by Alec Waugh
“And what about Robin?” his mother asked. Robin was Julia’s son.
“As far as I know, we didn’t mention Robin.”
“He must be all right then. He had a cold last week.”
Mrs. Oliver rose to her feet.
“I’ll go and see how my dinner’s getting on.”
“Call out when it’s nearly ready, Mother, so that I can bring out the bottle.”
It was a bottle of champagne that his father had cooling in the frigidaire. One of the last that he had laid down before Prohibition.
“Though this can hardly be a treat to you after all the champagne that you must have been drinking over there,” he said.
Francis laughed. “Even in France it costs three dollars. That’s more than a struggling painter can afford too often.”
“But I imagine some of your friends there could. What about those Marriotts you wrote about?”
“Oh, they were rich enough.”
A month ago – was that really all it was – in the first excitement of meeting Judy he had imagined the descriptions that he would give on his return of the villas he had visited, the parties he had attended, the socialites that he had met. He had pictured himself cutting a grand figure at his parents’ table, but now… no, it was all different now.
They dined in a small annex off the sitting room. The Olivers did not keep a servant. There was a woman who came in every morning to scour and wash up. His mother did all the cooking. She had prepared a typical New England dinner; roast turkey with cranberry sauce and onions and green peas.
“You’ll have had plenty of fancy dishes over there,” his father said, “but I’m sure you’ll have had nothing as wholesome and as good as this.”
Francis played up to him.
“That’s what I told them. French cooks cover things up with sauces so that you shan’t notice what you’re eating.”
“You told them that; I’m glad you told them that. And tell me was their champagne as good as this?”
“It wasn’t any better.”
“I’m glad to heard it. That’s what I’ve always said. The best champagne was always sent here. Americans had the best palate for it. You want to remember that when those Europeans start trying to high-hat you about Prohibition. Well, here’s to you, son. It’s good to have you back. It’s good, Mother, isn’t it?”
“It’s very good.”
They raised their glasses to him, and he lifted his. It was a deep amber-colored wine darker than most champagnes, with more taste than champagne ordinarily had. He remembered the last time he had drunk it. That night at Mougins. There had been no ceremony about it there. They treated it as a vin de table.
“And now I want to hear everything from the very start. Your letters told us nothing,” his father said.
His letters had been mainly postcards. “All news when I return,” he had written. But now that he was back it was as difficult for him to talk of his life in the South of France as it had been to talk of Judy. Here in this familiar room where every article of furniture, every picture, every ornament reminded him of the training and discipline to which he had been brought up, with his parents seemingly unchanged since his childhood memories of them, that life of the South of France seemed like an existence on another planet. He could not talk of it.
“I’ve brought back a lot of sketches. They’re my best description. I’ll show them to you afterwards,” he said.
“And what are you planning now? To go back into the city for the winter?”
He shook his head.
“I’m going to let my studio. I’m going to work on a series of New England landscapes. I’d like to stay on here if you will have me.”
“That will be very good for us.”
“I was thinking of going back to Europe in the spring.”
It was an effort for him to bring that out. He found himself blushing as he said it. He was conscious of his mother’s eyes upon him.
“So soon?”
“There was some talk of my having a show in London.”
His father looked surprised. “Wouldn’t that be rather difficult to arrange?”
“The Marriotts thought that they could fix it. They’ve got a good deal of influence.”
“I see.”
There was an awkward pause. His parents both knew that he was holding something back. His flush deepened, with a sense of guilt, with a sense of irritation – against whom he was not quite certain, himself, Judy or his parents. He hated this sense of guilt. It was the first time in his life that he had not been open with his parents.
His return after several months abroad should have been a festive occasion of reunion. He had meant it to be, his parents had meant it to be. But there was an air of constraint between them. The cable that he had not referred to, the letter that he had stuffed unread into his pocket, this unexpected and under-explained plan to return to England were indicative of a lack of openness, of a secret that could not be shared between son and parents. When one once starts to deceive, he thought.
Up in his room, he took out Judy’s letter.
“Darlingest, here I am again,” she said, “and only this morning I was posting the letter that I wrote last night. Am I being importunate? Am I boring you? I’m sorry, darling. It’ll be better when I get back to England; but here Where everything reminds me of you, every minute of the day I keep saying to myself ‘Yes, it was just as we were standing here that he said that…’ It won’t be as bad in England. Oh, but of course it will. Because as soon as I get back to England, I shall start planning out all the things we’re going to do together. I’m doing that already. I keep thinking of places that you’ll like to see, places that will be new to you, that will be really English. I so want you to love England, for my sake, because it’s mine. And when I get back to England, why every second of the day I’ll be asking myself ‘How’ll this strike Francis?’ and that’ll mean letters and more letters; only, darling, you won’t need to answer them, not all of them, just a few, just to remind me that you’re still thinking of me. You’re so far away. I can’t help feeling jealous. You’re so far away and I’ve no hold on you. If only I were with you, if only I were free. If I were married to anyone but Henry. But in spite of everything, we’ll have our time together somewhere, I know that; oh darling, don’t stop loving me. You’re all I’ve got.”
