The Documents in the Case (13 page)

‘It looks rather like it,’ said I.

‘Fancy that! It does make me feel important — though, of course, I don’t count for anything, really. The painting is the thing, isn’t it!’

‘The subject of the portrait counts for something, too,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I don’t see how anybody can make a picture of one of those cow-faced people. Except a satirical one, of course. It’s the painter’s job to get the personality on the canvas, but what is he to do if there is no personality? Mr Lathom . .’

She looked at the portrait, and then at Mrs Harrison, and something seemed to strike her. It was the thing that had struck me, months before, when I first saw what Lathom had made of it. She grew a little confused, and Lathom struck in.

‘Mrs Harrison and you would agree about the importance of subject-matter,’ he said. ‘I can’t persuade her to admire Laura Knight.’

Mrs Harrison blushed a little.

‘I think they are very clever pictures,’ she said, a trifle defiantly, and with a side-glance at her husband, ‘but they are rather peculiar for a woman to have painted, aren’t they? Not very refined. And I mean, they are so unnatural. I’m sure people don’t walk about, even in their bedrooms, like that, with nothing on. And I think pictures ought to make one feel — uplifted, somehow.’

‘Come, come, Margaret,’ said Harrison, ‘you don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘But you said the same thing yourself,’ she came back at him.

‘Yes, but I don’t care about your discussing them here.’

‘Oh!’ said Marlowe, loudly, ‘you are afraid of the flesh. That is our trouble — we are all afraid of it, and that is why we insist and exaggerate. “Hoc est corpus,” said God — but we turn it into hocus-pocus. There’s no hope for this generation till we can see clean flesh and “sweet blood” — Meredith’s phrase — without being shocked at its fine troublesomeness. If one were to strip all these people now’ — he waved a hand at a fat man in a top-hat and an emaciated girl, who caught his eye and stood paralysed — ‘you would think it indecent. But it’s not as indecent as the portrait-painter who strips their souls for you. Some men’s work would be publicly censored, if the powers knew how to distinguish between flesh and spirit — which, thank God, they don’t.’ He clapped Lathom on the shoulder. ‘How about that other thing of yours, my boy?’

Lathom laughed a little awkwardly.

‘Is that the portrait of Miss Milsom?’ I Interrupted, hastily — for I saw trouble coming up like a thunder-cloud over Harrison’s horizon. ‘We must go and have a look at it. You’re doing pretty well to have two pictures in such a crowded year. We mustn’t keep you too long. Which room is it in, Lathom?’

He told us, and when we had said our farewells, pursued us into the next room.

‘I say, old man,’ he whispered breathlessly, ‘I couldn’t really help this. Couldn’t in decency get out of it, could I?’

‘No,’ said I, ‘I suppose you couldn’t. It’s not my funeral, anyhow.’

‘It’s the first time we’ve met,’ he went on, ‘and it will end here.’

‘But for my damned interference it wouldn’t have begun here,’ I answered. ‘I’m not blaming you, Lathom. And I’ve really no right to make conditions. I don’t think it’s wise — but I can’t set up to be a dictator.’

‘Oh, you admit that, do you?’ said Lathom. ‘I’m rather glad to know it.’ He hesitated, and added abruptly, ‘Well, so long.’

I was thankful to see the end of the episode. From every point of view it seemed advisable to drop all connection with Lathom and the Harrisons, and I saw none of them again until the 19th of October.

1. Margaret Harrison to Harwood Lathom
   

May 4th, 1929

Petra darling,

Oh, how wonderful it was, darling, to see you again, even under the Gorgon’s eye — such a cold stony eye, darling, and with all those people around. I had been dead all through those dreadful months. When you went away, I felt as if the big frost had got right into my heart. Do you know, it made me laugh when the pipes froze up in the bathroom and we couldn’t get any water and He was so angry. I thought if he only knew I was just like that inside, and when the terrible numb feeling had passed off, something would snap in me, too. Was that a foolish thing to think, Petra? Not a very poetical idea, I am afraid, but I wished I could have told it to you and heard your big, lovely laugh at your Darling Donkey!

