The Acceptance World - Anthony Powell [31]
‘Then we are providing some intelligent company for him,’ said Mona. ‘Your ex-brother-in-law isn’t likely to come out with anything very sparkling in the way of conversation—unless he has changed a lot since we went with him to Wimbledon.’
‘What do you expect at Wimbledon?’ said Templer. ‘To sit in the centre court listening to a flow of epigrams about foot-faults and forehand drives? Still, I see what you mean.’
I remembered Jimmy Stripling chiefly on account of various practical jokes in which he had been concerned when, as a boy, I had stayed with the Templers. In this horseplay he had usually had the worst of it. He remained in my memory as a big, gruff, bad-tempered fellow, full of guilty feelings about having taken no part in the war. I had not much cared for him. I wondered how he would get on with Quiggin, who could be crushing to people he disliked. However, one of the traits possessed by Quiggin in common with his new employer was a willingness to go almost anywhere where a free meal was on offer; and this realistic approach to social life implied, inevitably, if not toleration of other people, at least a certain rough and ready technique for dealing with all sorts. I could not imagine why Mona was so anxious to see Quiggin again. At that time I failed entirely to grasp the extent to which in her eyes Quiggin represented high romance.
‘What happened to Babs when she parted from Jimmy Stripling?’
‘Married a lord,’ said Templer. ‘The family is going up in the world. But I expect she still thinks about Jimmy. After all, you couldn’t easily forget a man with breath like his.’
Some interruption changed the subject before I was able to ask the name of Babs’s third husband. Mona went to tell the servants that there would be an additional guest. Templer followed her to look for more cigarettes. For a moment Jean and I were left alone together. I slipped my hand under her arm. She pressed down upon it, giving me a sense of being infinitely near to her; an assurance that all would be well. There is always a real and an imaginary person you are in love with; sometimes you love one best, sometimes the other. At that moment it was the real one I loved. We had scarcely time to separate and begin a formal conversation when Mona returned to the room.
There the four of us remained until the sound came of a car churning up snow before the front door. This was Quiggin’s arrival. Being, in a way, so largely responsible for his presence at the Templers’ house, I was relieved to observe, when he entered the room, that he had cleaned himself up a bit since the previous evening. Now he was wearing a suit of cruelly blue cloth and a green knitted tie. From the start it was evident that he intended to make himself agreeable. His sharp little eyes darted round the walls, taking in the character of his hosts and their house.
‘I see you have an Isbister in the hall,’ he said, dryly.
The harsh inflexion of his voice made it possible to accept this comment as a compliment, or, alternatively, a shared joke. Templer at once took the words in the latter sense.
‘Couldn’t get rid of it,’ he said. ‘I suppose you don’t know anybody who would make an offer? An upset price, of course. Now’s the moment.’
‘I’ll look about,’ said Quiggin. ‘Isbister was a typical artist- business man produced by a decaying society, don’t you think? As a matter of fact Nicholas and I have got to have a talk about Isbister in the near future.’
He grinned at me. I hoped he was not going to raise the whole question of St. John Clarke’s introduction there and then. His tone might have meant anything or nothing, so far as his offer of help was concerned. Perhaps he really intended to suggest that he would try to sell the picture for Templer; and get a rake-off. His eyes continued to stray over the very indifferent nineteenth-century seascapes that covered the walls; hung together in patches as if put up hurriedly when the place was first occupied. No doubt that was exactly what had happened to them. In the Templers