The Acceptance World - Anthony Powell [5]
However, when Uncle Giles’s cards were examined, their secrets did not appear to be anything like so ominous as might have been feared. There was a good deal of opposition to his ‘plans’, perhaps not surprisingly; also, it was true, much gossip, even some calumny surrounded him.
‘Don’t forget you have Saturn in the Twelfth House,’ Mrs. Erdleigh remarked in an aside. ‘Secret enemies.’
As against these threatening possibilities, someone was going to give him a present, probably money; a small sum, but acceptable. It looked as if this gift might come from a woman. Uncle Giles, whose cheeks had become furrowed at the thought of all the gossip and calumny, cheered up a little at this. He was told he had a good friend in a woman—possibly the one who was to make him a present—the Queen of Hearts, in fact. This, too, Uncle Giles accepted willingly enough.
‘That was the marriage card that turned up, wasn’t it?’ he asked at one point.
‘Could be.’
‘Not necessarily?’
‘Other influences must be taken into consideration.’
Neither of them commented on this matter, though their words evidently had regard to a question already reconnoitred in the past. For a moment or two there was perhaps a faint sense of additional tension. Then the cards were collected and shuffled again.
‘Now let’s hear about him,’ said Uncle Giles.
He spoke more with relief that his own ordeal was over, rather than because he was seriously expressing any burning interest in my own fate.
‘I expect he wants to hear about love,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh, beginning to titter to herself again.
Uncle Giles, to show general agreement with this supposition, grunted a disapproving laugh. I attempted some formal denial, although it was perfectly true that the thought was uppermost in my mind. The situation in that quarter was at the moment confused. In fact, so far as ‘love’ was concerned, I had been living for some years past in a rather makeshift manner. This was not because I felt the matter to be of little interest, like a man who hardly cares what he eats provided hunger is satisfied, or one prepared to discuss painting, should the subject arise, though never tempted to enter a picture gallery. On the contrary, my interest in love was keen enough, but the thing itself seemed not particularly simple to come by. In that direction, other people appeared more easily satisfied than myself. That at least was how it seemed to me. And yet, in spite of some show of picking and choosing, my experiences, on subsequent examination, were certainly no more admirable than those to which neither Templer nor Barnby, for example, would have given a second thought; they were merely fewer in number. I hoped the cards would reveal nothing too humiliating to my own self-esteem.
‘There is a link between us,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh, as she set out the little heaps. ‘At present I cannot see what it is—but there is a link.’
This supposed connexion evidently puzzled her. ‘You are musical?’
‘No.’
‘Then you write—I think you have written a book?’
‘Yes.’
‘You live between two worlds,’ she said. ‘Perhaps even more than two worlds. You cannot always surmount your feelings.’
I could think of no possible reply to this indictment. ‘You are thought cold, but you possess deep affections, sometimes for people worthless in themselves. Often you are at odds with those who might help you. You like women, and they like you, but you often find the company of men more amusing. You expect too much, and yet you are also too resigned. You must try to understand life.’
Somewhat awed by this searching, even severe analysis, I promised I would do better in future.
‘People can only be themselves,’ she said. ‘If they possessed the qualities you desire in them, they would be different people.”
‘That is what I should like them to be.’
‘Sometimes you are too serious, sometimes not serious enough.’
‘So I have been told.’
‘You must make a greater effort in life.