Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant

3

PEOPLE TALKED as if it were a kind of phenomenon that Matilda should ever have given birth to a child at all: the unwillingness of the world to believe that anyone – especially a girl who has lived fairly adventurously – might exist for a time in one manner, then at a later date choose quite another way of life. The baby, a daughter, survived only a few hours. Matilda herself was very ill. Even when she recovered, Moreland remained in the deepest dejection. He had worried so much about his wife’s condition before the child was born that he seemed almost to have foreseen what would happen. That made things no better. About that time, too, there was a return of trouble with his lung: money difficulties obtruded: everything went wrong: depression reigned. Then, after some disagreeable weeks, two unexpected jobs turned up. Almost from one day to the next Moreland recovered his spirits. There was, after all, no reason why they should not in due course have another child. The financial crisis was over: the rent paid: things began to look better. All the same, it had to be admitted the Morelands did not live very domestically. The routine into which married life is designed inexorably to fall was still largely avoided by them. They kept rigorously late hours. They were always about together. A child would not have fitted easily into the circumstances of their small, rather bleak flat (no longer what Moreland had begun to call ‘my former apolaustic bachelor quarters’) where they were, in fact, rarely to be found.

We used to see a good deal of the Morelands in those days dining together sometimes at Foppa’s, sometimes at the Strasbourg, afterwards going to a film, or, as Moreland really preferred, sitting in a pub and talking. He would develop a passion for one particular drinking place – never the Mortimer after marriage – then tire of it, inclination turning to active aversion. Isobel and Matilda got on well together. They were about the same age; they had the nursing home in common. Matilda had recovered quickly, after an unpromising start. She found apparent relief in describing the discomfort she had suffered, although speaking always in a manner to cast a veil of unreality over the experience. Lively, violent, generous, she was subject, like Moreland himself, to bouts of deep depression. On the whole the life they lived together – so wholly together – seemed to suit her. Perhaps, after all, people were right to think of her as intended by nature for a man’s mistress and companion, rather than as cast for the role of mother.

‘Matilda’s father was a chemist,’ Moreland once remarked, when we were alone together, ‘but he is dead now – so one cannot get special terms for purges and sleeping pills.’

‘And her mother?’

‘Married again. They were never on very good terms. Matty left home very young. I think everyone was rather glad when she struck out on her own.’

Two of my sisters-in-law, as it happened, had come across Matilda in pre-Moreland days. These were Veronica, George Tolland’s wife, and Norah, who shared a flat with Eleanor Walpole-Wilson. Veronica, whose father was an auctioneer in a country town not far from Stourwater Castle, was one of the few people to know something of Matilda’s early life. They had, indeed, been at school together.

‘I was much older, of course,’ Veronica said. ‘I just remember her right down at the bottom of the junior school, a little girl you couldn’t help noticing. She was called Betty Updike then.’

‘How did you ever discover Matilda was the same girl?’

‘When I was living at home and divorcing Fred, I met a local girl in the High Street who’d got a job on the Daily Mail. She began to talk about Sir Magnus Donners and said: “Do you know the piece called Matilda Wilson he is always seen around with is really Betty Updike”.’

There was nothing particularly surprising about Matilda having taken a new name for the stage. Many people did that. It was something to be expected. The manner in which Matilda had first met Sir Magnus was more interesting.

‘This girl told me Matilda Wilson came down one term to help the school dramatic society do A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ said Veronica. ‘They had got permission to act the play at Stourwater. Sir Magnus, wandering round, came across Matilda Wilson dressing up a lot of little girls as elves. That went pretty well.’

It seemed as credible a story as any other. Once involved with Sir Magnus, Matilda had, of course, been ‘seen everywhere’; within the limitations of the fact that Sir Magnus preferred to keep his girl of the moment as much as possible to himself, allowing her to meet no more of his own friends than strictly necessary for his own entertainment when the two of them could not be alone together. Certainly that had been true of the time when Sir Magnus was associated with Baby Wentworth, alleged by Barnby to have ‘given notice’ on this very account. There had been a lot of gossip about Matilda when she was ‘with’ Sir Magnus. When, not long before my own marriage, I had stayed with Quiggin and Mona in the cottage lent them by Erridge, Quiggin had even talked too much about Matilda for Mona’s taste.

‘Oh, yes,’ Mona had said, in her irritated drawl, ‘Matilda Wilson – one of those plain girls men for some extraordinary reason like running after. Because they are not much trouble, I suppose.’

Norah Tolland had encountered Matilda in quite different circumstances; in fact having drinks with Heather Hopkins, the pianist, who had formerly inhabited one of the lower floors of the house in Chelsea where Norah and Eleanor Walpole-Wilson occupied the attics. At the period of which I am speaking – about two years after my own marriage – Norah and Eleanor had both found themselves jobs and become very ‘serious’, talking a lot about politics and economics and how best to put the world right. They were now rather ashamed of their Heather Hopkins days.

‘Poor old Hopkins,’ Norah said, when I mentioned her once. ‘Such a pity she goes round looking and talking like the most boring kind of man. Her flat might be the bar in a golf club. She is a good-hearted creature in her own way.’

‘You get tired of all that clumping about,’ said Eleanor, kicking some bedroom slippers out of sight under the sofa. ‘And besides, Heather isn’t in the least interested in world affairs. One does ask a little sense of responsibility in people.’

However, things had been very different some years before. Then, Hopkins had thrilled Norah and Eleanor with her eyeglass and her dinner-jacket and her barrack-room phrases. Matilda had been brought to the Hopkins flat by a young actress at that time much admired by the hostess. The gathering was, of course, predominantly female, and Matilda, often found attractive by her own sex, but herself preferring men even in an unaggressively masculine form, had spent most of the evening talking to Norman Chandler. She met him for the first time at this Hopkins party. Through Chandler, Matilda had subsequently obtained a foothold in that branch of the theatre which had led in due course to her part in The Duchess of Malfi. Norah, usually sparing of praise, had been impressed by Matilda, to whom, as it happened, she only managed to speak a couple of words in the course of the evening.

‘I thought she was rather wonderful,’ said Norah.

Moreland himself had first met his future wife at a time when Matilda’s connexion with Sir Magnus, if not completely severed, had been at least considerably relaxed. Moreland’s behaviour on this occasion had been characteristic. He had fallen deeply in love, immediately overwhelming Matilda with that combination of attention and forgetfulness which most women found so disconcerting in his addresses. For once, however, that approach worked very well. Matilda was won. There had already been some ups and downs in their relationship by the time I was allowed to meet her, but, in principle, they were satisfied enough with each other before marriage; they still seemed satisfied when we used to meet them and dine together at Foppa’s or the Strasbourg. I discounted Moreland’s casual outbursts against marriage as an institution; indeed, took his word for it that, as he used to explain, these complaints were a sign of living in a world of reality, not a palace of dreams.

‘People always treat me as if I was a kind of 1880 bohemian,’ he used to say. ‘On the contrary, I am the sane Englishman with his pipe.’

It was on one of these evenings at the Strasbourg that he announced his symphony was finished and about to be performed. Although Moreland never talked much about his own compositions, I knew he had been working on the symphony for a long time.

‘Norman’s friend, Mrs Foxe, is going to give a party for it,’ he said.

‘But how lovely,’ said Isobel. ‘Will Mrs Foxe and Norman stand at the top of the stairs, side by side, receiving the guests?’

‘I hope so,’ said Moreland. ‘An example to all of us. A fidelity extremely rare among one’s friends.’

‘Does Mrs Foxe still live in a house somewhere off Berkeley Square?’ I asked.

‘That’s it,’ said Moreland. ‘With objects like mammoth ice-cream cornets on either side of the front door for putting out the torches after you have paid off your sedan chair.’

‘I am not sure that I like parties at that house,’ said Matilda. ‘We have been there once or twice. I can stand grand parties less and less anyway.’

She was having one of her moods that night, but it was on the whole true to say that since marriage Moreland had increasingly enjoyed going to parties, especially parties like that offered by Mrs Foxe; Matilda, less and less.

‘You talk as if we spent our life in a whirl of champagne and diamonds,’ Moreland said. ‘Anyway, it won’t be as grand as all that. Mrs Foxe has promised just to ask our own sordid friends.’

‘Who,’ asked Isobel, ‘apart from us?’

‘I’d far rather go off quietly by ourselves somewhere after the thing is over and have supper with Isobel and Nick,’ Matilda said. ‘That would be much more fun.’

‘It is rather an occasion, darling,’ said Moreland, vexed at these objections. ‘After all, I am noted among composers for the smallness of my output. I don’t turn out a symphony every week like some people. A new work by me ought to be celebrated with a certain flourish – if only to encourage the composer himself.’

‘I just hate parties nowadays.’

‘There are only going to be about twenty or thirty people,’ Moreland said. ‘I know Edgar Deacon used to assure us that “the saloon, rather than the salon, is the true artist’s milieu”, but his own pictures were no great advertisement for that principle. Personally, I feel neither subservience nor resentment at the prospect of being entertained by Mrs Foxe in luxurious style.’

‘Have you ever talked to her naval husband?’ I asked.

‘There is a smooth, hearty fellow about the house sometimes,’ Moreland said. ‘A well-fed air, and likes a good mahogany-coloured whisky. I once heard him give an anguished cry when the footman began to splash in too much soda. I never knew he was her husband. He doesn’t look in the least like a husband.’

‘Of course he is her husband,’ said Matilda. ‘What an ass you are. He pinched my leg the night we were having supper with them after Turandot. That is one of the reasons I turned against the house.’

‘Darling, I’m sure he didn’t. Just your swank.’

‘I told you when we got home. I even showed you the bruise. You must have been too tight to see it.’

‘He always seems scrupulously well behaved to me,’ Moreland said. ‘Rather afraid of Mrs Foxe, as a matter of fact. I understand why, now she turns out to be his wife.’

Soon after this meeting with the Morelands came the period of crisis leading up to the Abdication, one of those public events which occupied the minds not only of those dedicated by temperament to eternal discussion of what they read about in the newspapers, but of everyone else in the country of whatever age, sex, or social class. The constitutional and emotional issues were left threadbare by debate. Barnby would give his views on the controversy in his most down-to-earth manner; Roddy Cutts treated it with antiseptic discretion; Frederica’s connexion with the Court caused her to show herself in public as little as possible, but she did not wholly avoid persecution at the hands of friends and relations vainly hoping for some unreleased titbit.

‘I shall have a nervous breakdown if they don’t settle things soon,’ said Robert Tolland. ‘I don’t expect you hear any news, Frederica?’

‘I can assure you, Robert, my own position is equally nerve-racking,’ said Frederica. ‘And I hear no news.’

She certainly looked dreadfully worried. I found Members and Quiggin discussing the ineluctable topic when I went to collect a book for review.

‘I am of course opposed in principle to monarchy, like all other feudal survivals,’ Quiggin was saying. ‘But if the country must have a king, I consider it desirable, indeed essential that he should marry a divorcée. Two divorces – double as good. I am no friend of the civilisation of Big Business, but at least an American marriage is better than affiliation with our own so-called aristocracy.’

Members laughed dryly.

‘Have you taken part in a procession of protest yet, J.G.?’ he asked, now in a sufficiently strong economic position vis-à-vis his old friend to treat Quiggin’s indignation with amused irony. ‘I believe all kinds of distinguished people from the intellectual world have been parading the streets with sandwich boards expressing outraged royalist sentiments.’

