The Hireling (14 page)

‘Darling, it’s a lovely plan of course; but why this second extravagance? Have you had a legacy? You didn’t seem noticeably richer at the Lame Duck the other evening,’ ‘Meaning I didn’t pay my whack?’

‘Of course not. But what a bad conscience you have,’

‘It isn’t my fault if people treat me … But something has happened since then,’

‘I thought it must have, Hughie. Tell me,’

Hughie was silent a moment.

‘I’m not sure that I shall, Constance. I’m not sure you would approve,’

‘I approve of anything that brings in money,’

‘You say that, but you don’t really,’

‘Have I ever disapproved when you turned an honest penny, or even a dishonest one, for that matter?’

‘Yes, you have,’

‘When?’

‘Well, for one thing, you don’t approve of my painting, which is after all my staff of life,’

‘I may not approve of your painting, as such,’ Constance said. ‘But I don’t object to your being paid for it,’

‘Some people like my painting,’ said Hughie a little sulkily.

‘You’re telling me, and I’m so glad they do. But has it become a gold mine?’

‘Well, it’s produced another nugget,’

‘May I know who from?’

‘You may. From Ernestine,’

Leadbitter, who was driving them out to Richmond for dinner, didn’t move. But when he heard the name he was all ears.

‘Why, has she given you another commission?’ Constance asked, lightly, as who should say, ‘Did you enjoy your dinner yesterday?’

‘Yes, she has. She liked my portrait of her husband very much,’

‘But has she more than one dead husband?’

‘No,’ said Hughie.

1 believe she has an affectionate nature, and we know she lives a great deal in the past - or did. Is it some very dear aunt she wants you to commemorate?’

‘No,’ said Hughie, aware of Constance’s curiosity, but not disposed to satisfy it at once. ‘This time she has asked me to paint the living,’

‘How very rash of her. No, Hughie, I didn’t mean that. I can’t wait to know who it is,’

‘I’ll give you three guesses,’

‘Now, Hughie, don’t be tiresome. I’m not in a mood for guessing, and I don’t know who her friends are, though I know she has a lot, as all rich women have,’

‘It isn’t a friend of hers,’

‘Isn’t? Then why this act of altruism - I was going to say misguided altruism, but I won’t,’

‘I don’t think she’s being altruistic,’ Hughie said.

‘Not? If it isn’t a friend? Is she going to present the portrait of a distinguished person to a public gallery?’

‘I don’t think you could say it was a friend,’ said Hughie, ignoring Constance’s last question. ‘I don’t think you could say she was a friend of Ernestine’s,’

‘Oh, it’s a woman, then. Hughie, you must tell me,’

‘It’s Ernestine herself,’

There was a pause in which Constance tried to sort her thoughts out, as did Leadbitter.

‘How slow of me not to guess,’ she said. ‘Perhaps it was because I didn’t want to. Darling, I do congratulate you. It’s splendid, isn’t it? It may be the making of you, in more ways than one. I am so pleased,’ She turned to him, and they embraced, as Leadbitter thought they would.

‘But of course I am a little jealous,’ said Constance, when the embrace was over.

‘Of whom?’ asked Hughie.

‘Oh, of nobody - just of your painting her,’

‘You’ve no right to be,’ said Hughie, pleased at having kept his end up in a conversation with Constance for so long. ‘You will never let me paint you,’

‘No, that’s true,’ said Constance. ‘I won’t, because I love you and I don’t want to love you less,’

‘Thank you,’ said Hughie, ‘thank you. But then why be jealous? Perhaps Ernestine does want to love me less,’

‘Do you call her Ernestine?’ asked Constance.

‘I told you I did,’

‘I’m not really jealous,’ said Constance, ‘because she’s not that kind of woman - I mean the kind of woman who falls in love,’

‘What makes you think so?’

‘Well, didn’t we agree she wasn’t? Once she lived in a dream of the past, and now she lives in a dream of the present,’

‘I’m not so sure. She’s changed in the last few days.’

‘Oh, have you changed her?’

‘No, but something has,’

‘Or someone?’

‘She said she’d had a shock,’

‘What kind of shock? A pleasant one?’

‘She didn’t say,’

‘She doesn’t tell you everything, then.’

‘No, but she tells me more about herself than she used to. She seems to have realized herself, become a person in her own right. Before, she was all ideas and theories, with her head in the clouds. Now she seems to have got her feet on the ground,’

‘Is that how you’re painting her?’

