Part 9

Lathom came to my rescue by making a suitable acknowledgment of the great man’s condescension, and I was sliding away with a vague bow and a muttered remark about an engagement, when I felt a tap on the shoulder. It was Harrison.

“Excuse me one moment, Mr. Munting,” said he.

A row in the Academy would have its points from the point of view of my Press agent, but I was not anxious for it. However, I asked Elizabeth to wait a moment for me, and stepped aside with Harrison.

“I think,” said he, “I am afraid—that is, I feel I owe you an apology, Mr. Munting.”

“Oh!” I said. “That’s all right. I mean, it doesn’t matter at all.” Then I pulled myself together. “I’m sorry,” I said, “it’s my fault, really. I ought not to have come. I might have known you would be here.”

“It’s not that,” he said, determined to face it. “The fact is—I fear I did you an injustice that—er—that last time we met. Er—the unfortunate woman who made all the trouble——”

“Miss Milsom?” I asked; not because I didn’t know, but to help him on with his sentence.

“Yes. She has had to take a rest—in fact, to undergo a course of treatment—in fact, she is in a kind of nursing-home.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. There can really be no doubt that the poor creature is—well, demented is perhaps an unkind way of putting it. Perhaps we had better say, unbalanced.”

I expressed sympathy.

“Yes. From what my wife tells me—and Mr. Lathom—and from what I hear from the poor creature’s relatives, I now feel no doubt at all that the—the accusation, you know—was entirely unfounded. A nervous delusion, of course.”

“Yes, yes,” said I.

“I quite understand, of course, your very chivalrous motives for not putting the blame on her at the time. The position was most awkward for you. You might perhaps have given me a hint—but I perfectly understand. And my wife, you will realise, was so very much upset——”

“Please,” I broke in, “do not blame her or yourself for a single moment.”

“Thank you. It is very kind of you to take it in this reasonable spirit: I cannot say how much I regret the misunderstanding. I hope you are very well and prosperous. You are quite a famous man now, of course. And married. Will you do me the honour to present me to your wife? I hope you will come and see us some day.”

I was not keen to make the introduction, but it could scarcely be avoided. The preposterous situation was there, and had to be imagined away. Mrs. Harrison glowed. For the first time I saw her in full prismatic loveliness, soaked and vibrating with colour and light. I asked her what she thought of the show.

“We haven’t seen much of it yet,” she said, laughing, “we came straight to see _the_ picture. Is it going to be the picture of the year as they call it, do you think, Mr. Munting?”

“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.

38. _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 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 the 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

39. _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.

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 like that, too.

I must stop now. The Gorgon will be wanting its tea. I am living just like a hermit now. I never go anywhere and I try to do all I can to keep him in a good temper, for fear he should get the idea that there is Somebody Else in my life. How dreadful it would be if he suspected anything. He is fairly reasonable now, except when his food isn’t quite right. But oh! I am so lonely.

Darling, I love you so much I don’t know what to do with myself. I have kissed the paper twenty times where your dear, darling name is. You must kiss it, too, and think you are kissing your own, your absolutely ownest own,

LOLO

40. _The Same to the Same_

14th June, 1929

DARLING,

Your letter hurt me so dreadfully, I cried and cried. Oh, Petra, you can’t love me at all, or you wouldn’t say such awful things. You can’t really think that if I love you I ought to let _him_ divorce _me_. Darling, do think how horrible it would be! How could I go through all that terrible shame in public, and all my friends looking on and thinking hateful things about our beautiful love! At least, I suppose I could go through with it—one can go through all kinds of agonies and still live—but that you should _want_ me to do it—that you could think of your Lolo in such a sordid way—that’s what hurts me, darling. You used to say you wanted to stand between me and trouble, and couldn’t bear to think of anything ugly touching our pure and lovely passion. And yet now you want to smirch me with the stain of the divorce courts and see my name in the papers for people to snigger at. Oh, Petra, it’s absolutely clear you don’t really love me one bit.

You couldn’t feel the same to me, Petra, I know that, if I came to you all dirtied and draggled from an ordeal like that. Just think of having to stand up in the witness-box and tell the judge all about our love. It would all sound so different to their worldly, coarse, horrible minds, and our love would seem just a vulgar, nasty—I don’t like to write the word they would call it, even to you—instead of the pure, clean, divine thing it really is.

Darling, I’m not thinking of myself—I’m thinking of you and our love. I don’t want a single spot to touch it. It would be better to suffer all our lives as we are suffering now—as _I_ am suffering, for sometimes, Petra, I don’t think you suffer at all—rather than to look at each other with the shadow of an ugly scandal between us. You don’t understand. You don’t realise what a difference these things make to a woman. It does not make any difference to a man, but even you would see the stain on me for ever afterwards, and would turn against me.

Tell me you don’t really mean it, darling. There must be some other way out. Let us think very hard and find out. Or if you really think so little of me, tell me so, and we will say good-bye again—for always, this time. I expect I was wrong to stick to our agreement before. You wanted to be released then, and you wouldn’t have asked it if you hadn’t been tired of me already in your heart. Let’s end it all, Petra. Perhaps I shall die, and then you will be free. I feel unhappy enough to die—and if I’m too strong for wretchedness to kill me, there are always easy ways out of it all.

Your heart-broken LOLO

41. _The Same to the Same_

15, WHITTINGTON TERRACE 30th June, 1929

DARLING, DEAR PETRA, MY DEAREST,