A Wreath Of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor

Author:Elizabeth Taylor [Taylor, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780748131648
Publisher: Hachette Littlehampton
Published: 2011-09-29T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Morland Beddoes was not in the least self-infatuated. He loved himself only as much as self-respect required, and the reason why he saw himself so clearly was that he looked not often, but suddenly, so catching himself unawares.

A perception he had, and kindness, caused his friends to run to him when they were troubled, for they were convinced of his absorption in their lives and could be sure that he would not judge them. In this way, his private life was continually impinged upon by distracted people. His sofa was not his own. Always, some man sat gloomily upon it, staring into a whisky and soda, waiting to unburden himself; or a slip of a girl would kick her shoes off, curl round among the cushions and weep, her hair over her face as a protection. The way he attracted wretchedness disturbed him, for no one ever came to him with good news.

He offered no advice, he took no sides, his flow of sympathetic phrases had dried up long ago and was reduced to murmurings. It must have been, he thought, like unbosoming oneself to a wood-pigeon. But still he listened, he offered brandy if need be, he slept on the floor while others occupied his bed, and often, weary from a day’s work, would be brewing tea at two in the morning.

Always, human nature was displayed before him as a dishevelled thing; even in his film work he saw that poise was something put on and taken off like a cloak, never assumed for long; the cool-tempered, the suave, came off the set wiping sweat from the palms of their hands; the camera, intent on a Palladian façade, might have strayed only a few yards and found scaffolding and two-walled rooms. To him, who would have loved the human personality to be as static as a flower on a stalk, unmarred by emotions, unclogged by frustration, the most intimate and disordered side of people was displayed. The foibles, the strange quirks, odd growths, darknesses, contradictions which novelists care so much for, he found less delightful. Though loving people, he loved stillness more, and visual beauty. He desired the woman who would never raise her voice, nor snivel into a handkerchief, nor encroach on another’s private territory. He did not marry. He collected pictures. He collected especially the pictures which would help him to forget the cracked façades, the tear-stained faces which dogged him always. Until he saw a picture Frances had painted.

It was before the war, on a late winter’s afternoon toward teatime: one of the days when Spring seems suddenly possible; nothing is different but the knowledge that it is not yet dark and yesterday would have been. The sky is translucent between the buildings, and the flowers on barrows and in shop-windows are not winter flowers any more, but hyacinths and tulips and mimosa. The scent of lilac was fanned towards him, as if to compensate for the dwarf at the kerbside and the newspaper-placards about Hitler and Austria.

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