At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell [67]
By that time we had once more reached the drawing-room. Miss Weedon ceased to enlarge upon these occasional—indeed, very occasional—glories of the Jeavons’ salon; which were, as it happened, in marked contrast to the company gathered together that evening. I asked if she knew Mrs. Haycock.
‘Certainly I do,’ said Miss Weedon. ‘Do you remember a boy called Widmerpool who was at school with Charles and yourself? I think you were all in the same house together, were you not? Charles used to give imitations of him. I am sure you must remember. Well, Mrs. Haycock is going to marry Mr. Widmerpool.’
She nodded her head sharply, to emphasise what she had said. I was amazed that she should be familiar with Stringham’s mimicry of Widmerpool. I could have found it within the bounds of possibility that she had heard of Widmerpool, but that Stringham should have shared with her such jokes as his brilliant, though essentially esoteric, Widmerpool imitations, I should never have guessed. This new light on Stringham’s relationship with Miss Weedon suggested quite a different sort of intimacy to any I had previously surmised. I told her that I already knew of Widmerpool’s engagement. That had been my reason for enquiry. Miss Weedon smiled her thin freezing smile.
‘I think Mildred Haycock was quite glad to find someone to marry,’ she said. ‘Especially a man with such a good future in front of him. Of course he is a bit young for her. All the same, it is easier for a woman like Mrs. Haycock—who has two children, both quite old now—to be married. Then, also, although she is not badly off, she is very extravagant. Everyone says so.’
‘She has been living in the South of France?’
‘Where she made herself rather notorious, I believe.’
‘Meanwhile, her fiancé is suffering from jaundice.’
‘Indeed,’ said Miss Weedon, smiling thinly again. ‘I expect she will find someone to console her. Commander Foxe, for example.’
‘Buster? How is he?’
‘He might begin to take her out again. He retired from the Navy some years ago. He has got rather fat. It worries him terribly. He does all kinds of things for it. Every sort of diet. Cures at Tring. It is really his sole interest now.’
‘And you thought Mrs. Haycock might take his mind off the weighing machine?’
Miss Weedon’s mouth stiffened. I saw I had gone too far. She probably regretted her own indiscretion about Buster’s past with Mrs. Haycock. I had not thought of Buster Foxe for years. Stringham had never cared for him. It sounded from Miss Weedon’s tone as if Buster had been reduced—like Jeavons—to a purely subordinate position. There was a certain parallel in their situations. I wondered if they had ever met.
‘And how is Mrs. Foxe herself?’
‘Very well, I understand. As social as ever.’
‘What does Charles do about money now?’
‘Money is rather a difficulty,’ said Miss Weedon, abandoning her air of cold malice, and now speaking as if we had returned to serious matters. ‘His father, with that French wife of his in Kenya, has not much to spare. Mrs. Foxe has the Warrington money, but it is only for her lifetime. She spends it like water.’
At that moment Jeavons himself approached us, putting an end to any explanation Miss Weedon was about to offer on the subject of Stringham’s financial resources.
‘What do you make of Maisky?