‘“A lot of awful men”?’ he said, speaking in a voice of old-time melodrama. ‘What do you mean, Matilda? I offered you a bite with Max and me, if your boy friend did not arrive. That was only because you said he was so forgetful, and might easily think he had made a date for the day after tomorrow. I never heard such ingratitude.’
Matilda put her arm round Chandler’s waist and attempted to smoothe his hair with her brush.
‘Oh, I didn’t mean you, darling, of course I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t call you a man. I love you much too much. I mean an awful man who telephoned – and then another awful man who left a note. How could anyone call you awful, Norman, darling?’
‘Oh, I don’t know so much about that,’ said Chandler, now abandoning the consciously sinister, masculine tones of Bosola, and returning to his more familiar chorus-boy drawl. ‘I’m not always adored as much as you might think from looking at me. I don’t quite know why that is.’
He put his head on one side, forefinger against cheek, transforming himself to some character of ballet, perhaps the Faun from L’Après-midi.
‘You are adored by me,’ said Matilda, kissing him twice before throwing down the hairbrush on the dressing-table. ‘But I really must put a few clothes on.’
Chandler broke away from her, executing a series of little leaps in the air, although there was not much room for these entrechats. He whizzed round several times, collapsing at last upon his stool.
‘Bravo, bravo,’ said Matilda, clapping her hands. ‘You will rival Nijinsky yet, Norman, my sweetie.’
‘Be careful,’ said Chandler. ‘Your boy friend will be jealous. I can see him working himself up. He can be very violent when roused.’
Moreland had watched this display of high spirits with enjoyment, except when talk had been of other men taking out Matilda, when his face had clouded. Chandler had probably noticed that. So far from being jealous of Chandler, which would certainly have been absurd in the circumstances, Moreland seemed to welcome these antics as relaxing tension between himself and Matilda. He became more composed in manner. Paradoxically enough, something happened a moment later which paid an obvious tribute to Chandler’s status as a ladies’ man, however little regarded in that rôle by Moreland and the world at large.
‘I will be very quick now,’ said Matilda, ‘and then we will go. I am dying for a bite.’
She retired behind a small screen calculated to heighten rather than diminish the dramatic effect of her toilet, since her long angular body was scarcely at all concealed, and, in any case, she continually reappeared on the floor of the room to rescue garments belonging to her which lay about there. The scene was a little like those depicted in French eighteenth-century engravings where propriety is archly threatened in the presence of an amorous abbé or two – powdered hair would have suited Matilda, I thought; Moreland, perhaps, too. However, the picture’s static form was interrupted by the sound of some commotion in the passage which caused Chandler to stroll across the room and stand by the half-open door. Some people were passing who must have recognised him, because he suddenly said: ‘Why, hullo, Mrs Foxe,’ in a tone rather different from that used by him a moment before; a friendly tone, but one at the same time faintly deferential, possibly even a shade embarrassed. There was the sudden suggestion that Chandler was on his best behaviour.
‘We were looking for you,’ said a woman’s voice, speaking almost appealingly, yet still with a note of command in it. ‘We thought you would not mind if we came behind the scenes to see you. Such an adventure for us, you know. In fact we even wondered if there was any chance of persuading you to come to supper with us.’
The people in the passage could not be seen, but this was undoubtedly Stringham’s mother. She introduced Chandler to the persons with her, but the names were inaudible.
‘It would be so nice if you could come,’ she said, quite humbly now. ‘Your performance was wonderful. We adored it.’
Chandler had left the dressing-room now and was some way up the passage, but his voice could still be heard.
‘It is terribly sweet of you, Mrs Foxe,’ he said, with some hesitation. ‘It would have been quite lovely. But as a matter of fact I was supposed to be meeting an old friend this evening.’
He seemed undecided whether or not to accept the invitation, to have lost suddenly all the animation he had been showing in the dressing-room a minute or two before. Moreland and Matilda had stopped talking and had also begun to listen, evidently with great enjoyment, to what was taking place outside.
‘Oh, but if he is an old friend,’ said Mrs Foxe, who seemed to make no doubt whatever of the sex of Chandler’s companion for dinner, ‘surely he might join us too. It would be so nice. What is his name?’
