A Buyers Market - Anthony Powell [34]
“My mother’s flat is near the Roman Catholic Cathedral,” Widmerpool added. “We usually let it for a month or two later on in the summer, if we can find a tenant, and take a cottage in the country. Last year we went quite near the Walpole-Wilsons at Hinton Hoo. We are going to do the same next month. I take my holiday then, and, if working, come up every day.”
We strolled towards Grosvenor Place. I hardly knew whether or not to condole with him on the sugar incident. Widmerpool marched along, breathing heavily, rather as if he were taking part in some contest.
“Are you going to the Whitneys’ on Thursday!” he asked suddenly.
“No.”
“Neither am I.”
He spoke with resignation; perhaps with slight relief that he had met another who remained uninvited to the Whitneys’ dance.
“What about Mrs. Soundness?”
“I can’t think why, but I haven’t been asked to Mrs. Soundness’s,” said Widmerpool, almost petulantly. “I was taken to dinner there not so long ago—at rather short notice, I agree. But I expect I shall see you at Bertha, Lady Drum’s and Mrs. Arthur Clinton’s.”
“Probably.”
“I am dining with Lady Augusta Cutts for the Drum-Clinton dance,” said Widmerpool. “One eats well at Lady Augusta’s. But I feel annoyed—even a little hurt—about Mrs. Soundness. I don’t think I could possibly have done or said anything at dinner to which exception might have been taken.”
“The card may have gone astray in the post.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Widmerpool, “one gets very tired of these dances.”
Everyone used to say that dances bored them; especially those young men—with the honourable exception of Archie Gilbert—who never failed to respond to an invitation, and stayed, night after night, to the bitter end. Such complaints were made rather in the spirit of people who grumble at the inconvenience they suffer from others falling in love with them. There was, of course, nothing out of the way in Widmerpool, who had apparently been attending dances for several years, showing by that time signs of disillusionment, especially in the light of his experience at the Huntercombes’; although the way he was talking suggested that he was still keen enough to receive invitations. This projection of himself as a “dancing man,” to use his own phrase, was an intimation—many more were necessary before the lesson was learnt—of how inadequate, as a rule, is one’s own grasp of another’s assessment of his .particular role in life. Widmerpool’s presence at the Walpole-Wilsons’ had at first struck me, rather inexcusably perhaps, as just another proof of the insurmountable difficulties experienced by hostesses in their untiring search for young men at almost any price. It had never occurred to me, when at La Grenadière he had spoken of London dances, that Widmerpool regarded himself as belonging to the backbone of the system.
“You must come and lunch with me in the City,” he said. “Have you an office in that part of the world?”
Thinking it unlikely that he would ring up, I gave him the telephone number, explaining that my work did not take place in the City. He made some formal inquiries about the firm, and seemed rather disapproving of the nature of the business.
“Who exactly buys ‘art books’?”
His questions became more searching when I tried to give an account of that side of publishing, and of my own part in it. After further explanations, he said: “It doesn’t sound to me a very serious job.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t see it leading to much.”
“What ought it to lead to?”
“You should look for something more promising. From what you say, you do not even seem to keep very regular hours.”
“That’s its great advantage.”
Widmerpool