Miss Buncle Married (17 page)

Goodness! thought Barbara, I'm glad Arthur's not here. She was aware that Arthur would not have liked it at all, and the mere fact of Arthur not liking it would have made it all seem a thousand times worse. I'm broadminded, of course, thought Barbara. It was a comforting thought. The mere fact of thinking that she was “broadminded” made her so. She mastered her alarm and confusion and made up her mind not to be shocked. This was all the easier because Mr. Marvell was so matter of fact about the whole thing—the picture might have been a still life of a jar of roses, or of a cabbage, rather than the naked figure of his wife. After all, he's her husband, thought Barbara vaguely, and that seemed to help.

Once Barbara had decided not to be shocked at Mr. Marvell's pictures she began to find them rather interesting and, once she began to find them interesting, she began to ask questions. Mr. Marvell answered the questions conscientiously. They were puerile questions, of course (Trivona was infinitely more knowledgeable), but Barbara interested and amused him. He was no less pleased with her as a woman for her abysmal ignorance on the subject of painting. Mr. Marvell held the view, advanced satirically by Jane Austen, that “imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms.” He didn't quite know why he was interested in Barbara. She was not particularly good-looking; she was not clever or fascinating; she was extraordinarily devoid of that mysterious modern attribute “sex appeal”; in fact, she had nothing unique except her essential innocence—if innocence it was. Mr. Marvell found her baffling. He had suspected for a while that her innocence was really subtlety. No woman could really be as innocent as Barbara seemed, so absolutely natural and simpleminded, but now he wasn't so sure. She was an enigma.

“Tell me,” said Barbara, “why don't you like painting a pretty child like Ambrose? I can't help thinking he would make a beautiful picture.”

“My dear lady!” he said. “My dear lady, there are different kinds of beauty, you'll grant me that, I hope.”

Barbara granted it to him willingly.

“Beauty,” said Mr. Marvell, “beauty is a dangerous word to use. What is beauty? Tell me that.”

Barbara remained dumb. She knew what beauty was, but she was now aware that Mr. Marvell thought it was something quite different, and she was a little frightened of him again.

“Beauty,” continued Mr. Marvell in his resonant voice, “is the greatest force in the world. Take a woman with beauty. She has in her hands an extremely powerful weapon, which she can use for good or evil. If all the beautiful women in the world could combine they could change the whole world; nothing would be beyond them, literally nothing. But beauty and intelligence rarely go hand in hand (for intelligence writes upon a face), and perhaps this is fortunate. Marry intelligence to beauty and beget ambition. A king's mistress!” cried Mr. Marvell (so carried away by his theme as to become somewhat incoherent). “Was Maintenon beautiful? Was Mary of Scotland beautiful? Or Nell Gwynne? What is beauty? A mere question of bones.”

“Bones?” inquired Barbara in amazement.

“Bones,” said Mr. Marvell firmly. “I could paint
you
,” he continued, looking at her with a strangely impersonal stare, “I could
paint
you. You have good bones; your face is well constructed; the proportions are almost right. I could paint you and make you ‘beautiful'—as you call it—are you offended?”

“I think it's rather a compliment,” said Barbara slowly.

Mr. Marvell laughed. “Some people would say it was ‘rather an insult,'” he told her.

“Well, of course, if they were beautiful it
would
be,” said Barbara with strict justice, “because they wouldn't need any alteration, would they? But I still don't see how you could paint me, and make me beautiful, and it would still be
me
.”

“I would add on a little to your nose, and subtract a little from your mouth,” said Mr. Marvell, grinning at her impudently. “There are one or two other small details, of course, but these are the main alterations I would make. Are you offended
now
?”

“No,” said Barbara, smiling at him. “I know my mouth's too big, you see.”

“Then it's hopeless,” Mr. Marvell told her. “Quite hopeless. You are absolutely unique among women.”

“Did you want to offend me?” she inquired.

“I thought you deserved it,” he replied. “But now I'm not so sure. In fact, I'm almost sure you didn't.”

He looked at her to see if she understood, but it was obvious that she had no idea what he was getting at. Her eyes met his with childlike honesty—it was almost impossible to flirt with a woman who was so unaware. What had she wanted when she lured him out here, wondered Mr. Marvell. It almost looked as if she had wanted to see his work—and yet how could she have wanted to see his work? The woman scarcely knew one end of a paintbrush from the other.

She was looking round the studio again, now, and realizing, with surprise, that all these women, clothed, partially clothed, and completely unclothed, were Mrs. Marvell.

“Why is it?” she inquired. “Why is it that the pictures are all different? I mean they're all Mrs. Marvell and yet, if you saw them without knowing, you'd think they were all different people. I hope you don't mind me asking,” she added, a trifle diffidently.