With a beating heart, yet at the same time with foreboding, with a sense of helplessness he read the letter. He had never dreamed of having such a letter written him. That Judy whom he worshipped, “the other side adoration,” could write to him like this. At the same time it filled him with dismay. What was in her mind, what was she planning? All this talk of Charlton. Surely she must realize that everything was different now. She wished she were free but she did not mention the word divorce. She talked of the sweet time that they would have together. Yet in the same paragraph she wrote, “If I were married to anyone but Henry.” What was in her mind, what was she planning? Was she planning anything? Wasn’t she, as he had told himself that last day in Villefranche, a child clamoring for all the toys in the shop-window, fancying that she could have them all at once, refusing to believe that the possession of certain things precluded the possession of certain other things?
He walked over to the window and drew back the curtains. A waning moon was high over the river. The trees lining the banks were dark now, veiled with silver. But in six hours’ time, brilliant in the morning sunlight, the oaks and sugar maples would be scattering before his eyes their panoply of gold and amber. Morning after morning through this window he would watch as he had watched in boyhood the incredible cavalcade of color that was a New England fall.
And then day by day the breezes from the north would freshen; the leaves would shrivel and be scattered, the snow would fall, the long battle with winter would begin. It had been one thing to drift into a situation that was basically impossible in the lax enervating holiday atmosphere of the South of France, it was quite another to a
ttempt to perpetuate that situation, to weave it into the fabric of his life here, in the atmosphere of his father’s house, of the traditions in which his grandparents had been raised, where every town and village with their tree-lined streets and dignified frame houses and white church spires testified to the work and lives of men who had taken a long view, who had planned and ordered their lives in terms of a long view. You could be hazy in the South of France, you could not be hazy here. Here you had to ask yourself clear-cut questions. You had to know where you were headed. The wind blew cold upon his cheeks. He shivered. His blood must have thinned down there. He braced himself. He had promised to go to England. He would keep his promise. But he had not promised to go to Charlton. No power on earth could lure him there.
Chapter Eight
That was in mid-October. Five months later, on a cold March morning with the winds blowing icily across the Park, once again Francis unpacked a crate of pictures under Van Ruyt’s scrutiny. He had brought eighteen canvases; he had worked as he had promised Judy unceasingly through the fall and winter. He now stood back, nervous, a little apprehensive awaiting the dealer’s verdict. He knew he had worked hard, he hoped he had worked well, but he could not be certain. He was too near the work to judge. He wondered if he had not worked too fast, if he had not confused quality and quantity; might there not have been about his attitude too much of “there’s another finished,” so that he could boast of his score to Judy, like a ball-game player. Had he lived with his pictures long enough?
He watched Van Ruyt’s expression, closely, apprehensively, as he set out the pictures. Van Ruyt, as he always did, when pictures were being shown to him, stood with his back against the light, so that he himself could see the pictures better, so that the painter could not read his expression. It was a dark day and his face was shadowed.
There was a pause after the last picture had been set out.
“Now tell me how long has it taken you to paint all these?” he said.
“Five months.”
“Just over twenty weeks, twenty-two weeks. Eighteen pictures in twenty-two weeks. Very nearly one a week. That is fast, that is very fast.”
He turned away; he walked over to the window, his hands behind his back. They were plump hands, short-fingered and very soft. On the little finger of the left hand was a large cameo ring. Francis stared at the ring; there was something ominous about the immobility of those pink and white pudgy hands. Were his apprehensions justified, had he worked too fast? Was Van Ruyt searching now for the words and phrases that would express his disappointment tactfully, that would wrap a refusal round so carefully that it would look like an acceptance, which its victim would not recognize as a refusal till a few months later in the happy afterglow of an acceptance he could look back on a failure with equanimity? That was Van Ruyt’s technique; it was as much as anything to his skilful and gracious deployment of that technique that his success wa§ due, that he owed the loyal tributes of so long a list of established protégés. Recently there had been printed about him what was described as a “Profile” in a new magazine called the New Yorker which had started that year and was meeting with some success. “Every artist has his bad patches,” the writer said, “it is Mr. Van Ruyt’s great merit that he can lead his artists across quagmires without their damaging their reputations or without their realizing that they are in trouble. He keeps their shoes clean and keeps them on their way.” Was that what he was doing now?
Slowly he turned back from the window, glided the four steps that were between them, took Francis by the arm, above the elbow, and led him to the window.
“Listen, my dear boy, and please, do not be offended by what I say. I may be wrong, completely wrong; but I have watched the development of many painters. I would like to explain to you what I felt, looking at those new pictures.”
Francis made no reply. Yes, here it comes, he thought, the sugar coating.
