The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell [73]
I was not sure that I saw the point myself. It presumably turned on whether or not there was a war – Sir Magnus thinking there would be, Widmerpool undecided how to act if there were. All that was clear was that Duport had been put into an unenviable position.
‘So you see,’ he said, ‘Widmerpool isn’t a great favourite with me at the moment.’
‘You were going to tell me why you left South America.’
‘I was,’ said Duport, speaking as if it were a relief to abandon the subject of Widmerpool and chromite. ‘Since you know Peter Templer, did you ever meet another ex-brother-in-law of mine, Jimmy Stripling, who was married to Peter’s other sister, Babs? He used to have quite a name as a racing driver.’
‘Stripling was at the Templers’ when I stayed there years ago. I met him once since.’
‘Jimmy and Babs got a divorce. Jimmy – who has always been pretty cracked in some ways – took up with a strange lady called Mrs Erdleigh, who tells fortunes. Incidentally, she sometimes came to the Bellevue to see your uncle. I remembered her. Looks as if she kept a high-class knocking-shop. There is another queer fish living at the Bellevue – old boy with a beard. He and Mrs Erdleigh and your late lamented uncle used sometimes to have tea together.’
‘I know about Mrs Erdleigh – and Dr Trelawney too.’
‘You do? Trelawney tried to bring off a touch last time we talked. I explained I was as broke as himself. No ill feeling. That’s beside the point. Also the fact that Myra Erdleigh milked Jimmy Stripling to quite a tune. All I want to know is: what did you think of Jimmy when you met him?’
‘Pretty awful – but I never knew him well. He may be all right.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ said Duport. ‘He is awful. Couldn’t be worse. Kept out of the war himself and ran away with Babs when her husband was at the front. Double-dealing, stingy, conceited, bad tempered, half cracked. I went to him to try and get a bit of help during my last pre-South American débâcle. Not on your life. Nothing doing with Jimmy. I might have starved in the gutter for all Jimmy cared. Now, you say you knew Jean, my ex-wife?’
‘She was at Peter’s Maidenhead house once when I went there.’
‘Nice girl, didn’t you think?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Reasonably attractive?’
‘I’d certainly have said so.’
‘Wouldn’t have any difficulty in getting hold of the right sort of chap?’
‘It wouldn’t be polite to express doubt on that point, since she married you.’
I did not manage to impart all the jocularity fittingly required to give lively savour to this comment. Duport, in any case, brushed it aside as irrelevant.
‘Leave me out of it by all means,’ he said. ‘Just speaking in general, would you think Jean would have any difficulty in getting hold of a decent sort of chap? Yes or no.’
‘No.’
‘Neither should I,’ said Duport. ‘But the fact remains that she slept with Jimmy Stripling.’
I made some suitable acknowledgment, tempered, I hoped, by polite surprise. I well remembered the frightful moment when Jean herself had first informed me, quite gratuitously, of having undergone the experience to which Duport referred. I could recall even now how painful that information had been at the time, as one might remember a physical accident long passed. The matter no longer worried me, primarily because I no longer loved Jean, also because the whole Stripling question had, so to speak, been resolved between Jean and myself at the time. All the same, the incident had been a disagreeable one. That had to be admitted. One does not want to dwell on some racking visit to the dentist, however many years have rolled on since that day. Perhaps I would have preferred to have remained even then unreminded of Jean and Stripling. However, present recital could in no way affect the past. That was history.
‘Can you beat it?’
I acknowledged inability to offer a parallel instance.
‘Well, I can,’ said Duport. ‘I don’t set up as behaving particularly well myself, but, when it comes to behaving badly, women can give you a point or two every time. I just tell you about Jimmy Stripling by the way. He is not the cream of the jest. As I mentioned before, I thought things would be easier if Jean and I joined up again. I found I was wrong.