The Hireling (10 page)

‘That was the cocktails, perhaps,’

‘I think it was me. … Anyhow, she asked me to paint her husband,’

‘Is she going to have him exhumed?’

‘No, from a photograph,’

‘A spirit photograph, of course?’

‘No, a real one,’

Constance registered horror. ‘You couldn’t sink as low as that!’

‘Why not? Many better men than I (as you’d agree) have painted from a photograph. Sickert, for instance,’

‘That was all right for Sickert,’

Hughie said rather sulkily, ‘Anyhow, she gave me the commission,’

‘Well, I do congratulate you, Hughie darling,’ Constance said, with sudden warmth. ‘It’s really marvellous, isn’t it? I couldn’t be more pleased. And you’ll have all the advantages and none of the drawbacks. You won’t have to gate-crash somebody’s house, you can sit quietly in your studio with a subject that doesn’t move -‘

‘But I’m going to paint it in her house,’ Hughie said.

‘Oh, in her house?’

‘Yes, in the room where the photograph was taken. She’s kept it exactly as it was,’

‘I see,’

‘I’m to begin tomorrow,’

‘I see. … But why has she paid you in advance? Is that usual?’

‘No, sometimes they don’t pay at all. But she gathered I was hard up.’

‘She gathered?’

‘Well, you only have to look at me,’

Constance did look at him, and they embraced, as Leadbitter felt sure they would. Indeed, he thought the moment had been unconscionably delayed. When it was all over, Constance said:

‘I feel a little bit jealous. You mustn’t fall for her, you know,’

‘Fall for her? It wouldn’t be any good. She’s quite, quite unawakened,’

‘How do you know?’

‘I made inquiries … besides, I could see for myself,’

‘Darling, I must admit that for some purposes you have a painter’s eye,’

Again they fell into an embrace. When they came out of it, Constance, arranging herself, said brightly:

‘What a nice car this is,’ She spoke with surprise, as if she hadn’t realized until now that they were in a car. ‘How did you discover it?’

‘Somebody told me - a chap called Fullerton. You know him, don’t you?’ he added, addressing the back of Leadbitter’s head.

‘Yes, sir, I do his driving sometimes,’

‘Well, he put me on to it,’

‘Well, I’m grateful to him, and grateful to you, darling, and grateful to Ernestine. What a lot of gratitude! We must drink her health when we get to Richmond,’

To all this Leadbitter listened with half an ear, as he generally listened to the conversation of his customers when it was not addressed directly to him. He didn’t listen all the time, nor did he connect the Ernestine that they were talking about with anyone he knew.

The telephone bell rang, and a woman’s voice which he recognized yet couldn’t quite place, said:

‘Is that Mr Leadbitter?

‘Leadbitter speaking,’ he answered.

‘Oh, Mr Leadbitter, this is Lady Franklin,’

Of course it was and he should have known. Yet never before had she rung him up herself; and her voice sounded different from the voice he used to know, the dull, tired voice; it was happy and excited.

‘Oh good morning, my lady,’ Leadbitter said, and was surprised by the warmth in his own voice. And then he allowed himself a phrase he rarely used to customers. ‘Nice to hear you,’ he said.

‘And very nice to hear you,’ said Lady Franklin, with a slight emphasis, he thought, upon the ‘you’. ‘I was afraid you’d think I had forgotten you - not’ (she hastily took herself up) ‘that I flattered myself that you would regard that as a great disaster, because I know your customers are falling over each other, but all the same I shouldn’t like you to think I’d forgotten all the pleasant times we’d had together - besides, they did me so much good. Frankly, I owe you more than I can ever say. It may sound exaggerated, but you brought me back to life. I’m a different creature now,’

‘Very glad to hear it, my lady,’ Leadbitter said. ‘Not that there was much wrong with you before, that I could see,’

‘Ah, but there was. Now there were two things I wanted to ask you. First, how is the family? It seems so long since I had news of them,’

Leadbitter looked helplessly round his bachelor apartment, where dearth of domesticity amounted to a famine.

Lacking Lady Franklin’s physical presence, he could think of nothing new to say about his family. Their shapes refused to take material form: his mind’s eye could not see them.

‘They’re fine, my lady,’ he said. ‘They couldn’t help being, after what you did for them.’

