Agatha Christie - While the light lasts

"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."

Alan suddenly became angry too.

"I apologize. But since I have touched your things, perhaps you will explain one or two entries that puzzle me. As far as I can see, nearly five hundred pounds has been paid into your account this year which I cannot check. Where does it come from?"

Isobel had recovered her temper. She sank into a chair.

"You needn't be so solemn about it, Alan," she said lightly. "It isn't the wages of sin, or anything like that."

"Where did this money come from?"

"From a woman. A friend of yours. It's not mine at all. It's for Winnie."

"Winnie? Do you mean - this money came from Jane?"

Isobel nodded.

"She's devoted to the child - can't do enough for her."

"Yes, but - surely the money ought to have been invested for Winnie."

"Oh! it isn't that sort of thing at all. It's for current expenses, clothes and all that."

Alan said nothing. He was thinking of Winnie's frocks - all darns and patches.

"Your account's overdrawn, too, Isobel?"

"Is it? That's always happening to me."

"Yes, but that five hundred -"

"My dear Alan. I've spent it on Winnie in the way that seemed best to me. I can assure you Jane is quite satisfied."

Alan was not satisfied. Yet such was the power of Isobel's calm that he said nothing more. After all, Isobel was careless in money matters. She hadn't meant to use for herself money given to her for the child. A receipted bill came that day addressed by a mistake to Mr. Everard. It was from a dressmaker in Hanover Square and was for two hundred odd pounds. He gave it to Isobel without a word. She glanced over it, smiled, and said: "Poor boy, I suppose it seems an awful lot to you, but one really must be more or less clothed."

The next day he went to see Jane.

Jane was irritating and elusive as usual. He wasn't to bother. Winnie was her godchild. Women understood these things, men didn't. Of course she didn't want Winnie to have five hundred pounds' worth of frocks. Would he please leave it to her and Isobel? They understood each other perfectly.

Alan went away in a state of growing dissatisfaction. He knew perfectly well that he had shirked the one question he really wished to ask. He wanted to say: "Has Isobel ever asked you for money for Winnie?" He didn't say it because he was afraid that Jane might not lie well enough to deceive him.

But he was worried. Jane was poor. He knew she was poor. She mustn't - mustn't denude herself. He made up his mind to speak to Isobel. Isobel was calm and reassuring. Of course she wouldn't let Jane spend more than she could afford.

A month later Jane died.

It was influenza, followed by pneumonia. She made Alan Everard her executor and left all she had to Winnie. But it wasn't very much.

It was Alan's task to go through Jane's papers. She left a record there that was clear to follow - numerous evidences of acts of kindness, begging letters, grateful letters.