Anthony Powell - The Kindly Ones

‘I see the flight of funds to Wall Street as continuing,’ said Sir Magnus, speaking very quietly, ‘even though we have avoided war for the time being.’

That was an opinion I should have been prepared to hazard myself without laying claim to financial wizardry. Sir Magnus must have been unwilling to commit himself in front of Widmerpool. His words also carried the unmistakable note of implication that we should all go home.

‘Well, we have avoided war,’ said Widmerpool. ‘That is the important point. I myself think we are safe for five years at least. But — to get back to Duport — everything is going through the subsidiary company, as agreed. Duport will collect the material from the Turkish sellers on his own responsibility, and wire the Swiss company when he has enough ores for shipment.’

‘This ought to keep old Bob quiet for a bit,’ said Templer. ‘He does a job well when he’s at it, but goes to pieces if unemployed. He brought off some smart deals in manganese when he was in South America, so he is always telling me. Chromite is the main source of manganese, isn’t it? I’m no expert.’

‘Chromite—’ began Widmerpool.

‘And payments?’ asked Sir Magnus, not without emphasis.

‘I’ve opened an account for him through a local bank,’ said Widmerpool, ‘since you asked me to handle the credit formalities. That is agreeable to you, I hope. Duport can thereby undertake down-payments. We shall have to keep an eye on the European situation. In my opinion, as I said just now, it is going to steady up.’

‘Very good, Kenneth,’ said Sir Magnus, in a voice that closed the matter.

He began to fold up the stand of the flash lamp. The evening, for Sir Magnus’s visitors, was at an end. The girls, who had already gone off to clean themselves up, were now returning. There was some muttering between Templer and Anne Umfraville. Then she said good night all round, and retired from the dining-room.

‘I think I’d better go up too,’ said Templer. ‘See how Betty is getting on.’

He too said good night. There was a sound of laughter from the stairs, suggesting that Anne Umfraville had not yet reached her room.

‘Kenneth,’ said Sir Magnus, ‘I am going to ask you to take these friends of mine back in your car. It is not out of your way.’

‘Where do they live?’ asked Widmerpool, without bothering to assume even the most superficial veneer of pleasure, even resignation, at this prospect. ‘I was intending to take the short cut through the park.’

‘Peter kindly fetched them,’ said Sir Magnus, ‘but Betty is not feeling well this evening. Naturally he wants to attend to her.’

He was absolutely firm.

‘Come on, then,’ said Widmerpool, without geniality.

We thanked Sir Magnus profusely. He bowed us out. There was not much room in Widmerpool’s car. We charged insecurely through murky lanes.

‘What happened to Peter’s wife?’ asked Widmerpool. ‘She is rather delicate, isn’t she? I have hardly met her.’

We gave him some account of the Stourwater evening.

‘You seem all to have behaved in an extraordinary manner,’ said Widmerpool. ‘There is a side of Magnus of which I cannot altogether approve, his taste for buffoonery of that kind. I don’t like it myself, and you would be surprised at the stories such goings-on give rise to. Disgusting stories. Totally untrue, of course, but mud sticks. You know Magnus will sit up working now until two or three in the morning. I know his habits.’

‘What is wrong with Betty Templer?’ I asked.

‘I have been told that Peter neglects her,’ said Widmerpool. ‘I understand she has always been rather a silly girl. Someone should have thought of that before she became involved in your ragging. It was her husband’s place to look after her.’

We arrived at the Morelands’ cottage.

‘Come in and have a drink,’ said Moreland.

‘I never touch alcohol when I’m driving,’ said Widmerpool, ‘more especially when in uniform.’

‘A soft drink?’

‘Thanks, no.’

‘I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ said Matilda.

‘No, Mrs Moreland, I will push on.’

The car’s headlights illuminated a stretch of road; then the glare disappeared from sight. We moved into the house.

‘Who was that awful man?’ said Moreland.

‘You met him with me once in a nursing home.’

‘No recollection.’

‘What a party,’ said Isobel. ‘Some of it was rather enjoyable, all the same.’

‘What do you think of Stourwater?’ asked Matilda. ‘I find it really rather wonderful, in spite of everything.’

‘ Eldorado banal de tous les vieux garçons ,’ said Moreland.

‘But that was Cythera,’ said Isobel, ‘the island of love. Do you think love flourishes at Stourwater?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Moreland. ‘Love means such different things to different people.’

EVERY CHRISTMAS, as I have said, Albert used to send my mother a letter drafted in a bold, sloping, dowager’s hand, the mauve ink of the broad nib-strokes sinking deep, spreading, into the porous surface of the thick, creamy writing paper with scalloped edge. He had kept that up for years. This missive, composed in the tone of a dispatch from a distant outpost of empire, would contain a detailed account of his recent life, state of health, plans for the future. Albert expressed himself well on paper, with careful formality. In addition to these annual letters, he would, every three or four years, pay my mother a visit on his ‘day off’. These visits became rarer as he grew older. During the twenty-five years or so after we left Stonehurst, I saw him on such occasions twice, perhaps three times; one of these meetings was soon after the war, when I was still a schoolboy; another, just before ‘coming down’ from the university. Perhaps there was a third. I cannot be sure. Certainly, at our last encounter, I remember thinking Albert remarkably unchanged from Stonehurst days: fatter, undeniably, though on the whole additional flesh suited him. He had now settled down to be a fat man, with the professional fat man’s privileges and far from negligible status in life. He still supported a chronic weariness of spirit with an irony quite brutal in its unvarnished view of things. His dark-blue suit, assumed ceremonially for the call, gave him a rather distinguished appearance, brown canvas, rubber-soled shoes temporarily substituted for the traditional felt slippers (which one pictured as never renovated or renewed), adding a seedy, nearly sinister touch. He could have passed for a depressed, incurably indolent member of some royal house (there was a look of Prince Theodoric) in hopeless exile. The ‘girl from Bristol’ had taken him in hand, no doubt bullied him a bit, at the same time arranged a life in general tolerable for both of them. She had caused him to find employment in hotels where good wages were paid, good cooking relatively appreciated. There were two children, a boy and a girl. Albert himself was never greatly interested in either of them, while admitting they ‘meant a lot’ to his wife. It had been largely with a view to the children’s health and education that she had at last decided on moving to a seaside town (the resort, as it happened, where Moreland had once conducted the municipal orchestra), when opportunity was offered there to undertake the management of a small ‘private hotel’. Albert was, in principle, to do the cooking, his wife look after the housekeeping. It was a species of retirement, reflecting the ‘girl from Bristol’s’ energetic spirit.

To this establishment — which was called the Bellevue — Uncle Giles inevitably gravitated. Even if he had never heard of Albert, Uncle Giles would probably have turned up there sooner or later. His life was spent in such places — the Ufford, his pied-à-terre in Bayswater, the prototype — a phenomenal number of which must have housed him at one time or another throughout different parts of the United Kingdom.