Anthony Powell - Soldier's Art

Even by the time I reached the Café Royal that evening, I was still feeling humiliated by the failure of the Finn interview. The afternoon had been devoted to odd jobs, on the whole tedious. The tables and banquettes of the large tasteless room looked unfamiliar occupied by figures in uniform. There was no one there I had ever seen before. I sat down and waited. Lovell did not arrive until nearly half-past seven. He wore captain’s pips. It was hard not to labour under a sense of being left behind in the military race. I offered congratulations.

“You don’t get into the really big money until you’re a major,” he said, “That should be one’s aim.”

“Vaulting ambition.”

“Insatiable.”

“Where do you function?*

“Headquarters of Combined Operations,” he said, “that curious toy fort halfway down Whitehall. It’s a great place for Royal Marines. A bit of luck your being on leave, Nick. One or two things I want to talk about First of all, will you agree to be executor of my will?”

“Of course.”

“Perfectly simple. Whatever there is — which isn’t much, I can assure you — goes to Priscilla, then to Caroline.”

“That doesn’t sound too complicated.”

“One never knows what may happen to one.”

“No, indeed.”

The remark echoed Sergeant Harmer’s views. There was a pause. I had the sudden sense that Lovell was going to broach some subject I should not like. This apprehension turned out to be correct,

“Another small matter,” he said.

“Yes?”

“It would interest me to hear more of this fellow Stevens. You seem to be mainly responsible for bringing him into our lives, Nick.”

“If you mean someone called Odo Stevens, he and I were on a course together at Aldershot about a year ago. I didn’t know he was in our lives. He isn’t in mine. I haven’t set eyes on him since then.”

I had scarcely thought of Stevens since he had been expelled from the course. Now the picture of him came back forcibly. Lovell’s tone was not reassuring. It was possible to guess something of what might be happening.

“You introduced him into the family,” said Lovell.

He spoke calmly, not at all accusingly, but I recognised in his eye the intention to stage a dramatic announcement.

“One weekend leave from Aldershot Stevens gave me a lift in his very brokendown car as far as Frederica’s. Then he took me back on Sunday night. Isobel was staying there. It was just before she had her baby. In fact, the birth started that night. Stevens got R.T.U.-ed soon after we got back on the course. I haven’t seen or heard of him since.”

“You haven’t?”

“Not a word.”

“Priscilla was at Frederica’s then.”

“I remember.”

“She met Stevens.”

“She must have done.”

“She’s been with him lately up in a hotel in Scotland,” said Lovell, “living more or less openly, so there’s no point in not mentioning it.”

There was nothing to be said to that. Stevens had certainly struck up some sort of an acquaintance with Priscilla on that occasion at Frederica’s. I could recall more. Some question of getting a piece of jewellery mended for her had arisen. Such additional consequences as Lovell outlined were scarcely to be foreseen when I took Stevens to the house. Nevertheless, it was an unfortunate introduction. However, this merely confirmed stories going round. No doubt Stevens, by now, was a figure with some sort of war career behind him. That could happen in the matter of a few weeks. That Stevens might be the “commando,” or whatever shape Priscilla’s alleged fancy-man took, had never suggested itself to me. Lovell lit a cigarette. He puffed out a cloud of smoke. His evident inclination to adopt a stylised approach — telling the story as we might have tried to work it out together in a film script years before — was some alleviation of immediate embarrassments caused by the disclosure. The dramatic manner he had assumed accorded with his own conception of how life should be lived. I was grateful for it. By this means things were made easier.

“When did all this start?”

“Pretty soon after they first met.”

“I see.”

“I was down at that godforsaken place on the East Coast. There was nowhere near for her to live. It wasn’t my fault we weren’t together.”

“Is Stevens stationed in Scotland?”

“So far as I know. He did rather well somewhere — was if the Lofoten raid? That sort of thing. He’s a hero on top of everything else. I suppose if I were to do something where I could get killed, instead of composing lists of signal equipment and suchlike, I might make a more interesting husband.”

“I don’t think so for a moment.”

In giving this answer, I spoke a decided opinion. To assume such a thing was a typical instance of Lovell’s taste, mentioned earlier, for the obvious. It was a supposition bound to lead to a whole host of erroneous conclusions — that was how the conjecture struck me — regarding his own, or anyone else’s, married life.

“You may be right,” he said.

He spoke as if rather relieved.

“Look at it the other way. Think of all the heroes who had trouble with their wives.”

“Who?”

“Agamemnon, for instance.”

“Well, that caused enough dislocation,” said Lovell. “What’s Stevens like, apart from his heroism?.”

“In appearance?”

“Everything about him.”

“Youngish, comes from Birmingham, traveller in costume jewellery, spot of journalism, good at languages, short, thickset, very fair hair, easy to get on with, keen on the girls.”

“Sounds not unlike me,” said Lovell, “except that up to date I’ve never travelled in costume jewellery — and I still rather pride myself on my figure.”

“There is a touch of you about him, Chips. I thought so at Aldershot.”

“You flatter me. Anyway, he seems more of a success than I am with my own wife. If he is keen on the girls, I suppose making for Priscilla would be a matter of routine?”

“So I should imagine.”

“You liked him?”

“We got on pretty well.”

“Why was he Returned-to-Unit?”

“For cutting a lecture.”

Lovell seemed all at once to lose interest in Stevens and his personality. His manner changed. There could be no doubt he was very upset.

“So far as I can see there was nothing particularly wrong with our marriage,” he said. “If I hadn’t been sent to that God-awful spot, it would have gone on all right. At least that’s how things appeared to me. I don’t particularly want a divorce even now.”

“Is there any question of a divorce?”

“It isn’t going to be much fun living with a woman who’s in love with someone else.”

“Lots of people do it, and vice versa.”

“At best, it’s never going to be the same.”

“Nothing ever remains the same. Marriage or anything else.”

“I thought your theory was that everything did always remain the same?”

“Everything alters, yet does remain the same. It might even improve matters.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Not really.”

“Neither do I,” said Lovell, “though I see what you mean. That’s if she’s prepared to come back and live with me. I’m not even sure of that. I think she wants to marry Stevens.”

“She must be mad.”

“Mad she may be, but that’s the way she’s talking.”

“Where’s Caroline?”

“My parents are looking after her.”

“And Priscilla herself?”

“Staying with Molly Jeavons — though I only found out that by chance yesterday. She’s been moving about among various relations, is naturally at times rather vague about her whereabouts, so far as keeping me informed is concerned.”