Anthony Powell - A Question of Upbringing

“I didn’t know I was asked,” Stringham said. “I’d like to.”

“Do.”

“Anyone for lunch?”

“Only Tuffy. She will be glad to see you.”

“Then we will wish you good luck with your deal.”

I was conscious that some sort of a duel had been taking place, and that Stringham had somehow gained an advantage by, as it were, ordering Buster from the room. Buster himself began to smile, perhaps recognising momentary defeat, to be disregarded from assurance of ultimate victory. Like a man effortlessly winning a walking-race, he crossed the carpet with long, easy strides: at the same time separating from himself some of the eddies of cold air that surrounded him, and bequeathing them to the atmosphere of the room after he had left it. I was relieved at his departure. Stringham moved across to the window. He said: “He gets himself up rather like Peter Templer, doesn’t he?”

“Have they ever met?”

To my surprise, Stringham laughed aloud.

“Good Lord, no,” he said.

“Wouldn’t they like each other?”

“It is an interesting question.”

“Why not try it?”

“I am devoted to Peter,” Stringham said, “but really I’m not sure one could have him in the house, could one?”

“Oh?”

“Well, I don’t really mean that,” said Stringham. “Not literally, of course. But you must admit that Peter doesn’t exactly fit in with home life.”

“I suppose not.”

“You agree?”

“I see what you mean.”

I certainly saw what Stringham meant; even though the sort of home life that included Buster provided a picture rather different from that which the phrase ordinarily suggested to me from my own experience. At the moment however, I was chiefly conscious of a new balance of relationship between Stringham and Templer. Although their association together possessed a curiously unrelenting quality, like the union of partners in a business rather than the intimacy of friends, I had always thought of Templer as a far closer and more established crony of Stringham’s than was I myself; and it had never crossed my mind that Stringham might share at all the want of confidence that, at least in the earlier stages of our acquaintance, I had sometimes felt towards Templer. Templer certainly did not appear to be designed for domestic life: though for that matter the same might be said of Stringham. Before I could ponder the question further, someone descending the stairs passed in through the door left ajar by Buster. Catching sight of this person, Stringham called out: “Tuffy, how are you?”

The woman who came into the room was about thirty or thirty-five, I suppose, though at the time she impressed me as older. Dressed in black, she was dark and not bad-looking, with a beaky nose. “Charles,” she said; and, as she smiled at him, she seemed so positively delighted that her face took on a sudden look of intensity, almost of anxiety, the look that women’s faces sometimes show at a moment of supreme pleasure.

That quick avid glance disappeared immediately, though she continued to smile towards him.

“This is Miss Weedon,” said Stringham, laughing in a friendly way, as he took her left hand in his right. “How have you been, Tuffy?”

Though less glacial than Buster, Miss Weedon was not overwhelmingly affable when she gave me a palm that felt cool and brittle. She said in an aside: “You know they nearly forgot to take a ticket for you for the Russian Ballet to-night.”

“Good gracious,” said Stringham. “What next?”

However, he did not show any sign of being specially put out by this lapse on the part of his family.

“I saw to it that they got an extra one.”

“Thank you, Tuffy.”

She had perhaps hoped for something more exuberant in the way of gratitude, because her face hardened a little, while she continued to fix him with her smile.

“We have just been talking to Buster,” Stringham said, plainly dismissing the subject of the tickets.

She put her head a little on one side and remarked: “I am sure that he was as charming as ever.”

“If possible, even more so.”

“Buster has been behaving very well,” she said.

“I am glad to hear it.”

“Now I must rush off and do some things for your mother before luncheon.”

She was gone in a flash. Stringham yawned. I asked about Miss Weedon. Stringham said: “Tuffy. Oh, she used to be my sister’s governess. She stays here a lot of the time. She does all my mother’s odd jobs — especially the Hospital.”

He laughed, as if at the thought of the preposterous amount of work that Miss Weedon had to undertake. I was not very clear as to what “the Hospital” might be; but accepted it as an activity natural enough for Mrs. Foxe.

“Tuffy is a great supporter of mine,” Stringham added: as if in explanation of something that needed explaining.

He did not extend this statement. A moment or two later his mother appeared. I thought her tremendously beautiful: though smaller than the photograph in Stringham’s room had suggested. Still wearing a hat, she had just come into the house. She kissed him, and said: “Everything is in a terrible muddle. I really can’t decide whether or not I want to go to Glimber for Christmas. I feel one ought to; but it is so frightfully cold.”

“Come to Kenya with me, instead,” said Stringham. “Glimber is much too draughty in the winter. Anyway, it would probably kill Buster, who is used to snug cabins.”

“It would be rather fun to spend Christmas on the boat.”

“Too jolly for words,” said Stringham. “Buster had to lunch out. Did you see him?”

“I hear he is buying a new car.”

“He really did need one,” she said. This could hardly have been meant for an apology, but her voice sounded a little apprehensive. Changing the subject, she turned to me and said: “I think poor Mr. Le Bas must be so glad that Charles has left at last. He used to write the most pathetic letters about him. Still, you weren’t expelled, darling. That was clever of you.”

“It took some doing,” Stringham said. In view of their relationship, this manner of talking was quite unlike anything I had been used to; though, in a general way, fitting the rough outline pieced together from scraps of information regarding his home, or stories about his mother, that Stringham had from time to time let fall. He had, for example, once remarked that she liked interfering in political matters, and I wondered whether some startling intrigue with a member, or members of the Cabinet would be revealed during luncheon, which was announced a minute or two later. Miss Weedon came down the stairs after us, and, before following into the dining-room, had some sort of a consultation with the footman, to whom she handed a sheaf of papers. As we sat down, Stringham said: “I hear we are going to the Russian Ballet to-night.”

“It was Buster’s idea. He thought you would like it.”

“That was kind of him.”

“I expect you boys — can I still call you boys — are going to a matinee this afternoon.”

I told her that I had, unfortunately, to catch a train to the country.

“Oh, but that is too sad,” she said, seeming quite cast down. “Where are you making for?” I explained that the journey was to the west of England, where my father was on the staff of a Corps Headquarters. Thinking that the exigencies of army life might in all likelihood be unfamiliar to her, I added something about often finding myself in a place different from that in which I had spent previous holidays.

“I know all about the army,” she said. “My first husband was a soldier. That was ages ago, of course. Even apart from that we had a house on the Curragh, because he used to train his horses there — so that nothing about soldiering is a mystery to me.”