‘No, with her feet up on a sofa,’

‘Mme Recamier?’

‘I thought you’d say that. Of course, it’s much less tiring for her,’

‘How considerate you are, Hughie. And if she’s suffering from shock … she should lie down. I wonder what it was. Do you think somebody said “Boo” to her?’

‘She said it was the result of an experiment, and largely her fault,’

‘Shocks generally are one’s own fault,’ Constance said. ‘She didn’t tell you what kind of experiment it was, or with whom?’

‘Darling, you will see the personal in everything,’ (Constance winced at this.) ‘She didn’t say it was with anyone. I was finishing her husband’s portrait, and she came in in rather a flutter, and was restless and couldn’t sit down - she was quite unlike herself - and then she said, excusing herself, that she’d had a shock the day before and hadn’t quite got over it, but it was a good deal her fault. I said I hoped no bones were broken, or something like that, and she said, Oh no, it wasn’t that kind of shock, it was the result of an experiment which had done her a lot of good - to her nerves I gathered - but it had upset her because she wasn’t expecting it.’

‘It wouldn’t have been a shock if she had been expecting it,’ said Constance.

‘And she said she hadn’t behaved very well and was sorry about it. Guilt is one of her things, you know. I tell her she must learn to forgive herself,’

‘You could teach her - you’re an expert at it,’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I try to see myself in a favourable light, and Ernestine has helped me. She thanks me over and over again. Gratitude is another of her things - it’s a compulsive neurosis,’

‘I hope you won’t catch it from her,’

‘Why?’

‘Because I like you to be yourself,’

‘Le bel homme sans merci? Thank you, Constance, thank you,’

‘But what has Ernestine to thank you for?’

‘Oh, just for being. And then she said how much she liked my portrait of her husband, and how it was just the way he used to look at her, and now not only did he look at her, but she could look back at him as if he was really there; she said she didn’t mind thinking about him any more, she liked to think about him, because though she still grieved for him at times, it wasn’t an obsession any longer. And then she hesitated a little, and said would I paint her portrait,’

‘She hesitated and was lost,’ said Constance. ‘Whose idea was it that she should lie down?’

‘Mine really,’ Hughie said. ‘I said, “Hadn’t you better lie down?” - and to my great surprise she did, like an obedient child. She wouldn’t have, and I shouldn’t have dared to ask her a week ago,’

‘Do women never lie down in your presence?’ Constance asked.

‘Well, models do, but other women don’t, I mean unless -‘

‘Unless they’re ill. Well, to your surprise, Ernestine lay down and then -‘

‘And then I saw it suited her and that there was a picture in it, and I said: “Stay like that and I’ll begin now.”’

‘What, had you another canvas with you? Had you foreseen that this would happen?’

‘No, I took a sheet of writing-paper and made a sketch. There’s more light in the room now that she has had the curtains taken away,’

‘Oh, she’s had the curtains taken away?’

‘Yes, the net curtains, I don’t mean the heavy brocade ones. She had it done after her cure, or whatever it was. She said, “I want to look out and I don’t mind if people look in.”’

‘Even when she’s lying down?’

‘You can’t really see into a room, Constance, unless the lights are on, any more than you can see into a car,’

‘I suppose that’s just as well,’

‘I’m painting her with her hands clasped behind her head like the Maja Vestida -‘

‘But Ernestine isn’t in the least like that bold, provocative female,’

‘No, but she’s a little more like her than she used to be,’

‘Wasn’t the Duchess of Alba Goya’s mistress?’

‘I think she was, I hope she was. But surely, Constance, you’re not jealous of Ernestine?’

‘No, darling, of course not, but I’m not altogether happy to think of you cooped up with this rich, un-merry widow even if she hasn’t been awakened. Couldn’t you paint her as the Sleeping Beauty?’

‘She’s not exactly beautiful. Her eyes are too large for her face,’

‘I know. But you could easily prettify her, it wouldn’t be the first time you have done that. And if she was asleep her eyes wouldn’t show. Besides, I should feel safer if she was asleep, and she would recover from the shock quicker. How do you keep her awake, by the way?’

‘I talk to her,’ said Hughie.

‘And does she talk to you? Isn’t it rather awkward, painting a moving mouth? You must need a cine-camera,’

‘It’s better for them to talk a bit, it keeps their faces from going dead,’

‘“Their” faces? Darling, how promiscuous you sound. Still, I’m glad you think of her as them. What does she talk about?’

