Anthony Powell - The Kindly Ones

‘The fact is,’ said Moreland, ‘Matilda lost interest in me. With women, that situation is like a vacuum. It must be filled. They begin to look round for someone else. She decided on Donners.’

‘She was still pretty interested in you at the party Mrs Foxe gave for your symphony.’

‘How do you know?’

‘She talked to me about it.’

‘While I was getting off with Priscilla?’

‘More or less.’

Moreland made a grimace.

‘Surely she’ll come back in the end?’ I said.

‘You see, I’m not absolutely certain I want Matilda back,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I feel I can’t live without her, other times, that I can’t bear the thought of having her in the house. In real life, things are much worse than as represented in books. In books, you love somebody and want them, win them or lose them. In real life, so often, you love them and don’t want them, or want them and don’t love them.’

‘You make it all sound difficult.’

‘I sometimes think all I myself require is a quiet life,’ said Moreland. ‘For some unaccountable reason it is always imagined that people like oneself want to be rackety. Of course I want some fun occasionally, but so does everyone else.’

‘What does Matilda want? A lot of money?’

‘Not in the obvious way, diamonds and things. Matilda has wanted for a long time to spread her wings. She knows at last that she will never be any good as an actress. She wants power. Plenty of power. When we were first married she arranged all my life for me. Arranged rather too much. I’m not sure she liked it when I made a small name for myself — if one may be said to have made a small name for oneself.’

‘She will have to play second fiddle to Sir Magnus, more even than to yourself.’

‘Not second fiddle as an artist — as an actress, in her case. Being an artist — to use old fashioned terminology, but what other can one use? — partakes of certain feminine characteristics, is therefore peculiarly provoking for women to live with. In some way, the more “masculine” an artist is, the worse her predicament. If he is really homosexual, or hopelessly incapable of dealing with everyday life, it is almost easier.’

‘I can think of plenty of examples to the contrary.’

‘Anyway, there will be compensations with Donners. Matilda will operate on a large scale. She will have her finger in all kind of pies.’

‘Still, what pies.’

‘Not very intellectual ones, certainly,’ said Moreland, ‘but then the minds of most women are unamusing, unoriginal, determinedly banal. Matilda is not one of the exceptions. Is it surprising one is always cuckolded by middlebrows?’

‘But you talk as if these matters were all concerned with the mind.’

Moreland laughed.

‘I once asked Barnby if he did not find most women extraordinarily unsensual,’ he said. ‘Do you know what he answered?’

‘What?’

‘He said, “I’ve never noticed.”’

I laughed too.

‘I suppose,’ said Moreland, ‘had you asked Lloyd George, “Don’t you think politics rather corrupt?”, he might have made the same reply. Minor factors disappear when you are absorbed by any subject. You know, one of the things about being deserted is that it leaves you in a semi-castrated condition. You’re incapable of fixing yourself up with an alternative girl. Deserting people, on the other hand, is positively stimulating. I don’t mind betting that Matty is surrounded by admirers at this moment. Do you remember when we heard that crippled woman singing in Gerrard Street years ago:

Whom do you lead on Rapture’s roadway, far,

Before you agonize them in farewell?

That’s what it comes to. But look who has just arrived.’

Three people were sitting down at a table near the door of the restaurant. They were Mark Members, J. G. Quiggin and Anne Umfraville.

‘I feel better after getting all that off my chest,’ said Moreland.

‘Shall we go back?’

‘Do you think Lady Molly will have forgotten who I am?’ said Moreland. ‘It’s terribly kind of her to put me up like this, but you know what bad memories warm hearted people have.’

I saw from that Moreland had perfectly grasped Molly Jeavons’s character. Nothing was more probable than that she would have to be reminded of the whole incident of inviting him to the house when she saw him at breakfast the following morning. Like so many persons who live disordered lives, Moreland had peculiar powers of falling on his feet, an instinctive awareness of where to look for help. That was perhaps the legacy of early poverty. He and Molly Jeavons — although she made no claims whatever to know about the arts — would understand each other. If he overstayed his welcome — with Moreland not inconceivable — she would throw him out without the smallest ill-feeling on either side.

‘We might have a word with the literary critics on the way out,’ said Moreland.

‘What happened to Anne Umfraville in the light of recent developments?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Moreland. ‘I thought she was interested in your friend Templer. I understand she was passing out of Donners’s life in any case. She must have made some new friends.’

We paid the bill, pausing on the way out at the table by the door.

‘Who told you of this restaurant?’ said Quiggin. ‘I thought it was only known to Anne and myself — you have met, of course?’

His air was somewhat proprietorial.

‘Anne has a flat not far from here,’ he said. ‘Mark and I have been working late there.’

‘What at?’

‘Proofs,’ said Quiggin.

He did not explain what kind of proofs. Neither Moreland nor I inquired.

‘How is Matty, Hugh?’ asked Members.

‘On tour.’

‘I do adore Matilda,’ said Anne Umfraville. ‘Have you been to Stourwater lately? I have rather quarrelled with Magnus. He can be so tiresome. So pompous, you know.’

‘I don’t live near there any longer,’ said Moreland, ‘so we haven’t met for a month or two. Sir Magnus himself is no longer occupying the castle, of course. It has been taken over by the government, but I can’t remember for what purpose. Just as a castle, I suppose.’

‘What a ludicrous way this war is being run,’ said Quiggin. ‘I was talking to Howard Craggs about its inanities last night. Have you got a decent shelter where you live?’

‘I’m just going back there,’ said Moreland, ‘never to emerge.’

‘Give my love to Matty when you next see her,’ said Members.

‘And mine,’ said Anne Umfraville.

We said good night.

‘I think people know about Matilda,’ said Moreland.

We passed through streets lit only by a cold autumnal moon.

‘Have you the key?’

Moreland found it at last. We went upstairs to the drawing-room. Jeavons was wandering about restlessly. He had abandoned his beret, now wore a mackintosh over pyjamas. His brother was in an armchair, smoking his pipe and going through a pile of papers beside him on the floor. He would check each document, then place it on a stack the other side of his chair.

‘We got rid of them at last,’ said Jeavons. ‘Molly’s gone to bed. They struck a pretty hard bargain with Stanley. Still, the place seems to suit. That’s what matters. I’d rather it was Lil than me. What was dinner like?’

‘Not bad.’

‘How was our blackout as you came up the street?’

‘Not a chink of light.’

‘Have some beer?’

‘I think I’ll go straight to bed, if you don’t mind,’ said Moreland. ‘I feel a bit done in.’

I had never heard Moreland refuse a drink before. He must have been utterly exhausted. He had cheered up during dinner. Now he looked like death again.