Leslie Hartley - The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

‘You forget,’ said Mrs. Peets, ‘I’ve never seen the inside of the good lady’s house.’

‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Stornway, with well-assumed confusion, ‘I thought everyone——You remember it, Muriel?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Pepperthwaite, ‘in the dining-room.’

‘No, not in the dining-room,’ Mrs. Stornway remarked complacently, ‘it’s upstairs, the second passage you come to, on the right, if my memory serves me. He really ought to see the house, oughtn’t he, Mrs. Peets? Alice Marling has such interesting pictures.’

‘You forget, I haven’t had the privilege of going,’ said Mrs. Peets again, busying herself with a picture. Only three remained unhung. The exaltation Mrs. Stornway had felt as one by one the pictures were disposed of in the various rooms deepened into ecstasy. She persuaded herself that the last of the three was the one she was examining when Mr. Blandfoot interrupted her. They were back in the drawing-room; it was the largest room, and it’s walls still had empty spots, though they had thought it finished when they left it. In the intoxication that possessed her, as the moment of revelation drew near, Mrs. Stornway felt that there was no limit to her powers: she could say anything, do anything: she could bring Mahomet to the mountain, Mr. Blandfoot to Mrs. Marling, and everything she did would become her.

‘I always think,’ she said, ‘that in all Settlemarsh there’s no one so really worth while as Alice Marling.’ To make this declaration she stopped working, came into the middle of the room and clasped her hands in front of her.

There was a pause. Then Mr. Blandfoot took another picture and, mounting the steps with the cord in his mouth, muttered, ‘Why are you always talking about this Mrs. Marling?’

‘Oh,’ Mrs. Stornway exclaimed, her eyes aglow with the fire of evangelizing the heathen, ‘she stands for all that is best in Settlemarsh—so it seems to me. There was a time when she used to keep open house.’

‘She doesn’t keep open house for me,’ said Mrs. Peets.

‘Nor for me,’ Mr. Blandfoot echoed. Again his utterance was impeded, this time, as Mrs. Stornway saw when he turned his head, by a long nail that he held clamped between his teeth.

There they both stood, Mrs. Peets and Mr. Blandfoot, the rejected of Mrs. Marling, their faces to the wall and the silence deepening round them. Mrs. Pepperthwaite, who had taken the last picture but one, a study of Highland cattle in a mist, and was carrying it about while she gazed inquiringly but helplessly at the crowded picture-rail, flung herself into the breach.

‘Why, there’s only one more left!’ she cried nervously. ‘It must be the picture that everyone’s been talking about! Now, let’s all guess what it is.’

Her intervention was a complete success. The cloud cleared from the brow of Mrs. Peets; Mrs. Stornway’s face lost its Sibylline look; and Mr. Blandfoot turned round and sat on the top of the steps, his knees projecting enormously, his chin supported by his hands while he looked down at them with an enigmatic smile.

‘First of all, how did you get hold of it?’ demanded Mrs. Peets.

‘Yes,’ echoed Mrs. Stornway a little wanly, ‘how did it come into your possession?’

‘Perhaps we ought not to ask him that,’ said Mrs. Pepperthwaite coyly. Her success as a peacemaker had given a sense of power which she seldom enjoyed.

‘Well, then, where did you get it? He can’t mind telling us that,’ said Mrs. Peets in her decided tone.

Fascinated, they stared at the medium-sized oblong of brown paper, Mrs. Stornway still convinced that it was the one her second sight had revealed to her.

‘I got it in Java,’ said Mr. Blandfoot from the steps.

They all three nodded at each other, as if a secret suspicion was at last openly confirmed.

‘And how did you get it?’ persisted Mrs. Peets. ‘After everything we’ve done for you, three tired perspiring women, I think you might tell us.’

Mr. Blandfoot paused a moment. ‘It was given me by a man I met,’ he said at last. ‘He painted it specially for me.’

‘Ah, then, it’s a portrait of you,’ put in Mrs. Pepperthwaite quickly, as though to get her say in before the others could speak. ‘Just the head, perhaps?’ she suggested, scrutinizing the back of the picture which looked too small for a full length.

‘No, it’s not a portrait of me,’ said Mr. Blandfoot, his voice dwelling on the preposition. ‘It would be a pity to waste a good canvas on me, wouldn’t it?’ So yellow did his face look in the high shadowy place where he sat that for a moment nobody spoke. Mrs. Stornway’s fluttering ‘How can you say such a ridiculous thing?’ came too late. Mr. Blandfoot seemed to have observed the pause, for there was a noticeable grimness in his voice as he added:

‘In fact it’s not a portrait at all—of any living person.’

‘Oh, then he’s dead,’ concluded Mrs. Pepperthwaite quickly.

‘There’s more than one,’ Mr. Blandfoot rejoined. Some would say they’re dead; some would say they never lived at all; some would say they’re still living. I’m a plain man: I can’t pretend to judge.’

‘You say you’re plain,’ said Mrs. Peets, a little impatiently. ‘But you speak in riddles. I expect it’s a mythological subject.’

‘You’re not far wrong,’ said Mr. Blandfoot. ‘Just a little blasphemous, that’s all.’

‘I don’t care for them much myself,’ observed Mrs. Peets. ‘And how can it be a mythological subject, if it was painted specially for you? I thought they never did that sort of thing now.’

‘By request,’ said Mr. Blandfoot, who seemed to enjoy the conversation, ‘they’ll do almost anything.’

‘Well, we’ve learned a certain amount,’ said Mrs. Peets briskly, ‘though I must say it’s been like drawing blood out of a stone. It’s a semi-mythological picture, painted in Java at Mr. Blandfoot’s request. Who, may I ask, was the artist?’

‘I’m afraid his name wouldn’t mean anything to you, though in his time he was supreme,’ said Mr. Blandfoot.

‘Well, really, Mr. Blandfoot,’ protested Mrs. Pepperthwaite bridling, ‘you seem to think we don’t know anything about Art. Settlemarsh isn’t a big place, but we have a picture-gallery, as you should know by this time.’

‘Yes, now that you’ve insulted us,’ said Mrs. Peets, ‘I think you ought to let us see the picture. We simply cannot wait another minute.’

‘Well, there it is,’ said Mr. Blandfoot. ‘Look at it. Excuse me coming down, my foot’s gone to sleep.’ He began to wave it in the air.

Together they walked slowly towards the picture. Mrs. Peets took it and reverently but firmly turned it round towards the light. First came an impression of blue, stabbed by an arrow of white. Then the subject revealed itself to all their eyes.

‘Why, it’s the Matterhorn!’ Mrs. Peets exclaimed.

‘No, Mt. Cervin,’ said Mrs. Pepperthwaite, examining it more closely.

‘They’re both the same,’ said Mrs. Stornway, who had travelled.

‘Then it’s not the picture!’ they cried in chorus, the inflexion of their voices making a very chord of disappointment.

‘No,’ said Mr. Blandfoot, ‘it’s not the picture. Why, did you think it was?’

‘Now I call that too bad of you,’ said Mrs. Peets.

‘Isn’t he a tease?’ demanded Mrs. Pepperthwaite with ineffective playfulness.

‘I don’t believe they ever try to climb the Matterhorn from this side,’ announced Mrs. Stornway. ‘But the picture will go very nicely here.’ As though fortified by the knowledge of Mrs. Marling’s friendship she was the first to recover herself. There was a silence while she fitted the very blue print into a space between two photographic jungle-studies. When she had finished she looked round the crowded walls and said in a voice that sounded hurt but well-bred: