifted happily in and out of her thoughts. He was a kind of motif in her melody of life. Sometimes she missed him terribly.

  She said to Judy one day:

  ‘Do you miss Daddy?’

  ‘No,’ said Judy.
>
  ‘But you’d like him to be here?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Aren’t you sure? You’re so fond of Daddy.’

  ‘Of course I am, but he’s in London.’

  That settled it for Judy.

  When Celia got back, Dermot was very pleased to see her. They had a happy, lover-like evening. Celia murmured:

  ‘I’ve missed you a lot. Have you missed me?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t thought about it.’

  ‘You mean you haven’t thought about me?’

  ‘No. What would be the good? Thinking of you wouldn’t bring you here.’

  That, of course, was quite true and very sensible.

  ‘But you’re pleased now that I am here?’

  His answer satisfied her.

  But later, when he was asleep, and she lay awake, dreamily happy, she thought:

  ‘It’s awful, but I believe I wish that Dermot could sometimes be a tiny bit dishonest …

  ‘If he could have said, “I missed you terribly, darling,” how comforting and warming it would have been, and it really wouldn’t have mattered if it had been true or not.’

  No, Dermot was Dermot. Her funny, devastatingly truthful Dermot. Judy was just like him …

  It was wiser, perhaps, not to ask them questions if you didn’t fancy the truth for an answer.

  She thought drowsily:

  ‘I wonder if I shall get jealous of Judy some day … She and Dermot understand each other so much better than he and I do.’

  Judy, she had fancied, was sometimes jealous of her. She liked her father’s attention to be entirely focused on herself.

  Celia thought: ‘How queer. Dermot was so jealous of her before she was born – and even when she was a tiny baby. It’s funny the way things turn out the opposite way from what you expect …’

  Darling Judy … darling Dermot … so alike – so funny – and so sweet … and hers. No – not hers. She was theirs. One liked it better that way. It felt warmer – more comfortable. She belonged to them.

  2

  Celia invented a new game. It was really, she thought, a new phase of ‘the girls’. ‘The girls’ themselves were moribund. Celia tried to resurrect them, gave them babies and stately homes in parks and interesting careers – but it was all no good. ‘The girls’ refused to come to life again.