‘I regard the whole matter as utterly trivial in any case,’ said Quiggin, irritably shoving a handful of recently published novels back into the shelf behind Members’s desk, tearing the paper wrappers of two of them by the violence of his action. ‘You asked me my views, Mark, and I’ve told you what they are. Like Gibbon, I dismiss the subject with impatience. Perhaps you will produce a book of some interest this week, a change from these interminable autobiographies of minor criminals which flow so freely from the press and to which I am for ever condemned by you.’

I met Moreland in the street just after the story had broken in the newspapers.

‘Isn’t this just my luck?’ he said. ‘Now nobody is going to listen to music, look at a picture, or read a book, for months on end. We can all settle down happily to discussions every evening about Love and Duty.’

‘Fascinating subjects.’

‘They are in one’s own life. Less so, where others are concerned.’

‘You speak with feeling.’

‘Do I? Just my naturally vehement way of expressing myself.’

As it turned out, once the step had been taken, the Abdication become a matter of history, everything resumed an accustomed routine with much greater ease than popularly foreseen. There appeared no reason to suppose the box office for Moreland’s symphony would suffer. Priscilla (who had eventually taken the job in the organisation raising money for the promotion of opera) reported, for example, that the cross-section of the public seen through this particular microscope seemed to have settled down, after some weeks of upheaval, to its normal condition. Priscilla was not particularly interested in music – less so than Robert – but naturally this employment had brought her in touch to some degree with the musical world. At the same time, I was surprised when, the day before Moreland’s work was to be performed, Priscilla rang up and asked if she could come with us the following evening. Isobel answered the telephone.

‘I didn’t know you often went to concerts,’ she said.

‘I don’t unless I have a free ticket,’ said Priscilla.

‘Did you get a free ticket for this one?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who gave it you?’

‘One of the persons whose music is going to be played.’

‘I thought they were all dead, or living abroad, except Hugh Moreland.’

‘Hugh Moreland gave me the ticket.’

‘I didn’t know you knew him.’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Oh, yes. You met him with us, didn’t you?’

‘And other times too. I meet him in my office.’

‘You never mentioned it.’

‘Look here, can I come with you and Nick, or can’t I?’ said Priscilla. ‘I am just asking. If you think being seen in my company will get you a bad name, I’ll go alone and pretend I don’t know either of you if we meet in the bar. Nothing easier.’

This conversation was reported later by Isobel, with the information that Priscilla was dining with us the following night.

‘Typical of Hugh to present a ticket to Priscilla, who is not in the least interested in music,’ I said, ‘when all sorts of people who might be useful to him would have been delighted to be remembered in that way.’

The statement was true, at the same time disingenuous. I was a little aware of that at the time. It was a priggish remark; not even genuinely priggish. There seemed no point in adding that it was obviously more fun to give a ticket to a pretty girl like Priscilla, rather than to some uncouth musical hanger-on whose gratification might ultimately pay a doubtful dividend. I felt it one of those occasions when a show of worldliness might be used as a smoke-screen. But why should a smoke-screen be required?

‘I suppose Hugh had a few drinks at some party,’ I said, ‘and distributed tickets broadcast.’

In the end I convinced myself of the probability of this surmise. Isobel did not express any views on the subject. However, when she arrived at the flat, Priscilla explained that Moreland, the day before, had visited, in some professional capacity, the place where the Opera fund was administered. There, ‘rummaging about in his pocket for his cigarettes’, he found this spare ticket ‘crumpled up among a lot of newspaper cuttings, bits of string, and paper-clips’. He had given the ticket to Priscilla, suggesting at the same time that she should come on to Mrs Foxe’s party after the concert. That was a convincing story. It had all the mark of Moreland’s behaviour. We talked of other things; of Erridge, who had cabled for thicker underclothes to be sent him in Barcelona, indicating in this manner that he was not, as some prophesied, likely to return immediately. We discussed Erridge’s prospects in Spain. By the time we reached the concert hall, Priscilla seemed to have come with us that evening by long previous arrangement.

Moreland was fond of insisting that whatever the critics say, good or bad, all works of art must go through a maturing process before taking their allotted place in the scheme of things. There is nothing particularly original in that opinion, but those who hold firmly to it are on the whole less likely to be spoiled by praise or cast down by blame than others – not necessarily worse artists-who find heaven or hell in each individual press notice. The symphony was, in fact, greeted as a success, but not as an overwhelming success; a solid piece of work that would add to Moreland’s reputation, rather than a detonation of unexampled brilliance. Gossage, fiddling about with the mustard pot at some restaurant, had once remarked (when Moreland was out of the room) that he would be wise to build up his name with a work of just that sort. In the concert hall, there had been a lot of applause; at the same time a faint sense of anti-climax. Even for the most self-disciplined of artists, a public taken by surprise is more stimulating than a public relieved to find that what is offered can be swallowed without the least sharpness on the palate. This was especially true of Moreland, who possessed his healthy share of liking to startle, in spite of his own innate antagonism to professional startlers. However, if the symphony turned out to be a little disappointing to those who may have hoped for something more barbed, the reception was warm enough to cast no suggestion of shadow over a party of celebration.

‘That went all right, didn’t it?’ said Isobel.

‘It seemed to.’

‘I thought it absolutely wonderful,’ said Priscilla.

I felt great curiosity at the prospect of seeing Mrs Foxe’s house again, not entered since the day when, still a schoolboy, I had lunched there with Stringham and his mother. Nothing had changed in the pillared entrance hall. There was, of course, absolutely no reason why anything should have changed, but I had an odd feeling of incongruity about reappearing there as a married man. The transition against this same backcloth was too abrupt. Some interim state, like steps in the gradations of freemasonry, seemed to have been omitted. We were shown up to a crimson damask drawing-room on the first floor, at one end of which sliding doors were open, revealing the room at right angles to be the ‘library’ – with its huge malachite urn, Romney portrait, Regency bookcases – into which Stringham had brought me on that earlier visit. There I had first encountered the chilly elegance of Commander Foxe; also witnessed Stringham’s method of dealing with his mother’s ‘current husband’.

Commander Foxe, as it happened, was the first person I saw when we came through the door. He was talking to Lady Huntercombe. From a certain bravado in his manner of addressing her, I suspected he had probably let himself off attending the concert. Mrs Foxe came forward to meet us as we were announced, looking just as she looked at The Duchess of Malfi, changeless, dazzling, dominating. As an old friend of Lady Warminster’s, she had, of course, known Isobel and Priscilla as children. She spoke to them for a moment about their stepmother’s health, then turned to me. I was about to recall to her the circumstances in which we had formerly met in what was now so dim a past, wondering at the same time what on earth I was going to say about Stringham, mention of whose name was clearly unavoidable, when Mrs Foxe herself forestalled me.

‘How well I remember when Charles brought you to luncheon here. Do you remember that too? It was just before he sailed for Kenya. We all went to the Russian Ballet that night. Such a pity you could not have come with us. What fun it was in those days… Poor Charles… He has had such a lot of trouble… You know, of course. But he is happier now. Tuffy looks after him – Miss Weedon; you met her too when you came here, didn’t you? – and Charles has taken to painting. It has done wonders.’

‘I remember his caricatures.’

Stringham could not draw at all in the technical sense, but he was a master of his own particular form of graphic representation, executed in a convention of blobs and spidery lines, very effective for producing likenesses of Le Bas or the other masters at school. I could not imagine what Stringham’s ‘painting’ could be. This terminology put the activity into quite another setting.

‘Charles uses gouache now,’ said Mrs Foxe, speaking with that bright firmness of manner people apply especially to close relations attempting to recover from more or less disastrous mismanagement of their own lives, ‘designing theatrical costumes and that sort of thing. Norman says they are really quite good. Of course, Charles has had no training, so it is probably too late for him to do anything professionally. But the designs have originality, Norman thinks. You know Norman talks a lot about you and Isobel. He adores you both. Norman made me read one of your books. I liked it very much.’

She looked a bit pathetic when she said that, making me feel in this respect perhaps Chandler had gone too far in his exercise of power. However, other guests coming up the stairs at our heels compelled a forward movement. Moreland red in the face, appeared in Mrs Foxe’s immediate background. We offered our congratulations. He muttered a word or two about the horror of having a new work performed; seemed very happy about everything. We left him talking to Priscilla, herself rather pink, too, with the excitement of arrival. The party began to take more coherent shape. Mrs Foxe had, on the whole, most dutifully followed Moreland’s wishes in collecting together his old friends, rather than arranging a smart affair of her own picking and choosing. Indeed, the far end of the crimson drawing-room could almost have been a corner of the Mortimer on one of its better nights; the group collected there making one feel that at any moment the strains of the mechanical piano would suddenly burst forth. The Maclinticks, Carolo, Gossage, with several other musicians and critics known to me only by sight, were present, including a famous conductor of a generation older than Moreland’s, invited probably through acquaintance with Mrs Foxe in a social way rather than because of occasional professional contacts between Moreland and himself. This distinguished person was conversing a little loudly and self-consciously, with a great deal of gesticulation, to show there was no question of condescension from himself towards his less successful colleagues. Near this knot of musicians stood Chandler’s old friend, Max Pilgrim, trying to get a word or two out of Rupert Wise, another of Chandler’s friends – indeed, a great admiration of Chandler’s – a male dancer known for his strict morals and lack of small talk. Wise’s engagement to an equally respectable female member of the corps de ballet had recently been announced. Mrs Foxe had promised to give them a refrigerator as a wedding present.

‘Not colder than Rupe’s heart,’ Chandler had commented. ‘It was my suggestion. He may have a profile like Apollo, but he’s got a mind like Hampstead Garden Suburb.’

The Huntercombes, as well as the celebrated conductor, were certainly contributed to the party by Mrs Foxe rather than by Moreland. Once – as I knew from remarks let fall by Stringham in the past – Mrs Foxe would have regarded Lady Huntercombe as dreadfully ‘slow’, and laughed at her clothes, which were usually more dramatic than fashionable. However, now that Mrs Foxe’s energies were so largely directed towards seeking ways of benefiting Chandler and his friends, Lord Huntercombe’s many activities in the art world had to be taken into account. In his capacity as trustee of more than one public gallery, Lord Huntercombe was, it was true, concerned with pictures rather than with music or the theatre. At the same time, his well recognised abilities in his own field had brought him a seat on several committees connected with other branches of the arts or activities of a generally ‘cultural’ sort. Lord Huntercombe, small and immensely neat, was indeed a man to be reckoned with. He had caught napping one of the best known Bond Street dealers in the matter of a Virgin and Child by Benozzo Gozzoli (acquired from the gallery as the work of a lesser master, later resoundingly identified), also so nicely chosen the moment to dispose of his father’s collection of English pastels that he obtained nearly twice their market value.

Lady Huntercombe, as usual majestically dressed in a black velvet gown, wore a black ribbon round her neck clipped with an elaborate ornament in diamonds. She took a keen interest in music, more so than her husband, who liked to be able himself to excel in his own spheres of patronage, and was not musically inclined. I remembered Lady Huntercombe expressing her disappointment after Stringham’s wedding at the manner in which the choir had sung the anthem. ‘Dreadfully sharp,’ I heard her say at the reception. ‘It set my teeth on edge.’ Now she was talking to Matilda, to the accompaniment of animated and delighted shakings of her forefinger, no doubt indicative of some special pleasure she had taken in Moreland’s symphony; apparently at the same time trying to persuade Matilda – who seemed disposed to resist these advances – to accept some invitation or other similar commitment.

