Death of a Ghost (23 page)

However, if anyone else was hesitant in his approval, Max himself was obviously sublimely content.

Linda, contemplating him sombrely from beneath her tawny brows, reflected that during the past month or so Max's conceit and over-emphasis had become noticeably worse. Now and again there was a distinct touch of well-simulated foreign accent in his drawling utterances, and his swagger was becoming Irvingesque.

Looking at him posturing in the dusty sunlight, it occurred to her that it was really remarkable that he should not appear very ridiculous. She thought also that this was certainly not the case. Max Fustian's old strength, a passionate belief in his own magnificence and a force of personality which thrust this illusion upon all he met, had increased with the other eccentricities until the electric atmosphere which emanated from him was frankly disturbing.

His opening remark was typical of this new super-affectation.

‘My dear ladies,' he said, regarding them as though they were at least partial strangers and not people he had known for twenty years. ‘We have something to face. John Lafcadio's great memory, which I myself have done so much to preserve, has been desecrated. It will take all my powers, all my skill, to put him back where he belongs. To do this I shall require your cooperation.'

‘Ah!' said Donna Beatrice with gratified idiocy.

Max shot a patronizing smile in her direction and continued in the same oratorical vein.

‘Lafcadio was a great painter,' he said. ‘Let us never forget that. A great painter. This calamity, this petty blot upon his household, this little smirch across his memory must not be allowed to make any one of his admirers forget that. A great painter.'

Lisa was listening, her quick dark eyes fixed upon his face in the fascinated stare of imperfect comprehension.

Linda, on the other hand, showed signs of restiveness, and would have spoken had not Belle's plump hand upon her shoulder counselled her to be still.

Max continued, his head thrown back, the phrases falling lazily from his lips.

He had perched himself upon the arm of the great chair which Lafcadio had always pronounced, without any foundation at all, a part of the belongings of Voltaire. The faded crimson tapestry made a background for Max's eccentric figure and lent it some of its own gracious magnificence.

‘Of course,' he said easily, ‘you all realize that it will be impossible to continue the pretty Show Sunday conceit in future years. That amusing little idea has ended unfortunately. Lafcadio's beautiful work must never enter that tainted studio again. You will probably leave this house, Belle. The name must be preserved from notoriety. That is most important.'

Belle sat up on her chair and regarded her visitor in mild astonishment. Waving her unuttered comment aside, Max went on with supreme confidence.

‘I have given the matter quite a considerable amount of thought,' he confessed with a little condescending smile at the group on the rug. ‘As I am undoubtedly mainly responsible for bringing Lafcadio before the public I naturally feel it my duty to do what I can to save the rest of his work from any contamination by this wretched little scandal.'

‘Quite,' said Donna Beatrice faintly.

Max nodded briefly at that portion of the room in which she sat. He appeared to be enjoying himself.

As she sat looking at him, Belle's brown eyes seemed to grow larger and more dense in colour, but she made no sound and only the gentle pressure of her hand on Linda's shoulder increased slightly.

‘My plans are these,' said Max briefly. ‘My name has been too long linked to John Lafcadio's for me to allow any private considerations to deter me from coming to his rescue at a time like this.'

He had dropped the impossible artificiality of manner with which his opening remarks had been made, but a new matter-of-fact didacticism was if anything even more offensive.

‘At considerable personal inconvenience, therefore, I shall take the remaining four Lafcadio canvases to New York this autumn.'

He made the announcement bluntly, and continued without waiting to see if his audience agreed with him.

‘Although times are bad, I think with my powers of salesmanship I can expect to sell one or perhaps even two canvases. The echoes of the distressing affairs in this house will have died down over there by this time, if they ever reach so far. After New York I shall take the remaining works to Yokohama, perhaps returning to Edinburgh with any that are left. I realize, of course, that I am taking a risk, but I am willing to do this as a last tribute to the man whose genius I have established.'

He paused triumphantly with a wave of his long hands. Belle remained perfectly silent, but Donna Beatrice leant forward, her thin face flushed, her necklace jangling.

