The Acceptance World

by Anthony Powell

  There was no reply from Quiggin’s Bloomsbury flat, so I rang St. John Clarke’s number; on the principle that if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. The bell buzzed for some seconds, and then Quiggin’s voice sounded, gratingly, at the other end of the line. As I had supposed, he was already engaged on his new duties. At first he was very suspicious of my seeking him out at that place. These suspicions were not allayed when I explained about the invitation to lunch with the Templers.

  ‘But today’ he said, irritably. ‘Lunch today? Why, it’s nearly lunch-time already.’

  I repeated to him Mona’s apologies for the undoubted lateness of the invitation.

  ‘But I don’t know them,’ said Quiggin. ‘Are they very rich?’

  He still sounded cross, although a certain interest was aroused in him. I referred again to his earlier meeting with Mona.

  ‘So she remembered me at Deacon’s party after all?’ he asked, rather more hopefully this time.

  ‘She has talked of nothing but that evening.’

  ‘I don’t think I ought to leave St. J.’

  ‘Is he bad?’

  ‘Better, as a matter of fact. But there ought to be someone responsible here.’

  ‘Couldn’t you get Mark?’ I asked, to tease him.

  ‘St. J. does not want to see Mark just at the moment,’ said Quiggin, in his flattest voice, ignoring any jocular implications the question might have possessed. ‘But I suppose there is really no reason why the maid should not look after him perfectly well if I went out for a few hours.’

  This sounded like weakening.

  ‘You could catch the train if you started now.’

  He was silent for a moment, evidently anxious to accept, but at the same time trying to find some excuse for making himself so easily available.

  ‘Mona reads your articles.’

  ‘She does?’

  ‘Always quoting them.’

  ‘Intelligently?’

  ‘Come and judge for yourself.’

  ‘Should I like their house?’

  ‘You’ll have the time of your life.’

  ‘I think I will,’ he said. ‘Of course I shall be met at the station?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘All right, then.’

  He replaced the receiver with a bang, as if closing an acrimonious interchange. I returned to the drawing-room. Templer was sprawling on the sofa, apparently not much interested whether Quiggin turned up or not.

  ‘He’s coming.’

  ‘Is he really?’ said Mona, shrilly. ‘How wonderful.’

  ‘Mona gets a bit bored with my friends,’ said Templer. ‘I must say I don’t blame her. Now you can sample something of another kind at lunch, sweetie.’

  ‘Well, we never see anybody interesting, sweetie,’ said Mona, putting on a stage pout. ‘He’ll at least remind me of the days when I used to meet intelligent people.’

  ‘Intelligent people?’ said Templer. ‘Come, come, darling, you aren’t being very polite to Nick. He regards himself as tremendously intelligent.’

  ‘Then we are providing some intelligent company for him,’ said Mona. ‘Your ex-brother-in-law isn’t likely to come out with anything very sparkling in the way of conversation—unless he has changed a lot since we went with him to Wimbledon.’

  ‘What do you expect at Wimbledon?’ said Templer. ‘To sit in the centre court listening to a flow of epigrams about foot-faults and forehand drives? Still, I see what you mean.’

  I remembered Jimmy Stripling chiefly on account of various practical jokes in which he had been concerned when, as a boy, I had stayed with the Templers. In this horseplay he had usually had the worst of it. He remained in my memory as a big, gruff, bad-tempered fellow, full of guilty feelings about having taken no part in the war. I had not much cared for him. I wondered how he would get on with Quiggin, who could be crushing to people he disliked. However, one of the traits possessed by Quiggin in common with his new employer was a willingness to go almost anywhere where a free meal was on offer; and this realistic approach to social life implied, inevitably, if not toleration of other people, at least a certain rough and ready technique for dealing with all sorts. I could not imagine why Mona was so anxious to see Quiggin again. At that time I failed entirely to grasp the extent to which in her eyes Quiggin represented high romance.

  ‘What happened to Babs when she parted from Jimmy Stripling?’

