The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell [39]
We had no car, so reached the Morelands’ by train.
‘It must be generations since anyone but highbrows lived in this cottage,’ said Moreland, when we arrived there. ‘I imagine most of the agricultural labourers round here commute from London.’
‘Baby Wentworth had it at one moment,’ said Matilda, a little maliciously. ‘She hated it and moved out almost at once.’
‘I’ve installed a piano in the studio,’ said Moreland. ‘I get some work done when I’m not feeling too much like hell, which hasn’t been often, lately.’
The cottage was a small, redbrick, oak-beamed affair, of some antiquity, though much restored, with a studio-room built out at the back. That was where Moreland had put his piano. He was not looking particularly well. When they were first married, Matilda had cleaned him up considerably. Now, his dark-blue suit – Moreland never made any concession to the sartorial conception of ‘country clothes’ – looked as if he had spent a restless night wearing it in bed He had not shaved.
‘What’s been wrong?’
‘That lung of mine has been rather a bore.’
‘What are you working on?’
‘My ballet.’
‘How is it going?’
‘Stuck.’
‘It’s impossible to write with Hitler about.’
‘Utterly.’
He was in low spirits. His tangled, uncut hair emphasised the look his face sometimes assumed of belonging to a fractious, disappointed child. Matilda, on the other hand, so far from being depressed, as Isobel had represented her, now seemed lively and restless. She was wearing trousers that revealed each bone of her angular figure. Her greenish eyes, rather too large mouth, for some reason always made one think she would make a more powerful, more talented actress than her stage capabilities in fact justified. These immediately noticeable features, arresting rather than beautiful, also suggested, in some indirect manner, her practical abilities, her gift for organisation. Matilda’s present exhilaration might be explained, I thought, by the fact that these abilities were put to more use now than when the Morelands had lived in London. There, except late at night, or when they lay in bed late in the morning, they were rarely to be found in their flat. Here, they must be alone together most of the day, although no doubt much of the time Moreland was shut away in the studio at work. Matilda, when not acting, had sometimes complained in London that time hung on her hands, even though she was – or had formerly been to some extent – a kind of agent for Moreland, arranging much of his professional life, advising as to what jobs he accepted, what interviews he gave, when he must be left in peace. All the same, as I have said, it was chiefly matters outside the musical world that caused him pain and grief. In the business sphere, Matilda no doubt took a burden from him; in his musical life as such, he may sometimes even have resented too much interference. Since the baby had died, they had had no other child.
‘You are eating sausages tonight,’ said Matilda, ‘and half-a-crown Barbera. As you know, I’m not a great cook. However, you’ll have a square meal tomorrow, as we’re going over to Stourwater for dinner.’
‘Can you bear it?’ said Moreland. ‘I’m not sure I can.’
‘Do cheer up, darling,’ said Matilda. ‘You know you’ll like it when we get there.’
‘Not so sure.’
‘Anyway, it’s got to be faced.’
Things had certainly changed. Formerly, Moreland had been the one who liked going to parties, staying up late, drinking a lot; Matilda, bored by people, especially some of Moreland