The Acceptance World - Anthony Powell [28]
‘When you first make a hit with someone,’ he had continued, ‘you think everything is going all right with the girl, just because it is all right with you. But when you are more used to things, you are always on your guard—prepared for trouble of one sort or another.’
‘Who is it this time?’
‘A young woman I met on a train.’
‘How promiscuous.’
‘She inspired a certain confidence.’
‘And things are going wrong?’
‘On the contrary, going rather well. That is what makes me suspicious.’
‘Have you painted her?’
Barnby rummaged among the brushes, tubes of paint, newspapers, envelopes and bottles that littered the table; coming at last to a large portfolio from which he took a pencil drawing. The picture was of a girl’s head. She looked about twenty. The features, suggested rather than outlined, made her seem uncertain of herself, perhaps on the defensive. Her hair was untidy. There was an air of self- conscious rebellion. Something about the portrait struck me as familiar.
‘What is her name?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why not?’
‘She won’t tell me.’
‘How very secretive.’
‘That’s what I think.’
‘How often has she been here?’
‘Two or three times.’
I examined the drawing again.
‘I’ve met her.’
‘Who is she?’
‘I’m trying to remember.’
‘Have a good think,’ said Barnby, sighing. ‘I like to clear these matters up.’
But for the moment I was unable to recall the girl’s name. I had the impression our acquaintance had been slight, and was of a year or two earlier. There had been something absurd, or laughable, in the background of the occasion when we had met.
‘It would be only polite to reveal her identity by now,’ Barnby said, returning the drawing to the portfolio and making a grimace.
‘How did it start?’
‘I was coming back from a week-end with the Manaschs’. She arrived in the compartment about an hour before we reached London. We began to talk about films. For some reason we got on to the French Revolution. She said she was on the side of the People.’
‘Dark eyes and reddish hair?’
‘The latter unbrushed.’
‘Christian name, Anne?’
‘There was certainly an “A” on her handkerchief. That was a clue I forgot to tell you.’
‘Generally untidy?’
‘Decidedly. As to baths, I shouldn’t think she overdid them.’
‘I think I can place her.’
Don’t keep me in suspense.’
‘Lady Anne Stepney.’
‘A friend of yours?’
‘I sat next to her once at dinner years ago. She made the same remark about the French Revolution.’
‘Did she, indeed,’ said Barnby, perhaps a shade piqued at this apparently correct guess. ‘Did you follow up those liberal convictions at the time?’
‘On the contrary. I doubt if she would even remember my name. Her sister married Charles Stringham, whom I’ve sometimes talked of. They are getting a divorce, so I saw in the paper.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Barnby. ‘I read about it too. Stringham was the Great Industrialist’s secretary at one moment, wasn’t he? I met him with Baby and liked him. He has that very decorative mother, Mrs. Foxe, whom really I wouldn’t——’
He became silent; then returned to the subject of the girl.
‘Her parents are called Bridgnorth?’
‘That’s it.’
‘One starts these things,’ Barnby said, ‘and then the question arises: how is one to continue them? Before you know where you are, you are thoroughly entangled. That is what we all have to remember.’
‘We do, indeed.’
Lying in bed in the Templers’ house, feeling more than a little unwilling to rise into a chilly world, I thought of these words of Barnby’s. There could be no doubt that I was now, as he had said, ‘thoroughly entangled’.
Everyone came down late to breakfast that morning. Mona was in a decidedly bad temper. Her irritation was perhaps due to an inner awareness that a love affair was in the air, the precise location of which she was unable to identify; for I was fairly certain that neither of the Templers guessed anything was ‘on’ between Jean and myself. They seemed, indeed, fully occupied by the discord of their own relationship. As it happened, I found no opportunity to be alone with Jean. She seemed almost deliberately to arrange that we should always be chaperoned by one of the other two. She would once more have appeared as calm, distant, unknown to me, as when first seen, had she not twice smiled submissively, almost shyly, when our eyes met.