Moving towards the inner room, I observed that Chandler’s small bronze of Truth Unveiled by Time, long ago bought from the Caledonian Market and rescued from Mr Deacon’s shop after his death, had now come finally to rest on the console table under the Romney. Chandler himself was standing beside the table, stirring a glass of champagne with a gold swizzle-stick borrowed from Commander Foxe. Although Chandler might hold Mrs Foxe under his sway, she, on her part, had in some degree tamed him too. His demeanour had been modified by prolonged association with her. He was no longer quite the gamin of the Mortimer.

‘Hullo, my dear,’ he said. ‘Fizz always gives me terrible hiccups, unless I take the bubbles away. You know Buster, of course.’

Commander Foxe, greyer now, a shade bulkier than when I had last seen him, was at the same time, if possible, more dignified as a result of these outward marks of maturity. He retained in his dress that utter perfection of turn-out that stopped so brilliantly short of seeming no more than the trappings of a tailor’s dummy. His manner, on the other hand, had greatly changed. He had become chastened, almost humble. I could not imagine how I had ever found him alarming; although, even with this later development of geniality, there still existed a suggestion that below the surface he knew how to make himself disagreeable if need be. I mentioned where we had last met. He at once recollected or pretended to recollect, the occasion; the essence of good manners and friendliness, almost obsequious in his desire to please.

‘Poor old Charles,’ he said. ‘Of course I remember you were a friend of his. Do you ever see him these days? Well, of course, nobody does much, do they? All the same, it hasn’t worked out too badly. Do you remember Miss Weedon, Amy’s secretary? Rather a formidable lady. Oh, you know all about that, do you? Yes, Molly Jeavons is an aunt of your wife’s, of course. Quite a solution for Charles in a way. It gives him the opportunity to live a quiet life for a time. Norman goes round and sees Charles sometimes, don’t you, Norman?’

‘I simply adore Charles,’ said Chandler, ‘but I’m rather afraid of that gorgon who looks after him – I believe you are too, Buster.’

Buster laughed, almost achieving his savage sneer of former times. He did not like Miss Weedon. I remembered that. He was no doubt glad to have ridded the house of Stringham too. They had never got on well together.

‘At least Tuffy keeps Charles in order,’ Buster said. ‘If one hasn’t any self-discipline, something of the sort unfortunately has to be applied from the outside. It is a hard thing to say, but there it is. Are you in this musical racket yourself? I hear Hugh Moreland’s symphony was very fine. I couldn’t manage to get there myself, much to my regret.’

I felt a pang of horror at the way his family now talked of Stringham: as if he had been put away from view like a person suffering from a horrible, unmentionable disease, or become some terrifying legendary figure, fearful as the Glamis monster, about whom it was appropriate to joke as dreadful to behold, but at the same time a being past serious credence. All the same, it was hard to know what else they could do about him, how better behave towards him Stringham, after all, was their problem, not mine. I myself could offer no better solution than Miss Weedon; was in no position to disparage his own relations so far as their conduct towards Stringham was concerned.

‘They were a bit hurried in seeing our former King off the premises, weren’t they?’ said Buster, changing the subject to public events, possibly because he feared his last words might provoke musical conversation. ‘Some of one’s friends have been caught on the wrong foot about it all. Still, I expect he will have a much better time on his own in the long run. His later job was not one I should care to take on.’

‘My dear, you’d do it superbly,’ said Chandler. ‘I always think that when I look at that photograph of you in tropical uniform.’

‘No, no, nonsense, Norman,’ said Buster, not displeased at this attribution to himself of potentially royal aptitudes. ‘I should be bored to death. I can’t in the least imagine myself opening Parliament and all that sort of thing.’

Chandler signified his absolute disagreement.

‘I must go off and have a word with Auntie Gossage now,’ he said, ‘or the old witch will fly off on a broomstick and complain about being cut. See you both later.’

‘What a wonderful chap Norman is,’ said Buster, speaking with unaccustomed warmth. ‘You know I sometimes wonder what Amy would do without him. Or me, either, for that matter. He runs the whole of our lives. He can do anything from arranging the flowers to mixing the best Tom Collins I have ever drunk. So talented in other ways too. Ever seen him act? Then, as for dancing and playing the saxophone… Well, I’ve never met a man like him.’

There seemed no end to Buster’s admiration for Chandler. I did not disagree, although surprised, rather impressed, by Buster’s complete freedom from jealousy. It was not that one supposed that Chandler was ‘having an affair’ with Mrs Foxe – although no one can speak with certainty, as Barnby used to insist, about any two people in that connexion – but, apart from any question of physical relationship, she obviously loved Chandler, even if this might not be love of quite the usual sort. A husband, even a husband as unprejudiced as Buster, might have felt objection on personal, or merely general, grounds. Many men who outwardly resembled Buster would, on principle, have disliked a young man of Chandler’s appearance and demeanour; certainly disliked for ever seeing someone like that about the house. Either natural tolerance had developed in Buster as he had grown older, or there were other reasons why his wife’s infatuation with Chandler satisfied him; after all Matilda had alleged the pinching of her leg. Possibly Chandler kept Mrs Foxe from disturbing Buster in his own amusements. If that was the reason, Buster showed a good grace in the manner in which he followed his convenience; in itself a virtue not universally practised. Perhaps he was a little aware that he had displayed himself to me in an unexpected light.

‘Amy needs a good deal of looking after,’ he said. ‘I am sometimes rather busy. Get caught up in things. Business engagements and so on. Most husbands are like that, I suppose. Can’t give a wife all the attention she requires. Know what I mean?’

This self-revelation was so unlike the Buster I remembered, that I was not sure whether to attribute the marked alteration in his bearing in some degree to changes in myself. Perhaps development in both of us had made a mutually new attitude possible. However, before Buster could particularise further on the subject of married life, a subject about which I should have liked to hear more from him, Maclintick, moving with the accustomed lurching walk he employed drunk or sober, at that moment approached us.

‘Any hope of getting Irish in a house like this?’ he asked me in an undertone. ‘Champagne always gives me diarrhoea. It would be just like the rich only to keep Scotch. Do you think it would be all right if I accosted one of the flunkeys? I don’t want to let Moreland down in front of his grand friends.’

I referred to Buster this demand for Irish whiskey on Maclintick’s part.

‘Irish?’ said Buster briskly. ‘I believe you’ve got us there. I can’t think why we shouldn’t have any in the cellar, because I rather like the stuff myself. Plenty of Scotch, of course. I expect they told you that. Wait here. I’ll go and make some investigations.’

‘Who is that kind and beautiful gentleman?’ asked Maclintick acidly, not showing the least gratitude at Buster’s prompt effort to satisfy his need for Irish whiskey. ‘Is he part of the management?’

‘Commander Foxe.’

‘I am no wiser.’

‘Our hostess’s husband.’

‘I thought she was married to Chandler. He is the man I always see her with at the ballet – if you can call him a man. I suppose I have shown my usual bad manners again. I ought never to have come to a place like this. Quite against my principles. All the same, I hope Baron Scarpia will unearth a drop of Irish. Must be an unenviable position to be married to a woman like his wife.’

His own matrimonial state seemed to me so greatly worse than Commander Foxe’s that I was surprised to find Maclintick deploring any other marriage whatever. Gossage – ‘that old witch’, as Chandler had called him – joined us before I could answer. He seemed to be enjoying the party, clasping together his fingers and agitating his hands up and down in the air.

‘What did you think of Moreland’s work, Maclintick?’ he asked. ‘A splendid affair, splendidly received. Simply wonderful. I rarely saw such enthusiasm. Didn’t you think so, Maclintick?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ said Maclintick, speaking with finality. ‘So far as reception was concerned, I thought it just missed being a disaster. The work itself was all right. I liked it.’

Gossage was not in the least put out by the acerbity of Maclintick’s disagreement. He stood on his toes, placing the tips of his fingers together in front of him like a wedge.

‘You judged that, did you, Maclintick?’ he said thoughtfully, as if a whole new panorama had been set in front of him. ‘You judged that. Well, perhaps there is something in what you say. All the same, I considered it a great personal triumph for Moreland, a great triumph.’

‘You know as well as I do, Gossage, that it was not a triumph,’ said Maclintick, whose temper had risen suddenly. ‘We are all friends of Moreland’s – we shouldn’t have come to this bloody awful party tonight, dressed up in these clothes, if we weren’t – but it is no help to Moreland to go round saying his symphony was received as a triumph, that it is the greatest piece of music ever written, when we all know it wasn’t and it isn’t. It is a very respectable piece of work. I enjoyed it. But it wasn’t a triumph.’

Gossage looked as if he did not at all agree with Maclintick’s strictures on Mrs Foxe’s party and the burden of wearing evening clothes, but was prepared at the same time to allow these complaints to pass, as well as any views on Moreland as a composer, in the light of his colleague’s notorious reputation for being cantankerous.

There may be opposition from some quarters,’ Gossage said. ‘I recognise that. Some of the Old Gang may get on their hind legs. A piece of music is none the worse for causing that to happen.’

‘I don’t see why there should be opposition,’ said Maclintick, as if he found actual physical relief in contradicting Gossage on all counts. ‘A certain amount of brick-throwing might even be a good thing. There comes a moment in the career of most artists, if they are any good, when attacks on their work take a form almost more acceptable than praise. That happens at different moments in different careers. This may turn out to be the moment with Moreland. I don’t know. I doubt it. All I know is that going round pretending the symphony is a lot of things it isn’t, does Moreland more harm than good.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Gossage, speaking now with conscious resignation, ‘we shall see what everyone says by the weekend. I liked the thing myself. It seemed to have a lot of life in it. Obvious failings, of course. All the same, I fully appreciate the points you make, Maclintick. But here is Mrs Maclintick. And how is Mrs Maclintick this evening?’

Mrs Maclintick had the air of being about to make trouble. She was wearing a fluffy, pale pink dress covered with rosettes and small bows, from which her arms and neck emerged surrounded by concentric circles of frills. On her head was set a cap, medieval or pre-Raphaelite in conception, which, above dark elfin locks, swarthy skin and angry black eyes, gave her the appearance of having come to the party in fancy dress.

‘Do take your hands out of your pockets, Maclintick,’ she said at once. ‘You always stand about everywhere as if you were in a public bar. I don’t know what the people here must think of you. We are are not in the Nag’s Head now, you know. Try to remember not to knock your pipe out on the carpet.’

Maclintick took no notice of his wife whatsoever. Instead, he addressed to Gossage some casual remarks about Smetana which seemed to have occurred to him at that moment. Mrs Maclintick turned to me.

‘I don’t expect you are any more used to this sort of party than I am,’ she said. ‘As for Maclintick, he wouldn’t have been here at all if it hadn’t been for me. I got him into those evening trousers somehow. Of course he never wants to wear evening clothes. He couldn’t find a black bow-tie at the last moment. Had to borrow a made-up one Carolo used to wear. He is tramping about in his ordinary clodhopping black shoes too.’

Maclintick continued to ignore his wife, although he must have heard all this.