Although she was almost begging Chandler to accept her invitation, there was also in her voice the imperious note of the beauty of her younger days, the rich woman, well known in the world and used to being obeyed.
‘Max Pilgrim.’
Chandler’s voice, no less than Mrs Foxe’s, suggested conflicting undertones of feeling: gratification at being so keenly desired as a guest; deference, in spite of himself, for the air of luxury and high living that Mrs Foxe bestowed about her; determination not to be jockeyed out of either his gaminerie or accustomed manner of ordering his own life by Mrs Foxe or anyone else.
‘Not the Max Pilgrim?’
‘He is at the Café de Madrid now. He sings there.’
‘But, of course. “I want to dazzle Lady Sybil . . . ” What a funny song that one is. Does he mean it to be about Sybil Huntercombe, do you think? It is so like her. We must certainly have Mr Pilgrim too. But will he come? He has probably planned something much more amusing. Oh, I do hope he will.’
‘I think——’
‘But how wonderful, if he would. Certainly you must ask him. Do telephone to him at once and beg him to join us.’
The exact words of Chandler’s reply could not be heard, but there could be little doubt that he had been persuaded. Perhaps he was afraid of Max Pilgrim’s annoyance if the supper party had been refused on behalf of both of them. In dealing with Mrs Foxe, Chandler seemed deprived, if only temporarily, of some of his effervescence of spirit. It looked as if he might be made her prisoner. This was an unguessed aspect of Mrs Foxe’s life, a new departure in her career of domination. The party moved off, bearing Chandler with them; their voices died away as they reached the end of the passage. Moreland and Matilda continued to laugh. I asked what it was all about.
‘Norman’s grand lady,’ said Matilda. ‘She is someone called Mrs Foxe. Very smart. She sits on all sorts of committees and she met Norman a week or two ago at some charity performance. It was love at first sight.’
‘You don’t mean they are having an affair?’
‘No, no, of course not,’ said Moreland, speaking as if he were quite shocked at the notion, ‘how absurd to suggest such a thing. You can have a passion for someone without having an affair with them. That is one of the things no one seems able to understand these days.’
‘What is it then?’
‘Just one of those fascinating mutual attractions between improbable people that take place from time to time. I should like to write a ballet round it.’
‘Norman is interested too? He sounded a bit unwilling to go out to supper.’
‘Perhaps not interested in the sense you mean,’ said Moreland, ‘but everyone likes being fallen in love with. People who pretend they don’t are always the ones, beyond all others, to wring the last drop of pleasure – usually sadistic pleasure – out of it. Besides, Norman has begun to live rather a Ritzy life with her, he tells me. Some people like that too.’
‘I think Norman is quite keen,’ said Matilda, adding some final touches to her face that made completion of her toilet seem promising. ‘Did you hear the way he was talking? Not at all like himself. I think the only thing that holds him back is fear of old friends like Max Pilgrim laughing.’
‘Norma
n obviously represents the physical type of the future,’ Moreland said, abandoning, as he so often did, the particular aspect of the matter under discussion in favour of a more general aesthetic bearing. ‘The great artists have always decided beforehand what form looks are to take in the world, and Norman is pure Picasso – one of those attenuated, androgynous mountebanks of the Blue Period, who haven’t had a meal for weeks.’
‘Come along, sweetie, and don’t talk so much,’ said Matilda, closing her bag and getting up from the dressing-table. ‘If we don’t have something to eat pretty soon we shall become attenuated, androgynous mountebanks ourselves.’
No phrase could have better described what she looked like. She had emerged at last in a purple satin dress and sequin mittens, the ultimate effect almost more exotic than if she had remained in the costume of the play. I found her decidedly impressive. It was evident from the manner in which she had spoken of Mrs Foxe that she was on easy terms with a world which Moreland, in principle, disliked, indeed entered only for professional purposes. A wife who could handle that side of his life would undoubtedly be an advantage to him. Conversationally, too, Matilda was equipped to meet him on his own ground. Moreland’s talk when pursuing a girl varied little, if at all, from his conversation at any other time. Some women found this too severe an intellectual burden; others were flattered, even when incapable of keeping pace. With Matilda, this level of dialogue seemed just what was required. She was a clever girl, with a good all-round knowledge of the arts: one who liked being treated as a serious person. This was apparent by the time we reached the restaurant, where Moreland at once began to discuss the play.
