_No admirer of the late Madala Grey’s arresting art can fail to be
absorbed by these intimate and unexpected revelations_....
_Delicately, unerringly, Miss Serle traces to its source the inspiration
of that remarkable writer.... And—this will please Anita most of all_—
_We ourselves have never joined in the chorus of praise that, a decade
ago, greeted the appearance of ‘Eden Walls’ and its successors, and in
our opinion Miss Serle, in her biographical enthusiasm, uses the word
genius a little too often and too easily. Madala Grey has yet to be
tried by that subtlest of literary critics, the Man with the Scythe. But
whether or not we agree with Miss Serle’s estimate of her heroine, there
can be no_ _two questions as to the literary value of the ‘Life’ itself.
It definitely places Miss Serle among the Boswells, and as we close its
fascinating pages we find ourselves wondering whether our grandchildren
will remember Miss Serle as the biographer of Madala Grey, or Madala
Grey as the subject matter merely, of a chronicle that has become a
classic._
That is to say—_La reine est morte. Vive la reine!_ Anita will certainly
be pleased. Well, I suppose she’s got what she wants, what she’s always
wanted. She isn’t a woman to change. The new portrait in the _Bookman_
might have been taken when I knew her: the mouth’s a trifle harder, the
hair a trifle greyer; but no real change. But it amuses me that there
should be her portrait in all the papers, and none of Madala Grey; not
even in the _Life_ itself. I can hear Anita’s regretful explanations in
her soft, convincing voice. She will make a useful little paragraph out
of it—
_Miss Serle, whose ‘Life of Madala Grey’ is causing no small stir in
literary circles, tells us that the brilliant novelist had so great a
dislike of being photographed that there is no record of her features in
existence. An odd foible in one who, in our own recollection, was not
only a popular writer but a strikingly beautiful woman._
And yet, from her heavy, solitary frame (we have no other pictures in
our den) that ‘beautiful woman,’ with her flowered scarf and her handful
of cowslips, is looking down at this moment at me—at me, and the press
cuttings, and _The Times_, and Anita’s hateful book. And she says,
unmistakably—‘Does it matter? What does it matter?’ laughing a little as
she says it.
Then I laugh too, because Anita knows all about the portrait.
After all, does it matter? Does it matter what Anita says and does and
writes? And why should I of all people grudge Anita her success?
Honestly, I don’t. And I don’t doubt that the book is well written: not
that I shall read it. There’s no need: I know exactly what she will have
written: I know how convincing it will be. But it won’t be true. It
won’t be Madala Grey.
Of course Anita would say—‘My dear Jenny, what do you know about it? You
never even met her. You heard us, her friends, her intimates, talking
about her for—how long? An hour? Two hours? And on the strength of
that—that eaves-dropping five years ago’ (I can hear the nip in her
voice still) ‘you are so amusing as to challenge my personal knowledge
of my dearest friend. Possibly you contemplate writing the story of
Madala Grey yourself? If so, pray send me a copy.’ And then the swish of
her skirt. She always wore trains in those days, and she always glided
away before one could answer.
But I could answer. I remember that evening so well. I don’t believe
I’ve forgotten a word or a movement, and if I could only write it down,
those two hours would tell, as Anita’s book never will, the story of
Madala Grey.
I ought to be able to write; because Anita is my mother’s cousin; though
I never saw her till I was eighteen.
Mother died when I was eighteen.
If she had not been ill so long it would have been harder. As it was—but
there’s no use in writing down that black time. Afterwards I didn’t know
what to do. The pension had stopped, of course. I’d managed to teach
myself typing, though Mother couldn’t be left much; but I didn’t know
shorthand, and I couldn’t get work, and my money was dwindling, and I
was getting scared. I was ready to worship Anita when her letter came.
She was sorry about Mother and she wanted a secretary. If I could type I
could come.
I remember how excited I was. I’d always lived in such a tiny place and
we couldn’t afford Mudie’s. To go to London, and meet interesting
people, and live with a real writer, seemed too good to be true. And it
helped that Anita and her mother were relations. Mother used to stay
with Great-aunt Serle when she was little. Somehow that made things
easier to me when I was missing Mother more than usual.
