A Question of Upbringing - Anthony Powell [88]
“I am afraid I do not arrange ornaments very well, sir,” said Moffet.
“Just a whim of mine regarding elephants.”
“I will try to remember, sir,” said Moffet. “They take a powerful lot of dusting.”
He retired again, adding: “Thank you, sir,” as he closed the door. The incident disturbed Stringham. “Now I shall have to go down,” he said.
However, Moffet was in an excellent mood at having an opportunity to wait on Sillery, of whom, for some reason, he approved more than of most dons. He brought in the telegram with a flourish. The message was from Stringham’s mother: she would be arriving, after all: Buster was driving her down. At this, Sillery cheered up at once; and Miss Weedon, too, saw hope that negotiations might now take place. Stringham himself seemed as indifferent as before.
“If Buster is coming,” he said, “he will certainly queer the pitch.”
“I am looking forward to meeting Buster,” said Sillery, smiling straight across the table to Miss Weedon. “I think I shall persuade him to our point of view.”
He put the tips of his fingers together. Miss Weedon looked a little surprised at this whole-hearted way in which Sillery offered himself as an ally. She had perhaps assumed that, as a don, he would inevitably attempt to prevent Stringham from going down. She said: “Commander Foxe’s great regret is that he never went to the university.”
I did not know whether this remark was intended to excuse Buster, or to suggest to Sillery a line of attack.
“No doubt he acquired a very useful education in a different sphere,” said Sillery. “I have made enquiries, and find that we have many friends in common. Bill Truscott, for example.”
Miss Weedon did not feel equally enthusiastic about Bill Truscott. I wondered if they had crossed swords.
“Mr. Truscott has been in the house a lot lately,” she said, guardedly.
“Bill knows the situation perfectly,” said Sillery. “It would be a great advantage to work in harness with him.” All Miss Weedon was prepared to admit was the statement that “Mr. Truscott is always very kind.” However, Sillery’s changed mood much improved the atmosphere; luncheon continuing with less sense of strain.
Mrs. Foxe and Buster arrived just as Moffet was clearing the table. They brought with them a hamper; caviare, grapes, a bottle of champagne. The effect of their entrance was immediate. Sillery and Miss Weedon at once abjured a great proportion of the hermaphroditic humours assumed by each of them for the purpose of more convenient association with the other: Miss Weedon relapsing into her normal role of attendance on Mrs. Foxe: Sillery steering himself more decidedly towards the part of eccentric professor, and away from the comparatively straightforward manner in which he had been discussing Stringham’s affairs. This was the first time I had seen Mrs. Foxe and Buster together. They made an unusual couple. This was not due to the fact that she was a few years the elder of the two, which was scarcely noticeable, because Buster, though he had lost some of his look of anxiety, was distinctly fatter, and less juvenile in appearance, than he had seemed in London a year or more before. He was still dressed with care, and appeared in a more amenable temper than at our earlier meeting.
“We brought some grub down,” he said to Stringham, putting the hamper on a chair; and, turning to me, he remarked: “I think one can always use caviare, don’t you?”
It was clear that he accepted the fact that in the presence of his wife he was a subordinate figure, wherever he might rank away from her. Mrs. Foxe’s ownership of Buster seemed complete when they were in a room together. From time to time she would glance at him as if to make sure that he were behaving himself; but her look was one of complete assurance that a word from her would be sufficient to quell even the smallest outbreak of conduct of a kind of which she might disapprove. I found out, much later, that the circumstances of their marriage had been, so far as they went, respectable enough; and that nothing could have been farther from the truth than Widmerpool’s suggestion that her divorce had been a particularly scandalous one. At that time, how