‘“The lusty spring smells well; but drooping autumn tastes well,”’ he said. ‘How like:
Pauvre automne
Meurs en blancheur et en richesse
De neige et de fruits mûrs
or: Je suis soumis au Chef du Signe de l’Automne
Partant j’aime les fruits je déteste les fleurs
I was thinking the other day one might make an anthology of the banker poets . . . Guillaume Apollinaire . . . T. S. Eliot . . . Robert W. Service . . .’
He put down the menu which he had been studying.
‘A wonderful idea,’ said Matilda, who had been adding magenta to her lips to emphasise the whiteness of her skin or offset the colour of her dress, ‘but first of all make up your mind what you are going to eat. I have already decided on Sole Bonne Femme, but I know we shall have to start all over again when the waiter comes.’
Clearly she possessed a will of her own, and had already learnt something of Moreland’s habits; for example, that persuading him to choose a dish at a restaurant was a protracted affair. When faced with a menu Moreland’s first thought was always to begin some lengthy discussion that postponed indefinitely the need to make a decision about food.
‘What do you think I should like?’ he said.
‘Oeufs Meyerbeer,’ she said. ‘You always enjoy them.’
Moreland took up the menu again irresolutely.
‘What do you think?’ he said. ‘I hate being hurried about any of my appetites. What are you going to eat, Nick? I am afraid you may order something that will make me regret my own choice. You have done that in the past. It is very disloyal of you. You know I think Gossage – in as much as he possesses any sexual feelings at all – derives a certain vicarious satisfaction from contemplating the loves of Norman Chandler and Mrs Foxe. The situation manages to embrace within one circumference Gossage’s taste for rich ladies and good-looking young men – together with a faint spice of musical background.’
‘Gossage says there is talk of putting on Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great,’ said Matilda.
Moreland once again abandoned the menu.
‘“Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia,”’ he cried. ‘“What, can ye draw but twenty miles a day?” That is rather what I feel about the newspaper criticism of Gossage and Maclintick. I should like them to drag me to concerts, as the kings drew Tamerlaine, in a triumphal coach. They would be far better employed doing that than pouring out all that stuff for their respective periodicals every week. Perhaps that is not fair to Maclintick. It is certainly true of Gossage.’
‘I am sure Maclintick would draw you to the Queen’s Hall in a rickshaw if you asked him,’ said Matilda. ‘He admires you so much.’
She turned to the waiter, ordered whatever she and I had agreed to eat, and Oeufs Meyerbeer for Moreland, who, still unable to come to a decision about food, accepted her ruling on this matter without dissent.
‘I think there is just a chance I might be cast for Zenocrate,’ she said, ‘if they did ever do Tamburlaine. In any case, the show wouldn’t be coming on for ages.’
‘I wouldn’t limit it to Maclintick and Gossage,’ Moreland said. ‘I should like to be dragged along by all the music critics, arranged in order of height, tallest in front, midgets at the back. That will give you some clue to what the procession would look like. I have always been interested in Tamerlaine. I found myself thinking of him the other day as part of that cruel, parched, Central Asian feeling one gets hearing Prince Igor. I am sure it was his bad leg that made him such a nuisance.’
‘You may be interested in Tamerlaine, darling,’ said Matilda, ‘but you are not in the least interested in my career.’
‘Oh, Matty, I am. I’m sorry. I am really. I want you to be the Duse of our time.’
He took her hand.
‘I don’t believe you, you old brute.’
