Unfinished Portrait

CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_ae2edca1-0a4e-5145-9ca2-d4eba458b5f9)

Home (#ulink_ae2edca1-0a4e-5145-9ca2-d4eba458b5f9)

Celia lay in her cot and looked at the mauve irises on the nursery wall. She felt happy and sleepy.

There was a screen round the foot of her cot. This was to shut off the light of Nannie’s lamp. Invisible to Celia, behind that screen, sat Nannie reading the Bible. Nannie’s lamp was a special lamp—a portly brass lamp with a pink china shade. It never smelt because Susan, the housemaid, was very particular. Susan was a good girl, Celia knew, although sometimes guilty of the sin of ‘flouncing about’. When she flounced about she nearly always knocked off some small ornament in the immediate neighbourhood. She was a great big girl with elbows the colour of raw beef. Celia associated them vaguely with the mysterious words ‘elbow grease’.

There was a faint whispering sound: Nannie murmuring over the words to herself as she read. It was soothing to Celia. Her eyelids drooped …

The door opened, and Susan entered with a tray. She endeavoured to move noiselessly, but her loud and squeaking shoes prevented her.

She said in a low voice:

‘Sorry I’m so late with your supper, Nurse.’

Nurse merely said, ‘Hush. She’s asleep.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t wake her for the world, I’m sure.’ Susan peeped round the corner of the screen, breathing heavily.

‘Little duck, ain’t she? My little niece isn’t half so knowing.’

Turning back from the screen, Susan ran into the table. A spoon fell to the floor.

Nurse said mildly:

‘You must try and not flounce about so, Susan, my girl.’

Susan said dolefully:

‘I’m sure I don’t mean to.’

She left the room tiptoeing, which made her shoes squeak more than ever.

‘Nannie,’ called Celia cautiously.

‘Yes, my dear, what is it?’

‘I’m not asleep, Nannie.’

Nannie refused to take the hint. She just said:

‘No, dear.’

There was a pause.

‘Nannie?’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘Is your supper nice, Nannie?’

‘Very nice, dear.’

‘What is it?’

‘Boiled fish and treacle tart.’

‘Oh!’ sighed Celia ecstatically.

There was a pause. Then Nannie appeared round the screen. A little old grey-haired woman with a lawn cap tied under her chin. In her hand she carried a fork. On the tip of the fork was a minute piece of treacle tart.

‘Now you’re to be a good girl and go to sleep at once,’ said Nannie warningly.

‘Oh! Yes,’ said Celia fervently.

Elysium! Heaven! The morsel of treacle tart was between her lips. Unbelievable deliciousness.

Nannie disappeared round the screen again. Celia cuddled down on her side. The mauve irises danced in the firelight. Agreeable sensation of treacle tart within. Soothing rustling noises of Somebody in the Room. Utter contentment.

Celia slept …

It was Celia’s third birthday. They were having tea in the garden. There were éclairs. She had been allowed only one éclair. Cyril had had three. Cyril was her brother. He was a big boy—eleven years old. He wanted another, but her mother said, ‘That’s enough, Cyril.’

The usual kind of conversation then happened. Cyril saying ‘Why?’ interminably.

A little red spider, a microscopic thing, ran across the white tablecloth.

‘Look,’ said his mother, ‘that’s a lucky spider. He’s going to Celia because it’s her birthday. That means great good luck.’

Celia felt excited and important. Cyril brought his questioning mind to another point.

‘Why are spiders lucky, Mum?’

Then at last Cyril went away, and Celia was left with her mother. She had her mother all to herself. Her mother was smiling at her across the table—a nice smile—not the smile that thought you were a funny little girl.

‘Mummy,’ said Celia, ‘tell me a story.’

She adored her mother’s stories—they weren’t like other people’s stories. Other people, when asked, told you about Cinderella, and Jack and the Beanstalk, and Red Riding Hood. Nannie told you about Joseph and his brothers, and Moses in the bulrushes. (Bulrushes were always visualized by Celia as wooden sheds containing massed bulls.) Occasionally she told you about Captain Stretton’s little children in India. But Mummy!

To begin with, you never knew, not in the least, what the story was going to be about. It might be about mice—or about children—or about princesses. It might be anything … The only drawbacks about Mummy’s stories were that she never told them a second time. She said (most incomprehensible to Celia) that she couldn’t remember.

‘Very well,’ said Mummy. ‘What shall it be?’

Celia held her breath.

‘About Bright Eyes,’ she suggested. ‘And Long Tail and the cheese.’

‘Oh! I’ve forgotten all about them. No—we’ll have a new story.’ She gazed across the table, unseeing for the moment, her bright hazel eyes dancing, the long delicate oval of her face very serious, her small arched nose held high. All of her tense in the effort of concentration.