Anthony Powell - A Buyers Market

“I know who he is!” she said, when he had apologised and disappeared from sight with his partner. “He is the Frog Footman. He ought to be in livery. Has he danced with Anne yet?”

“Anne Stepney?”

“They would be so funny together.”

“Is she a friend of yours?”

“We were at the same finishing school in Paris.”

“They didn’t do much finishing on her, surely?”

“She is so determined to take a different line from that very glamorous sister of hers.”

“Is Peggy Stepney glamorous?”

“You must have seen pictures of her.”

“A friend of mine called Charles Stringham used to talk about her.”

“Oh, yes — Charles Stringham,” said Miss Manasch. “ That has been over a long time. I think he is rather a fast young man, isn’t he? I seem to have heard.”

She laughed, and rolled her beady little eyes, straightening her frock over plump, well-shaped little legs. She looked quite out of place in this setting; intended by nature to dance veiled, or, perhaps, unveiled, before the throne of some Oriental potentate — possibly one of those exacting rulers to whom Sir Gavin’s well-mannered diplomatists of the past might have appealed — or occupying herself behind the scenes in all the appetising labyrinth of harem intrigue. There existed the faintest suspicion of blue hairs upon her upper hp, giving her the look of a beauty of the Byronic era.

“Anne Stepney said he was pompous. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen him for ages.”

“Anne thinks Charles Stringham pompous, does she?” said Miss Manasch, laughing again quietly to herself.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know him. At least only by reputation. I have met his mother, who is, of course, too wonderful. They say she is getting rather tired of Commander Foxe and thinking of having another divorce. Charles was more or less engaged to Anne’s sister, Peggy, at one stage, as I suppose you know. That’s off now, as I said. I hear about Peggy occasionally from a cousin of mine, Jimmy Klein, who has a great passion for her.”

“Is Charles about to marry anyone at the moment?”

“I don’t think so.”

I had the impression that she knew more about Stringham than she was prepared to divulge, because her face assumed an expression that made her features appear more Oriental than ever. It was evident that she possessed affiliations with circles additional to — perhaps widely different from — those to be associated with Walpole-Wilsons, Gorings, or Huntercombes. Only superficially invested with the characteristics of girls moving within that world, she was at once coarser in texture and at the same time more subtle. Up to that moment she had been full of animation, but now all at once she became melancholy and silent.

“I think I shall leave.”

“Have you had enough?”

“Going home seems the only alternative to sitting among the coats,” she said.

“Whatever for?”

“I comb my hair there.”

“But does it need combing?”

“And while I tug at it, I cry.”

“Surely not necessary to-night?”

“Perhaps not,” she said.

She began to laugh softly to herself once more; and, a minute or two later, went off with some partner who appeared satisfied that the moment had come to claim her. I set about looking for Barbara, with whom at the beginning of the evening I had danced only once. She was in one of the rooms downstairs, talking excitedly to a couple of young men, but she seemed not unwilling to leave their company.

“Let’s sit this one out,” she said.

We made our way outside and to the garden of the square. Guests like Archie Gilbert, who had been asked to both dances, and no doubt also a few who had not enjoyed that privilege — were passing backwards and forwards from one party to another. The reception at the Spanish Embassy, mentioned by Tompsitt, was still in full swing, so far as could be seen. Now and then a breath of air lightened the heavy night, once even causing the shrubs to sway in what was almost a breeze. The windows of both ballrooms stood open, music from the rival bands playing sometimes in conflict, sometimes appearing to belong to a system of massed orchestras designed to perform in unison.

“We’ll have a — Blue Room a—

New room for — two room—

Where we will raise a family…

Not like a — ballroom a—

Small room a — hall room…

An equally insistent murmur came from the other side of the square:

“In the mountain greenery—

Where God makes the scenery …

Ta-rum … Ta-roo …”

“Why are you so glum?” said Barbara, picking up some pebbles and throwing them into the bushes. “I must tell you what happened at Ranelagh last week.”

In the face of recent good resolutions, I tried to take her hand. She snatched it away, laughing, and as usual in such circumstances said: “Oh, don’t get sentimental.”

This tremendous escape, quite undeserved, sobered me. We walked round the lawns. Barbara talked of Scotland, where she was going to stay later in the summer.

“Why not come up there?” she said. “Surely you can find someone to put you up?”

“Got to work.”

“Of course they don’t need you all the time at the office.”

“They do.”

“Have you ever danced reels? Johnny Pardoe is going to be there. He says he’ll teach me.”

She began to execute capers on the lawn. Stopping at last she examined her arm, holding it out, and saying: “How blue my hand looks in the moonlight.”

I found myself wondering whether, so far from loving her, I did not actually hate her. Another tune began and we strolled back through the garden. At the gate Tompsitt came up from somewhere among the shadows.

“This is ours, I think.”

In his manner of speaking, so it seemed to me, he contrived to be at once uncivil and pedantic. Barbara began to jump about on the path as if leaping over imaginary puddles, while almost at the top of her small, though shrill, voice she said: “I can’t, really I can’t. I must have made a muddle. I am dancing with Mr. Widmerpool. I have put him off till now, and I really must.”

“Cut him,” said Tompsitt.

He sounded as if taking Barbara away from her rightful partner would give him even more pleasure than that to be derived from dancing with her himself. I wondered if she had called Widmerpool “Mister” because her acquaintance with him had never been brought to a closer degree of intimacy, or if she spoke facetiously. From what Eleanor had said, the latter seemed more probable. It suddenly struck me that after all these years of knowing him I still had no idea of Widmerpool’s Christian name.

“Shall I?” said Barbara. “He would be terribly angry.”

Suddenly she took each of us by the hand, and began to charge along the pavement. In this unusual manner we reached the door of the Huntercombes’ house. By the time we had ceased running even Tompsitt seemed, in the last resort, rather taken aback; the combined movement of the three of us — rather like that of horses in a troika — being probably as unexpected for him as for myself. Barbara, for her part, was delighted with her own violent display of high spirits. She broke free and rushed up the steps in front of us.

In the hall, although the hour was not yet late, a few people were already making preparations to leave. As it happened, Widmerpool was standing by the staircase, looking, I thought, a little uneasy, and fingering a tattered pair of white gloves. I had seen him with just that expression on his face, waiting for the start of one of the races for which he used so unaccountably to enter: finishing, almost without exception, last or last but one. When he saw Barbara, he brightened a little, and moved towards us.