Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell [20]
‘ “A lot of awful men”?’ he said, speaking in a voice of old-time melodrama. ‘What do you mean, Matilda? I offered you a bite with Max and me, if your boy friend did not arrive. That was only because you said he was so forgetful, and might easily think he had made a date for the day after tomorrow. I never heard such ingratitude.’
Matilda put her arm round Chandler’s waist and attempted to smoothe his hair with her brush.
‘Oh, I didn’t mean you, darling, of course I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t call you a man. I love you much too much. I mean an awful man who telephoned – and then another awful man who left a note. How could anyone call you awful, Norman, darling?’
‘Oh, I don’t know so much about that,’ said Chandler, now abandoning the consciously sinister, masculine tones of Bosola, and returning to his more familiar chorus-boy drawl. ‘I’m not always adored as much as you might think from looking at me. I don’t quite know why that is.’
He put his head on one side, forefinger against cheek, transforming himself to some character of ballet, perhaps the Faun from L’Après-midi.
‘You are adored by me,’ said Matilda, kissing him twice before throwing down the hairbrush on the dressing-table. ‘But I really must put a few clothes on.’
Chandler broke away from her, executing a series of little leaps in the air, although there was not much room for these entrechats. He whizzed round several times, collapsing at last upon his stool.
‘Bravo, bravo,’ said Matilda, clapping her hands. ‘You will rival Nijinsky yet, Norman, my sweetie.’
‘Be careful,’ said Chandler. ‘Your boy friend will be jealous. I can see him working himself up. He can be very violent when roused.’
Moreland had watched this display of high spirits with enjoyment, except when talk had been of other men taking out Matilda, when his face had clouded. Chandler had probably noticed that. So far from being jealous of Chandler, which would certainly have been absurd in the circumstances, Moreland seemed to welcome these antics as relaxing tension between himself and Matilda. He became more composed in manner. Paradoxically enough, something happened a moment later which paid an obvious tribute to Chandler’s status as a ladies’ man, however little regarded in that role by Moreland and the world at large.
‘I will be very quick now,’ said Matilda, ‘and then we will go. I am dying for a bite.’
She retired behind a small screen calculated to heighten rather than diminish the dramatic effect of her toilet, since her long angular body was scarcely at all concealed, and, in any case, she continually reappeared on the floor of the room to rescue garments belonging to her which lay about there. The scene was a little like those depicted in French eighteenth-century engravings where propriety is archly threatened in the presence of an amorous abbé or two—powdered hair would have suited Matilda, I thought; Moreland, perhaps, too. However, the picture’s static form was interrupted by the sound of some commotion in the passage which caused Chandler to stroll across the room and stand by the half-open door. Some people were passing who must have recognised him, because he suddenly said: ‘Why, hullo, Mrs Foxe,’ in a tone rather different from that used by him a moment before; a friendly tone, but one at the same time faintly deferential, possibly even a shade embarrassed. There was the sudden suggestion that Chandler was on his best behaviour.
‘We were looking for you,’ said a woman’s voice, speaking almost appealingly, yet still with a note of command in it. ‘We thought you would not mind if we came behind the scenes to see you. Such an adventure for us, you know. In fact we even wondered if there was any chance of persuading you to come to supper with us.’
The people in the passage could not be seen, but this was undoubtedly Stringham’s mother. She introduced Chandler to the persons with her, but the names were inaudible.
‘It would be so nice if you could come,’ she said, quite humbly now. ‘Your performance was wonderful. We adored it.’
Chandler had left the dressing-room now and was some way up the passage, but his voice could still be heard.