Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell [35]
‘Flowers mean more to us in a city than in a garden,’ said St John Clarke.
Lady Warminster nodded. She was determined not to abandon the subject of literature without a struggle.
‘I expect you are writing a new book yourself, Mr Clarke,’ she said. ‘We have not had one from you for a long time.’
‘Nor from you, Lady Warminster.’
‘But I am not a famous writer,’ she said. ‘I just amuse myself with people like Maria-Theresa who take my fancy. For you, it is quite another matter.’
St John Clarke shook his head energetically, like a dog emerging from a pond. It was ten or fifteen years since he had published anything but occasional pieces.
‘Sometimes I add a paragraph to my memoirs, Lady Warminster,’ he said. ‘There is little about the critics of the present day to encourage an author of my age and experience to expose his goods in the market place. To tell the truth, Lady Warminster, I get more pleasure from watching the confabulation of sparrows in their parliament on the rooftops opposite my study window, or from seeing the clouds scudding over the Serpentine in windy weather, than I do from covering sheets of foolscap with spidery script that only a few sympathetic souls, some now passed on to the Great Unknown, would even care to read.
No sparrow on any roof was ever lonely
As I am, nor any animal untamed.
Doesn’t Petrarch say that somewhere ? He is a great stay to me. Childish pleasures, you may tell me, Lady Warminster but I answer you that growing old consists abundantly in growing young.’
Lady Warminster was about to reply, whether in agreement or not with this paradox was never revealed, because St John Clarke suddenly realised that his words belonged to an outdated, even decadent state of mind, wholly inconsistent with political regeneration. He could hardly have been carried away by the white wine. Probably it was some time since he had attended a luncheon party of this sort, the comparative unfamiliarity of which must have made him feel for a minute or two back in some much earlier sequence of his social career.
‘Of course I was speaking of when the errant mind strays,’ he added in a different, firmer tone, ‘as I fear the mind of that unreliable fellow, the intellectual, does from time to time. I meant to imply that, when there are so many causes to claim one’s attention, it seems a waste of time to write about the trivial encounters of an individual like myself, who has spent so much of his time pursuing selfish, and, I fear, often frivolous aims. We shall have to learn to live more collectively, Lady Warminster. There is no doubt about it.’
‘That was just what a fellow in the City was saying to me the other day,’ said George. ‘We were talking about those trials for treason in Russia. I can’t make head or tail of them. He seemed full of information about Zinoviev and Kamenev and the rest of them. He was quite well disposed to Russia. A bill-broker named Widmerpool. You probably remember him at school, Nick. Some story about an overcoat, wasn’t there?’
‘I’ve met him,’ said Roddy. ‘Used to be with Donners-Brebner. Heavy-looking chap with thick spectacles. As a matter of fact, he was always regarded as rather a joke in our family at the time when my sister, Mercy, was going to dances. He was the absolute last resort when a man had dropped out for a dinner party. Didn’t some girl pour sugar over his head once at a ball?’
‘What’s happened to Widmerpool?’ I asked. ‘I haven’t seen him for a year or two. Not since Isobel and I were married, as a matter of fact. I’ve known him for ages.’
‘Fettiplace-Jones was giving him dinner at the House,’ said Roddy, ‘the night of the India debate.’
‘Is he thinking of standing?’ George asked. ‘He is rather the type.