Agatha Christie - The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories

"Would you be very angry, Jane, if I pitched this out of the window?"

"Oh! Alan, you mustn't."

"What do you want with all this trash? You've plenty of taste if you care to use it. Mixing things up!"

"I know, Alan. It isn't that I don't know. But people give me things. That vase - Miss Bates brought it back from Margate - and she's so poor, and has to scrape, and it must have cost her quite a lot - for her, you know, and she thought I'd be so pleased. I simply had to put it in a good place."

Everard said nothing. He went on looking around the room. There were one or two etchings on the walls - there were also a number of photographs of babies. Babies, whatever their mothers may think, do not always photograph well. Any of Jane's friends who acquired babies hurried to send photographs of them to her, expecting these tokens to be cherished. Jane had duly cherished them.

"Who's this little horror?" asked Everard, inspecting a pudgy addition with a squint. "I've not seen him before."

"It's a her," said Jane. "Mary Carrington's new baby."

"Poor Mary Carrington," said Everard. "I suppose you'll pretend that you like having that atrocious infant squinting at you all day?"

Jane's chin shot out.

"She's a lovely baby. Mary is a very old friend of mine."

"Loyal Jane," said Everard smiling at her. "So Isobel landed you with Winnie, did she?"

"Well, she did say you wanted to go to Scotland, and I jumped at it. You will let me have Winnie, won't you? I've been wondering if you would let her come to me for ages, but I haven't liked to ask."

"Oh, you can have her - but it's awfully good of you."

"Then that's all right," said Jane happily.

Everard lit a cigarette.

"Isobel show you the new portrait?" he asked rather indistinctly.

"She did."

"What did you think of it?"

Jane's answer came quickly - too quickly:

"It's perfectly splendid. Absolutely splendid."

Alan sprang suddenly to his feet. The hand that held the cigarette shook.

"Damn you, Jane, don't lie to me!"

"But, Alan, I'm sure, it is perfectly splendid."

"Haven't you learned by now, Jane, that I know every tone of your voice? You lie to me like a hatter so as not to hurt my feelings, I suppose. Why can't you be honest? Do you think I want you to tell me a thing is splendid when I know as well as you do that it's not? The damned thing's dead - dead. There's no life in it - nothing behind, nothing but surface, damned smooth surface. I've cheated myself all along - yes, even this afternoon. I came along to you to find out. Isobel doesn't know. But you know, you always do know. I knew you'd tell me it was good - you've no moral sense about that sort of thing. But I can tell by the tone of your voice. When I showed you Romance you didn't say anything at all - you held your breath and gave a sort of gasp."

"Alan -"

Everard gave her no chance to speak. Jane was producing the effect upon him he knew so well. Strange that so gentle a creature could stir him to such furious anger.

"You think I've lost the power, perhaps," he said angrily, "but I haven't. I can do work every bit as good as Romance - better, perhaps. I'll show you, Jane Haworth."

He fairly rushed out of the flat. Walking rapidly, he crossed through the Park and over Albert Bridge. He was still tingling all over with irritation and baffled rage. Jane, indeed! What did she know about painting? What was her opinion worth? Why should he care? But he did care. He wanted to paint something that would make Jane gasp. Her mouth would open just a little, and her cheeks would flush red. She would look first at the picture and then at him. She wouldn't say anything at all probably.

In the middle of the bridge he saw the picture he was going to paint. It came to him from nowhere at all, out of the blue. He saw it, there in the air, or was it in his head?

A little, dingy curio shop, rather dark and musty looking. Behind the counter a Jew - a small Jew with cunning eyes. In front of him the customer, a big man, sleek, well fed, opulent, bloated, a great jowl on him. Above them, on a shelf, a bust of white marble. The light there, on the boy's marble face, the deathless beauty of old Greece, scornful, unheeding of sale and barter. The Jew, the rich collector, the Greek boy's head. He saw them all.

"The Connoisseur, that's what I'll call it," muttered Alan Everard, stepping off the curb and just missing being annihilated by a passing bus. "Yes, The Connoisseur. I'll show Jane."

When he arrived home, he passed straight into the studio. Isobel found him there, sorting out canvases.

"Alan, don't forget we're dining with the Marches -"

Everard shook his head impatiently.

"Damn the Marches. I'm going to work. I've got hold of something, but I must get it fixed - fixed at once on the canvas before it goes. Ring them up. Tell them I'm dead."

Isobel looked at him thoughtfully for a moment or two, and then went out. She understood the art of living with a genius very thoroughly. She went to the telephone and made some plausible excuse.

She looked round her, yawning a little. Then she sat down at her desk and began to write.

Many thanks for your cheque received today. You are good to your godchild A hundred pounds will do all sorts of things. Children are a terrible expense. You are so fond of Winnie that I felt I was not doing wrong in coming to you for help. Alan, like all geniuses, can only work at what he wants to work at - and unfortunately that doesn't always keep the pot boiling. Hope to see you soon.

Yours,

Isobel

When The Connoisseur was finished, some months later, Alan invited Jane to come and see it. The thing was not quite as he had conceived it - that was impossible to hope for - but it was near enough. He felt the glow of the creator. He had made this thing and it was good.

Jane did not this time tell him it was splendid. The color crept into her cheeks and her lips parted. She looked at Alan, and he saw in her eyes that which he wished to see. Jane knew.

He walked on air. He had shown Jane!

The picture off his mind, he began to notice his immediate surroundings once more.

Winnie had benefited enormously from her fortnight at the seaside, but it struck him that her clothes were very shabby. He said so to Isobel.

"Alan! You who never notice anything! But I like children to be simply dressed - I hate them all fussed up."

"There's a difference between simplicity and darns and patches."

Isobel said nothing, but she got Winnie a new frock. Two days later Alan was struggling with income-tax returns. His own passbook lay in front of him. He was hunting through Isobel's desk for hers when Winnie danced into the room with a disreputable doll.

"Daddy, I've got a riddle. Can you guess it? 'Within a wall as white as milk, within a curtain soft as silk, bathed in a sea of crystal clear, a golden apple doth appear.' Guess what that is?"

"Your mother," said Alan absently. He was still bunting.

"Daddy!" Winnie gave a scream of laughter. "It's an egg. Why did you think it was Mummy?"

Alan smiled too.

"I wasn't really listening," he said. "And the words sounded like Mummy, somehow."

A wall as white as milk. A curtain. Crystal. The golden apple. Yes, it did suggest Isobel to him. Curious things, words.

He had found the passbook now. He ordered Winnie peremptorily from the room. Ten minutes later he looked up, startled by a sharp ejaculation.

"Alan!"

"Hullo, Isobel. I didn't hear you come in. Look here, I can't make out these items in your passbook."

"What business had you to touch my passbook?"

He stared at her, astonished. She was angry. He had never seen her angry before.

"I had no idea you would mind."

"I do mind - very much indeed. You have no business to touch my things."