“Most interesting,” said Mr. Marvell gazing at her, “you find them so different. The answer to your question is—I am an artist.”

Barbara had known that before. She looked at him blankly.

“We then ask ourselves,” continued Mr. Marvell in his booming voice, “we then ask ourselves—what is an artist? What manner of creature is this that sees his wife differently every time he looks at her? And we find the answer
here
,” said Mr. Marvell, striking himself on the chest with a dull thump. “The artist is a creature of moods—what he experiences,
that
he expresses. I experience my wife as a large stately woman—I paint a Juno. I experience my wife as a languorous beauty—I paint a Récamier. I experience my wife as a sparkling courtesan—I paint a Ninon de L'Enclos. I experience the gamin in my wife—I paint a guttersnipe.”

“Yes,” said Barbara breathlessly.

“I have, therefore, in my wife a variety of models,” said Mr. Marvell complacently, “and the fact that I live in the backwoods, where professional models are unprocurable, is less of a disadvantage to me than it would be to another. I think I may say that I have made a virtue of necessity, for I have now painted Feodore so often that I can appreciate her finer shades. The small difference, for instance, between the Feodore of today and the Feodore of last week—amazing!” added Mr. Marvell, shaking his leonine head. “Amazing!”

Barbara agreed that it was.

“Art is always amazing,” he continued. “All art,” he cried, throwing out his arms as if to embrace a Universe of Art. “I am not one of those moribund creatures who deny inspiration to my fellowmen. My own medium satisfies
me,
but who am I that I should limit art to one medium? Take the musician, the composer—he perceives the spirit of art through the organ of hearing; he experiences emotion through the ear, and, through the ear, he gives himself to the world. Take the author—he appeals to a different sense. With what care and judgment he builds his book. Keeping in view a sustained line from start to finish, with every part in due relation to the whole. Stone by stone he—”

“Oh no, he doesn't!” Barbara interrupted.

“I beg your pardon—”

“I said
no, he doesn't
,” repeated Barbara firmly. “It isn't like that at all; it isn't like building—not a bit. In building, you see, you know beforehand what it's going to be like; at least, I suppose you do. I mean, it would never do to start off building a house and find you've built a bridge, or something, when it was all finished. It's more like hunting, really,” said Barbara, warming up to her subject. “Yes, it's really rather like hunting. You start out to hunt a stag and you find the tracks of a tiger. It's an adventure, you see, that's the beauty of it. You don't know a bit what you're going to find until you come to the end, and, even then, you don't know what you've
found
. At least you know what you've found for yourself but you don't know if you've found anything for anybody else, but that doesn't matter, really. The only thing that matters is that you
must
find
something—
some sort of—well—prey. Otherwise it's no good, of course. You go questing about, like a—like a hound, and sometimes you get lost, and sometimes you find things you never knew were there. I can't explain properly—” said Barbara waving her hands wildly, and almost bursting in her efforts to get it out.

Mr. Marvell stood and listened to all this with his mouth open. To say he was surprised is ludicrously to understate the case—was Balaam surprised when the ass spoke?

“You write,” he said at last, when he could find a voice to say it in. The description to which he had listened was extremely muddled, and somewhat incoherent, and Mr. Marvell—although he knew very little about the art of writing—was pretty certain that the method described by Mrs. Abbott was an extremely unorthodox method of producing a well-written book; but he was intelligent enough to realize that nobody, who had not gone through the adventures described, could possibly have described them in such a vivid manner. It was, therefore, not as a question but as a positive assertion, that Mr. Marvell said, “
You write
.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Barbara, aghast at what she had done. “Oh well—well, sometimes—I used to, I mean. I don't, now, ever.”

“Why not?” inquired Mr. Marvell with interest.

“Oh well, you see, I'm married now. There's no need—”

“Did you go hunting for the pot, or for pleasure?”

Barbara giggled. “Well, if you really want to know,” she said, “I started hunting for the pot, but, quite soon, it sort of
got
me. But it's all over now,” added Barbara seriously, rather as if she were a reformed drunkard and had signed the pledge. “It's all over and done with now, and I don't really like people to know about it.”

“A secret, eh?” inquired Mr. Marvell smiling.

“Yes—”

“I wonder why.”

Barbara was not going to tell him that. Oh no, she had told him far too much already. I must have been mad to let the cat out of the bag to Mr. Marvell, she thought, and then she looked rather pensive for a little, for her outburst to Mr. Marvell had stirred her up; and she reflected that it was really rather a pity that it was all over so completely, because, really and truly, it had been rather fun.