‘Me, to some extent,’

‘I thought she only talked about herself,’

‘Oh no. That was when she was trying to cure herself. Someone told her not to keep it bottled up. She said she cured herself by talking to someone,’

‘I wonder who,’

Leadbitter was listening intently.

‘She said it was someone very patient and understanding, who couldn’t get away. But for some time after that she always talked about a subject - art, you know, or the state of the world. She was tired of the sight and sound of herself - the whole idea of herself - it was sheer happiness, she said, to be able to think of anything she wanted to, without reference to herself - to have complete freedom of thought. She could be a cloud or a tree, or just an idea. She liked to identify herself with things that were going well - well for her, well for everybody, happy centuries, happy families, and so on -‘

‘It sounds like a child’s game,’ said Constance.

‘I suppose it was. Anyhow, she shrank from the idea of personality, especially her own, you couldn’t get near her as a person, any more than you can get near a preacher or a lecturer -‘

‘My dear Hughie - what you must have been through -‘

‘Well, she was like that, a shape in sunlight, until -‘

‘Until what?’

‘Until she had this shock,’

‘And is she more paintable now?’ asked Constance.

‘Oh yes, much more. You see, now she has an expression, her own face, whereas before she had a look of impersonal sweetness and happiness, like a nun’s,’

‘You certainly couldn’t paint a nun lying on a sofa with her hands clasped behind her head,’ said Constance. ‘I wonder what you’ll make of her. But you mustn’t make her look like a tart, either. The effects of the shock may wear off: people don’t change fundamentally as quickly as that, in my experience. She may go back to being a preacher or a lecturer, or even an ego-maniac. Do you enjoy her company, Hughie?’ ‘Well, I rather like being on my best behaviour,’

‘I shouldn’t know what that was,’ said Constance. ‘Mind you keep on it, Hughie, mind you keep on it. But be warned: I don’t think she’s for you, even in paint. She isn’t quite there, if you know what I mean. She exists in our imagination of her. You might come in one morning, and find the canvas blank. Then you’d get a shock. Can you imagine her in this car, sitting beside the driver?’

‘No, I can’t. But it’s thanks to her we’re sitting here,’

‘She’s paid up again?’

‘She has,’

‘I don’t like all this paying in advance. It’s corrupting. She’s paying for her idea, not for what she gets. Paying for paying’s sake, that’s what it comes to. She’s relieving her feelings on you,’

‘What a horrid way of putting it,’

‘Well, she is. You are her - I won’t say what. And there’s something else she’s doing,’

‘What is that, Cassandra?’

‘She’s laying on you the burden of a lifetime’s gratitude,’

Hughie thought a moment, but did not look too seriously dismayed.

‘Oh well, she’s taught me to say “thank you”.’

‘Suppose she doesn’t like the portrait?’

‘Oh, but she will,’

‘Because she likes you, you mean,’

‘I didn’t mean that,’

‘You did, and I dare say you’re right. Who was it got a shock, and then fell in love with the first thing they saw?’

‘No one I ever heard of, and don’t call me a thing,’

‘A poor thing but mine own. You are mine, aren’t you, Hughie?’

‘I’m less poor than I was, but yes, Constance, I’m yours.

‘Not Ernestine’s?’

‘Oh no,’

For once Leadbitter was wrong: they didn’t kiss. How could they, when Lady Franklin, Ernestine, was sitting on the seat beside him, far more real than they were?

The image of Lady Franklin, that vanished benefactress, returned to plague the inventor. The inventor: for she did not return as Lady Franklin, she returned as Mrs Leadbitter, his own invention, and he was realist enough not to confuse the two.

Leadbitter had almost succeeded in writing Lady Franklin off as a bad debt. For potentially, in the future, she was a debt. She had been one of his best customers, he had lost her custom, and the money he had counted on from her in the future would never now be paid. Even though, thanks to her handwriting on the envelope and her signature on the cheque, he had forgiven her, washed out the social slight, and almost forgiven her the worse injury to his masculine pride, his pride was still wounded at having lost a customer. He worked it out: taking an average of Lady Franklin’s monthly accounts, in six years he would have received from her as much as she had paid him in that one lump sum. But that had been a gift, and free from Income Tax. To get the real equivalent, he would have had to serve her for ten years. Ten years of steady bookings coming in! One thing he did not let his mind dwell on if he could help it: the capital gain, the enormous capital gain, if his tactical manoeuvre on the road from Winchester had succeeded.