Anthony Powell - A Buyers Market

As they skirted the wall, Sillery and his companion, by contrast remarkably spruce, had almost the appearance of a pair of desperadoes on their way to commit an act of violence, and, on reaching the place where the dark young man was standing, the Colonel certainly seemed to get rid of the women without much ceremony, treating them almost as a policeman might peremptorily “move on” from the corner of the street female loiterers of dubious complexion. The taller of the two girls was largely built, with china-blue eyes and yellow hair, holding herself in a somewhat conventionally languorous style: the other, dark, with small, pointed breasts and a neat, supple figure. The combined effect of their beauty was irresistible, causing a kind of involuntary pang, as if for a split-second I loved both of them passionately; though a further survey convinced me that nothing so disturbing had taken place. The girls composedly allowed themselves to be dislodged by Colonel Budd and Sillery: at the same time remaining on guard in a strategic position at a short distance, talking and laughing with each other, and with people in the immediate neighbourhood: evidently unwilling to abandon entirely their original stations vis-à-vis the young man.

The Colonel, imperceptibly inclining his neck in an abrupt gesture suggesting almost the sudden suppression of an unexpected eructation, presented Sillery, not without deference to this rather mysterious figure, regarding whom I had begun to feel a decided curiosity. The young man, smiling graciously, though rather shyly, held out a hand. Sillery, grinning broadly in return, made a deep bow that seemed, by its mixture of farce and formality, to accord perfectly with the cut of his evening clothes, in their implication of pantomime or charade. However, fearing that absorption in this scene, as reflected in the looking-glass, might have made me seem inattentive to Mr. Deacon’s exposition of difficulties experienced in contending with his household, I made further inquiries regarding Barnby’s status as a painter. Mr. Deacon did not warm to this subject. I found when I knew him better that this luke-warm attitude was not to be attributed entirely to jealousy he might feel towards Barnby’s success, but rather because, finding his own views on the subject so opposed to contemporary opinion as to be in practice untenable, he preferred to close his eyes to the existence of modern painting, just as formerly he had closed his eyes to politics and war. Accordingly, I asked about the nature of Barnby’s objections to Gypsy Jones.

“When Gypsy and I were first acquainted,” said Mr. Deacon, lowering his voice, “I was given to understand — well, hasn’t Swinburne got some lines about ‘wandering watery sighs where the sea sobs round Lesbian promontories’? In fact restriction to such a coastline was almost a condition of our association.”

“Did Barnby object?”

“I think he undoubtedly felt resentment,” said Mr. Deacon. “But, as a very dear friend of mine once remarked when I was a young man — for I was a young man once, whatever you may think to the contrary—‘Gothic manners don’t mix with Greek morals.’ Gypsy would never learn that.”

Mr. Deacon stopped speaking. He seemed to be deliberating within himself whether or not to ask some question, in the wording of which he found perhaps a certain embarrassment. After a few seconds he said: “As a matter of fact I am rather worried about Gypsy. I suppose you don’t happen to know the address of any medicos — I don’t mean the usual general practitioner with the restricted views of his profession — no, I didn’t for a moment suppose that you did. And of course one does not wish to get mixed up. I feel just the same as yourself. But you were inquiring about Barnby. I really must arrange for you to meet. I think you would like each other.”

When such scraps of gossip are committed to paper, the words bear a heavier weight than when the same information is imparted huskily between draughts of champagne, in the noise of a crowded room; besides which, my thoughts hovering still on the two girls who had been displaced by Sillery and Colonel Budd, I had not been giving very full attention to what Mr. Deacon had been saying. However, if I had at that moment considered Gypsy Jones’s difficulties with any seriousness, I should probably have decided, rightly or wrongly, that she was well able to look after herself. Even in the quietest forms of life the untoward is rarely far from the surface, and in the intemperate circles to which she seemed to belong nothing was surprising. I felt at the time absolutely no inclination to pursue the matter further. Mr. Deacon himself became temporarily lost in thought.

Our attention was at that moment violently reorientated by the return to the room of Mrs. Andriadis, who now shouted — a less forcible word would have been inadequate to describe her manner of announcing the news — that “darling Max” was going to sing: a statement creating a small upheaval in our immediate surroundings, owing to the proximity of the piano, upon which a bottle of champagne was now placed. A mild-looking young man in spectacles was thrust through the crowd, who seating himself on the music-stool, protested: “Must I really tickle the dominoes?” A number of voices at once encouraged him to embark upon his musical activity, and, after winding round the seat once or twice, apparently more as a ritual than for practical reasons, he struck a few chords.

“Really,” said Mr. Deacon, as if entitled to feel honest disgust at this development, “Mrs. Andriadis does not seem to care in the least whom she makes friends with.”

“Who is he?”

“Max Pilgrim — a public performer of some sort.”

The young man now began to sing in a tremulous, quavering voice, like that of an immensely ancient lady, though at the same time the words filled the room with a considerable volume of sound:

“I’m Tess of Le Touquet,

My morals are flukey,

Tossed on the foam,

I couldn’t be busier;

Permanent waves

Splash me into the caves;

Everyone loves me as much as Delysia.

When it’s wet on the Links, I know where to have a beau

Down in the club-house — next door to the lavabo.”

There was muffled laughter and some fragmentary applause, though a hum of conversation continued to be heard round about us.

“I don’t care for this at all,” said Mr. Deacon. “To begin with, I do not entirely understand the meaning of the words — if they have any meaning — and, in the second place, the singer once behaved to me in what I consider an objectionable manner. I can’t think how Mrs. Andriadis can have him in the house. It can’t do her reputation any good.”

The appearance of Max Pilgrim at the piano had thoroughly put out Mr. Deacon. In an attempt to relieve the gloom that had fallen on him I inquired about Mrs. Andriadis’s past.

“Barnby knows more about her than I do,” he said, rather resentfully. “She is said to have been mistress of a Royal Personage for a time. Personally I am not greatly stimulated by such revelations.”

“Is she still kept?”

“My dear boy, you have the crudest way of putting things,” said Mr. Deacon, smiling at this, and showing signs of cheering up a little. “No — so far as I am aware — our hostess is no longer ‘kept,’ as you are pleased to term the former state of life to which she was called by Providence. A client of mine told me that her present husband — there have been several — possessed comprehensive business interests in Manchester, or that region. My friend’s description suggested at least a sufficient competence on the latest husband’s part for the condition of dependence you mention to be, financially speaking, no longer necessary for his lady — even, perhaps, undesirable. Apart from this, I know little of Mr. Andriadis, though I imagine him to be a man of almost infinite tolerance. You are, I expect, familiar, with Barnby’s story of the necklace?”