A Buyers Market - Anthony Powell [22]
“You should cart our Regimental Colour round,” said Pardoe. “Then you’d all know what heavy ceremonial means. It’s like a Salvation Army banner.”
“I’m always trying to get a decent Colour for the Guides,” said Eleanor, “and not have to carry about a thing like a child’s Union Jack. Not that anyone cares.”
“You won’t be too long, Gavin, will you?” said Lady Walpole-Wilson at this, hastily rising from the table.
By then I had only exchanged a word or two with Barbara, though this, in a way, was a mark of intimacy rather than because she had been unwilling to talk, or because any change had already consciously taken place in our relationship. Most of dinner she had spent telling Archie Gilbert rather a long story about some dance. Now she turned towards me, just before she went through the door, and gave one of those half-smiles that I associated with moments—infrequent moments—when she was not quite sure of herself: smiles which I found particularly hard to resist, because they seemed to show a less familiar, more mysterious side of her that noisiness and ragging were partly designed to conceal. On that occasion her look seemed to be intended perhaps to reconcile the fact that throughout the meal she had allowed me so little of her attention. Sir Gavin assured his wife that we would “not be long” in further occupation of the dining-room; and, when the door was closed, he moved the port in the direction of Pardoe.
“I hear you’re letting your shooting,” he remarked.
“Got to cut down somewhere,” said Pardoe. “That seemed as good a place as anywhere to begin.”
“Outgoings very heavy?”
“A lot of things to be brought up to date.”
The two of them settled down to discuss Shropshire coverts, with which Sir Gavin had some familiarity since his father-in-law, Lord Aberavon, had settled on the borders of that county during the latter part of his life; though the house had been sold at his death. Archie Gilbert, having successfully undertaken the operation of releasing the ladies from the room, returned to the chair next to mine. I asked who was giving the other dance that night.
“Mrs. Samson.”
“What will it be like?”
“Probably better than the Huntercombes’. Mrs. Samson has got Ambrose—though of course the band is not everything.”
“Are you going to Mrs. Samson’s.”
He gave the ghost of a smile at what he must have regarded as a question needlessly asked.
“I expect I shall look in.”
“Is it for Daphne?”
“For Cynthia, the youngest girl,” he said, with gentle reproof at the thoughtlessness once more shown in putting this inquiry, which betrayed an altogether insufficiently serious approach to the world of dances. “Daphne has been out for ages.”
On the other side of the table Widmerpool seemed, for some reason, determined to make a good impression on Tompsitt. Together they had begun to talk over the question of the Far East; Tompsitt treating Widmerpool’s views on that subject with more respect than I should have expected him to show.
“I see the Chinese marshals have announced their victory to the spirit of the late Dr. Sun Yat-sen,” Widmerpool was saying.
He spoke rather as if he had himself expected an invitation to the ceremony, but was prepared to overlook its omission on this occasion. Tompsitt, pursing his lips, rather in Widmerpool’s own manner, concurred that such solemn rites had indeed taken place.
“And the Nationalists have got to Pekin,” Widmerpool pursued.
“But who are the Nationalists?” asked Tompsitt, in a measured voice, gazing