Oh, Petra, we can’t go on like this, can we? I couldn’t go through those long, long weeks again without seeing or hearing you, not so much as your dear untidy writing on an envelope. And, darling, it was so dreadful to hear you say you couldn’t work without your Inspiration, because your work is so wonderful and so important. Why should He stand between you and what God meant you to do? The life we live here is so cramped and useless; the only way I can fulfil any great purpose is in being a little help in your divine work of creation. It is so wonderful to know that one can really be of use — part of the beauty you make and spread all about you. It isn’t even as if I counted for anything in His work. A woman can’t be an inspiration for an electrical profit and loss account, or a set of estimates, can she? He doesn’t think so, anyway. He just wants to have me in a cage to look at, darling — not even to love. He doesn’t care or know about love — thank God! I say now, because I can keep myself all for my own marvellous Man. Oh, I have so much to give, so much, all myself, such as I am — not clever, darling, you know I am not that, though I love to hear about clever, interesting things — but loving and real, and alive for you, only you, darling, darling Petra. I never knew how much beauty there was in the world till you showed it to me, and that’s why I feel so sure that our love must be a right thing, because one could not feel so much beauty in anything that was wrong, could one? Fancy going on living for years and years, starved of beauty and love, when there is all that great treasure of happiness waiting to be taken. Oh, darling, he was going on at dinner last night about how his grandfather lived to be a hundred, and his father about ninety-four, and what a strong family they were, and I could see them, going on year after year, grinding all the happiness out of their wives and families and making a desert all round them, just as He does. I looked up Gorgons in a book, darling, and it said they were immortal, all except the one Perseus killed, and I’m sure they are, darling, the stony horrors. Sometimes I wish I could die. Do you think they would let me come and be near you after I was dead? But I know you think we don’t live after we are dead, but just turn into flowers and earth again. It does seem much more likely, doesn’t it, whatever the clergymen say — so I suppose it would be no good me dying, would it? Just think — only one life, and to be able to do nothing with it — nothing at all, and then just die and be finished. It makes me shudder. It’s all so cold and dreary. What right have people to make life such a wasted, frozen thing? Why are they allowed to live at all if they don’t live in the true sense of the word? And life can be such a great thing if it is really lived. Oh, Pet darling, thank you for having taught me to live, even if it was only for a few short, wonderful weeks! When I’m all alone (and I’m always alone, nowadays, not even poor Aggie Milsom to talk to now), I sit and try to read some of the books you told me about. But I stop reading, and my mind wanders away, and I’m just living over again the hours we had together, and the feel of your dear arms round me. Sometimes he comes in and finds me like that, and scolds me for letting the fire out and not putting the light on. ‘You’re always mooning about,’ he says, ‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing.’ Oh, darling, if he only did know, how angry he would be and how wicked he would think me in his ugly little mind!

Dear one, you won’t leave me all alone again, will you? We said we would try to forget one another, but I think you knew as well as I did how impossible it was. Well, we have tried, haven’t we, and we’ve found it is no good. You thought it would be better for me, but it isn’t. I feel far, far more miserable than I did, even in the days when we were seeing each other and trying to keep down all the things we were thinking and feeling together. I would rather suffer the awful pain of seeing and wanting you, than feel so dead and empty, as if my heart had been all drained out of me, beloved. And I know now that it is just as bad for you, because you can’t do your work without me, and your work ought to come first, darling, even if you have to mix your paints with my heart’s blood.

Darling, if you think it’s better we shouldn’t be real lovers don’t leave me altogether. Let us see each other sometimes. It doesn’t matter even if the Gorgon is there and we have to talk the silly meaningless tea-party talk. Our real selves will be saying the real things to one another all the time, and we can look at one another and be a little bit happy. I can feel with my eyes, can’t you, darling? When you met us yesterday and stood there with that absurd top-hat in your hand — it was so funny to see you in that stiff, formal morning dress, but you looked very splendid and it made me so proud to think you were really all mine and no one knew it — well, when I saw you, I could feel in all my fingers, darling, the queer lovely feel of your hair that first day — do you remember — when you put your head on my knees and broke down and said you loved me. Such a dear head, darling, all rough and crisp, and strong, splendid bones under it, full of wonderful thoughts. If I shut my eyes I can feel it — I’m doing it now darling. Shut yours — now, this minute — and see if you can’t feel my hands. Did you, Petra darling — did you feel all the love and life in them? Tell me when you write if you can feel me as I feel you!