‘Dear Max,' she said, her voice shaking with self-conscious sweetness, ‘keep his name green. Keep the Master's torch alight.'

Max returned the pressure of her thin fingers, and released them perfunctorily.

‘The only reason I come to you at all,' he remarked, slipping gracefully into the great chair, ‘is that written consent to break the terms of the present arrangement must be given by you, Belle, before I can take the canvases abroad. I have the documents with me. You sign them and I'll make all the necessary arrangements.'

Donna Beatrice rose with a rustle and glided gracefully to the serpentine bureau in the corner.

‘Sit here, Belle dear,' she said. ‘
His
desk.'

Mrs Lafcadio did not seem to have heard her, and Max laughed softly and went over to her.

‘Dear Belle!' he said. ‘Aren't you going to thank me? I wouldn't do so much for any painter in the world.'

When the habitually even-tempered suddenly fly into a passion, that explosion is apt to be more impressive than the outburst of the most violent amongst us.

Belle Lafcadio rose in the full dignity of her seventy years. Bright spots of colour burned in her crumpled cheeks.

‘You preposterous little puppy,' she said. ‘Sit down!'

The use of the old term of contempt was unexpectedly effective, and if Max did not obey her at least he slipped back involuntarily, his brows contracting.

‘My dear lady –,' he protested, but Belle was aroused, and Lisa and Donna Beatrice, who both remembered the last time Belle lost her temper some twenty years before, were silent.

‘Listen to me, my boy,' she said, and her voice was the vigorous, resonant thing it had been in her thirties, ‘your conceit is turning your head. This is not a subject we talk about as a rule because politeness and kindness forbid it, but I see that the time has come for a little truth. You are in the position you occupy now because you have had the intelligence to cling to Johnnie's coat-tails. I admire your intelligence in clinging, but don't forget the motive power is his, not yours.
You
'll do what you can to save his pictures!
You
've been mainly responsible for bringing his name before the public! Upon my soul, Max Fustian, you want your ears boxed.

‘Johnnie left instructions about his pictures. For eight years I've obeyed those instructions and for the remaining four I shall do the same, please God. If no one buys them, if no one comes to the parties, it doesn't matter. I know what Johnnie wanted and I shall do it. Now go away, and don't let me see you for at least six weeks or I'll take the whole thing out of your hands. Be off with you.'

She remained standing, breathing a little faster than usual, and the colour still burning in her cheeks.

Max gaped at her. Her resistance was a thing he had obviously never considered. Gradually, however, his equanimity returned.

‘My dear Belle,' he began stiffly, ‘I make every allowance for your age, and the disturbing time through which you have passed, but –'

‘Really!' said the old lady, her brown eyes positively flashing. ‘I never heard such monstrous impudence in all my life. Will you be quiet, sir! I have told you, no. The present arrangement holds. My husband's pictures remain in this country.'

‘Oh, Belle dear, is this wise? That angry red cloud in your aura! Max is so clever about business, don't you think …?'

Donna Beatrice's mild protest from the chaise-longue ceased abruptly as Belle glanced at her.

Mrs Lafcadio smiled politely.

‘Beatrice, dear,' she said, ‘I wonder if you'd mind going to another room for a moment. I see this is to be a business talk. Lisa, my child, you can go downstairs now. Bring tea in fifteen minutes. Mr Fustian will not be staying.'

‘Vivid crimson and indigo,' muttered Donna Beatrice maddeningly. ‘So dangerous. So harmful to the Higher Consciousness!'

But she went all the same, rustling from the room like a startled bird. Lisa followed her, and as the door closed after them Belle glanced down at her granddaughter.

‘I want to do what Johnnie told me to, Linda,' she said. ‘You and I are the only people concerned. What do you think? If we lose a little money, does it matter?'

The girl smiled.

‘They're your pictures, Sweet,' she said. ‘You do what you like. You know how I feel. Somehow, I don't really care very much. If you don't want them to go away that settles it as far as I'm concerned.'

