The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell [45]
‘Is Kenneth Widmerpool staying in the house?’ I asked, thinking of that incident.
‘Just driving over after dinner,’ said Templer. ‘Some sort of business to clear up. I’m involved to a small extent, because it’s about my ex-brother-in-law, Bob Duport. Between you and me, I think I’ve been asked partly because Magnus wants me to know what is going on for his own purposes.’
‘What are his own purposes?’
‘I don’t know for certain. Perhaps he wants this particular scheme given a little discreet publicity.’
We had drawn up by the wing of the castle that was used for residence. The girls and Moreland had left the car by then, and were making their way up the steps to the front door. Templer had paused for a moment to fiddle with one of the knobs of the dashboard which for some reason seemed to dissatisfy him. This seemed a good opportunity for learning privately what had happened to Jean; for although by then I no longer thought about her, there is always a morbid interest in following the subsequent career of a woman with whom one has once been in love. That I should have been in this position vis-à-vis his sister, Templer himself, I felt pretty sure, had no idea.
‘Duport is an ex-brother-in-law now?’
‘Jean finally got a divorce from him. They lived apart for quite a time when Bob was running round with Bijou Ardglass. Then they joined up again and went to South America together. However, it didn’t last. You never really knew Jean, did you?’
‘I met her when I stayed with your family years ago-a few times later. What’s happened to her now?’
‘She married a South American – an army officer.’
‘And Bob Duport?’
‘There is some question of his going to Turkey for Magnus. Kenneth has been fixing it.’
‘On business?’
‘Magnus is interested in chromite.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Used for hardening steel.’
By that time we were half-way up the steps, at the top of which the others were waiting.
‘Shall I lead the way?’ said Templer. ‘Magnus was in the Bailiff’s Room when last seen.’
If the outside of Stourwater made a less favourable impression than when I had come there with the Walpole-Wilsons, improvements within were undeniable. Ten, years before, the exuberance of the armour, tapestries, pictures, china, furniture, had been altogether too much for the austere aesthetic ideals to which I then subscribed. Time had no doubt modified the uninstructed severity of my own early twenties. Less ascetic, intellectually speaking, more corrupt, perhaps, I could now recognise that individuals live in different ways. They must be taken as they come, Sir Magnus Donners, everyone else. If Sir Magnus liked to make his house like a museum, that was his affair; one must treat it as a museum. In any case, there could be no doubt that protégés like Moreland and Barnby, mistresses like Baby Wentworth and Matilda, had played their part in the castle’s redecoration. Certainly it was now arranged in a manner more in keeping with contemporary fashion. Sir Magnus had cleared out some of the more cumbersome of his belongings, although much remained that was unviable enough.
‘It’s all rather wonderful, Nick, isn’t it?’ said Matilda in a whisper, as we passed through the main hall. ‘Whatever Hugh may say about the Donners taste. How would you like to own it all?’
‘How would you?’
‘I nearly did.’
I laughed, surprised by her directness, always attractive in women. Entering a panelled gallery, Templer opened a door and indicated we were to go in. The room overlooked the garden. Between bookshelves hung drawings: Conder, Steer, John, a couple of Sickerts. Barnby’s nude of Norma, the waitress from Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant, was beside the fireplace, above which stood a florid china statuette of Cupid Chastised. Just as the last of our party crossed the threshold, one of the bookcases on the far side of the room swung forward, revealing itself as an additional door covered with the spines of dummy volumes, through which Sir Magnus Donners himself appeared to greet his guests at exactly the same moment. I wondered whether he had been watching at a peephole. It was like the stage entrance of a famous actor, the conscious modesty of which is designed, by its absolute ease and lack of emphasis, both to prevent the performance from being disturbed at some anti-climax of the play by too deafening a round of applause, at the same time to confirm