A Buyers Market - Anthony Powell [73]
“You’ve known Edgar for a long time?”
“Since I was a child. But the other night was the first time I ever heard him called that.”
“He doesn’t let everyone use the name,” said Barnby. “In fact, he likes to keep it as quiet as he can. As it happens, my father was at the Slade with him.”
“He has given up painting, hasn’t he?”
“Entirely.”
“Is that just as well?”
“Some people hold that as a bad painter Edgar carries all before him,” said Barnby. “I know good judges who think there is literally no worse one. I can’t say I care for his work myself—but I’m told Sickert once found a good word to say for some of them, so there may have been something there once.”
“Is he making a success of the antique business?”
“He says people are very kind. He marks the prices up a bit. Still, there always seems someone ready to pay—and I know he is glad to be back in London.”
“But I thought he liked Paris so much.”
“Only for a holiday, I think. He had to retire there for a number of years. There was a bit of trouble in the park, you know.”
This hint of a former contretemps explained many things about Mr. Deacon’s demeanour. For example, the reason for his evasive manner in the Louvre was now made plain; and I recalled Sillery’s words at Mrs. Andriadis’s party. They provided an illustration of the scope and nature of Sillery’s stock of gossip. Mr. Deacon’s decided air of having “gone downhill” was now also to be understood. I began to review his circumstances against a more positive perspective.
“What about War Never Pays!, and Gypsy Jones?”
“The pacifism came on gradually,” said Barnby. “I think it followed the period when he used to pretend the war had not taken place at all. Jones’s interests are more political—world revolution, at least.”
“Is she in residence at the moment?”
“Returned to the bosom of her family. Her father is a schoolmaster in the neighbourhood of Hendon. But may I ask if you, too, are pursuing her?”
After the remarks, largely incoherent, though apparently pointed enough, made by Mr. Deacon at the party, to the effect that Barnby’s disapproval of Gypsy Jones’s presence in the house was radically vested in his own lack of success in making himself acceptable to her, I assumed this question to be intended to ascertain whether or not I was myself to be considered a rival in that quarter. I therefore assured him at once that he could set his mind at rest upon that point, explaining that my inquiry had been prompted by the merest curiosity.
The inference on my part may have been a legitimate one in the light of what Mr. Deacon had said, but it proved to be a long way wide of the mark. Barnby appeared much annoyed at the suggestion that his own feelings for Gypsy Jones could be coloured by any sentiment short of the heartiest dislike: stating in the most formidable terms at hand his ineradicable unwillingness for that matter actual physical incapacity, to be inveigled into any situation that might threaten intimacy with her. These protests struck me at the time as perhaps a shade exaggerated, since I had to admit that, for my own part, I had found Gypsy Jones, sluttish though she might be, less obnoxious than the impression of her conveyed by Barnby’s words. However, I tried to make amends for the unjust imputation laid upon him, although, owing to their somewhat uncomplimentary nature, I was naturally unable to explain in precise terms the form taken by Mr. Deacon’s misleading comments.
“I meant the chap with spectacles,” said Barnby. “Isn’t he a friend of yours? He always seems to be round here when Jones is about. I thought she might have made a conquest of you as well”
The second that passed before