‘What did you think of Moreland’s symphony?’ she continued. ‘Not much of a success, Maclintick thinks. I agree with him for once.’

Maclintick caught her words. He swung round in such a rage that for a moment I thought he was going to strike her; just as I had thought she might stick a dinner knife into him when I had been to their house. There was certainly something about her manner this evening which would almost have excused physical violence even in the circumstances of Mrs Foxe’s party.

‘I didn’t say anything of the sort, you bloody bitch,’ Maclintick said, ‘so keep your foul mouth shut and don’t go round repeating that I did, unless you want to get hurt. It is just like your spite to misrepresent me in that manner. You are always trying to make trouble between Moreland and myself, aren’t you? What I said was that the music was “not Moreland’s most adventurous” – that the critics had got used to him as an enfant terrible and therefore might underestimate the symphony’s true value. That was all. That was what I said. You know yourself that was all. You know yourself that was what I said.’

Maclintick was hoarse with fury. His hands were shaking His anger made him quite alarming.

‘Yes, Maclintick was just saying that very thing, wasn’t he?’ agreed Gossage, sniggering nervously at this display of uncontrolled rage. ‘The words were scarcely out of his mouth, Mrs Maclintick. That is exactly what he thinks.’

‘Don’t ask me what he thinks,’ said Mrs Maclintick calmly, not in the least put out of countenance by the force of her husband’s abuse. ‘He says one thing at one moment, another at another. Doesn’t know his own mind in the least. I told him he was standing about as if he was in the Nag’s Head. That is the pub near us where all the tarts go. I suppose that is where he thinks he is. It’s the place where he is most at home. Besides, if the symphony was such a success, why wasn’t Moreland better pleased? Or Matilda, for that matter? Matilda doesn’t seem at all at her best tonight. I expect these grand surroundings remind her of better days.’

‘I didn’t say the symphony was “a great success” either,’ said Maclintick, speaking now wearily, as if his outburst of anger had left him weak. ‘Anyway, what do you mean? Moreland looks all right to me. What is wrong with him? Of course, it was insane of me to express any opinion in front of a woman like you.’

‘Go on,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘Just go on.’

‘And what reason have you for saying Matilda isn’t pleased?’ said Maclintick. ‘I only wish I had a wife with half Matilda’s sense.’

‘Matilda didn’t seem to be showing all that sense when I was talking to her just now,’ said Mrs Maclintick, still quite undisturbed by this unpleasant interchange, indeed appearing if anything stimulated by its brutality. ‘Or to be at all pleased either. Not that I care how she speaks to me. I bet she has done things in her life I wouldn’t do for a million pounds. Let her speak to me how she likes. I’m not going to bring up her past. All I say is that she and Moreland were having words during the interval. Perhaps it was what they were talking about upset them, not the way the symphony was received. It is not for me to say.*’

Further recrimination was terminated for the moment by the butler bringing a decanter for Maclintick with Buster’s apology that no Irish whiskey was to be found in the house. Buster himself appeared a moment later, adding his own regrets for this inadequacy. I withdrew from the group, and went over to speak to Robert Tolland, who had just come into the room. Robert knew Moreland only slightly, as a notable musical figure rather than as a friend. He had probably been asked to the party at the instigation of Mrs Foxe, had perhaps dined with her to make numbers even. I had not seen him in the concert hall.

‘I expected to find you and Isobel here,’ he said. ‘I was asked at the last moment, I hardly know why. One of those curious afterthoughts which are such a feature of Amy Foxe’s entertaining. I see Priscilla is here. Did you bring her P’ ‘Priscilla dined with us. You could have come to dinner too, if we had known you were on your way to this party.’ Robert gave one of his quiet smiles. ‘Nice of you to suggest it,’ he said, ‘but there were things I had to do earlier in the evening as a matter of fact. How very attractive Mrs Moreland is. I always think so whenever I see her. What a relief that one no longer has to talk about the Abdication. Frederica is looking a lot better now that everything is settled.’

He smiled and moved away, exhaling his usual air of mild mystery. Lady Huntercombe, taking leave of Matilda with a profusion of complimentary phrases, swept after Robert. Matilda beckoned me to come and talk to her. She looked pale, seemed rather agitated, either on account of her long session with Lady Huntercombe, or perhaps because she was still feeling shaken by the strain of hearing the symphony performed.

‘Give me some more champagne, Nick,’ she said, clasping my arm. ‘It is wonderful stuff for the nerves. Are you enjoying yourself at this smart party? I hope so.’

This manner was not at all her usual one. I thought she was probably a little drunk.

‘Of course – and the symphony was a great success.’

‘Did you think so?’

‘Very much.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Didn’t you?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘You are certain, Nick?’

‘Of course I am. Everything went all right. There was lots of applause. What else do you expect?’

‘Yes, it was all right, I think. Somehow I hoped for more real enthusiasm. It is a wonderful work, you know. It really is.’

‘I am sure it is.’

‘It is wonderful. But people are going to be disappointed.’

‘Does Hugh himself think that?’

‘I don’t think it worries him,’ said Madlda. ‘Not in his present state of mind.’

For some reason – from the note in her voice, a sense of trouble in the air, perhaps just from natural caution – I felt safer in not enquiring what she regarded as Moreland’s ‘present state of mind’.

‘I see your little sister-in-law, Lady Priscilla, is here,’ said Matilda.

She smiled rather in Robert’s manner, as if at some secret inner pleasure that was also a little bitter to contemplate.

‘You’ve met her with us, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘She dined with us tonight.’

‘I met her once at your flat,’ said Madlda, speaking slowly, as if that were an extraordinary thing to have happened. ‘She is very attractive. But I don’t know her as well as Hugh does.’

I suddenly felt horribly uncomfortable, as if ice-cold water were dripping very gently, very slowly down my spine, but as if, at the same time, some special circumstance prevented admission of this unaccountable fact and also forbade any attempt on my own part to suspend the process; a sensation to be recognised, I knew well, as an extension of that earlier refusal to face facts about Moreland giving Priscilla the concert ticket. That odd feeling of excitement began to stir within me always provoked by news of other people’s adventures in love; accompanied as ever by a sense of sadness, of regret, almost jealousy, inward emotions that express, like nothing else in life, life’s irrational dissatisfactions. On the one hand, that Moreland might have fallen in love with Priscilla (and she with him) seemed immensely interesting; on the other – to speak only callously of the Morelands’ marriage and Priscilla’s inexperience (if she was inexperienced) – any such situation threatened complications of a most disturbing kind on two separate fronts of one’s own daily existence. As to immediate action, a necessary minimum was obviously represented by refraining from any mention to Matilda of the complimentary ticket. Silence on that point offered at least a solid foundation upon which to build; the simple principle that a friend’s actions, however colourless, vis-à-vis another woman, are always better unrepeated to his wife. Contemplation of this banal maxim increased the depression that had suddenly descended on me. The proposition that Moreland was having some sort of a flirtation with Priscilla sufficiently tangible to cause Matilda – even if she had had too much champagne – to draw my attention to such goings-on appeared at once ridiculous and irritating Probably Matilda’s speculations were unco-ordinated. Quite likely Moreland and Priscilla were indeed behaving foolishly. Why draw attention to that? The matter would blow over. All three persons concerned fell in my estimation. In any case, Matilda’s speculations might be wholly unfounded. Priscilla, physically speaking – socially speaking, if it came to that – was not the sort of girl Moreland usually liked. ‘Nothing is more disturbing,’ he used to say himself, ‘than one’s friends showing unexpected sexual tastes.’ Priscilla, for her part, was not in general inclined towards the life Moreland lived; had never shown any sign of liking married men, a taste some girls acquire at an early age. I thought it best to change the subject.

‘I see you asked Carolo,’ I said.

Moreland, although always perfectly friendly – indeed, making more effort with Carolo than he usually did with gloomy, silent geniuses – never gave the impression of caring much for his company. I supposed Carolo’s invitation due to some inflexion of musical politics of which I was myself ignorant, and about which, to tell the truth, I felt very little interest. However, this comment seemed to sober Matilda, or at least to change her mood.

‘We had to ask him,’ she said. ‘No choice of mine, I can assure you. It was all on account of the Maclinticks. As Carolo lives in the same house as the Maclinticks, Hugh thought it would be awkward if he didn’t get an invitation. Hugh was very anxious for Maclintick to come – in fact wouldn’t hear of his not coming. Hugh and Maclintick are really great friends, you know.’

‘The Maclinticks were having a full-dress row when I left them a short time ago.’

‘They always are.’

‘They should lay off for an hour or two on occasions like this. A short rest would renew their energies for starting again when they return home.’

‘That is just married life.’

‘To be married to either of the Maclinticks cannot be much fun-’

‘Is it fun to be married to anyone?’

‘That is rather a big question. If you admit that fun exists at all – perhaps you don’t – you cannot lay it down categorically that no married people get any fun from the state of being married.’

‘But I mean married to someone,’ said Matilda, speaking quite passionately. ‘Not to sleep with them, or talk to them, or go about with them. To be married to them. I have been married a couple of times and I sometimes begin to doubt it.’

We were now in the midst of dangerous abstractions which might once more threaten further embarrassments of the kind I hoped to avoid. Generalisations about married life could easily turn to particularisation about Moreland and Priscilla, a relationship I should prefer to investigate later, in my own way and time, rather than have handed to me on a plate by Matilda; the latter method almost certainly calling for decisions and agreements undesirable, so it seemed to me, at this stage of the story. I was also very surprised by this last piece of information: that Matilda had had a husband previous to Moreland.

‘You have been married twice, Matilda?’

‘Didn’t you know?’

‘Not the least idea.’

I wondered for a moment whether Sir Magnus Donners could possibly have married her clandestinely. If so – and that was very unlikely – an equally clandestine divorce was scarcely conceivable. That notion could be dismissed at once.

‘I was married to Carolo,’ she said.

‘My dear Matilda.’

‘That surprises you?’

‘Immensely.’

She laughed shrilly.

‘I thought Hugh might have told you.’

‘Never a word.’

‘There is no particular secret about it. The marriage lasted a very short time. It was when I was quite young. In fact pretty soon after I left home. Carolo is not a bad old thing in his way. Just not very bright. Not a bit like Hugh. We used to quarrel a good deal. Then we didn’t really get on in bed. Besides, I got tired of him talking about himself all the time.’

‘Understandably.’

‘After I left Carolo, as you know, I was kept by Donners for a time. At least people are all aware of that. It is such a relief not to have to explain everything about oneself to everyone. We met just about the time when Donners was getting restive about the way Baby Wentworth was treating him. He was taking Lady Ardglass out quite often too, but she never really liked being seen with him. I think she found him terribly unsmart. So did Baby Wentworth, I believe, if it comes to that. I did not mind that drab side of him. I got tired of him for other reasons, although he can be nice in his own particular way. He is awful, of course, at times. Really awful. But he can be generous – I mean morally generous – too. I am not interested in money. One thing about Donners, he does not know what jealousy means. When Baby was running round with Ralph Barnby, he did not mind at all. That did not affect me in one way, because unlike so many women, I prefer only one man at a time. But it is nice not to be bothered about where you went last night, or where you are going to tomorrow afternoon. Don’t you agree?’

‘Certainly I do. Was Carolo like that – jealous in that way?’

