Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [104]
‘Yes, do go up. Might keep him quiet. Don’t bring a crowd with you. The room’s the little study on the second floor, to the left.’
I found Isobel, and we both went upstairs. Moreland was lying on a small sofa, Rosie and Audrey Maclintick standing over him. The sofa was not big enough to contain his body comfortably at full length. He was drinking a glass of water, something I had never before seen him do, except after a heavy evening the night before. As Chandler had said, he did not look at all well. He was refusing to compromise with his own situation further than agreement to be driven home, when Stevens returned. Audrey Maclintick was trying to persuade him to rest quietly, until the car was announced as at the front door. When he saw us, he began to laugh in his old way.
‘I told you nostalgia would get me. It did. Absolutely spun me over like a ninepin. It was Carolo put the finishing touch. I can’t take it as I used. They say you lose your head for nostalgia, as you get older. That’s also the time when waves of it come sweeping down without warning. You have to ration yourself, or a sudden dose knocks you out, as it did me.’
‘You stop talking so much, and take it easy,’ said Audrey Maclintick. ‘I’m going to get that precious doctor of yours round as soon as you’re in bed, no matter what the time is, and how much he’s had to drink, if he hasn’t passed out cold. Even he told you to be careful, the last time he looked you over. You’re going to stay in bed for a week or two now, if I have anything to do with it.’
Moreland did not listen. In spite of Rosie’s added protest that he would be wiser to remain quiet, he continued to insist he would be perfectly recovered the following day. He also kept on returning to what had been happening that evening.
‘There were a lot of people near me talking about vintage cars. There’s nostalgia, if you like.
For some we loved, the loveliest and the best,
That from his vintage rolling Time hath pressed.
That’s a striking image. I remember, years ago, a man who kept on quoting Omar at that party of Mrs Foxe’s, after my Symphony. I’ve only just grasped that the verse refers to a car. Life’s vintage car, in which we’re all travelling. Better than Trapnel’s Camel, more Hegelian too. Then you’re suddenly told to get out and walk – pressed to, as the poet truly says.’
There was nothing to be done until Stevens returned.
Staying with Moreland was only to encourage running on like this, tiring himself, so Isobel and I spoke a word or two, then said goodnight. It was not quite clear what sort of a fall he had suffered. He seemed to have lost his senses for a minute or so, afterwards felt no worse than a little dazed.
‘I was pretty normal when I got up from the floor. If one could ever truthfully say that about oneself.’
A large proportion of the guests had already left when we arrived downstairs again.
‘Poor Hugh,’ said Isobel. ‘He didn’t look at all well to me.’
‘Nor me.’
Outside, the night was dark. There was no moon. A breeze, fresh, almost country-scented, blew in from the Park’s tall clusters of trees. We were aiming to cut through from the terrace, where the Stevens house stood, making for a street beyond, which ran parallel, where a taxi could be picked up. A few doors away from the Stevens entrance, two or three persons, standing against the railings, were having some sort of argument. Having attended the party, they seemed now to be squabbling. Numbers and sex were not at first distinguishable in the gloom, but turned out as a woman, two men, in fact the Widmerpools and Short. Widmerpool was giving Short a dressing-down. He was very angry. Short was defending himself mildly, but with bureaucratic obstinacy. He could be heard maintaining that administrative breakdowns were from time to time unavoidable.
‘I’ve already told you, Kenneth, that I quite plainly instructed the car to be outside waiting. The driver must have mistaken the address. If so, he will be along in a minute or two.’
As we went by, Widmerpool recognized us.
‘Have you by any chance got a car? Our hired vehicle hasn