“Don’t you think it dates rather?
Why don’t you put it in one of the spare rooms?”
“My father-in-law was a very charming old man,” said Leslie, “with beautiful manners, but I’m afraid he wasn’t a very good painter.”
“Well, my governor gave a tidy sum for it.
It would be absurd to put a picture that cost three hundred pounds in a spare bedroom, but if you feel like that about it, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll sell it you for a hundred and fifty.”
For though in the course of three generations they had become ladies and gentlemen, the Masons had not lost their business acumen.
The Leslie Masons had gone a long way in artistic appreciation since their marriage and on the walls of the handsome new house they now inhabited in Porchester Close were pictures by Wilson Steer and Augustus John, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell.
There was an Utrillo and a Vuillard, both bought while these masters were of moderate price, and there was a Derain, a Marquet and a Chirico.
You could not enter their house, somewhat sparsely furnished, without knowing at once that they were in the movement.
They seldom missed a private view and when they went to Paris made a point of going to Rosenberg’s and the dealers in the Rue de Seine to have a look at what there was to be seen; they really liked pictures and if they did not buy any before the cultured opinion of the day had agreed on their merits this was due partly to a modest lack of confidence in their own judgement and partly to a fear that they might be making a bad bargain.
After all, John Peron’s pictures had been praised by the best critics and he had sold them for several hundred pounds apiece, and now what did they fetch?
Two or three.
It made you careful.
But it was not only in painting that they were interested.
They loved music; they went to Symphony Concerts throughout the winter; they had their favourite conductors and allowed no social engagements to prevent them from attending their performances.
They went to hear the Ring once a year.
To listen to music was a genuine delight to both of them.
They had good taste and discrimination.
They were regular first-nighters and they belonged to the societies that produce plays which are supposed to be above the comprehension of plain people.
They read promptly the books that were talked about.
They did this not only because they liked it, but because they felt it right to keep abreast of the times.
They were honestly interested in art and it would be unjust even to hint a sneer because their taste lacked boldness and their appreciation originality.
It may be that they were conventional in their judgements, but their conventionality was that of the highest culture of their day.
They were incapable of making a discovery, but were quick to appreciate the discoveries of others.
Though left to themselves they might never have seen anything very much to admire in Cezanne, no sooner was it borne in upon them that he was a great artist than in all sincerity they recognized the fact for themselves.
They took no pride in their taste and there was no trace of snobbishness in their attitude.
“We’re just very ordinary members of the public,” said Venetia.
“Those objects of contempt to the artist, the people who know what they like,” added Leslie.
It was a happy accident that they liked Debussy better than Arthur Sullivan and Virginia Woolf better than John Galsworthy.
This preoccupation with art left them little time for social life; they sought neither the great nor the distinguished, and their friends were very nice people who were well-to-do without being rich, and who took a judicious interest in the things of the mind.
They did not much care for dinner parties and neither gave them often nor went to them more than civility required; but they were fond of entertaining their friends to supper on Sunday evenings when they could drop in dressed any way they liked and eat kedgeree and sausages and mash.
There was good music and tolerable bridge.
The conversation was intelligent.
These parties were as pleasantly unpretentious as the Leslie Masons themselves, and though all the guests had their own cars and few of them less than five thousand a year, they flattered themselves that the atmosphere was quite bohemian.
But Leslie Mason was never happier than when, with no concert or first night to go to, he could spend the evening in the bosom of his family.
He was fortunate in it.
His wife had been pretty and now, a middle-aged woman, was still comely.
She was nearly as tall as he, with blue eyes and soft brown hair only just streaked with gray.
She was inclined to be stout, but her height enabled her to carry with dignity a corpulence which a strict attention to diet prevented from becoming uncomfortable.
She had a broad brow, an open countenance and a diffident smile.
Though she got her clothes in Paris, not from one of the fashionable dressmakers, but from a little woman ‘round the corner’, she never succeeded in looking anything but thoroughly English.
She naturalized whatever she wore, and though she occasionally went to the extravagance of getting a hat at Reboux she had no sooner put it on her head than it looked as if it had come from the Army and Navy Stores.
She always looked exactly what she was, an honest woman of the middle class in easy circumstances.
She had loved her husband when she married him and she loved him still.
With the community of interests that existed between them it was no wonder that they should live in harmony.
They had agreed at the beginning of their married life that she knew more about painting than he and that he knew more about music than she, so that in these matters each bowed to the superior judgement of the other.
When it came to Picasso’s later work, for instance, Leslie said:
“Well, I don’t mind confessing it took me some time before I learnt to like it, but Venetia never had a moment’s doubt; with her flair she cottoned on to it like a flash of lightning.”
And Mrs. Mason admitted that she’d had to listen to Sibelius’ Second three or four times before she really understood what Leslie meant when he said that in its way it was as good as Beethoven.
“But of course he’s got a real understanding of music.