Mr. Marvell found her abstracted; he saw that for tonight, at any rate, Mrs. Abbott had nothing to give him. He suggested that they should return to their spouses.

***

Mr. Abbott had had a very trying time with Mrs. Marvell. He found her a most inarticulate person, amorphous as a jellyfish. She laid herself upon the divan in the drawing-room, settling the cushions very comfortably behind her head and into the curves of her body. Two long, beautifully molded legs were exposed to Mr. Abbott's view, clad in the finest of sheer silk stockings. This done, she left the rest of Mr. Abbott's entertainment to Fate. It might have been enough entertainment for some people, but Mr. Abbott did not find it enough. He was not interested in Mrs. Marvell's legs—not in the least. He was not interested in Mrs. Marvell at all. But Mrs. Marvell was his hostess and he felt bound to converse with her. He tried her on every subject he could think of, but she had no ideas to offer upon any of them. It was uphill work. It was frightful toil. And, all through this frightful toil, Mr. Abbott was conscious of an even more frightful uneasiness at the back of his mind. Should he have allowed Barbara to be led away to Mr. Marvell's studio like that? Should he? Was it perfectly all right, or was it not? Artists, Mr. Abbott knew, were rather queer—not like other people at all—and Barbara was so extraordinarily innocent, so ignorant of the big, wicked world.

“They're a long time,” said Mr. Abbott at last.

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Marvell, unhelpfully.

“I wonder what they're doing,” essayed Mr. Abbott, with an apologetic laugh.

Mrs. Marvell considered this for a moment or two, and then said she didn't know.

“I think I'll go and see,” said Mr. Abbott, rising to his feet.

“I shouldn't do that.”

“No?”

“No, James wouldn't like it.”

Mr. Abbott was even more uneasy at this ominous statement. “Wouldn't like it!” he repeated anxiously.

“No.”

“I think I'll go all the same.”

“Sit down, they'll be back soon,” Mrs. Marvell said. She rolled over on the divan, and settled herself more comfortably among the soft down cushions (
just as if she were in bed!
Mr. Abbott thought).

“Sit down,” said Mrs. Marvell again. “They won't be long now.”

Mr. Abbott was defeated. He sat down on the edge of the chair. It was absurd that he could not go after his own wife and find her, quite absurd, but, somehow or other, he couldn't. He sat and frowned at the fire; he was not going to look at Mrs. Marvell, horrible woman, detestable woman!

“Why are you worried?” inquired Mrs. Marvell in her queer husky voice. “Can't you trust your wife?”

Mr. Abbott couldn't believe his ears. “
What
did you say?”

“Can't you trust your wife?” repeated Mrs. Marvell in a conversational tone.

“Of course I can trust my wife,” said Mr. Abbott angrily. “What an extraordinary thing to say!”

“I thought you were worried,” explained Mrs. Marvell casually.

“It's your husband I don't trust,” added Mr. Abbott, who was so upset that he scarcely knew what he was saying.

“I don't think you need worry,” said Mrs. Marvell, quite unmoved. “She's too old for James, really. He
does
take fancies to people sometimes, but only if they're young and pretty.”

Mr. Abbott was dumb with astonishment and fury—the woman must be mad! He looked at her, and saw her peering at him with her queer brown eyes. Her untidy brown head was burrowed deep into a green cushion, so deeply burrowed that she had to hold down the edge of the cushion to see Mr. Abbott at all. The rest of her body was humped in curves along the whole length of the divan. Mr. Abbott looked at her—he had never seen a lady behave like this in her drawing-room before, or in any other room for that matter—he looked at her and came to the conclusion that she was either mad or bad—possibly both. He was wrong, of course. Mrs. Marvell was a good wife and perfectly sane and respectable. She had merely been brought up differently from Mr. Abbott's friends. Mrs. Marvell was completely natural in her body; her body was to her what an animal's body is to an animal. She sprawled upon the divan, and burrowed into the cushions, because it was comfortable and she was extremely tired. Posing for hours at a time for an exacting man like Mr. Marvell is no light work; it tires the body and dulls the mind. At least this was the effect it had upon Mrs. Marvell. If you pose for hours you must either think a great deal or not at all—she found it better not to think at all. If you pose for hours, not thinking at all, your mind becomes a complete blank; it atrophies. Mrs. Marvell's mind had atrophied to a certain extent; it was subsidiary to her body. Her body was her chief asset, and was therefore her chief care. She cultivated her body assiduously; she massaged it, exercised it, dieted it, manicured it, and anointed it with various oils and lotions. She was fully aware that, when her body was no longer beautiful, James would insist (with perfect right) upon having a model in the house—and, once that started, where were you? So Mrs. Marvell lived for her body, and tended it carefully, and neglected her mind.