Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [115]
‘I’ve heard that one too.’
‘We all have. It’s gone the round for years. Just within the bounds of possibility, do you think?’
‘Why was the situation complicated by refusal of payment?’
‘To make sure he agreed. The appeal to male vanity may have added to the audience’s fun. If he swallowed the declaration that she thought him so attractive, the display would not be over too quickly. Do you suppose Sir Magnus was behind the curtain?’
‘He may have watched the castration too.’
‘Some of his ladies would have been well qualified as surgeons,’ said Moreland.
He lay back in the bed. I suppose he meant Matilda. Then he took a book from the stack of works of every sort piled up on the table beside him.
‘I always enjoy this title – Cambises, King of Percia: a Lamentable Tragedy mixed full of Pleasant Mirth.’
‘What’s it like?’
‘Not particularly exciting, but does summarize life.’
One day in November, having a lot of things to do in London, before returning to the country that afternoon, I went to see Moreland earlier than usual. It was bleak, rainy weather. When I crossed the River, by Westminster Bridge, two vintage cars were approaching the Houses of Parliament. Another passed before I reached the hospital. Some sort of rally was in progress, for others appeared. I watched them go over the bridge, then went on. Moreland had no one with him. Audrey Maclintick would turn up later in the morning, possibly someone else drop in. Usually these friends were musical acquaintances, unknown to myself. I reported that droves of vintage cars were traversing the Thames in convoy. Moreland reached out for one of the books again.
‘I’ve been researching the subject, since quoting to you the Khayyam reference. Keats was an addict too. I found this yesterday.
Like to a moving vintage down they came,
Crowned with green leaves, and faces all on flame …
Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood …
What could be more specific than that? Interesting that you stood upright to drive those early models. One presumes the vintage, where the Grapes of Wrath were stored, was a tradesman’s van of Edwardian date or earlier.’
He threw the book down, and chose another. He was full of nervous energy. The impression one derived of his state was not a good one.
‘I’ve been haunted by the story of Lady Widmerpool. Have you ever read The Dutch Courtezan? Listen to her song – forgive me quoting so much verse. Things one reads become obsessional, while one lies here.
The darke is my delight,
So ’tis the nightingale’s.
My musicke’s in the night,
So is the nightingale’s.
My body is but little,
So is the nightingale’s.
I love to sleep next prickle
So doth the nightingale.
It makes her sound nice, but she wasn’t really a very nice girl.’
‘The Dutch Courtezan, or Pamela Widmerpool?’
‘I meant the former. Lady Widmerpool had her failings too, if that evening was anything to go by. Still, it’s impressive what she did. How some men get girls hotted up. No, what I was going to say about the Dutch Courtezan was – if there’d been time to spare – I might have toyed with doing a setting for her song, whatever she was like. One could have brought it into the opera about Candaules and Gyges perhaps. That would have made Gossage sit up.’
He sighed, more exhaustedly than regretfully, I thought. That morning was the last time I saw Moreland. It was also the last time I had, with anyone, the sort of talk we used to have together. Things drawing to a close, even quite suddenly, was hardly a surprise. The look Moreland had was the one people take on when a stage has been reached quite different from just being ill.
‘I’ll have to think about that song,’ he said.
Drizzle was coming down fairly hard outside. I walked back over the bridge. Vintage cars still penetrated the traffic moving south. They advanced in small groups, separated from each other by a few minutes. More exaggerated in style, some of the period costumes assumed by drivers and passengers recalled the deerstalker cap, check ulster, General Conyers had worn, when, on the eve of the