‘Then not in my lifetime,' said Belle. ‘While I live I shall do what we arranged all those years ago.'

‘Criminally absurd,' Max declared. ‘Sheer stupidity. My dear Belle, even though you are Lafcadio's widow you mustn't presume on your position too much. Those pictures belong not to you, but to the world. As Lafcadio's executor in art I insist: they must be sold as soon as possible, and our only hope is in the other great capitals. Don't let obstinate sentimentality degrade the work of a man you obviously never appreciated.'

His voice had risen, and in his anger his movements had lost their studied grace and become oddly childish.

Belle sat down in her chair. The old room which still breathed the presence of the turbulent Lafcadio seemed to range itself around her. She looked at the man coldly. Her anger had passed and taken with it all that radiating warmth and friendliness which made her what she was. In its place a new and unexpected Belle was revealed: a woman still strong enough to set her face implacably at anything of which she disapproved, still shrewd enough to see flattery for its tawdry self, and still sufficiently rich in friends to be able to choose.

‘Max,' she observed unexpectedly, ‘you must be over forty. I am over seventy. If we were both thirty years younger, as I feel we ought to be to make this disgraceful exhibition even faintly excusable, I should send for Lisa to put you in a cab and send you home. You mustn't come to people's houses and be rude. You make yourself ridiculous in the first place. Also they dislike it. You may go now. I want the remaining four cases which my husband left sent back here unopened within a week.'

He stood looking at her.

‘Are you really going to make that colossal blunder?'

Belle laughed.

‘Silly, pompous little man,' she said. ‘Go away now and send the pictures back, and don't behave as if I were a Lyceum audience.'

Max was angry now. His skin was very sallow, and the little muscle at the point of his jaw twitched ominously.

‘I have to warn you, you are making a very serious mistake. To take the works out of our hands is a serious step.'

‘Bless the man!' said Belle in exasperation. ‘If Johnnie were here I don't like to think what would happen to you. I remember a man coming here once and behaving about as badly as you have done this afternoon, and Johnnie and McNeil Whistler threw him in the canal. If you don't go this instant I'll send for Rennie and have it done again.'

Max retreated. He was livid and his small eyes snapped dangerously. Half-way across the room he paused and looked back.

‘This is your last chance, Mrs Lafcadio,' he said. ‘Shall I take the pictures abroad?'

‘No.'

‘Nothing will make any difference?'

‘Only my death,' said Belle Lafcadio. ‘When I'm dead you can all do what you like.'

The words were spoken with peculiar spirit, and Mr Campion, arriving on one of his many visits, heard them with all their significance as he came up the stairs.

He hurried forward to see who their recipient might be, and was confronted by Max striding out of the doorway, his face contorted with uncontrollable rage.

–

‘M
Y DEAR
I must be getting old.'

Belle patted her muslin head-dress into position as she spoke. She was standing in front of the small oval mirror with its frame of white Dresden flowers which hung over the gilt console-table between the two windows. She remained surveying herself, while the roar of Max's acceleration died away in the street below.

In actual fact she looked considerably younger than of late. The clash had brought out some of her old fire, and there was a trace of the ‘Belle Darling' of the Louvre in her quick smile as she turned to nod at Campion, who had just entered.

After the greeting she returned to the mirror.

‘I like these bonnets,' she remarked. ‘They make me look so clean, don't you think? Old women often look so mothy, put away for the summer without being brushed. That little whipper-snapper, my dear! He talked to me as if I were a case of senile decay living on the parish.'

Mr Campion looked apprehensive.

‘You behaved like a lady, no doubt?' he ventured.

‘Not in the least,' said Belle with satisfaction. ‘I washed my hands of him, absolutely, irrevocably. Johnnie and I never put up with people when we really disliked them, and I'm not going back on the habit of a lifetime. I have taken the rest of the Lafcadio business out of Master Fustian's hands. I've told him he takes those pictures abroad over my dead body.'