Anthony Powell - At Lady Molly's

I, too, remembered the incident; and also the look of adoration Miss Weedon had given Stringham when she entered the room. I well recalled that passionate glance, although even then — that night at the Jeavonses’—I had not yet guessed the depths of her devotion. I wondered what she did with herself now. Stringham, when last we had seen something of each other, had told me: ‘Tuffy has come into a little money,’ and that she was no longer his mother’s secretary. I found in due course that Miss Weedon was a close friend of Molly’s; in fact that she re-enacted at the Jeavonses’ many of her former duties when in the employment of Mrs. Foxe, although, of course, in a household organised on very different terms. It was impossible to know from her manner how unexpected, or the reverse, she found the fact that we had met again at this place. In her profound, though mysterious, dimness, she was typical of the background of Jeavons gatherings.

‘I always regret that Charles ever made that journey to Kenya.’ she said.

She spoke severely, as if I had myself been in part to blame for allowing such a thing ever to have taken place; even though at the same time she freely forgave me for such former thoughtlessness.

‘Why?’

‘He was never the same afterwards.’

I had to admit to myself there was some truth in that. Stringham had never been the same after Kenya. It had been a water-shed in his life.

‘Perhaps it was just because he became a man,’ she said. ‘Of course, his upbringing was impossible — always, from the beginning. But he changed so much after that trip to Africa. He was a boy when he went — and such a charming boy — and he really came back a man.’

‘People do grow up. At least some do.’

‘I am afraid Charles was not one of them,’ she said gravely. ‘He became a man, but he did not grow up. He is not grown up now.’

I hardly knew what to answer. It was one of those headfirst dives into generalisation that usually precedes between two persons a greater conversational intimacy. However, Miss Weedon made no attempt to expand her statement; nor, so to speak, to draw closer in her approach to the problem of Stringham. She merely continued to look at me with a kind of chilly amiability; as if, by making an immediate confession that I was a former friend of his, I had, so far as she was concerned, just managed to save my bacon. When a boy, I had regarded her as decidedly formidable. I still found her a trifle alarming. She gave an impression of complete singleness of purpose: the impression of a person who could make herself very disagreeable if thwarted.

‘Do you ever see Charles now?’ I asked.

She did not answer at once, as if waiting a second or two in order to make up her mind how best to deal with that question; perhaps trying to decide the relative merits of plain statement and diplomatic evasion. Finally she came down on the side of bluntness.

‘Yes, I do see him,’ she said. ‘Quite often. You probably know he drinks too much — really much too much. I am trying to help him about that.’

She stared at me very composedly. Once more I hardly knew how to reply. I had not expected our conversation to take this unreservedly serious turn; especially as we had by then reached the bedroom, and were only delayed in our introduction to the ape by the concourse of people who surrounded him, offering homage and applauding Molly’s particularisation of his many charms of character.

‘Charles had certainly had rather too much the last time I saw him,’ I said, trying to pass off the matter of Stringham’s drunkenness as if it were just a question of getting rather tight once in a way, which I knew to be far from the truth. ‘That was at a dinner he and I went to — two or three years ago at least.’

‘You have not seen him since then?’

‘No.’

‘It still goes on. But I think I shall be able to help him.’

I had no clear idea of how she would set about ‘helping’ Stringham, but the way she spoke made me conscious of her undoubted strength of will. In fact, her voice chilled my blood a little, she sounded so firm. However, at that moment we found ourselves confronted by the monkey — named by his owners ‘Maisky’, after the then Soviet Ambassador — and were introduced by Molly to shake hands with him. He was sitting thoughtfully among the cushions of a spacious basket, from time to time extending a small, dry paw in greeting to Molly’s guests as they came into his immediate presence. A saucer of nuts, stood beside him. There was something of Quiggin in his seriousness and self-absorbtion: also in the watchful manner in which he glanced from time to time at the nuts, sometimes choosing one specially tempting to crack.

‘Have you known Lady Molly long?’ asked Miss Weedon, after we had taken leave of Maisky, and were returning down the stairs.

‘Only a short time.’

‘I thought I had never seen you here before.’

‘I was brought by Chips Lovell.’

‘Oh, yes. One of her nephews. Rather a pushing young man. She was very good to him when he was a boy and his parents did not take much trouble about him. She is a very kind-hearted woman. Quite exceptionally kind-hearted. The house is always full of people she is doing good turns to. Children stay here while their parents are fixing up a divorce. Penniless young men get asked to meals. Former servants are always being given help of one sort or another. There is an old cousin of her husband’s ill in one of the upper bedrooms now. She has nowhere else to go, and will certainly never leave the house alive. I really cannot think how Lady Molly stands some of the people who come here. Many are quite dreadful.’

‘They certainly seem a mixed bag.’

‘They are worse than that, some of them.’

‘Really?’

‘At the same time, you may find yourself talking to someone like Charles’s former father-in-law, Lord Bridgnorth — whom Charles detests and thinks the most conceited, pompous man in the world — who eats out of Lady Molly’s hand. He even takes her advice about his horses. Lady Plynlimmon was here at tea the other day. She really seemed quite interested in what Mr. Jeavons was saying about Germany, although usually she won’t speak to anyone who is not in the Cabinet. Not long ago Lord Amesbury looked in on his way to a court ball, wearing knee breeches and the Garter. Lady Molly was giving the vet a meal she had cooked herself, because everyone else was out for one reason or another and she had made him come in from miles away in the suburbs to see a cat that had fever. I happened to drop in, and found all three of them eating scrambled eggs together.’

By that time we had once more reached the drawing-room. Miss Weedon ceased to enlarge upon these occasional — indeed, very occasional — glories of the Jeavons’ salon; which were, as it happened, in marked contrast to the company gathered together that evening. I asked if she knew Mrs. Haycock.

‘Certainly I do,’ said Miss Weedon. ‘Do you remember a boy called Widmerpool who was at school with Charles and yourself? I think you were all in the same house together, were you not? Charles used to give imitations of him. I am sure you must remember. Well, Mrs. Haycock is going to marry Mr. Widmerpool.’

She nodded her head sharply, to emphasise what she had said. I was amazed that she should be familiar with Stringham’s mimicry of Widmerpool. I could have found it within the bounds of possibility that she had heard of Widmerpool, but that Stringham should have shared with her such jokes as his brilliant, though essentially esoteric, Widmerpool imitations, I should never have guessed. This new light on Stringham’s relationship with Miss Weedon suggested quite a different sort of intimacy to any I had previously surmised. I told her that I already knew of Widmerpool’s engagement. That had been my reason for enquiry. Miss Weedon smiled her thin freezing smile.