Anthony Powell - The Kindly Ones

‘Wasn’t she the Medusa-like figure who appeared at that party Mrs Foxe gave for my symphony?’ said Moreland.

‘She was. Charles Stringham is Mrs Foxe’s son.’

‘It was Miss Weedon who hauled him off home when he was so tight.’

‘It wasn’t a very enjoyable party, anyway,’ said Matilda.

I remembered that it had ended by Moreland’s disappearing with Isobel’s sister, Priscilla. Templer showed no interest at all in these reminiscences. They were not, perhaps, very absorbing in themselves, but he might have been expected to have given them more attention inasmuch as they referred to so old a friend as Stringham.

‘Talking of people we knew at school,’ he said, ‘Kenneth will be at Stourwater this evening.’

‘Kenneth who?’

‘Kenneth Widmerpool.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘You’ re a friend of his, aren’t you?’ said Templer, evidently surprised at my not grasping immediately whom he meant. I’ve heard him speak of you. His mother has a cottage near here.’

I saw that it was no longer a question of Stringham and Widmerpool having drawn level as friends in Templer’s mind; the fact was that Widmerpool was now miles ahead. That was clear from Templer’s tone. There was not a flicker of laughter or irony in his employment of Widmerpool’s Christian name, as there had certainly been when I had last seen them together at Dicky Umfraville’s night-club. There was, of course, absolutely no reason why Templer should adopt a satirical tone towards Widmerpool, who had as much right as anyone else to make friends with — if necessary, even to dominate — persons like Templer, who had made fun of him as a schoolboy. It was the juxtaposition of his complete acceptance of Widmerpool with Templer’s equally complete indifference to his old crony, Stringham, that gave the two things an emphasis that certainly jarred a little. Templer had probably not set eyes on him since the day when he had arrived in Stringham’s college room, later driven us all into the ditch in his newly bought car. If it came to that, I never saw Stringham these days myself, while Templer, doing business with Widmerpool for a long time now, had naturally come to regard him as a personal friend. By that time we were entering the park of Stourwater.

‘Look, the castle,’ said Isobel. ‘Nobody warned me it was made of cardboard.’

Cardboard was certainly the material of which walls and keep seemed to be built, as we rounded the final sweep of the drive, coming within sight of a large castellated pile, standing with absurd unreality against a background of oaks, tortured by their antiquity into elephantine and grotesque shapes. From the higher ground at the back, grass, close-cropped by sheep, rolled down towards the greenish pools of the moat. All was veiled in the faint haze of autumn.

‘I told you it was Wagnerian,’ said Moreland.

‘When we wind the horn at the gate, will a sullen dwarf usher us in,’ said Isobel, ‘like Beckford’s at Fonthill or the Castle of Joyous Gard in the Morte d’Arthur?’

‘A female dwarf, perhaps,’ said Moreland, rather maliciously.

‘Don’t miss the black swans,’ said Matilda, disregarding him.

‘An anachronism, I fear,’ said Moreland. ‘Sir Magnus admitted as much to me in an unguarded moment. They come from Australia. Doesn’t it all look as if the safety curtain would descend any moment amid bursts of applause?’

Stourwater was certainly dramatic; yet how unhaunted, how much less ghost-ridden than Stonehurst; though perhaps Sir Magnus himself might leave a spectre behind him. In my memory, the place had been larger, more forbidding, not so elaborately restored. In fact, I was far less impressed than formerly, even experiencing a certain feeling of disappointment. Memory, imagination, time, all building up on that brief visit, had left a magician’s castle (brought into being by some loftier Dr Trelawney), weird and prodigious, peopled by beings impossible to relate to everyday life. Now, Stourwater seemed nearer to being an architectural abortion, a piece of monumental vulgarity, a house where something had gone very seriously wrong. We crossed the glittering water by a causeway, drove under the portcullis and through the outer courtyard, entering the inner court, where a fountain stood in the centre of a sunken garden surrounded by a stone balustrade. Here, in the days when he had been first ingratiating himself with Sir Magnus, Widmerpool had backed his car into one of the ornamental urns filled with flowers.

‘Is Kenneth Widmerpool staying in the house?’ I asked, thinking of that incident.

‘Just driving over after dinner,’ said Templer. ‘Some sort of business to clear up. I’m involved to a small extent, because it’s about my ex-brother-in-law, Bob Duport. Between you and me, I think I’ve been asked partly because Magnus wants me to know what is going on for his own purposes.’

‘What are his own purposes?’

‘I don’t know for certain. Perhaps he wants this particular scheme given a little discreet publicity.’

We had drawn up by the wing of the castle that was used for residence. The girls and Moreland had left the car by then, and were making their way up the steps to the front door. Templer had paused for a moment to fiddle with one of the knobs of the dashboard which for some reason seemed to dissatisfy him. This seemed a good opportunity for learning privately what had happened to Jean; for although by then I no longer thought about her, there is always a morbid interest in following the subsequent career of a woman with whom one has once been in love. That I should have been in this position vis-à-vis his sister, Templer himself, I felt pretty sure, had no idea.

‘Duport is an ex-brother-in-law now?’

‘Jean finally got a divorce from him. They lived apart for quite a time when Bob was running round with Bijou Ardglass. Then they joined up again and went to South America together. However, it didn’t last. You never really knew Jean, did you?’

‘I met her when I stayed with your family years ago-a few times later. What’s happened to her now?’

‘She married a South American — an army officer.’

‘And Bob Duport?’

‘There is some question of his going to Turkey for Magnus. Kenneth has been fixing it.’

‘On business?’

‘Magnus is interested in chromite.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Used for hardening steel.’

By that time we were half-way up the steps, at the top of which the others were waiting.

‘Shall I lead the way?’ said Templer. ‘Magnus was in the Bailiff’s Room when last seen.’

If the outside of Stourwater made a less favourable impression than when I had come there with the Walpole-Wilsons, improvements within were undeniable. Ten, years before, the exuberance of the armour, tapestries, pictures, china, furniture, had been altogether too much for the austere aesthetic ideals to which I then subscribed. Time had no doubt modified the uninstructed severity of my own early twenties. Less ascetic, intellectually speaking, more corrupt, perhaps, I could now recognise that individuals live in different ways. They must be taken as they come, Sir Magnus Donners, everyone else. If Sir Magnus liked to make his house like a museum, that was his affair; one must treat it as a museum. In any case, there could be no doubt that protégés like Moreland and Barnby, mistresses like Baby Wentworth and Matilda, had played their part in the castle’s redecoration. Certainly it was now arranged in a manner more in keeping with contemporary fashion. Sir Magnus had cleared out some of the more cumbersome of his belongings, although much remained that was unviable enough.

‘It’s all rather wonderful, Nick, isn’t it?’ said Matilda in a whisper, as we passed through the main hall. ‘Whatever Hugh may say about the Donners taste. How would you like to own it all?’