In the end, after all those expectations, I was only three weeks with
Anita. They were a queer three weeks. I was afraid of her. She was one
of those people who make you feel guilty. But she was kind to me. I
typed most of the day, for she was a fluent worker and never spared
either of us; but she took me to the theatre once, and I used to pour
out when interesting people came to tea. In the first fortnight I met
nine novelists and a poet; but I never found out who they were, because
they all called each other by their Christian names and you couldn’t ask
Anita questions. She had such a way of asking you why you asked. She
used to glide about the room in a cloud of chiffon and cigarette
smoke—she had half-shut pale eyes just the colour of the smoke—and pour
out a stream of beautiful English in a pure cool voice; but if they
interrupted her she used to stiffen and stop dead and in a minute she
had glided away and begun to talk to someone else. Old Mrs. Serle used
to sit in a corner and knit. She never dropped a stitch; but she always
had her eyes on Anita. She was different from the rest of my people. She
had an accent, not cockney exactly, but odd. She had had a hard life, I
believe. Mother said of her once that her courage made up for
everything. But she never told me what the everything was. Great-aunt’s
memory was shaky. One day she would scarcely know you, and another day
she would be sensible and kind, very kind. She liked parties. People
used to come and talk to her because she made them laugh; but every now
and then, when Anita was being brilliant about something, she would put
up her long gnarled finger and say—‘Hush! Listen to my daughter!’ and
her eyes would twinkle. But I never knew if she were proud of her or
not.
Everybody said that Anita was brilliant. She could take a book to pieces
so that you saw every good bit and every bad bit separated away into
little compartments. But she spoiled things for you, books and people,
at least she did for me. She sneered. She said of the Baxter girl once,
for instance—‘She’s really too tactful. If you go to tea with her you
are sure to be introduced to your oldest friend.’ And again—‘She always
likes the right people for the wrong reasons.’
Of course one knows what she meant, but I liked the Baxter girl all the
same. Beryl Baxter—but everyone called her the Baxter girl. She was kind
to me because I was Anita’s cousin, and she used to talk to me when
Anita wasn’t in the mood for her. She asked me to call her ‘Beryl’
almost at once. Anita used to be awfully rude to her sometimes, and then
again she would have her to supper and spend an evening going through
her MSS. and I could tell that she was giving her valuable help. The
Baxter girl used to listen and agree so eagerly and take it away to
re-write. I thought she was dreadfully grateful. I hated to hear her.
And when she was gone Anita would lean back in her chair with a dead
look on her face and say—
“God help her readers! Jenny, open the window. That girl reeks of
patchouli.” And then—“Why do I waste my time?”
And Great-aunt Serle in her corner would chuckle and poke and mutter,
but not loud—
“Why does she waste her time? Listen to my daughter!”
The next time the Baxter girl came Anita would hardly speak to her.
The Baxter girl seemed to take it as a matter of course. But once she
said to me, with a look on her face as if she were defending herself—
“Ah—but you don’t write. You’re not keen. You don’t know what it means
to be in the set.”
“But such heaps of people come to see Anita,” I said, “people she hardly
knows.”
“They’re only the fringes,” said the Baxter girl complacently. “They’re
not in the Grey set. They don’t come to the Nights. At least, only a
few. Jasper Flood, of course—You’ve met him, haven’t you?—and Lila
Howe—_Masquerade_, you know, and _Sir Fortinbras_.” The Baxter girl
always ticketed everyone she mentioned. “And the Whitneys. She used to
stay with the Whitneys. And Roy Huth. And of course Kent Rehan.”
“Kent Rehan?”
“_The_ Kent Rehan,” said the Baxter girl.
Then I remembered. The vicar’s wife always sent Mother the Academy
catalogue after she had been up to town. I used to cut out the pictures
I liked, and I liked Kent Rehan’s. They had wind blowing through them,
and sunshine, and jolly blobs that I knew must be raw colour, and always
the same woman. But you could never see her face, only a cheek curve or
a shoulder line. They were in the catalogue every year, and so I told
the Baxter girl. She laughed.
“Yes, he’s always on the line. Anita says that’s the worst she knows of
him. And of course the veiled lady——” she laughed again, knowingly, “But
there is one full face, I believe. _The Spring Song_ he calls it. But
it’s never been shown. Anita’s seen it. She told me. He keeps it locked
away in his studio. They say he’s in love with her.”
“With whom?”
“Madala Grey, of course.”