‘Oh, that was nothing. I want to hear all about them, but that must be for another time, which brings me to my second question. Can you take me out again tomorrow week? Thursday, that is? I want to go to Winchester - it’s the only cathedral within reach that we haven’t seen. I know you don’t care about them very much, but.. ,’

‘Just let me look, my lady,’ Leadbitter said, ignoring the question of cathedrals. He knew that Thursday was free; but it was never wise to seem too eager or give a customer the impression that he was disengaged; so he consulted the sheet on the photograph frame before he answered.

‘Thursday will be all right, my lady,’

‘I’m so glad,’ said Lady Franklin, and by her voice she did indeed sound glad. ‘Could you come at ten o’clock? I get up earlier now - that’s another thing you’ve done for me. I owe you my virtues, you see, as well as my happiness. And don’t forget to bring me the latest, stop-press news about your family,’

‘I won’t forget, my lady,’ Leadbitter promised her.

Lady Franklin was rich, Lady Franklin was lonely - did she feel herself neglected as regards male attachments? Was she in love with him? During his career as a driver two or three women customers had fallen for Leadbitter, and declared their passion; but they had not paid him in advance for his services, and in any case he would have turned them down. Sex played little part in his life; he wanted to get on in the world, and how could he get on with a parcel of women hanging round his neck, making scenes and accusing him of cruelty? Most of them, after one rebuff, had ceased to employ him, and except by chance, they never crossed his

path again. They were, as customers, a dead loss; even more of a loss-than those who would not take ‘no’ for an answer, these were, from the point of view of building up a connexion, still more undesirable in the long run. The gain, if there was any, was out of proportion to the trouble and embarrassment. With what relief, after such an irksome encounter, did he return to himself and his invulnerable heart! He was aware of possessing it only when someone, greatly daring, tried to thaw it.

But Lady Franklin was different, or seemed to be. She had made no overtures to him; he was an expert in such matters, but he hadn’t noticed a trace of flirtatiousness in her manner when she gave him the cheque. Yet she was always thanking him, always letting him know how much she owed him, and somewhere, he believed, she had a tender feeling for him; she wouldn’t have parted with so much money unless she had. But strangely enough, the idea that Lady Franklin was in love with him didn’t bore and exasperate him as it would have in the case of other women.

His motto was to give his customers what they wanted. If Lady Franklin wanted what she seemed to want, why shouldn’t she have it? If another cheque was the result, so much the better; and if it wasn’t, no great harm would have been done.

All the same, when Thursday came, Leadbitter, who was accustomed to execute his own orders as promptly as he executed other people’s, found himself hesitating. He was a man who often changed his mind, for a soldier has to change his mind when circumstances demand it: he may even have to retreat when the odds are against him. But he was seldom in two minds at once, for a divided mind is fatal to a military operation. If an enemy position has to be taken, it must either be attacked or left alone. Lady Franklin was that enemy position, and he couldn’t make up his mind about it.

Her greeting had been all that he could have wished for.

Even under the cold, disapproving eye of the butler whose face always seemed to contract when Leadbitter appeared, she had not disguised her pleasure at seeing him again. And how differently she was dressed ! Gone was the blue and white uniform, suggesting convents, hospitals; under her fur coat she was all done up (he thought) like a dog’s eyebrows. And her shoes, that showed her toes! Half shrinking, half desiring, his skin reacted to them. If all this was not for him, who was it for? ‘Isn’t it three weeks,’ she prattled when she was seated at his side and the car had glided off, ‘three weeks since you last took me out?’

‘Three weeks and two days, my lady,’ Leadbitter replied.

‘How nice of you to have counted the days!’ said Lady Franklin. ‘They have been such busy days for me. Well, perhaps I oughtn’t to say busy, when you are so much busier than I am, in the true sense of the word. But they have been very full days, full of social engagements, going here and there. But they have been very happy days, too, very happy,’

For some reason Leadbitter wasn’t pleased to be told that Lady Franklin had been spending happy days, but he dutifully answered:

‘I’m very glad to hear it, my lady,’

‘Oh yes. Oh well, you know what it is when one comes back to something after a long absence, something that one used to enjoy, but for one reason and another hasn’t been able to enjoy - social life, I mean. It’s quite gone to my head, seeing all my friends again and finding them unchanged and still fond of me, or saying so, at any rate. You know they’ve made quite a fuss of me,’ she said, turning on Leadbitter her great blue eyes, which now looked larger than they used to.

‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ repeated Leadbitter.

‘Oh yes, and they might have been rather chilly with me, or at any rate distant and uninterested, because I hadn’t wanted to see them because - well, you know why. They must have thought me unfeeling and even rude, but somehow I couldn’t. I see now it was wrong to have wrapped myself in my grief - selfish really. What would happen to the world if everyone who had - well, lost someone who was dear to them - shut themselves up and moped? Life would come to a standstill. I’m sure that you, for instance, would put a good face on it, however much you suffered,’

For a second Leadbitter tried to think of someone whose loss might make him suffer, and he nearly laughed. A lost customer, yes, a lost customer did upset him, but only for a time.

‘I expect it’s just a question of getting used to it, my lady,’ he said.

Lady Franklin gave him a sly smile.

‘That’s your panacea, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘But you know, I think you’re wrong. I was getting used to it; that was the trouble: I was getting used to my - well, my unhappiness, let’s call it. I was getting used to it and I didn’t really want it to end! In a way, I’m sure you can understand? - it was a sort of protection to me. It seemed to answer every question, in the negative, and I’m lazy, I hate answering questions! At least I did then. And it was an excuse for everything, for everything I didn’t want to do, and there was nothing that I wanted to do ! It was a sort of labyrinth,’ she said, frowning, ‘a labyrinth without a clue, and as you were saying, I got used to it. But you showed me the way out,’ she added, brightening, ‘and I can never tell you how grateful I am,’

‘That’s all right, my lady,’ Leadbitter said.

‘Yes, but it isn’t. I wish there was something I could do for you,’

‘You’ve done a great deal for me,’ said Leadbitter. ‘I shouldn’t be sitting where I am, sitting pretty, to coin a phrase, if it wasn’t for you. I shouldn’t be’ - he was going to say ‘owning my own car’ but stopped and substituted ‘my own master’ - ‘if it wasn’t for you. And I shouldn’t be driving you, either,’

‘I gave you money,’ Lady Franklin said, ‘that’s easy. But you gave me happiness, which isn’t easy. How can you compare the two?’

‘You saved me from unhappiness,’ said Leadbitter. ‘Isn’t that the same?’

‘Well, perhaps it is. I shall try to think it is. You know, I’ve missed you very much these last few weeks,’

‘Missed me, my lady?’ Leadbitter said.

‘You sound so surprised,’ said Lady Franklin. ‘But don’t heaps of people miss you? Your wife, for instance, and Don and Pat and Susie? I’m sure they miss you all the time. And now, please tell me about them. Tell me everything -I can’t wait to hear. Just one more Canterbury tale. I’m dying of news-starvation,’

Leadbitter’s gun-metal eyes narrowed. He tried to jerk his mind back from other things that were nearer and more real, to the contemplation of his fictitious family. Not a word would come. Hoping for inspiration he glanced at Lady Franklin.

‘Well my wife -‘ he began uncertainly.

‘Yes, Frances,’ Lady Franklin prompted him.

‘Well, Frances -‘ he looked at Lady Franklin again, almost bewildered, and waited for the electric spark to leap between them.

‘Yes, Frances,’ Lady Franklin repeated, amused and half impatient. ‘I see I shall have to jog your memory! But,’ she added, suddenly contrite, ‘it’s so long ago! No wonder you’ve forgotten. All my fault! Lunches, cocktail parties, dinners, it didn’t seem worth while - worth your while, I mean - to drag you out for them, when you might have been doing much more interesting things, more profitable too, I’m sure!’ She gave Leadbitter’s stern profile an appealing look. ‘And how could we have talked? It would have been so disjointed - you couldn’t have got going! And I should have felt so frustrated! But I can tell you just where you left off: things at home had been easier, you told me, easier in a way, but Susie had got chicken-pox and now your wife was worried in case the others caught it. You said I needn’t be afraid of you, of contact with you, I mean -because you’d had it,’

‘That’s right,’ said Leadbitter, to gain time. ‘I’ve had it,’ The words had an ominous ring. ‘Well, did they catch it?’ Lady Franklin asked. ‘No, they didn’t,’ said Leadbitter. ‘They didn’t,’ he repeated more confidently. ‘They … they just escaped,’ Lady Franklin laughed.

‘How do you know they “just” escaped? Still, a miss is good as a mile. So now your wife is happier?’