Anthony Powell - Hearing Secret Harmonies

‘Russell Gwinnett. An old friend of mine. He was put in an unfortunate position.’

Emily Brightman said that rather sharply. Members took the hint. I asked if she had seen anything of Gwinnett lately.

‘Not a word from him personally. Another American friend, former colleague of both of us, said Russell was back in academic life again. The name of his college escapes me.’

‘Has he returned to the book he was writing about X. Trapnel?’

‘There was no mention of what he was writing, if anything. I had myself always thought Trapnel, as a subject, a little lightweight. I hear, by the way, that Matilda Donners has some amusing photographs of the Seven Deadly Sins, in which you yourself figure. I must persuade her to produce them for me.’

Matilda had made good her promise by showing the photographs to Isobel and myself a few weeks before. The Eaton Square flat, where she lived (on the upper floors of a house next door to the former Walpole-Wilson residence, now an African embassy), was neither large, nor outstandingly luxurious, except for some of the drawings and small oil paintings. Matilda had sold the larger canvases bequeathed to herself. Apart from the high quality of what remained, the flat bore out that law which causes people to retain throughout life the same general characteristics in any place they inhabit. Matilda’s Eaton Square flat at once called to mind the garret off the Gray’s Inn Road, where she had lived when married to Moreland. The similarities of decoration may even have been deliberate. Moreland had certainly remained a little in love with Matilda until the end of his days. Something of the sort may have been reciprocally true of herself. Unlike Matilda’s long silence about Sir Magnus, she had never been unwilling to speak of Moreland, often talking of their doings together, which seemed, some of them, happy in retrospect.

‘Norman Chandler’s coming to see the photographs. I thought he would enjoy the Sins. They belong to his period. Norman was always such a support to Hugh, when there was anything to do with the Theatre. The Theatre was never really Hugh’s thing. He wasn’t at all at ease there, even when he used to come round and see me after the performance. I particularly didn’t want Norman to miss Hugh’s splendid interpretation of Gluttony.’

‘What’s Norman directing now?’

‘Polly Duport’s new play. I haven’t seen it yet. It sounds rather boring. Do you know her? She was here the other night. Polly’s having a very worrying time. Her mother’s married to a South American — more or less head of the government, I believe — and there are a lot of upheavals there. Here’s Norman. Norman, my pet, how are you? We were just saying how famous you’d become. That new fringe makes you look younger than ever — like Claudette Colbert. And what a suit. Where did you get it?’

Chandler, whose air, even in later life, was of one dancing in a perpetual ballet, was not at all displeased by these comments on his personal appearance. He looked down critically at what he was wearing.

‘This little number? It’s from the Boutique of the Impenitent Bachelor — Vests & Transvests, we regular customers call the firm. The colour’s named Pale Galilean. To tell the truth I can hardly sit down in these trousers.’

‘Our brother-in-law, Dicky Umfraville, always refers to his tailor as Armpits & Crotch.’

‘Their cutter must have moved over to the Boutique. How are you both? Oh, Isobel, I can’t tell you how much I miss your uncle, Ted Jeavons. Watching the telly will never be the same without his comments. Still, with that piece of shrapnel, or whatever it was from the first war, inside him, he never thought he’d last as long as he did. Ted was always saying how surprised he was to be alive.’

Inhabiting flats, both of them, in what had formerly been the Jeavons house in South Kensington, Chandler and Jeavons had developed an odd friendship, one chiefly expressed in watching television together. Jeavons, who had always possessed romantic feelings about theatrical life, used to listen in silence, an expression of deep concentration on his face, while Chandler rattled on about actors, directors, producers, stage designers, most of whose names could have meant little or nothing to Jeavons. Umfraville — who always found Jeavons a bore — used to pretend there was a homosexual connexion between them, weaving elaborate fantasies in which they indulged in hair-raising orgies at the South Kensington house. Umfraville himself did not change much as the years advanced, spells of melancholy alternating with bursts of high spirits, the last latterly expressed by a rather good new impersonation of himself as an old-fashioned drug-fiend.

When Matilda spread out the photographs on a table the manner in which the actual photography ‘dated’ was immediately noticeable; their peculiarity partly due to the individual technique of Sir Magnus as photographer, efficient at everything he did, but altogether unversed in any approach to the camera prompted by art. This was especially true of his figure subjects. Painfully clear in outline (setting aside the superimposed exoticism of the actions portrayed), they might have been taken from the pages of a mail-order catalogue, the same suggestion of waxworks, in this case, rather sinister waxworks. Details of costume scrupulously distinct, the character of the models was scarcely at all transmitted. This method did not at all diminish the interest of the pictures themselves. Sir Magnus had remarked at the time that he had taken up photography with a view to depicting his own collections — china, furniture, armour — in the manner he himself wished them photographically recorded, something in which no professional photographer had ever satisfied him. One speculated whether — the Seven Deadly Sins pointing the way — he had later developed this hobby in a manner to include his own tastes as a voyeur. A certain harshness of technique would not necessarily have vitiated that sphere of interest. That Sir Magnus had actually introduced Widmerpool to the practices of which Pamela had so publicly accused her husband at Venice, was less likely, though there, too, photography, of a dubious intention, was alleged. Matilda set out the photographs, as if playing a game of Patience.

‘So few of one’s friends qualify for all the Sins. Quite a lot of people can offer six, then break down at the seventh. They’re full of Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Pride, Anger, Sloth — then fall down on Avarice. One knows plenty of good performers at Avarice, but they so often lack Gluttony or Sloth. Of course it helps if you’re allowed to include drink, in place of food, for Gluttony.’

She picked up the picture of herself as Envy.

‘It was unjust of Donners to make me take on Envy. I’m not at all an envious person.’

That was probably true, notwithstanding her green eyes. Matilda had never shown any strong signs of being envious. Then one thought of her rivalry with Rosie Stevens. Even that was scarcely Envy in the consuming sense that certain persons display the trait. It was competitive jealousy, something rather different, even if partaking of certain envious strains too. Matilda liked her friends to be successful, rather than the reverse. That in itself was a rare characteristic.

‘I suppose Donners thought I was envious of that silly girl he was then having one of his fancies for. What is she called now? Her maiden name was Lady Anne Stepney. She’s married to a Negro much younger than herself, rather a successful psychedelic painter. Donners knew at the time that Anne was conducting a romance with your friend Peter Templer. Do you remember? You and Isobel were staying at our cottage. This man, Peter Templer, picked us up in his car, and drove us over to Stourwater for dinner that night? There’s Anne herself, as Anger, which wasn’t bad. She had a filthy temper. Here she is again, with Isobel as Pride. That’s not fair on Isobel either, anyway not the wrong sort of Pride. And Sloth’s absurd for you, Nick. Look at all those books you’ve written.’