Anthony Powell - The Valley of Bones

‘Is she sharing a room with Robert?’

‘Not here. There isn’t one to share. The beds are too narrow. But, in principle, they seem to be living together. How did you think Priscilla was looking?’

‘All right. She was being a bit standoffish, except to Stevens. Who was the other child playing bricks? The Lovells have only Caroline, haven’t they?’

‘That’s Barry.’

‘Who is Barry?’

‘A slip-up of Frederica’s maid, Audrey. Audrey had to bring him along with her, owing to war circumstances. Barry comes in very useful as an escort for Caroline. You know how difficult it always is to find a spare man, especially in the country.’

‘Does Barry’s mother do the cooking?’

‘No, Frederica. She found herself without a cook and no prospect of getting one. She’s always been rather keen on cooking, you know. Now she could get a job in any but the very best houses.’

I had an idea, from the way she spoke, that all this talk about Barry, and Frederica’s cooking, was, on Isobel’s part, a means of temporarily evading the subject of Priscilla. I could tell, from the way she had mentioned her sister, that, for some reason, Priscilla was on Isobel’s mind. She was worried about her.

‘Any news of Chips?’

‘Priscilla isn’t very communicative. Where do Marines go? Is he on a ship? She seems to hold it against him that he hasn’t been able to arrange for them to have a house or a flat somewhere. I don’t think that’s Chips’s fault. It’s all this bloody war. That’s why Priscilla is here. She is very restless.’

‘Is she having a baby too?’

‘Not that I know of. Audrey is, though.’

‘Audrey sounds a positive Messalina.’

‘Not in appearance. She is a good-natured, dumpy little thing with spectacles.’

‘A bit too good-natured, or her lenses need adjusting. Is it Barry’s father again?’

‘On the contrary, but we understand it may lead to marriage this time.’

‘I suppose Frederica will be the next with a baby. What about Robert and Mrs Wisebite?’

‘No doubt doing their best. Robert, by the way, is on embarkation leave. He’s only spending some of it here. He arrived with Flavia just before you did.’

‘Where is he going?’

‘He doesn’t know — or won’t say for security reasons — but he thinks France.’

‘How on earth has he managed that?’

‘He decided to withdraw his name from those in for a commission, as there was otherwise no immediate hope of a posting overseas.’

‘I see.’

‘Hardly what one would expect of Robert,’ Isobel said.

His own family regarded Robert as one of those quietly self-indulgent people who live rather secret lives because they find themselves thereby less burdened by having to think of others. No one knew much, for example, about his work in an export house dealing with the Far East. The general idea was that Robert was doing pretty well there though not because he himself propagated any such picture. He would naturally be enigmatic about a situation such as that which involved him with Mrs Wisebite. It was fitting that he should find himself in Field Security. Enterprise must have been required to place himself there too. I wondered what the steps leading to the Intelligence Corps had been. At one moment he had contemplated the navy. No less interesting was this attempt on Robert’s part to move closer to a theatre of war at the price of immediately postponing the chance of becoming an officer.

‘The war seems to have altered some people out of recognition and made others more than ever like themselves,’ said Isobel.

‘Have you ever heard of someone called David Pennistone? He was a man in the army I talked to on a train. He said he was writing an article on Descartes.’

‘Haven’t I seen the name at the end of reviews?’

‘That’s what I thought. We didn’t manage to find anyone we knew in common, but I believe I met him years ago for a minute or two at a party.’

‘Didn’t the Lovells talk about someone called Pennistone when they came back from Venice? I remember Chips explaining that he was no relation to the Huntercombes, because the name was spelt with a double-n. I have an idea Pennistone lives in Venice — some story of a contessa, beautiful but not very young. That’s how I’m beginning to feel myself.’

‘Anyway, it’s nice to meet again, darling.’

‘It’s been a long time.’

‘A bloody long time.’

‘It certainly has.’

Later that weekend, when I found him pacing the lawn, Umfraville himself supplied some of the background wanting in his own story.

‘Look here, old boy,’ he said, when I joined him, ‘how do you think you and the others are going to stand up to having me as a brother-in-law?’

‘A splendid prospect.’

‘Not everyone would think so,’ he said. ‘You know I must be insane to embrace matrimony again. Stark, staring mad. But not half as mad as Frederica to take me on. Do you realize she’ll be my fifth? Something wrong with a man who keeps marrying like that. Must be. But I really couldn’t resist Frederica. That prim look of hers. All the same, fancy her accepting me. You’d never expect it, would you. All that business of her emptying the royal slops. She’ll have to give up that occupation of course. No good trying to be an Extra Woman of the Bedchamber with me in the offing. Not a bloody bit of use. You can just picture H.M. saying: “Why’s that fellow turned up again? I remember him. He used to be a captain in my Brigade of Guards. I had to get rid of him. He’s a no-gooder. What does he mean by showing his ugly face again at Buck House? I won’t stand it. Off with his head.” You agree, don’t you?’

‘I see what you mean.’

Umfraville stared at me with bloodshot eyes. When we had first met at Foppa’s, I had wondered whether he was not a little mad. The way he spoke now, even though it made me laugh, created the same disquieting impression. He nodded his head, smiling to himself, still contemplating his own characteristics with absolute absorption. I suddenly saw that Umfraville had been quite right when he said he was like Odo Stevens. Here again was an almost perfect narcissism, joined in much the same manner to a great acuteness of observation and relish for life.

‘You’re going to have a professional cad for a brother-in-law, old boy,’ he said, ‘make no mistake about that. Just to show you I know what I’m talking about when I apply that label to myself, I’ll confide a secret. I was the one who took our little friend Flavia’s virginity in Kenya years ago. Still, if that were the worst thing that ever happened to poor Flavia, she wouldn’t have had much to complain about. Fancy being married to Cosmo Flitton and Harrison F. Wisebite in one lifetime.’

‘Isobel and I had already discussed whether you and Mrs Wisebite had ever been in bed together.’

‘You had? That shows you’re a discerning couple. She’s a bright girl, your wife. Well, the answer is in the affirmative. You knew Flavia’s brother Charles, didn’t you?’

‘I used to know him well. I haven’t seen him for years.’

‘Met Charles Stringham in Kenya too. Came out for a month or two when he was quite a boy. I liked him very much. Then he took to drink, like so many other good chaps. Flavia says he has recovered now, and is in the army. Charles used to talk a lot about that bastard, Buster Foxe, whom their mother married when she and Boffles Stringham parted company. Charles hated Buster’s guts.’

‘I haven’t seen Commander Foxe for ages.’

‘Neither have I, thank God, but I hear he’s in the neighbourhood. At your brother-in-law, Lord Warminster’s home, in fact. He’ll soon be my brother-in-law, too. Then there’ll be hell to pay.’