A Question of Upbringing - Anthony Powell [93]
“I suppose this must be one of Buster’s,” he said, at last accepting a collar that satisfied him. “I shall sell the rest of mine off cheap to the clergy to wear back-to-front.” He slipped on his tail-coat, pulling at the cuffs of his shirt. “Come on,” he said; “we’ll have another drink on the way out.”
“Where is your dinner-party?”
“Grosvenor Square. Where shall I drop you?”
“Grosvenor Square will do for me.”
“But what will you do?”
“Dine with an uncle of mine.”
“Does he live there?”
“No – but he isn’t expecting me just yet.”
“He was expecting you then?”
“A standing invitation.”
“So I really haven’t left you too high and dry?”
“Not in the least.”
“You are jolly lucky to have relations you can drop in on at any time,’” said Stringham. “My own are much too occupied with their own affairs to care for that.”
“You met Uncle Giles once. He suddenly arrived one night when we were having tea. It was the day of Peter’s ‘unfortunate incident’.”
Stringham laughed. He said: “I remember about Peter, but not about your uncle.”
We reached the car again, and drove for a time in silence. “We’ll meet soon,” Stringham said. “I suppose you are going back to-night – otherwise we might have lunched tomorrow.”
“I’ll be up in a week or two.”
“We will get together then.”
We had reached Grosvenor Square, and he slowed up: “Now where?”
“I’ll climb down here.”
“I expect it will be a really frightful party, and Peggy will have decided not to turn up.” He waved, and I waved, as the car went on to the far side of the square.
The evening was decidedly cool, and rain was halfheartedly falling. I knew now that this parting was one of those final things that happen, recurrently, as time passes: until at last they may be recognised fairly easily as the close of a period. This was the last I should see of Stringham for a long time. The path had suddenly forked. With regret, I accepted the inevitability of circumstance. Human relationships flourish and decay, quickly and silently, so that those concerned scarcely know how brittle, or how inflexible, the ties that bind them have become. Lady Bridgnorth, by her invitation that night, had effortlessly snapped one of the links – for practical purposes the main one – between Stringham and myself; just as the accident in Templer’s car, in a rather different manner, had removed Templer from Stringham’s course. A new epoch was opening: in a sense this night was the final remnant of life at school.
I was glad to have remembered Uncle Giles. It was, I suppose, justification of the family as a social group that, upon such an occasion, my uncle’s company seemed to offer a restorative in the accidental nature of our relationship and the purely formal regard paid by him to the fact that I was his nephew. Finding a telephone box, I looked up the address of the Trouville Restaurant, which turned out to be in Soho. It was fairly early in the evening. Passing slowly through a network of narrow streets, and travelling some distance, I came at last to the Trouville. The outside was not inviting. The restaurant’s façade was boarded up with dull, reddish shutters. At the door hung a table d’hôte menu, slipped into a brass frame that advertised Schweppes’ mineral waters – Blanchailles – Potage Solférino – Sole Bercy – Côtelettes d’Agneau Reform – Glace Néapolitaine – Café. The advertised charge seemed very reasonable. The immense depression of this soiled, claret-coloured exterior certainly seemed to meet the case; for there is always something solemn about change, even when accepted.
Within, the room was narrow, and unnaturally long, with a table each side, one after another, stretching in perspective into shadows that hid the service lift: which