At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell [44]
‘I believe he is going to turn out to be Howard Craggs, after all this mystery you are making.’
Quiggin laughed again.
‘I still see a certain amount of Craggs,’ he admitted. ‘His firm may be launching a little scheme of mine in the near future—not a book. Craggs is politically sound, but I prefer a publishing house of more standing than Boggis & Stone for my books.’
Since Quiggin’s books remained purely hypothetical entities, it seemed reasonable enough that their publisher should exist hypothetically too. I was tempted to say as much, but thought it wiser to avoid risk of discord at this early stage. Quiggin was evidently enjoying his own efforts to stir up my curiosity regarding his landlord and benefactor.
‘No, no,’ he said again. ‘My friend, the owner—well, as a good social revolutionary, I don’t quite know how I should describe him. He is a man of what used to be regarded—by snobs—as of rather more distinction, in the old-fashioned sense, than poor Craggs.’
‘Poor Craggs, indeed. That just about describes him. He has the most loathsomely oily voice in the whole of Bloomsbury.’
‘What has been happening in London, talking of Bloomsbury?’ asked Mona, bored by all this fencing on Quiggin’s part. ‘Have there been any parties there, or anywhere else? I get a bit sick of being stuck down here all the time.’
Her drawling, angry manner showed growing discontent, and Quiggin, clearly foreseeing trouble, immediately embarked upon a theme he had probably intended to develop later in the course of my visit.
‘As a matter of fact there was something I wanted specially to ask you, Nick,’ he said hurriedly. ‘We may as well get on to the subject right away. Mona has been thinking for some time that she might make a career as a film star. I agree with her. She has got champion looks and champion talent too. She made more than one appearance on the screen in the past—small roles, of course, but always jolly good. That gives the right experience. We thought you ought to be able to hand out some useful “intros” now that you are in the business.’
To emphasise his own enthusiasm for Mona’s talent, Quiggin renewed in his voice all the force of his former rough honesty of tone. The enquiry revealed the cause of my invitation to the cottage. Its general application was not unexpected, though I had supposed Quiggin, rather than Mona, hoped to launch out into the fierce, chilling rapids of ‘the industry’. However, since Mona was to be the subject of the discussion, we began to talk over possibilities of introductions to those who might be of use. Her previous employment in films seemed to have been of scarcely higher grade than superior crowd work, or the individual display on her part of some commodity to be advertised; although, at the same time, it could be said in her favour that when, in the past, she had belonged to the advertising world, she could have claimed some little fame as a well-known model.
Quiggin, whose grasp of practical matters was usually competent enough, must have known that I myself was unlikely to be any great help to an aspiring film star. As I had explained to Jeavons, I had little or no contact with the acting side of the business. But people of undoubted ability in their own line are often completely lost in understanding the nature of someone else’s job. It was possible that he pictured nothing easier than introducing Mona to some famous director, who would immediately offer her a star part. Alternately, there was, of course, the possibility that Quiggin himself wished merely to allow the matter free ventilation in order to supply Mona with some subject upon which happily to brood. He might easily have no thought of practical result, beyond assuming that a prolonged discussion about herself, her beauty and her talents, held between the three of us over the course of the weekend, would have a beneficial effect on Mona’s temper. This might even be a method of scotching the whole question of Mona’s dramatic ambition, of which Quiggin might easily be jealous.
On the other hand, the film business, always unpredictable, might envisage Mona as a