  ‘Married a lord,’ said Templer. ‘The family is going up in the world. But I expect she still thinks about Jimmy. After all, you couldn’t easily forget a man with breath like his.’

  Some interruption changed the subject before I was able to ask the name of Babs’s third husband. Mona went to tell the servants that there would be an additional guest. Templer followed her to look for more cigarettes. For a moment Jean and I were left alone together. I slipped my hand under her arm. She pressed down upon it, giving me a sense of being infinitely near to her; an assurance that all would be well. There is always a real and an imaginary person you are in love with; sometimes you love one best, sometimes the other. At that moment it was the real one I loved. We had scarcely time to separate and begin a formal conversation when Mona returned to the room.

  There the four of us remained until the sound came of a car churning up snow before the front door. This was Quiggin’s arrival. Being, in a way, so largely responsible for his presence at the Templers’ house, I was relieved to observe, when he entered the room, that he had cleaned himself up a bit since the previous evening. Now he was wearing a suit of cruelly blue cloth and a green knitted tie. From the start it was evident that he intended to make himself agreeable. His sharp little eyes darted round the walls, taking in the character of his hosts and their house.

  ‘I see you have an Isbister in the hall,’ he said, dryly.

  The harsh inflexion of his voice made it possible to accept this comment as a compliment, or, alternatively, a shared joke. Templer at once took the words in the latter sense.

  ‘Couldn’t get rid of it,’ he said. ‘I suppose you don’t know anybody who would make an offer? An upset price, of course. Now’s the moment.’

  ‘I’ll look about,’ said Quiggin. ‘Isbister was a typical artist- business man produced by a decaying society, don’t you think? As a matter of fact Nicholas and I have got to have a talk about Isbister in the near future.’

  He grinned at me. I hoped he was not going to raise the whole question of St. John Clarke’s introduction there and then. His tone might have meant anything or nothing, so far as his offer of help was concerned. Perhaps he really intended to suggest that he would try to sell the picture for Templer; and get a rake-off. His eyes continued to stray over the very indifferent nineteenth-century seascapes that covered the walls; hung together in patches as if put up hurriedly when the place was first occupied. No doubt that was exactly what had happened to them. In the Templers’ house by the sea they had hung in the dining-room. Before the Isbister could be discussed further, the two other guests arrived.

  The first through the door was a tall, rather overpowering lady, followed closely by Jimmy Stripling himself, looking much older than I had remembered him. The smoothness of the woman’s movements, as she advanced towards Mona, almost suggested that Stripling was propelling her in front of him like an automaton on castors. I knew at once that I had seen her before, but could not at first recall the occasion: one so different, as it turned out, from that of the moment.

  ‘How are you, Jimmy?’ said Templer.

  Stripling took the woman by the arm.

  ‘This is Mrs. Erdleigh,’ he said, in a rather strangled voice. ‘I have told you so much about her, you know, and here she is.’

  Mrs. Erdleigh shook hands graciously all round, much as if she were a visiting royalty. When she came to me, she took my hand in hers and smiled indulgently.

  ‘You see I was right,’ she said. ‘You did not believe me, did you? It is just a year.’

  Once more, s
uffocating waves of musk-like scent were distilled by her presence. By then, as a matter of fact, a month or two must have passed beyond the year that she had foretold would precede our next meeting. All the same, it was a respectable piece of prognostication. I thought it wiser to leave Uncle Giles unmentioned. If she wished to speak of him, she could always raise the subject herself. I reflected, at the same time, how often this exterior aspect of Uncle Giles’s personality must have remained ‘unmentioned’ throughout his life; especially where his relations were concerned.

  However, Mrs. Erdleigh gave the impression of knowing very well what was advisable to ‘mention’ and what inadvisable. She looked well; younger, if anything, than when I had seen her at the Ufford, and smartly dressed in a style that suggested less than before her inexorably apocalyptic role in life. In fact, her clothes of that former occasion seemed now, in contrast, garments of a semi- professional kind; vestments, as it were, appropriate to the ritual of her vocation. With Stripling under her control—as he certainly was—she could no doubt allow herself frivolously to enjoy the fashion of the moment.

