‘Oh, that’s tomorrow, of course, I’d forgotten. Yes, we’re supposed to be lunching with him first.’
‘I hear he’s given Jane for an engagement ring a garnet with Queen Victoria’s head carved on it.’
‘No! has he? Have you any idea at all what his pictures will be like?’
‘Absolutely none; but Bennet, I believe, thinks well of them.’
Jasper and Julius, who had been looking at Vogue, now came over to the fireplace. Feeling that they had so far not quite earned their cocktails, they began to pour forth a flood of semi-brilliant conversation, mostly in Cockney, told two stories about George Moore, one about Sir Thomas Beecham, asked if there was any future for Delius, and left, taking Ralph with them.
Sally resumed her meditations. How right she had been to marry Walter after all. Nobody could have made her so happy; life with him was very nearly perfect. The same tastes, the same friends, the same sense of humour and, above all, no jealousy. She dropped happily into an almost voluptuous doze. The rain was falling outside, which made the room seem particularly warm and comfortable.
Her thoughts became more and more misty, and chased each other through her head in the most inconsequent way until they were nonsense and she was on the edge of sleep – ‘When the rain is falling thickly there should be long white hands waving in it.’
Walter, finding her fast asleep on the floor, her head buried in a cushion, wondered whose were the empty cocktail glasses. He found a thimbleful of cocktail left in the shaker which he drank, and then woke up Sally by kissing her.
‘It’s no good, darling,’ he said, ‘I cannot dig, and to write gossip I’m ashamed, but I’ve borrowed ten pounds from Albert, and I love you dreadfully, and I’ll write some articles for the Sunday papers. We’ll get rich somehow. Meanwhile, I’m going to take you out to dinner at Quaglino’s because you haven’t been there and it might amuse you. And who’s been drinking out of my cocktail glasses, I should like to know?’
‘I made a hundred pounds while you were out, my angel, by letting the flat to an American friend of Ralph’s from tomorrow, and Ralph says we can go and live in Gower Street while it’s let; he’s got a bedroom all ready for us. So what d’you think of that, sweetest?’
‘Well, I think that beggars can’t be choosers. If it’s a load off your mind, I’m glad and, of course, it’s divine of Ralph. Still, of course, really it’s too bloody, because we shall never have a single minute to ourselves. You know what it is in Ralph’s flat – one long party.’
‘I know, darling, but it’s only for six weeks, and it will be such a saving. Also, I didn’t like to hurt his feelings by refusing, it was so sweet of him to think of it. As a matter of fact, we could go for some of the time to my family: they’re always asking us to stay with them.’
‘I believe it would be cheaper in the end,’ said Walter crossly, ‘to stay on here. Couldn’t you telephone to Ralph and say that we’ve changed our minds?’
‘No, darling, I couldn’t. If you can’t support me, somebody must, you know, and as we’re both devoted to Ralph why not let it be he? We needn’t really go to the family, of course; I only said that to annoy you, although I shall have to go sometime. By the way, too, remind me to tell Mother about Morris-Minerva. I’m sure I ought to have told her ages ago, because it’s the sort of thing it drives her mad to hear from somebody else.
‘Darling Walter. And I’m sorry I said all that about supporting me because I know you would like to be able to. And anyway, we’re so much happier like this than if you had some horrid sort of job which you hated. And if we’re really going to Quaglino’s hadn’t you better telephone for a table, my sweet?’
20
Albert had decided that the private view of his pictures should take the form of a giant cocktail party at the Chelsea Galleries, where they were being exhibited, the afternoon before they were to be opened to the public. Guests were invited from half-past three to seven, and at three o’clock Albert and Jane, supported by the Monteaths and Mr Buggins, with whom they had all been lunching, arrived at the Galleries in a state of some trepidation.
Walter and Sally, who had not seen the pictures before, gasped with amazement as they entered the room, and for several moments were left quite speechless. The pictures were indeed, at first sight, most peculiar and Albert appeared to have employed any medium but the usual. Some of them stood right out like bas reliefs, while various objects such as hair, beards, buttons and spectacles were stuck on to them. Others were executed entirely in string, newspaper and bits of coloured glass.
The first picture – Child with Doll – had a real doll stuck across it. The child also had real hair tied up with blue ribbons. The next on the catalogue, ‘No. 2. Fire irons, formal design’, represented a poker and tongs and was executed in small pearl buttons, varying in shade from dead white to smoke-grey. This was framed in empty cotton-reels.
The most important picture in the exhibition was ‘No. 15. The Absinthe Drinker’. This was tremendously built out, the central figure – that of a woman – being in a very high relief. On her head was perched half a straw hat with black ostrich feathers. In one hand was a glass filled with real absinthe. This was felt by Albert himself to be his masterpiece.
The only painting in the ordinary sense of the word, was his portrait of Sally, which, hung between two
