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

Mrs. Marling was silent for a moment after this tribute. To what emotion the slight movement of the muscles about her mouth testified, who could say? Then her eyes hardened, she leaned back as though taking control of the conversation and said:

‘At least I haven’t troubled you with these second-rate people. I kept them from you. It is true they can only take in one word at a time, and your longer speeches might be above their heads. I have always tried to do my best for everybody, Arthur! Even when that means not seeing them for months together! I have my duty to these unhappy creatures, you forget that. You’re so mobile, you’re such a gadabout and welcome in so many houses, you don’t remember what it is to stay at home and hear about the gardener’s baby. You have a large public which looks after you—I a small district which I look after—don’t I seem,’ she went on, her mood lightening, ‘to have the cares of the community on my shoulders? And if you think I should like to live always among brilliant people like yourself you mistake me utterly, Arthur! You are a treat to me, a sugar-plum, a prize for a good, clever girl. But I’m not often good and hardly ever clever, and I couldn’t have you here very much, I shouldn’t dare. Oh no! Oh no!’ she went on, wagging her finger at him. ‘You and your standards would kill me. I must have my stupid friends, that you haven’t been allowed to see, to come in and say one word at a time—one word at a time. “Does—Mrs.—Peets—dye—her hair?” That’s the sort of thing I really enjoy. But now, tell me, where have you seen my second-rate friends, swarming in their bungalows? You can’t have seen them. They live in fashionable Little Settlemarsh, far from this slum. You can’t have heard their wireless sets, much less them.’

Mrs. Marling had put her question like an inquisitor, and the novelist, the wheels of whose conversational machinery had run down while she talked, did not answer immediately. Moreover, it was never easy to tell Mrs. Marling of an acquaintance of whom she might not approve.

‘I ran into Catcomb yesterday,’ he said as casually as he could.

‘What, that man? I thought he was dead years ago!’

‘No,’ said Mr. Hesketh, his confidence returning now that the worst was over. ‘He’s very much alive and bubbling over with excitement.’

‘He always was,’ Mrs. Marling murmured with distaste.

‘Excitement because a man has come to live in Settlemarsh who owns a picture of fabulous value. It’s so valuable, it seems, that he won’t let it out of his sight.’

‘Or into anyone else’s,’ Mrs. Marling put in.

‘I’m coming to that. In places like this people exaggerate. What they mean is he keeps it under lock and key. From the description, size, subject, etc., and the fact that it was found in Java, always a Dutch colony, I should judge it to be a Vermeer. In fact I’m practically sure it’s a Vermeer: so few of them are known, there must be more somewhere.’

‘Do you mean to say that this Mr. Blandfoot conceals about his person a picture by Vermeer?’

‘No, no, but if he is a prudent man, and the picture is as yet unauthenticated, no doubt he keeps it in a safe place. But the point I was coming to is this.’

‘Well?’

‘You know how reluctant he has been—naturally, considering its value—to let anyone see the picture?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Mrs. Marling. ‘As you were saying, I live in Settlemarsh and unfortunately I can’t be blind or deaf to all that goes on there.’

‘Well,’ said the novelist, ‘Catcomb tells me that Blandfoot wants to show the picture to you.’

Mrs. Marling said nothing. Thoughts crowded into her mind: her youth when she had had Settlemarsh at her feet, the parties she had given, the people from the great world who had graced them, the larger ambitions she had entertained but which she had abandoned from cautiousness, from laziness, from conscience, for a dozen reasons. She thought of her empire which, like the Roman Empire under Hadrian, was now technically at its greatest extent. She had maintained it for many years against every kind of opposition and difficulty: assault, intrigue, her own diminished resources. The advent of Mr. Blandfoot troubled her, and taxed her powers as they had not been taxed for a long time. To the world of Settlemarsh it seemed that she was merely reserving her fire. But she knew too well that in her inactivity there lurked a grain of fatigue. She was not really weighing the reasons for and against Mr. Blandfoot’s admission into her charmed circle; she was shirking her responsibilities as the mentor of Settlemarsh, she was letting things slide. And it troubled her the more to feel this lethargy, because she was aware that Mr. Blandfoot was already a centre of disaffection and revolt, and that he must be definitely assimilated into her system, or rejected from it. And her own indifference to whether he was admitted or not alarmed her: it was like the sound of the footsteps of old age gaining upon her. She must pull herself together and take the field. After all, what better occasion than the present, with a renowned novelist at her side to support her, supposing she needed support? She turned to Mr. Hesketh, who was meditatively eyeing the decanter.

‘Dear Arthur, it must be very dull for you alone with such a fossil as me.’

‘Alice, how can you say such a thing?’ he protested.

‘Oh no, oh no,’ she said, ‘in spite of your beautiful manners, I can see your eye wandering whenever I begin these long sentimental anecdotes about my early years. I see I am becoming a bore. Don’t say “no” again. I can’t bear to be contradicted. But I tell you what I’m going to do: I’m going to give a party for all those second-rate people you despise so much! For one evening at least their bungalows will know them no more. Then you will realize that I, like you, am a public benefactor. To make it amusing for them I shall say that you are here. And to make it amusing for you—do you know what I shall do?’

‘Alice, you derange yourself too much!’ murmured the novelist.

‘I shall invite Mr. Blandfoot to come and show us his picture!’

‘Ah!’cried Mr. Hesketh.

‘And now,’ said Mrs. Marling, rising briskly, ‘I shall go and join the ladies. You must stay here and drink some port. You simply haven’t had any! What would my husband say, if he saw that poor little decanter still groaning with wine!’

Mr. Hesketh held the door open for her and she passed out of the room, a slender, distinguished figure, seeming somehow to take up even less space than her scanty envelope of flesh demanded. To say that she fitted her rich heavy ugly surroundings did not do her justice; but her presence completed a harmony whose innate grace and rarity the amateur of life immediately recognized. Mr. Hesketh, watching her go, suddenly felt grateful for her. A warm sentimental emotion welled up in his heart—when she dies, he thought, she can never be replaced. He tried to find words to describe that felicitous relationship between her and her possessions in which her charm seemed to reside. He fancied that the objects she passed made obeisance to her and that her graciousness flowed out, enveloping them in its gentle radiance. But the remembered asperity of her nature kept pricking his honeyed thoughts of her; and returning to his port, he gave up trying to enclose her in a formula.

Alone in the drawing-room, Mrs. Marling sat down at her bureau. She took out an envelope and wrote ‘—Blandfoot, Esq.’ Then she hesitated. So written, the name had an unceremonious, unfriendly air. It reminded her that she did not know Mr. Blandfoot: perhaps he would resent being prefixed by a dash. She entertained the thought, however, only to dismiss it. Who, among the servile population of Settlemarsh would not be flattered to hear from her, by whatever style she addressed them? For a moment she indulged her imagination with a prevision of her party, and the room, as though aware of her thought, glowed softly back at her, loosing for her all its influences of comfort and dignity and order and security. The words flowed easily from her pen as she wrote to the unknown art collector.