‘A bit. But Carolo’s chief interest is in making conquests, he doesn’t much mind who it is. I shouldn’t wonder if he doesn’t run after Audrey Maclintick. Probably Maclintick would be glad of someone to keep her quiet and take her off his hands. What a bitch she is.’

‘All the same, there is a difference between being fed up with your wife and wanting another man to take her off your hands.’

‘There wasn’t in Carolo’s case. He was thankful when I fixed myself up. That is part of his simple nature, which is his chief charm. I had really left Donners by the time I met Hugh. What do you think about Hugh?’

‘I should guess that he was not particularly jealous as men go.’

‘Oh, I don’t mean that. He isn’t. I mean what do you think of him as a man?’

‘You know quite well, Matilda, that he is a great friend of mine.’

‘But his work… I do think he is… frightfully intelligent… a great man… whatever you like. Everything one says of that sort always sounds silly about someone you know – certainly someone you are married to. I had quite enough of being told my husband was a genius when I was Carolo’s wife. But you do agree about Hugh, don’t you, Nick?’

‘Yes, I do, as a matter of fact.’

‘That is why I am so worried about the symphony. You see, I am sure it will not be properly appreciated. People are so stupid.’

I longed to hear more about Sir Magnus Donners; whether some of the very circumstantial, very highly coloured stories that circulated about the elaboration of his idiosyncrasies, were at all near the truth. However, the moment to acquire such information, the moment for such frivolities, if it had ever existed, was now past. The tone had become too serious I could not imagine what the next revelation would be; certainly nothing so light-hearted as a first-hand account of a millionaire’s sexual fantasies.

‘Then there is this business of both of us having a career.’

‘That is always difficult.’

‘I don’t want never to act again.’

‘Of course not.’

‘After all, if Hugh wanted to marry a squaw, he could easily have found a squaw. They abound in musical circles. It is the answer for lots of artists.’

‘Hugh has always been against squaws. Rightly, I think. In the long run, in my opinion, a squaw is even more nuisance than her antithesis – and often cooks worse too.’

‘Then why do Hugh and I find it so difficult to get on together?’

‘But you always seem to get on a treat.’

‘That’s what you think.’

‘Well, don’t you – when you look at the Maclinticks, for example?’

‘And then…’

I thought for a moment she was going to speak of the child’s death, which I now saw had dislocated their marriage more seriously than anyone had supposed from the outside. Instead, she returned to her earlier theme.

‘And now he has gone and fallen in love with your sister-in-law, Priscilla.’

‘But-’

Matilda laughed at the way in which I failed to find any answer. There was really nothing for me to say. If it was true, it was true. From one point of view, I felt it unjust that I should be visited in this manner with Matilda’s mortification; from another, well deserved, in that I had not already acquainted myself with what was going on round me.

‘Of course it is all quite innocent,’ said Matilda. ‘That is the worst thing about it from my point of view. It would be much easier if he had fallen for some old tart like myself he could sleep with for a spell, then leave when he was bored.’

‘When did all this start up?’

In asking the question, I committed myself in some degree to acceptance of her premises about Moreland and Priscilla. There seemed no alternative.

‘Oh, I don’t know. A month or two ago. They met at that office where she works. I knew something of the sort had happened when he came home that day.’

‘But they met first at our flat.’

‘They’d met before you produced her at your flat. They kept quiet about knowing each other when they met there.’

I spared a passing thought for the slyness of Priscilla; also for Matilda’s all-embracing information service. Before more could be said about this uncomfortable subject, two things happened to break up our conversation. First of all the distinguished conductor – rather specially noted for his appreciation of feminine attractions – presented himself with a great deal of flourish to pay his respects to Matilda. He was known to admire her, but until that moment had been unable to escape from persons who wanted to take this opportunity of chatting with a celebrity of his calibre, finally being pinned down by Lady Huntercombe, who had descended upon him after failing to capture Robert. He had already made some opening remarks of a complimentary kind to Matilda, consciously recalling by their form of expression the elaborate courtesies of an earlier age – and I was preparing to leave Matilda to him – when my attention was diverted to something that had taken place at the far end of the room.

This was nothing less than the arrival of Stringham. At first I could hardly believe my eyes. There he was standing by the door talking to Buster. The scene was only made credible by the fact that Buster looked extremely put out. After what had been said that evening, Stringham was certainly the last person to be expected to turn up at his mother’s party. He was not wearing evening clothes, being dressed, in fact, in a very old tweed suit and woollen jumper. As usual he looked rather distinguished in these ancient garments, which could not have less fitted the occasion, but somehow at the same time seemed purposely designed to make Buster appear overdressed. Stringham himself was, as formerly, perfectly at ease, laughing a lot at something he had just remarked to Buster, who, with wrinkled forehead and raised eyebrows, had for once lost all his air of lazy indifference to life, and seemed positively to be miming the part of a man who has suddenly received a disagreeable surprise. Stringham finished what he had to say, clapped Buster on the back, and turned towards his mother who came up at that moment. I was too far away to hear Mrs Foxe’s words, but, as she kissed her son affectionately, she was clearly welcoming him in the manner appropriate to one returned unexpectedly from a voyage round the world. At the same time, unlike her husband, she showed no surprise or discomposure at Stringham’s arrival. They spoke together for a second or two, then she returned to her conversation with Lord Huntercombe. Stringham turned away from her and strolled across the room, gazing about him with a smile. Catching sight of me suddenly, he drew back with a movement of feigned horror, then made towards the place where I was standing. I went to meet him.

‘My dear Nick.’

‘Charles.*

‘I had no idea you had musical tastes, Nick. Why did you keep them from me all these years? Because I never asked, I suppose. One always finds the answer to everything in one’s own egotism. But how nice to meet again. I am a recluse now. I see nobody. I expect you already knew that. Everybody seems to know by now. It is just a bit like being a leper, only I don’t actually have to carry a bell. They decided to let me off that. Thought I should make too much of a row, I suppose. You can’t imagine what a pleasure it is to come unexpectedly upon an old friend one knew several million years ago.’

There could be no doubt that he was drunk, but, within the vast area comprised by that term, among the immensely varied states of mind and body which intoxication confers, Stringham’s at this moment was that controlled exhilaration of spirit more akin to madness than carousal, which some addicts can achieve after a single glass. He looked rather ghastly when you were close to him, his skin pale and mottled, his eyes sunken and bloodshot. Even so, there was plenty of the old dash about his manner.

‘I had no idea my mother would be giving a party tonight,’ he said. ‘Just thought I would drop in and have a word with her by the fireside as I haven’t seen her for some time. What do I find but a whirl of gaiety. I really came along to tease Buster. I like doing that from time to time. It cheers me up for some reason. You know I now live in a flat at the top of a house owned by a relation of your wife’s – Molly Jeavons, one of the most delightful and charming of people. I sometimes hear about you both from her or from Ted. I dote on Ted. He hasn’t been very well lately, you know, and he gives wonderful descriptions of what is going on in his lower intestine – that war wound of his. One need never be bored when Ted gets on to that subject. He and I sometimes go out for the quickest of quick drinks. I am not supposed to have much in the way of drink these days. Neither is Ted. I am trying to knock off, really-but it seems such a bore to be a total abstainer, as I believe such people are called. I can have just one drink still, you know. I don’t have to keep off it utterly.’

He said these words in such an appealing tone that I felt torn inwardly to think of the condition he must be in, of the circumstances in which he must live. His awareness of his own state seemed almost worse than total abandonment to the bottle. It looked very much as if he might just have come on to his mother’s house that night from one of those ‘very quick drinks’ with Jeavons; perhaps felt unable to bring himself to return to Miss Weedon’s flat and paint in gouache – if it was really with painting that he therapeutically ordered his spare time. His life with Miss Weedon was impossible to contemplate.

‘Do you know this fellow Moreland?’ he went on. ‘I gather from Buster that the party is being given in Moreland’s honour – that he is a famous musician apparently. It just shows how right it is that I should have to live as a hermit, not to know that Moreland is a famous musician – and have to be told by Buster. All the same, it cuts both ways. If you are a hermit, you can’t be expected to keep up with all the latest celebrities. Buster, of course, was quite incapable of giving any real information about Moreland, the party, the guests, or anything else. He is awfully stupid, poor old Buster. An absolute ape. You know a fact that strikes one very forcibly as one grows older is that some people are intelligent and some are stupid. I don’t set up as an intellectual myself – even though I am a great hand with the paintbrush, did they tell you that, Nick? – but if I were as ill-informed as Buster, I should take steps to educate myself. Go to a night-school or hire a well-read undergraduate to teach me a few things in the long vac. The person I shall have to get hold of is Norman. He will tell me all about everything. Have you met Norman yet? He is simply charming. He is – well, I don’t want to labour the point, and I can see from your face you have guessed what I was going to say, and you are quite right. All the same, my mother has taken him up in a big way. You must meet Norman, Nick.’

‘But I know him well. I have known him for years.’

‘I am surprised at the company you must have been keeping, Nick. Known him for years, indeed. I shouldn’t have thought it of you. And a married man too. But you do agree, don’t you, that Norman is a delightful fellow?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘I knew you would. I can’t tell you how good Norman has been for my mother. Brilliant ideas and helpful comment don’t exactly gush from Buster, with all his manly qualities. Besides, when it comes to doing odd jobs about the house, Buster is no good with his hands. What, you say, a sailor and no good with his hands? I don’t believe you. It’s the perfect truth. I sometimes tease him about it. He doesn’t always take that in good part. Now, at last there is someone in the house who can turn to when it comes to hanging a picture or altering the place of a piece of furniture without smashing the thing to a thousand fragments. Not only that, but Norman decides what detective stories ought to come from the Times Book Club, settles what plays must be seen, gives good advice to my mother about hats – in fact excels at all the things poor old Buster fails at so lamentably. On top of that, Norman won’t be bullied. He gets his own way. He is just about the only person who deals with my mother who does get his own way.’

‘Jolly good.’

‘Look here, Nick, you are not being serious. I want to be serious. People are always charging me with not being sufficiently serious. There is something serious I want to ask you. You know the Abdication?’

‘I heard something about it.’

‘Well, I thought it was a good thing. A frightfully good thing. The only possible thing. I wish to goodness Buster would abdicate one of these days.’

‘Not a hope.’

‘You’re right. Not a hope. I say, Nick, it is awfully nice meeting you again after all these years. Let me get you another drink. You see the extraordinary thing is that I don’t feel the smallest need for drink myself. I rise above it. That shows an advance, doesn’t it? Not everyone we know can make that boast with truth. I must mention to you that there are some awfully strange people at this party tonight. Not at all like the people my mother usually collects. I suppose it is them, and not me. You agree? Yes, I thought I was right. They remind me more of the days when I used to know Milly Andriadis. Poor old Milly. I wonder what has happened to her. Perhaps they have put her away too.’

While he was speaking his eyes were on Mrs Maclintick, who was now making her way towards us.

‘This lady, for example,’ said Stringham. ‘What could have induced her to dress like that?’

‘She is coming to talk to us.’

‘My God, I believe you’re right.’

Mrs Maclintick arrived within range. Cold rage still possessed her. She addressed herself to me.

‘That was a nice way to be spoken to by your husband,’ she said. ‘Did you ever hear anything like it?’

Before I could reply, Stringham caught her by the arm.