In spite of saying that she smiled, and did not seem seriously annoyed. On the whole they appeared to understand one another pretty well. When the moment came to pay the bill, I flicked a note across to Moreland to cover my share. Matilda at once took charge of this, at the same extracting another note from Moreland himself – always a great fumbler with money. These she handed over with a request for change. When the waiter returned with some money on a plate, she apportioned the silver equitably between Moreland and myself, leaving the correct tip; a series of operations that would have presented immense problems of manipulation to Moreland. All this enterprise made her appear to possess ideal, even miraculous, qualifications for becoming his wife. They were, indeed, married some months later. The ceremony took place in a registry office, almost secretly, because Moreland hated fuss. Not long after, perhaps a year, almost equally unexpectedly, I found myself married too; married to Isobel Tolland. Life – the sort of life Moreland and I used to live in those days – all became rather changed.
2
SUNDAY LUNCHEON AT Katherine, Lady Warminster’s, never, as it were, specially dedicated to meetings of the family, had in the course of time grown into an occasion when, at fairly regular intervals, several – sometimes too many – of the Tollands were collected together. Now and then more distant relations were present, once in a way a friend; but on the whole immediate Tollands predominated. Everyone expected to meet their ‘in-laws’; and, among other characteristics, these parties provided, at least superficially, a kind of parade of different approaches to marriage. There was in common a certain sense of couples being on their best behaviour in Lady Warminster’s presence, but, in spite of that limited uniformity, routine at Hyde Park Gardens emphasised any individuality of matrimonial technique. Blanche, Robert, Hugo, and Priscilla Tolland still lived under the same roof as their step-mother, so that the two girls attended the meal more often than not; Robert, his social life always tempered with secrecy, was intermittently present; while Hugo, still tenuously keeping university terms accentuated by violent junctures when to be ‘sent down’ seemed unavoidable, could be seen there only during the vacation. This accommodation in the house of several younger members of the family had not resulted in much outward gaiety of atmosphere. On the contrary, the note struck as one entered the hall and ascended the staircase was quiet, almost despondent. The lack of exhilaration confirmed a favourite proposition of Moreland’s as to the sadness of youth.
‘I myself look forward ceasele
ssly to the irresponsibility of middle-age,’ he was fond of stating.
It may, indeed, have been true that ‘the children’, rather than Lady Warminster herself, were to blame for this distinct air of melancholy. Certainly the environment was very different from the informality, the almost calculated disorder, surrounding the Jeavonses in South Kensington, a household I had scarcely visited since my marriage. Ted Jeavons’s health had been even worse than usual; while Molly had given out that she was much occupied with reorganisation of the top floor (where her husband’s old, bedridden – and recently deceased – cousin had lived), which was now to be done up as a flat for some friend or dependent. No doubt this reconditioning had reduced the Jeavons house to a depth of untidiness unthinkably greater than that which habitually prevailed there. The interior of Hyde Park Gardens was altogether in contrast with any such circumstance of invincible muddle. Hyde Park Gardens was unexceptional, indeed rather surprisingly ordinary, considering the personalities enclosed within, decorations and furniture expressing almost as profound an anonymity as Uncle Giles’s private hotel, the Ufford; although, of course, more luxurious than the Ufford’s, and kept just the right side of taste openly to be decried as ‘bad’, or even aggressively out of fashion.
Appreciably older than her sister Molly Jeavons – and, like her, childless – Lady Warminster had largely withdrawn from the world since her second husband’s death in Kashmir eight or nine years before. Lord Warminster, who could claim some name as a sportsman, even as an amateur explorer, had formed the habit of visiting that country from time to time, not, so far as was known, on account of the sensual attractions extolled in the Kashmiri Love Song, but for pleasure in the more general beauty of its valleys, and the shooting of ibex there. On this last occasion, grazing his hand while opening a tin, he had contracted blood poisoning, an infection from which he subsequently died. Grieved in a remote way at her loss, although their comparatively brief married life together had been marked on his part by prolonged travel abroad, Lady Warminster had also been delighted to hand over Thrubworth to her eldest step-son, Erridge; to settle herself permanently in London. She had always hated country life. Erridge had been less pleased to find himself head of the family at the age of eighteen or nineteen, saddled with the responsibilities of a large house and estate. Indeed, from that moment he had contended as little as possible with any but the most pressing duties contingent upon his ‘position’, devoting himself to his left-wing political interests, which merged into a not too exacting study of sociology.
Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 2 Page 28