You will write, darling, won’t you? You will spare me that little ray at least from the great fire of your life and love. Don’t leave me all in the dark, Petra, and I’ll be content with whatever you give me. Everything has been so ghastly that I haven’t got it in me to be exacting, dear.Always your own, only, for ever, Lolo

1. The Same to the Same
   

June 6th, 1929

Petra, my darling, my dear, dear man darling,

Oh, my dearest, isn’t it terrible to see the summer coming, and to feel so wintry and lonely. Your letters have been a help, but what wouldn’t I give for you yourself, the real you!

You will tell me again that I’m not telling the truth. That I don’t really love you because I won’t give up being conventional and respectable and go away with you, but it isn’t that, Petra darling. You think in your dear, impetuous way that it would all be so easy, but it wouldn’t really, darling. You think that because you are a man, and you don’t consider how awful it would be, day after day, all the sordidness and trouble. It wouldn’t really be fair to make you go through all that. Even if He would let me go — which, of course, he wouldn’t, because he is so selfish — it would be a long, drawn-out misery. I know how horrid it is because I know a woman who got her divorce. Of course, her husband took all the blame, but it was a miserable time for everybody, and she and her man friend had to go right away, and he gave up his post, a very good post, and they are living in quite a slummy little place in rooms, and don’t even get enough to eat sometimes.

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Anyway, the Gorgon would never consent to me divorcing him, because he prides himself on being very virtuous and proper, and he would probably have to leave his firm or something. He would never do that. He thinks more of his firm than of anything in the world — far more than he does of me or my happiness, which he has never considered at all from the day he married me.

Doesn’t it seem too awful that one has to pay so heavily for making a mistake? I keep on thinking, if only I hadn’t married him. If only I were free to come to you, Petra darling — what a wonderful time we could have together! But then I think again that if I hadn’t married him, I should never have lived here, never met you, and oh, darling, what could make up for that? So I suppose, as they say in the nature-books, that He has ‘fulfilled his function’ in bringing us together. I looked at him last night as he sat glooming over the mutton, which wasn’t quite done as he likes it (you would never let a stupid thing like mutton poison the whole beautiful day for you, but he does), and I thought of Mr Munting saying once, ‘All God’s creatures have their uses,’ when Miss Milsom had made me one of her lovely scarves — and I said to myself, ‘If only you could know, my dear Gorgon, what is the one thing in our lives I thank you for!’ That would really have given him something to gloom about, wouldn’t it?

It is so funny — he is always asking when you are coming to see us again. His Cookery Book is going to be published in a few weeks’ time, and he is ridiculously excited about it. He thinks it is a great work of art, and is going to send you a copy as from one artist to another. Wouldn’t that make a good reason for you to call on us, if you could get over to England? It is clever of you to be able to find so many things to say about his silly little water-colours — you who are a really great painter (I have learnt not to say artist now. Do you remember how impatient you were with me when I called you ‘artistic’? We nearly had a quarrel that day. Fancy us quarrelling about anything — now!).

It makes me sad, Petra darling, to think of my poor lonely Man so far away, wanting his Lolo. And I’m a little frightened, too, when I think of all the beautiful ladies in Paris. I expect they think a lot of you, don’t they? Do you go to a great many fashionable parties? Or do you live the student-life I used to read about and think how gay and jolly it must be? You don’t tell me very much about the people you see and the places you go to. I wish you weren’t a portrait-painter — you must have so many opportunities to find someone more beautiful than your poor Lolo and so much cleverer. Don’t say they aren’t more beautiful than I am, because I shall know you aren’t telling the truth. I’m not really beautiful at all — only when I had been with you I sometimes used to look in the glass and think that happiness made me almost beautiful, sometimes. I have been reading in a book about the real Laura and Petrarch — did you know, she was really only a little girl and that he hardly saw her at all? Perhaps she was only beautiful in his imagination, too. But that didn’t prevent her from being his inspiration, did it? I wonder if you are the same. Perhaps I inspire you better from a distance. I don’t think a woman could feel like that. She wants her Man always, close to her. Darling, do say you want me to like that, too.