‘Hullo, Little Bo-Peep,’ he said. ‘What have you done with your shepherdess’s crook? You will never find your sheep at this rate. Don’t look so cross and pout at me like that, or I shall ruffle up all those dainty little frills of yours – and then where will you be?’

The effect on Mrs Maclintick of this unconventional approach was electric. She flushed with pleasure, contorting her body into an attitude of increased provocation. I saw at once that this must be the right way to treat her; that a deficiency of horseplay on the part of her husband and his friends was probably the cause of her endemic sulkiness. No doubt something in Stringham’s manner, the impression he gave that evening of having cut himself off from all normal restraints, played a part in Mrs Maclintick’s submission. He was in a mood to carry all before him. Even so, she made an effort to fight back.

‘What an extraordinary thing to say,’ she remarked. ‘And who are you, I should like to know?’

I introduced them, but neither was inclined to pay much attention to names or explanations. Stringham, for some reason, seemed set on pursuing the course he had begun. Mrs Maclintick showed no sign of discouraging him, beyond a refusal entirely to abandon her own traditional acerbity of demeanour.

‘Fancy a little girl like you being allowed to come to a grown-up party like this one,’ said Stringham. ‘You ought to be in bed by now I’m sure.’

‘If you think I don’t know most of the people here,’ said Mrs Maclintick, uncertain whether to be pleased or offended at this comment, ‘you are quite wrong. I have met nearly all of them.’

‘Then you have the advantage of me in that respect,’ said Stringham, ‘and so you must tell me who everyone is. For example, what is the name of the fat man wearing a dinner jacket a size too small for him – the one drinking something from a tumbler?’

If there was any doubt about the good impression Stringham had already made on Mrs Maclintick, this enquiry set him immediately at the topmost peak of her estimation.

‘That’s my husband,’ she said, speaking at once with delight and all the hatred of which she was capable. ‘He has just been vilely rude to me. He hates wearing evening clothes. The state they were in – even though he never gets into them – you wouldn’t have believed. I had to tack the seam of the trousers before he could be seen in them. He isn’t properly shaved either. I told him so. He said he had run out of new blades. He looks a fright, doesn’t he?’

‘He does indeed,’ said Stringham. ‘You have put the matter in a nutshell.’

‘If you had heard some of the things he has been shouting at me in this very room,’ said Mrs Maclintick, ‘you would not have credited your hearing. The man has not a spark of gratitude.’

‘What do you expect with a thick neck like that?’ said Stringham. ‘Not gratitude, surely?’

‘Language of the gutter,’ said Mrs Maclintick, as if relishing her husband’s phrases in retrospect. ‘Filthy words.’

‘Think no more of his trivial invective,’ said Stringham. ‘Come with me and forget the ineptitudes of married life – with which I was once myself only too familiar – in a glass of wine. Let me persuade you to drown your sorrows.

While the Rose blows along the River Brink

With old Stringham the Ruby Vintage drink…

It isn’t ruby in this case, but none the worse for that. Buster’s taste in champagne is not too bad. It is one of his redeeming features.’

Mrs Maclintick was about to reply, no doubt favourably, but, before she could speak, Stringham, smiling in my direction, led her away. Why he wished to involve himself with Mrs Maclintick I could not imagine: drink; love of odd situations; even attraction to a woman he found wholly unusual; any of those might have been the reason. Mrs Maclintick was tamed, almost docile, under his treatment. I was still reflecting on the eccentricity of Stringham’s behaviour when brought suddenly within the orbit of Lord Huntercombe, who was moving round the room in a leisurely way, examining the pictures and ornaments there. He had just taken up Truth Unveiled by Time, removed his spectacles, and closely examined the group’s base. He now replaced the cast on its console table, at the same time smiling wryly in my direction and shaking his head, as if to imply that such worthless bric-à-brac should not be allowed to detain great connoisseurs like ourselves. Smethyck (a museum official, whom I had known as an undergraduate) had introduced us not long before at an exhibition of seventeenth-century pictures and furniture Smethyck himself had helped to organise, to which Lord Huntercombe had lent some of his collection.

‘Have you seen your friend Smethyck lately?’ asked Lord Huntercombe, still smiling.

‘Not since we talked about picture-cleaning at that exhibition.’

‘Before the exhibition opened,’ said Lord Huntercombe, ‘Smethyck showed himself anxious to point out that Prince Rupert Conversing with a Herald was painted by Dobson, rather than Van Dyck. Fortunately I had long ago come to the same conclusion and had recently caused its label to be altered. I was even able to carry the war into Smethyck’s country by enquiring whether he felt absolutely confident of the authenticity of that supposed portrait of Judge Jeffreys, attributed to Lely, on loan from his own gallery. What nice china there is in this house. It looks to me as if there were some Vienna porcelain mixed up with the Meissen in this cabinet. I believe Warrington knew something of china. That was why Kitchener liked him. You know, I think I shall have to inspect these a little more thoroughly.’

Lord Huntercombe tried the door of the cabinet. Although the key turned, the door refused to open. He steadied the top of the cabinet with his hand, then tried again. Still the door remained firmly closed. Lord Huntercombe shook his head. He brought out a small penknife from his pocket, opened the shorter blade, and inserted this in the crevice.

‘How is Erridge?’ he asked.

He spoke with that note almost of yearning in his voice, which peers are inclined to employ when speaking of other peers, especially of those younger than themselves of whom they disapprove.

‘He is still in Spain.’

‘I hope he will try to persuade his friends not to burn all the churches,’ said Lord Huntercombe, without looking up, as he moved the blade of the knife gently backwards and forwards.

He had crouched on his haunches to facilitate the operation, and in this position gave the impression of an old craftsman practising a trade at which he was immensely skilled, his extreme neatness and the quick movement of his fingers adding to this illusion. However, these efforts remained ineffective. The door refused to open. I had some idea of trying to find Isobel to arrange a meeting between herself and Stringham. However, I was still watching Lord Huntercombe’s exertions when Chandler now reappeared.

‘Nick,’ he said, ‘come and talk to Amy.’

‘Just hold this cabinet steady for a moment, both of you,’ said Lord Huntercombe. ‘There… it’s coming… that’s done it. Thank you very much.’

‘I say, Lord Huntercombe,’ said Chandler, ‘I did simply worship those cut-glass candelabra you lent to that exhibition the other day. I am going to suggest to the producer of the show I’m in rehearsal for that we try and get the effect of something of that sort in the Second Act – instead of the dreary old pewter candlesticks we are now using.’

‘I do not think the Victoria and Albert would mind possessing those candelabra,’ said Lord Huntercombe with complacency, at the same time abstracting some of the pieces from the cabinet. ‘Ah, the Marcolini Period. I thought as much. And here are some lndianische Blumen.’

We moved politely away from Lord Huntercombe’s immediate area, leaving him in peace to pursue further researches.

‘My dear,’ said Chandler, speaking in a lower voice, ‘Amy is rather worried about Charles turning up like this. She thought that, as an old friend of his, you might be able to persuade him to go quietly home after a time. He is a sweet boy, but in the state he is in you never know what he is going to do next.’

‘It is ages since I saw Charles. We met tonight for the first time for years. I doubt if he would take the slightest notice of anything I said. As a matter of fact he has just gone off with Mrs Maclintick to whom he is paying what used to be called marked attentions.’

‘That is one of the things Amy is worried about. Amy has an eye like a hawk, you know.’

I was certainly surprised to hear that Mrs Foxe had taken in the circumstances of the party so thoroughly as even to have included Mrs Maclintick in her survey. As a hostess, she gave no impression of observing the room meticulously (at least not with the implication of fear pedantic use of that term implies), nor did she seem in the smallest degree disturbed when we came up to her.

‘Oh, Mr Jenkins,’ she said, ‘dear Charles has arrived, as you know since you have been talking to him. I thought you would not mind if I asked you to keep the smallest eye on him. His nerves are so bad nowadays. You have known him for such a long time. He is much more likely to agree to anything you suggest than to fall in with what I want him to do. He really ought not to stay up too late. It is not good for him.’

She said no more than that; gave no hint she required Stringham’s immediate removal. That was just as well, because I should have had no idea how to set about any such dislodgement. I remembered suddenly that the last time a woman had appealed to me for help in managing Stringham was when, at her own party years before, Mrs Andriadis had said: ‘Will you persuade him to stay?’ Then it was his mistress; now, his mother. Mrs Foxe had been too discreet to say outright: ‘Will you persuade him to go?’ None the less, that was what she must have desired. Her discrimination in expressing this wish, her manner of putting herself into my hands, made her as successful as Mrs Andriadis in enlisting my sympathy; but no more effective as an ally. It was hard to see what could be done about Stringham. Besides, I had by then begun to learn – what I had no idea of at Mrs Andriadis’s party – that to people like Stringham there is really no answer.

‘Don’t worry, Amy, darling,’ said Chandler. ‘Charles is perfectly all right for the time being. Don’t feel anxious. Nick and I will keep an eye on him.’

‘Will you? It would be so awful if something did go wrong. I should feel so guilty if the Morelands’ party were spoiled for them.’

‘It won’t be.’

‘I shall rely on you both.’

She gazed at Chandler with deep affection. They might have been married for years from the manner in which they talked to one another. Some people came up to say goodbye. I saw Isobel, and was about to suggest that we should look for Stringham, when Mrs Foxe turned from the couple to whom she had been talking.

‘Isobel, my dear,’ she said, ‘I haven’t seen you all the evening. Come and sit on the sofa. There are some things I want to ask you about.’

‘Odd scenes in the next room,’ Isobel said to me, before she joined Mrs Foxe.

I felt sure from her tone the scenes must be odd enough. I found Isobel had spoken without exaggeration. Stringham, Mrs Maclintick, Priscilla, and Moreland were sitting together in a semi-circle. The rest of the party had withdrawn from that corner of the room, so that this group was quite cut off from the other guests. They were laughing a great deal and talking about marriage, Stringham chiefly directing the flow of conversation, with frequent interruptions from Moreland and Mrs Maclintick. Stringham was resting his elbow on his knee in an attitude of burlesqued formality, from time to time inclining his head towards Mrs Maclintick, as he addressed her in the manner of a drawing-room comedy by Wilde or Pinero. These fulsome compliments and epigrammatic phrases may have been largely incomprehensible to Mrs Maclintick, but she looked thoroughly pleased with herself; indeed, seemed satisfied that she was half-teasing, half-alluring Stringham. Priscilla appeared enormously happy in spite of not knowing quite what was going on round her. Moreland was almost hysterical with laughter which he continually tried to repress by stuffing a handkerchief into his mouth. If he had fallen in love with Priscilla – the evidence for something of the sort having taken place had to be admitted – it was, I thought, just; like him to prefer listening to this performance to keeping his girl to himself in some remote part of the room. This judgment was superficial, because, as I have said, Moreland could be secretive enough about his girls when he chose; while politeness and discretion called for some show of outwardly casual behaviour at this party. Even so, his behaviour that night could hardly be called discreet in general purport. It was obvious he was very taken with Priscilla from the way he was sitting beside her. He was clearly delighted by Stringham, of whose identity I felt sure he had no idea. When I approached, Mrs Maclintick was apparently describing the matrimonial troubles of some friends of hers.

‘… and then,’ she was saying, ‘this first husband of hers used to come back at four o’clock in the morning and turn on the gramophone. As a regular thing. She told me herself.’

