The Soldier's Art - Anthony Powell [43]
“You and Priscilla are dining together?”
“Not exactly. You remember Bijou Ardglass, that gorgeous mannequin, one-time girl-friend of Prince Theodoric? I ran into her yesterday on my way to Combined Ops. She’s driving for the Belgians or Poles, one of the Allied contingents – an odd female organisation run by Lady McReith, whom Bijou was full of stories about. Bijou asked me to a small party she is giving for her fortieth birthday, about half-a-dozen old friends at the Madrid.”
“Bijou Ardglass’s fortieth birthday.”
“Makes you think.”
“I only knew her by sight, but even so – and Priscilla will be there?”
“Bijou found her at Aunt Molly’s. Of course Priscilla told Bijou I was on the East Coast. I was when we last exchanged letters. I explained to Bijou I’d just been posted to London at short notice – which was quite true – and hadn’t managed to get together with Priscilla yet.”
“You haven’t called up Priscilla at the Jeavonses’?”
“I thought it would be best if we met at Bijou’s party – without Priscilla knowing I was going to be there. I have a reason for that. The Madrid was the place we celebrated our engagement. The Madrid might also be the place where we straightened things out.”
That was just like Lovell. Everything had to be staged. Perhaps he was right, and everything does have to be staged. That is a system that can at least be argued as the best. At any rate, people must run their lives on their own terms.
“I mean it’s worth making an effort to patch things up,” he said, “don’t you think, Nick?”
He asked the question as if he had no idea what the answer would be, possibly even expecting a negative rather than affirmative one.
“Yes, of course – every possible effort.”
“You can imagine what all this is like going on in one’s head, round and round for ever, while you’re trying to sort out a lot of bloody stuff about radios and landing-craft. For instance, if she goes off with Stevens, think of all the negotiations about Caroline, all that kind of thing.”
“Chips – Hugh Moreland has appeared at the door on the other side of the room. Is there anything else you want to say that’s urgent?”
“Nothing. I’ve got it all off my chest now. That was what I needed. You understand?”
“Of course.”
“The point is, you agree it’s worth taking trouble to get on an even keel again?”
“Can’t say it too strongly.”
Lovell nodded several times.
“And you’ll be my executor?”
“Honoured.”
“I’ll write to the solicitors then. Marvellous to have got that fixed. Hallo, Hugh, how are you? Ages since we met.”
Dressed in his familiar old blue suit, looking more than ever as if he made a practice of sleeping in it, dark grey shirt and crimson tie, Moreland, hatless, seemed an improbable survival from pre-war life. He was flushed and breathing rather hard. This gave the impression of poorish health. His face, his whole person, was thinner. The flush increased when he recognised Lovell, who must at once have recalled thoughts of Priscilla. Even after this redness had died down, a certain discoloration of the skin remained, increasing the suggestion that Moreland was not well. There was a moment of awkwardness, in spite of Lovell’s immediate display of satisfaction that they should have met again. This was chiefly because Moreland seemed unwilling to commit himself by sitting at our table; an old habit of his, one of those characteristic postponements of action for which he was always laughing at himself, like his constitutional inability in all circumstances to decide from a menu what he wanted to eat.
“I shall be taken for a spy if I sit with you both,” he said. “Somehow I never expected you’d really be wearing uniform, Nick, even though I knew you were in the army. I must tell you of rather a menacing thing that happened the other day. Norman Chandler appeared on my doorstep to hear the latest musical gossip. He’s also become an officer, and we went off to get some lunch at Foppa’s, where neither of us had been since the beginning of the war. The downstairs room was shut, because the window had been broken by a bomb, so we went upstairs, where the club used to be. There we found a couple of seedy-looking characters who said the restaurant was closed. We asked where Foppa was to be found. They said they didn