The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [267]
he said, and Errol stood up. He cleared his throat and said:
‘Pursewarden didn’t appear because he had ‘flu.’ Mountolive thought this kind of loyalty a good sign. ‘No’ he said smiling,
‘I know he is giving you trouble. I’m going to see he stops it.’
Errol looked at him with delighted surprise. ‘Thank you, sir.’
Mountolive walked him slowly to the house. ‘I also want to dine Maskelyne. Tomorrow night, if convenient.’
Errol nodded slowly. ‘He was at the airport, sir.’ ‘I didn’t notice. Please get my secretary to make out a card for tomorrow night. But ring him first and tell him if it is inconvenient to let me know. For eight-fifteen, black tie.’
‘I will, sir.’
‘I want particularly to talk to him as we are taking up some new dispositions and I want his co-operation. He is a brilliant officer, I have been told.’
Errol looked doubtful. ‘He has had some rather fierce exchanges with Pursewarden. Indeed, this last week he has more or less besieged the Embassy. He is clever, but … somewhat hard-headed?’ Errol was tentative, appeared unwilling to go too far.
‘Well’ said Mountolive, ‘let me talk to him and see for myself. I think the new arrangement will suit everyone, even Master Pursewarden.’
They said goodnight.
The next day was full of familiar routines for Mountolive, but conducted, so to speak, from a new angle — the unfamiliar angle of a position which brought people immediately to their feet. It was exciting and also disturbing; even up to the rank of councillor he had managed to have a comfortably-based relationship with the junior staff at every level. Even the hulking Marines who staffed the section of Chancery Guards were friendly and equable towards him in the happiest of colloquial manners. Now they shrank into postures of reserve, almost of self-defence. These
were the bitter fruits of power, he reflected, accepting his new role with resignation.
However, the opening moves were smoothly played; and even his staff party of the evening went off so well that people seemed reluctant to leave. He was late in changing for his dinner-party and Maskelyne had already been shown into the anodyne drawing-room when he finally appeared, bathed and changed. ‘Ah, Mount-olive!’ said the soldier, standing up and extending his hand with a dry expressionless calm. ‘I have been waiting for your arrival with some anxiety.’ Mountolive felt a sudden sting of pique after all the deference shown to him during the day to be left thus untitled by this personage. (‘Heavens’ he thought, ‘am I really a provincial at heart?’)
‘My dear Brigadier,’ his opening remarks carried a small but perceptible coolness as a result. Perhaps the soldier simply wished to make it clear that he was a War Office body, and not a Foreign Office one? It was a clumsy way to do it. Nevertheless, and some-what to his own annoyance, Mountolive felt himself rather drawn to this lean and solitary-look ing figure with its tired eyes and lustreless voice. His ugliness had a certain determined elegance. His ancient dinner-clothes were not very carefully pressed and brushed, but the quality of the material and cut were both ex-cellent. Maskelyne sipped his drink slowly and calmly, lowering his greyhound’s muzzle towards his glass circumspectly. He scrutinized Mountolive with the utmost coolness. They ex-changed the formal politeness of host and guest for a while, and somewhat to his own annoyance, Mountolive found himself liking him despite the dry precarious manner. He suddenly seemed to see in him one who, like himself, had hesitated to ascribe any particular meaning to life.
The presence of servants excluded any but the most general exchanges during the dinner they shared, seated out upon the lawn, and Maskelyne seemed content to bide his time. Only once the name of Pursewarden came up and he said with his offhand air: ‘Yes. I hardly know him, of course, except offi-cially. The odd thing is that his father — surely the name is too uncommon for me to be wrong? — his father was in my company during the war. He picked up an M.C. Indeed, I actually com-posed the citation which put him up for it: and of course, I had the