A Buyers Market - Anthony Powell [27]
“Anne Stepney?”
“They would be so funny together.”
“Is she a friend of yours?”
“We were at the same finishing school in Paris.”
“They didn’t do much finishing on her, surely?”
“She is so determined to take a different line from that very glamorous sister of hers.”
“Is Peggy Stepney glamorous?”
“You must have seen pictures of her.”
“A friend of mine called Charles Stringham used to talk about her.”
“Oh, yes—Charles Stringham,” said Miss Manasch. “That has been over a long time. I think he is rather a fast young man, isn’t he? I seem to have heard.”
She laughed, and rolled her beady little eyes, straightening her frock over plump, well-shaped little legs. She looked quite out of place in this setting; intended by nature to dance veiled, or, perhaps, unveiled, before the throne of some Oriental potentate—possibly one of those exacting rulers to whom Sir Gavin’s well-mannered diplomatists of the past might have appealed—or occupying herself behind the scenes in all the appetising labyrinth of harem intrigue. There existed the faintest suspicion of blue hairs upon her upper hp, giving her the look of a beauty of the Byronic era.
“Anne Stepney said he was pompous. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen him for ages.”
“Anne thinks Charles Stringham pompous, does she?” said Miss Manasch, laughing again quietly to herself.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know him. At least only by reputation. I have met his mother, who is, of course, too wonderful. They say she is getting rather tired of Commander Foxe and thinking of having another divorce. Charles was more or less engaged to Anne’s sister, Peggy, at one stage, as I suppose you know. That’s off now, as I said. I hear about Peggy occasionally from a cousin of mine, Jimmy Klein, who has a great passion for her.”
“Is Charles about to marry anyone at the moment?”
“I don’t think so.”
I had the impression that she knew more about Stringham than she was prepared to divulge, because her face assumed an expression that made her features appear more Oriental than ever. It was evident that she possessed affiliations with circles additional to—perhaps widely different from—those to be associated with Walpole-Wilsons, Gorings, or Huntercombes. Only superficially invested with the characteristics of girls moving within that world, she was at once coarser in texture and at the same time more subtle. Up to that moment she had been full of animation, but now all at once she became melancholy and silent.
“I think I shall leave.”
“Have you had enough?”
“Going home seems the only alternative to sitting among the coats,” she said.
“Whatever for?”
“I comb my hair there.”
“But does it need combing?”
“And while I tug at it, I cry.”
“Surely not necessary to-night?”
“Perhaps not,” she said.
She began to laugh softly to herself once more; and, a minute or two later, went off with some partner who appeared satisfied that the moment had come to claim her. I set about looking for Barbara, with whom at the beginning of the evening I had danced only once. She was in one of the rooms downstairs, talking excitedly to a couple of young men, but she seemed not unwilling to leave their company.
“Let’s sit this one out,” she said.
We made our way outside and to the garden of the square. Guests like Archie Gilbert, who had been asked to both dances, and no doubt also a few who had not enjoyed that privilege—were passing backwards and forwards from one party to another. The reception at the Spanish Embassy, mentioned by Tompsitt, was still in full swing, so far as could be seen. Now and then a breath of air lightened the heavy night, once even causing the shrubs to sway in what was almost a breeze. The windows of both ballrooms stood open, music from the rival bands playing sometimes in conflict, sometimes appearing to belong to a system of massed