Anthony Powell - The Valley of Bones

Frederica was not usually so cordial in manner to persons she did not already know; often, not particularly cordial to those she knew well. I had not seen her since the outbreak of war. The war must have shaken her up. That was the most obvious explanation of this new demeanour. The trousers and handkerchief were uncharacteristic. However, it was not so much style of dress that altered her, as something within herself. Robin Budd her husband had been killed in a fall from his horse nine or ten years before. By now not far from forty, she had never — so far as her own family knew — considered remarriage, still less indulged in any casual love affair; although those rather deliberately formidable, armour-plated good looks of hers were of the sort to attract quite a lot of men. Her sister, Priscilla, had some story about Jack Udney, an elderly courtier whose wife had died not long before, getting rather tight at Ascot after a notable win, and proposing to Frederica while the Gold Cup was actually being run, but the allegation had never been substantiated. It was true Frederica had snapped out total disagreement once, when Isobel met Jack Udney somewhere and said she thought him a bore. In short, Frederica’s most notable characteristic was what Molly Jeavons called her ‘dreadful correctness’. Now, total war seemed slightly to have dislodged this approach to life. Frederica’s reception of Stevens showed that. Stevens himself did not need further pressing to come in for a drink.

‘Nothing I’d like better,’ he said. ‘It’ll help me to face Aunt Doris’s woes about shortages and ration cards. Half a sec, I’ll back the car to a place where I’m not blocking your front door.’

He started up the car again.

‘How’s Isobel?’

‘Pretty well,’ said Frederica. ‘She’s resting. She’ll be down in a moment. We’re rather full here. Absolutely packed to the ceiling, as a matter of fact.’

‘Who have you got?’

‘Priscilla is here — with Caroline.’

‘Who is Caroline?’

‘Priscilla’s daughter, our niece. You ought to know that.’

‘Ah, yes, I’d forgotten her name.’

‘Then Robert turned up unexpectedly on leave.’

‘I’ll be glad to see Robert.’

Frederica laughed.

‘Robert has brought a lady with him.’

‘No?’

‘But yes. One of my own contemporaries, as a matter of fact, though I never knew her well.’

‘What’s she called?’

‘She married an American, now deceased, and has the unusual name of Mrs Wisebite. She was nee Stringham. I used to see her at dances.’

‘Charles Stringham’s sister, in fact.’

‘Yes, you knew him, didn’t you. I remember now. Well, Robert has brought her along. What do you think of that? Then the boys are home for the holidays — and there’s someone else you know.’

‘Who is that?’

‘Wait and see.’

Frederica laughed shrilly again, almost hysterically. That was most unlike her. I could not make out what was happening. Usually calm to the point of iciness, rigidly controlled except when she quarrelled with her sister, Norah, Frederica seemed now half excited, half anxious about something. It could hardly be Robert’s morals she was worrying about, although she took family matters very seriously, and the fact that Robert had a woman in tow was certainly a matter for curiosity. That Robert should be associated with Stringham’s sister was of special interest to myself. I had never met this sister, who was called Flavia, though I had seen her years before at Stringham’s wedding. Chips Lovell, our brother-in-law, Priscilla’s husband, had always alleged that Robert had a taste for ‘night-club hostesses old enough to be his mother’. Mrs Wisebite, though not a night-club hostess, was certainly appreciably older than Robert. By this time, after several changes of position, Stevens had parked the car to his own satisfaction. As he joined us, another possible explanation of Frederica’s jumpiness suddenly occurred to me.

‘Isobel hasn’t had the baby yet without anyone telling me?’

‘Oh, no, no, no.

However, something about the way I asked the question must have indicated to Frederica herself that her manner struck me as unaccustomed. While we followed her through the hall, she spoke more quietly.

‘It’s only that I’m looking forward to your meeting an old friend, Nick,’ she said.

Evidently Robert was not the point at issue. We entered a sitting-room full of people, including a lot of children. These younger persons became reduced, in due course, to four only; Frederica’s two sons, Edward and Christopher, aged about ten and twelve respectively, together with a couple of quite little ones, who played with bricks on the floor. One of these latter was presumably Priscilla’s daughter, Caroline. Priscilla herself, blonde and leggy, quite a beauty in her way, was also lying on the floor, helping to build a tower with the bricks. Her brother, Robert Tolland, wearing battle-dress, sat on the sofa beside a tall, good-looking woman of about forty. Robert had removed his gaiters, but still wore army boots. The woman was Flavia Wisebite. Not noticeably like her brother in feature, she had some of Stringham’s air of liveliness weighed down with melancholy. In her, too, the melancholy predominated. There was something greyhound-like about her nose and mouth. These two, Robert and Mrs Wisebite, seemed to have arrived in the house only a very short time before Stevens and myself. Tall, angular, Robert wore Intelligence Corps shoulder titles, corporal’s stripes on his arm. The army had increased his hungry, even rather wolfish appearance. He jumped up at once with his usual manner of conveying that the last person to enter the room was the one he most wanted to see, an engaging social gesture that often caused people to exaggerate Robert’s personal interest in his fellow human beings, regarding whom, in fact, he was inclined to feel little concern.

‘Nick,’ he said, ‘it’s marvellous we should have struck just the moment when you’ve been able to get away for a weekend. I don’t think you’ve ever met Flavia, but she knows all about you from her brother.’

I introduced Odo Stevens to them.

‘How do you do, sir,’ said Robert.

‘Oh, blow the sir, chum,’ said Stevens. ‘You can keep that for when we’re on duty. I’m rather thick with the lance-corporal in your racket who functions with my Battalion. I’ve borrowed his motor bike before now. Where are you stationed?’

‘Mytchett,’ said Robert, ‘but I hope to move soon.’

‘My God, so do I,’ said Stevens. ‘They train your I. Corps personnel at Mytchett, don’t they?’

He seemed perfectly at ease in this rather odd gathering. Before I had time to say much to Mrs Wisebite, a middle-aged man rose from an armchair. He had a tanned face, deep blue eyes, a very neat grey moustache. The sweater worn over a pair of khaki trousers seemed very natural clothes for him, giving somehow the impression of horsy elegance. It was Dicky Umfraville. Frederica was right. His presence was certainly a surprise.

‘You didn’t expect to find me here, old boy, did you?’ said Umfraville. ‘You thought I could only draw breath in night-clubs, a purely nocturnal animal.’

I had to agree that night-clubs seemed the characteristic background for our past encounters. There had been two of these at least. Umfraville had turned up at Foppa’s that night, ages before, when I had taken Jean Duport there to play Russian billiards; then, a year or two later, Ted Jeavons had brought me to the club Umfraville himself had been running, where Max Pilgrim had sung his songs, Heather Hopkins played the piano:

‘Di, Di, in her collar and tie …’

I had not set eyes on Umfraville since that occasion, but he seemed determined that we were the oldest of friends. I tried to recall what I knew of him: service in the earlier war with the Foot Guards, I could not remember which; some considerable reputation as gentleman-rider; four wives. Like many men who have enjoyed a career of more than usual dissipation, he had come to look notably distinguished in middle years, figure slim, eyes bright, face brown with Kenya sun. This bronzed skin, well brushed greying hair emphasised the blue of his eyes, which glistened like Peter Templer’s, as Sergeant Pendry’s had done before his disasters. I could not recall whether or not Umfraville’s moustache was an addition. If so, it scarcely altered him at all. His face, in repose, possessed that look of innate sadness which often marks the features of those habituated to the boundless unreliability of horses. I asked him how he was employed in the army.