‘Some women think one has nothing better to do than to lie awake listening to anecdotes about their first husband,’ said Stringham. ‘Milly Andriadis was like that – no doubt still is – and I must say, if one were prepared to forgo one’s beauty sleep, one used to hear some remarkable things from her. Playing the gramophone is another matter. Your friend had a right to complain.’

‘That was what the judge thought,’ said Mrs Maclintick.

‘What used he to play?’ asked Priscilla.

‘Military marches,’ said Mrs Maclintick, ‘night after night. Not surprising the poor woman had to go into a home after getting her divorce.’

‘My mother would have liked that,’ said Stringham. ‘She adores watching troops march past. She always says going to reviews was the best part of being married to Piers Warrington.’

‘Not in the middle of the night,’ said Priscilla. ‘He might have chosen something quieter. Tales from Hoffmann or Handel’s Cradle Song.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Moreland. ‘Aut Sousa aut Nihil has always been my motto in cases of that sort. Think if the man had played Hindemith. At least he wasn’t a highbrow.’

‘He was just another musical husband,’ said Mrs Maclintick fiercely. ‘I am not saying he was any worse than Maclintick, I am not saying he was any better. I am just telling you the way musicians treat their wives. Telling you the sort of husband I have to put up with.’

‘My own complaint about marriage is a very different one,’ said Stringham. ‘I admit my former wife was not musical. That might have made things worse. All the same, you never know. If she had been, she could have talked all the time about music while her sister, Anne, was chattering away about Braque and Dufy. It would have formed a counter-irritant. Poor Anne. Marrying Dicky Umfraville was a dreadful judgment on her. Still, a party is no place for vain regrets – certainly not vain regrets about one’s ex-sister-in-law.’

‘You should have seen Maclintick’s sister,’ said Mrs Maclintick, ‘if you are going to grumble about your sister-in-law.’

‘We will visit her, if necessary, dear lady, later in the evening,’ said Stringham. ‘The night is still young.’

‘You can’t,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘She’s dead.’

‘My condolences,’ said Stringham. ‘But, as I was saying, my former wife was not musical. Music did not run in the family. Mountfichet was not a house to stimulate music. You might compose a few dirges there, I suppose. Even they would have cheered the place up – the morning-room especially.’

‘I was going to stay at Mountfichet once,’ said Priscilla. ‘Then Hugo got chicken-pox and we were all in quarantine.’

‘You had a narrow escape, Lady Priscilla,’ said Stringham. ‘You are unaware of your good fortune. No, what I object to about marriage is not the active bad behaviour – like your musical friend playing the gramophone in the small hours. I could have stood that. I sleep abominably anyway. The gramophone would while away time in bed when one lies awake thinking about love. What broke me was the passive resistance. That was what got me down.’

Moreland began to laugh unrestrainedly again, thrusting the handkerchief in his mouth until it nearly choked him. He too had had a good deal to drink. Mrs Maclintick clenched her teeth in obvious approval of what Stringham had said. Stringham went on uninterrupted.

‘It is a beautiful morning,’ he said. ‘For some reason you feel relatively well that day. You make some conciliatory remark. No answer. You think she hasn’t heard. Still asleep perhaps. You speak again. A strangled sigh. What’s wrong? You begin to go through in your mind all the awful things you might have done.’

‘Maclintick never dreams of going through the awful things he has done,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘It would take far too long for one thing. Anyway, he never thinks about them at all. If you so much as mention one or two of them, he gets out of bed and sleeps on the sofa in his work-room.’

‘Look here,’ said Moreland, still laughing convulsively, ‘I really cannot have my old friend Maclintick maligned in this manner without a word of protest. I know you are married to him, and marriage gives everyone all sorts of special rights where complaining is concerned-’

‘You begin adding up your sins of commission and omission,’ Stringham continued inexorably. ‘Did one get tight? It seems months and months since one was tight, so it can’t be that. Did one say something silly the night before? Much more likely. Not that remark about the colour of her father’s face at breakfast? It couldn’t have been that. She enjoyed that – even laughed a little. I don’t know whether any of you ever met my former father-in-law, Major the Earl of Bridgnorth, late the Royal Horse Guards, by the way? His is a name to conjure with on the Turf. When I was married to his elder daughter, the beautiful Peggy, I was often to be seen conjuring with it on the course at Epsom, and elsewhere, but with little success, all among the bookies and Prince Monolulu and the tipster who wears an Old Harrovian tie and has never given a loser.’

‘You are getting off the point, my dear sir,’ said Moreland. ‘We are discussing marriage, not racing. Matrimony is the point at issue.’

Stringham made a gesture to silence him. I had never before seen Moreland conversationally so completely mastered. It was hard to imagine what the two of them would have made of each other in more sober circumstances. They were very different. Stringham had none of Moreland’s passionate self-identification with the arts; Moreland was without Stringham’s bitter grasp of social circumstance. At the same time they had something in common. There was also much potential antipathy. Each would probably have found the other unsympathetic over a long period.

‘And then,’ said Stringham, lowering his voice and raising his eyebrows slightly, ‘one wonders about making love… counts up on one’s fingers… No… It can’t be that…’

Mrs Maclintick gave a raucous laugh.

‘I know!’ Stringham now almost shouted, as if in sudden enlightenment. ‘I’ve got it. It was going on about what a charming girl Rosie Manasch is. That was a bloody silly thing to do, when I know Peggy hates Rosie like poison. But I’m wandering… talking of years ago… of the days before Rosie married Jock Udall…’

‘Heavens,’ said Moreland. ‘Do you know the Manasches? I once conducted at a charity concert in their house.’

Stringham ignored him.

‘But then, on the other hand,’ he went on, in a slower, much quieter voice, ‘Rosie may have nothing whatever to do with it. One’s wife may be ill. Sickening for some terrible disease. Something to which one has never given a thought. She is sinking. Wasting away under one’s eyes. It is just one’s own callousness about her state. That is all that’s wrong. You begin to get really worried. Should you get up and summon a doctor right away?’

‘The doctor always tells Maclintick to drink less,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘Always the same story. “Put a drop more water in it,” he says, “then you will feel better.” You might just as well talk to a brick wall. Maclintick is not going to drink less because a doctor tells him to. If he won’t stop after what I’ve said to him, is it likely he will knock off for a doctor? Why should he?’

‘Why, indeed, you little rogue?’ said Stringham, tapping Mrs Maclintick’s knee with a folded copy of the concert programme, which had somehow found its way into his hand. ‘Well, of course, in the end you discover that all this ill humour is nothing to do with yourself at all. In fact your wife is hardly aware that she is living in the same house with you. It was something that somebody said about her to someone who gossiped to somebody she knew when that somebody was having her hair done. Neither less nor more than that. All the same, it is you, her husband, who has to bear the brunt of those ill-chosen remarks by somebody about something. I’ve talked it all over with Ted Jeavons and he quite agrees.’

‘I adore Uncle Ted,’ said Priscilla, anxious to show that she herself had perfectly followed this dissertation.

‘And you, Black-eyed Susan,’ said Stringham, turning again in the direction of Mrs Maclintick, at the same time raising the programme interrogatively, ‘do you too suffer in your domestic life – of which you speak with such a wealth of disillusionment – from the particular malaise I describe: the judgment of terrible silences?’

That was a subject upon which Mrs Maclintick felt herself in a position to speak authoritatively; the discussion, if uninterrupted, might have proceeded for a long time. Moreland was showing some signs of restlessness, although he and the others sitting there seemed to be finding some release from themselves, and their individual lives, in what was being said. The remainder of Mrs Foxe’s guests, although in fact just round the corner, appeared for some reason infinitely far away. Then, all at once, I became aware that a new personality, an additional force, had been added to our group. This was a woman. She was standing beside me. How long she had been there, where she came from, I did not know.

It was Miss Weedon. She had probably avoided having herself announced in order to make quietly for the place where Stringham was to be found. In any case, her long association with the house as one of its inmates made such a formality almost inappropriate. As usual, she managed to look both businesslike and rather elegant, her large sharp nose and severe expression adding to her air of efficiency, suggesting on the whole a successful, fairly chic career woman. Enclosed in black, her dress committed her neither to night nor day; suitable for Mrs Foxe’s party, it would have done equally well for some lesser occasion. She did not look at all like the former governess of Stringham’s sister, Flavia, although there remained something dominating and controlling about Miss Weedon, hinting that she was used to exercising some form of professional authority. Undoubtedly her intention was to take Stringham home. No other objective could have brought her out at this hour of the night. Priscilla, who had probably met Miss Weedon more than once at the Jeavonses’ – where Miss Weedon was a frequent guest before moving in as an occupant of the house itself – was the first to notice her.

‘Hullo, Miss Weedon,’ she said blushing.

Priscilla moved, probably involuntarily, further from Moreland, who was sitting rather close to her on the sofa. Miss Weedon smiled coldly. She advanced a little deeper into the room, her mysterious, equivocal presence casting a long, dark shadow over the scene.

‘Why, hullo, Tuffy,’ said Stringham, suddenly seeing Miss Weedon too. ‘I am so glad you have turned up. I wondered if I should see you. I just dropped in to say good evening to Mamma, whom I hadn’t set eyes on for ages, only to find the gayest of gay parties in progress. Let me introduce everyone. Lady Priscilla Tolland – you know Tuffy, of course. How silly of me. Now this is Mrs Maclintick, who has been telling me some really hair-raising stories about musical people. I shall never listen to an orchestra again without the most painful speculations about the home life of the players. Nick, of course, you’ve often met. I’m afraid I don’t know your name, Mr-?’

‘Moreland,’ said Moreland, absolutely enchanted by Stringham’s complete ignorance of his identity.

‘Moreland!’ said Stringham. ‘This is Mr Moreland, Tuffy. Mr Moreland for whom the whole party is being given. What a superb faux pas on my part. A really exquisite blunder. How right it is that I should emerge but rarely. Well, there we are – and this, I nearly forgot to add, Mr Moreland, is Miss Weedon.’

He was still perfectly at ease. There was not the smallest sign to inform a casual observer that Stringham was now looked upon by his own family, by most of his friends, as a person scarcely responsible for his own actions; that he was about to be removed from his mother’s house by a former secretary who had taken upon herself to look after him, because – I suppose – she loved him. All the same, although nothing outward indicated that something dramatic was taking place, Stringham himself, after he had performed these introductions, had risen from his chair with one of his random, easy movements, so that to me it was clear he knew the game was up. He knew that he must be borne away by Miss Weedon within the next few minutes to whatever prison-house now enclosed him. Moreland and Priscilla glanced at each other, recognising a break in the rhythm of the party, probably wanting to make a move themselves, but unaware quite what was happening. Mrs Maclintick, on the other hand, showed herself not at all willing to have the group disposed of in so arbitrary a manner. She turned a most unfriendly stare on Miss Weedon, which seemed by its contemptuous expression to recognise in her, by some unaccountable feminine intuition, a figure formerly subordinate in Mrs Foxe’s household.

‘We have been talking about marriage,’ said Mrs Maclintick aggressively.

She addressed herself to Miss Weedon, who in return gave her a smile that cut like a knife.

‘Indeed?’ she said.

‘This gentleman and I have been comparing notes,’ said Mrs Maclintick, indicating Stringham.

‘We have, indeed,’ said Stringham laughing. ‘And found a lot to agree about.’

He had dropped his former air of burlesque, now appeared completely sober.