“I will tell you what I thought,” Van Ruyt continued, “or rather I will tell you what I wondered, because I am not sure. I beg you to believe that I am not sure. I wondered whether you had really found your medium yet; your ultimate medium shall we say. I wondered whether murals might not be your line, or decoration of some kind, stage designs perhaps.”
“Why do you say that? “
“Because – now please do not be offended.” He paused; he looked up, his head tilted like a bird’s with its eye cocked, his hands not exactly raised for his elbows were against his sides, but the palms turned upwards. “Your merit, your very great merit let me add is your sense of landscape; in your portraits you can catch a likeness, and that is something that very often the finest painters fail to do. But somehow I never feel the personality of your sitters, not in the way that I feel your landscapes. That is your great merit, to make me feel a place.”
Again he paused. But Francis did not reply. The sugar was being put on very skilfully. But there was no doubt of the nature of the pill beneath. He listened carefully, for it was no doubt sound criticism and advice that he was being given; but even as he listened, he followed his own thoughts. What happens next, he asked himself. If Van Ruyt didn’t want these pictures, he would be in a spot financially. He would need money badly if he went to England. If he were to work out the scheme that he had in mind he would need to take pictures with him, to establish himself as a painter there. What would be the use of taking to England pictures for which the Granby Gallery had no use? How could he hope to impress a foreign country with work that in his own country was of no account? To succeed in a foreign country you had first to be established in your own. How could he go to England, how could he fulfil his promise if he had not money in his pocket and immediate prospects?
“Yes,” Van Ruyt was continuing, “that is your special gift. But every gift has its corresponding, no I won’t say blemish, that is too strong a word, but every positive has its corresponding negative and if there is one thing that I do miss in your work, it is intimité. I don’t always feel you behind the pictures.”
Francis’ spirits sank. It was What Sir Henry had said in so many words, that there was no personality in his painting, suggesting on that account that he should take greater care over his choice of subject. Well, and he had taken that advice with a result so negative that Van Ruyt was suggesting now that he should devote himself to a different kind of work. The American art dealer, the American professional had confirmed the English patron, the English amateur. They were right almost certainly. If two such dissimilar judges felt alike, he could not ignore their verdict.
Disconsolately, he looked out of the window. Women close-wrapped in furs, their short squat umbrellas tucked under their arms, their tight-fitting “basin” hats lowered into the wind were hurrying impatiently past bareheaded young men in shaggy raccoon coats on their way to shelter. Everyone was harassed and uneasy. How different it had looked five months ago with the sun shining on the Sherry-Netherland and women in bright light clothes sauntering past the bright gay windows.
“That’s why I was wondering,” the high-pitched voice went on, “Whether you might not be more effective in an ampler medium. The fact that you could produce eighteen pictures in so short a time shows that you can paint fast; you can sustain the same mood over a long piece of work; for that is the great problem you know for those who work slowly; in the process their mood has changed. With you on the other hand …”
But Francis was scarcely listening. Yes I know, he thought; poster work, broad effects, that’s all I’m good for. But he was not worrying about that now. He had closer, more pressing problems. He was picturing himself in his room that night, writing the letter which would break the news to Judy. To have to admit failure, after all his boasting, after all his letters. After the way he had marked the score for her as a letter heading 11 done, 7 to go. He had so wanted to make her proud of him, then to have to make this admission. How would he phrase the letter: should he be abject or flippant or merely sad? Judy would despise him if her were abject: if
on the other hand, he were too light-hearted, she might think he was trying to back out, that he was making an excuse, that from the safe distance of three thousand miles he had thought better of it.
“As a scenic designer…” Van Ruyt was saying.
“I should be listening,” Francis told himself, “this talk should be a landmark for me, a redirection. He’s a fine judge, this man. He’s giving me the benefit of a long experience. I should be listening.” But he could not listen. He was too absorbed in his personal problem. He waited till the voice had ceased.
“I’m very grateful. I’ll think over what you’ve said. It’ll be very useful. Now about these pictures, I might as well take them right away.”
“Only the half of them.”
“The half?”
“Wasn’t that our agreement, that you should take half to England and leave half here, and that I should have a veto to see that you didn’t take the best?”
“You mean you want them?”
“Why ever not?”
“After what you said? “
Van Ruyt burst out laughing.
“My dear boy, how you misunderstood me. I was simply taking a long view, a very long view of your future. Of course I want them. I am most impressed by what you have done, quite your best work: a great, a very great advance. Let’s start in right away on the selection.”
It was not till later that Francis recalled a passage in the New Yorker profile referring to Van Ruyt’s predilection for malicious playfulness “particularly towards those on whom fortune appeared to him to be shining over-brightly.”
That evening Francis returned home with a steamship ticket for a sailing ten days later. After dinner he had his first real talk with his father since his return.
“I don’t know how long I’ll be away,” he said. “It might be for quite a time, and I might need a substantial sum of money. I might need a first instalment hurriedly. Would you be able to advance me out of my inheritance $5000, spread over the next year, and if I cabled within a week of my arrival for $2000, would you be able to send it to me?”