‘It sounds a very interesting discussion,’ said Miss Weedon.

She spoke in a tone damaging to Mrs Maclintick’s self-esteem. Miss Weedon was undoubtedly prepared to take anybody on; Mrs Maclintick; anybody. I admired her for that.

‘Why don’t you tell us what you think about marriage yourself?’ asked Mrs Maclintick, who had drunk more champagne than I had at first supposed. ‘They say the onlooker sees most of the game.’

‘Not now,’ said Miss Weedon, in the cosmically terminating voice of one who holds authority to decide when the toys must be returned to the toy-cupboard. ‘I have my little car outside, Charles. I thought you might like a lift home.’

‘But he is going to take me to a night-club,’ said Mrs Maclintick, her voice rising in rage. ‘He said that after we had settled a few points about marriage we would go to a very amusing place he knew of.’

Miss Weedon looked at Stringham without a trace of surprise or disapproval; just a request for confirmation.

‘That was the suggestion, Tuffy.’

He laughed again. He must have known by experience that in the end Miss Weedon would turn out to hold all the cards, but he showed no sign yet of capitulation.

‘The doctor begged you not to stay up too late, Charles,’ said Miss Weedon, also smiling.

She was in no degree behind Stringham where keeping one’s head was concerned.

‘My medical adviser did indeed prescribe early hours,’ said Stringham. ‘You are right there, Tuffy. I distinctly recollect his words. But I was turning over in my mind the possibility of disregarding such advice. Ted Jeavons was speaking recently of some night haunt he once visited where he had all kind of unusual adventures. A place run by one, Dicky Umfraville, a bad character whom I used to see in my Kenya days and have probably spoken of. Something about the sound of the joint attracted me. I offered to take Mrs Maclintick there. I can hardly go back on my promise. Of course, the club has no doubt closed down by now. Nothing Dicky Umfraville puts his hand to lasts very long. Besides, Ted was a little vague about the year his adventure happened – it might have been during the war, when he was a gallant soldier on leave from the trenches. That all came in when he told the story. However, if defunct, we could always visit the Bag of Nails.’

Mrs Maclintick snatched facetiously at him.

‘You know perfectly well I should hate any of those places,’ she said gaily, ‘and I believe you are only trying to get me there to make me feel uncomfortable.’

Miss Weedon remained unruffled.

‘I had no idea you were planning anything like that, Charles.’

‘It wasn’t exactly planned,’ said Stringham. ‘Just one of those brilliant improvisations that come to me of a sudden. My career has been built up on them. One of them brought me here tonight.’

‘But I haven’t agreed to come with you yet,’ said Mrs Maclintick, with some archness. ‘Don’t be too sure of that.’

‘I recognise, Madam, I can have no guarantee of such an honour,’ said Stringham, momentarily returning to his former tone. ‘I was not so presumptuous as to take your company for granted. It may even be that I shall venture forth into the night – by no means for the first time in my chequered career – on a lonely search for pleasure.’

‘Wouldn’t it really be easier to accept my offer of a lift?’ said Miss Weedon.

She spoke so lightly, so indifferently, that no one could possibly have guessed that in uttering those words she was issuing an order. There was no display of power. Even Stringham must have been aware that Miss Weedon was showing a respect for his own situation that was impeccable.

‘Much, much easier, Tuffy,’ he said. ‘But who am I to be given a life of ease?

Not for ever by still waters

Would we idly rest and stay…

I feel just like the hymn. Tonight I must take the hard road that leads to pleasure.’

‘We could give this lady a lift home too, if she liked,’ said Miss Weedon.

She glanced at Mrs Maclintick as if prepared to accept the conveyance of her body at whatever the cost. It was a handsome offer on Miss Weedon’s part, a very handsome offer. No just person could have denied that.

‘But I am not much in the mood for going home, Tuffy,’ said Stringham, ‘and I am not sure that Mrs Maclintick is either, in spite of her protests to the contrary. We are young. We want to see life. We feel we ought not to limit our experience to musical parties, however edifying.’

There was a short pause.

‘If only I had known this, Charles,’ said Miss Weedon.

She spoke sadly, almost as if she were deprecating her own powers of dominion, trying to minimise them because their very hugeness embarrassed her; like the dictator of some absolutist state who assures journalists that his most imperative decrees have to take an outwardly parliamentary form.

‘If only I had known,’ she said, ‘I could have brought your notecase. It was lying on the table in your room.’

Stringham laughed outright.

‘Correct, as usual, Tuffy,’ he said.

‘I happened to notice it.’

‘Money,’ said Stringham. ‘It is always the answer.’

‘But even if I had brought it, you would have been much wiser not to stay up late.’

‘Even if you had brought it, Tuffy,’ said Stringham, ‘the situation would remain unaltered, because there is no money in it.’

He turned to Mrs Maclintick.

‘Little Bo-Peep,’ he said, ‘I fear our jaunt is off. We shall have to visit Dicky Umfraville’s club, or the Bag of Nails, some other night.’

He made a movement to show he was ready to follow Miss Weedon.

‘I didn’t want to drag you away,’ she said, ‘but I thought it might save trouble as I happen to have the car with me.’

‘Certainly it would,’ said Stringham. ‘Save a lot of trouble. Limitless trouble. Untold trouble. I will bid you all good night.’

After that, Miss Weedon had him out of the house in a matter of seconds. There was the faintest suspicion of a reel as he followed her through the door. Apart from that scarcely perceptible lurch, Stringham’s physical removal was in general accomplished by her with such speed and efficiency that probably no one but myself recognised this trifling display of unsteadiness on his feet. The moral tactics were concealed almost equally successfully until the following day, when they became plain to me. The fact was, of course, that Stringham was kept without money; or at least on that particular evening Miss Weedon had seen to it that he had no more money on him than enabled buying the number of drinks that had brought him to his mother’s house. He must have lost his nerve as to the efficacy of his powers of cashing a cheque; perhaps no longer possessed a cheque-book. Otherwise, he would undoubtedly have proceeded with the enterprise set on foot. Possibly fatigue, too, stimulated by the sight of Miss Weedon, had played a part in evaporating desire to paint the town red in the company of Mrs Maclintick; perhaps in the end Stringham was inwardly willing to ‘go quietly’. That was the most likely of all. While these things had been happening, Moreland and Priscilla slipped away. I found myself alone with Mrs Maclintick.

‘Who was she, I should like to know,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘Not that I wanted all that to go wherever it was he wanted to take me. Not in the least. It was just that he was so pressing. But what a funny sort of fellow he is. I didn’t see why that old girl should butt in. Is she one of his aunts?’

I was absolved from need to explain about Miss Weedon to Mrs Maclintick, no easy matter to embark upon, by seeing Carolo drifting towards us. A dinner jacket made him look more melancholy than ever.

‘Coming?’ he enquired.

‘Where’s Maclintick?’

‘Gone home.’

‘Full of whisky, I bet.’

‘You bet.’

‘All right.’

Stringham had made no great impression on her. She must have seen him as one of those eccentric figures naturally to be encountered in rich houses of this kind. That was probably the most judicious view of Stringham for her to take. Certainly there was no way for Mrs Maclintick to guess that a small, violent drama had been played out in front of her; nor would she have been greatly interested if some explanation of the circumstances could have been revealed. Now – in her tone to Carolo – she re-entered, body and soul, the world in which she normally lived. The two of them went off together. I began to look once more for Isobel. By the door Commander Foxe was saying goodbye to Max Pilgrim.

‘Well,’ said Commander Foxe, when he saw me, ‘that was neatly arranged, wasn’t it?’

‘What was?’

‘Persuading Charles to go home.’

‘Lucky Miss Weedon happened to look in, you mean?’

‘There was a good reason for that.’

‘Oh?’

‘I rang her up and told her to come along,’ said Commander Foxe briefly.

That answer was such a simple one that I could not imagine why I had not guessed it without having to be told.

Those very obvious tactical victories are always the victories least foreseen by the onlooker, still less the opponent. Mrs Foxe herself might feel lack of dignity in summoning Miss Weedon to remove her own son from the house; for Buster, no such delicacy obstructed the way. Indeed, this action could be seen as a beautiful revenge for much owed to Stringham in the past; the occasion, for example, when Buster and I had first met in the room next door, and Stringham, still a boy, had seemed to order Buster from the house. No doubt other old scores were to be paid off. The relationship between Commander Foxe and Miss Weedon herself was also to be considered. Like two rival powers-something about Miss Weedon lent itself to political metaphor – who temporarily abandon their covert belligerency to combine against a third, there was a brief alliance; but also, for Miss Weedon, diplomatically speaking, an element of face-losing. She had been forced to allow her rival to invoke the treaty which demanded that in certain circumstances she should invest with troops her own supposedly pacific protectorate or mandated territory. In fact there had been a victory for Commander Foxe all round. He was not disposed to minimise his triumph.

‘Pity about poor old Charles,’ he said.

‘I’ll have to say good night.’

‘Come again soon.’

‘That would be nice.’

A general movement to leave was taking place among the guests. Mrs Maclintick and Carolo had already disappeared. Gossage still remained deep in conversation with Lady Huntercombe. There was no sign of the Morelands, or of Priscilla. Isobel was talking to Chandler. We went to find our hostess and say goodbye. Mrs Foxe was listening to the famous conductor, like Gossage, unable to tear himself away from the party.

‘I do hope the Morelands enjoyed themselves,’ said Mrs Foxe. ‘It was so sad Matilda should have had a headache and had to go home. I am sure she was right to slip away. She is such a wonderful wife for someone like him. As soon as he heard she had gone, he said he must go too. Such a strain for a musician to have a new work performed. Like a first night – and Norman tells me first nights are agony.’

Mrs Foxe spoke the last word with all the feeling Chandler had put into it when he told her that. Robert joined us in taking leave.

‘It was rather sweet of Charles to look in, wasn’t it?’ said Mrs Foxe. ‘I would have asked him, of course, if I hadn’t known parties were bad for him. I saw you talking to him. How did you think he was?’

‘I hadn’t seen him for ages. He seemed just the same. We had a long talk.’

‘And you were glad to see him again?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I think he was right to go back with Tuffy. He can be rather difficult sometimes, you know.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘I do hope everyone enjoyed themselves,’ said Mrs Foxe. ‘There was a Mr Maclintick who had had rather a lot to drink by the time he left. I think he is a music critic. He was so sweet when he came to say goodbye to me. He said: “Thank you very much for asking me, Mrs Foxe. I don’t like grand parties like this one and I am not coming to another, but I appreciate your kindness in supporting Moreland as a composer.” I said I so much agreed with him about grand parties – which I simply hate – but I couldn’t imagine why he should think this was one. All the same, I said, I should arrange it quite differently if I ever gave another, and I hoped he would change his mind and come. “Well, I shan’t come,” he said. I told him I knew he would because I should ask him so nicely. He said: “I suppose you are right, and I shall.” Then he slipped down two or three steps. I do hope he gets home all right. Such a relief when people speak their minds.’

‘What’s happened to Priscilla?’ Isobel asked Robert.

‘Somebody gave her a lift.’

At that moment Lord Huntercombe broke in between us. Carrying a piece of china in his hand, he was delighted by some discovery he had just made. Mrs Foxe turned towards him.

‘Amy,’ he said, ‘are you aware that this quatrefoil cup is a forgery?’