  Stripling himself, on the other hand, had changed noticeably for the worse in the ten years or more gone since our former meeting. His bulk still gave the impression that he was taking up more than his fair share of the room, but the body, although big, seemed at the same time shrivelled. His hair, still parted in the middle, was grey and grizzled. Although at that time still perhaps under forty, he looked prematurely old. There was an odd, disconnected stare in his eyes, which started from his head when he spoke at all emphatically. He appeared to be thoroughly under the thumb of Mrs. Erdleigh, whose manner, kindly though firm, implied supervision of a person not wholly responsible for his own actions. Later, it was noticeable how fixedly he watched her, while in conversation he inclined to refer even the most minor matters to her arbitration. In spite of his cowed air, he was far more friendly than when we had met before, an occasion he assured me he remembered perfectly.

  ‘We had a lot of fun that summer with my old pal, Sunny Farebrother, didn’t we?’ he said in a melancholy voice.

  He spoke as if appealing for agreement that the days when fun could be had with Sunny Farebrother, or indeed with anyone else, were now long past.

  ‘Do you remember how we were going to put a po in his hat-box or something?’ he went on. ‘How we all laughed. Good old Sunny. I never seem to see the old boy now, though I hear he’s making quite a bit of money. It’s just the same with so many folks one used to know. They pass by on the other side or join the Great Majority.’

  His face had lighted up when, upon entering the room, he had seen Jean, and he had taken both her hands in his and kissed her enthusiastically. She did not seem to regard this act as anything out of the way, nor even specially repugnant to her. I felt a twinge of annoyance at that kiss. I should have liked no one else to kiss her for at least twenty-four hours. However, I reminded myself that such familiarity was reasonable enough in an ex-brother-in-law; in fact, if it came to that, reasonable enough in any old friend; though for that reason no more tolerable to myself. Stripling also held Jean’s arm for a few seconds, but, perhaps aware of Mrs. Erdleigh’s eye upon him, removed his hand abruptly. Fumbling in his pocket, he produced a long gold cigarette-case and began to fill it from a packet of Players. Although physically dilapidated, he still gave the impression of being rich. The fact that his tweeds were crumpled and the cuffs of his shirt greasy somehow added to this impression of wealth. If there had been any doubt about Stripling’s money, his satisfactory financial position could have been estimated from Quiggin’s manner towards him, a test like litmus paper where affluence was concerned. Quiggin was evidently anxious—as I was myself—to learn more of this strange couple.

  ‘How’s the world, Jimmy?’ said Templer, clapping his former brother-in-law on the back, and catching my eye as he handed him an unusually stiff drink.

  ‘Well,’ said Stripling, speaking slowly, as if Templer’s enquiry deserved very serious consideration before an answer was made, ‘well, I don’t think the World will get much better as long as it clings to material values.’

  At this Quiggin laughed in a more aggressive manner than he had adopted hitherto. He was evidently trying to decide whether it would be better to be ingratiating to Stripling or to attack him; either method could be advantageous from its respective point of view.

  ‘I think material values are just what want reassessing,’ Quiggin said. ‘Nor do I see how we can avoid clinging to them, since they are the only values that truly exist. However, they might be linked with a little social justice for a change.’

  Stripling disregarded this remark, chiefly, I think, because his mind was engrossed with preoccupations so utterly different that he had not the slightest idea what Quiggin was talking about. Templer’s eyes began to brighten as he realised that elements were present that promised an enjoyable clash of opinions. Luncheon was announced. We passed into the dining-room. As I sat down at the table I saw Mrs. Erdleigh’s forefinger touch Mona’s hand.

  ‘As soon as I set eyes on you, my dear,’ she said, gently, ‘I knew that you belonged to the Solstice of Summer. When is your birthday?’

  As usual, her misty gaze seemed to envelop completely whomsoever she addressed. There could be no doubt that her personality had immediately delighted Mona, who had by then already lost all her earlier sulkiness. Indeed, as the meal proceeded, Mrs. Erdleigh showed herself to be just what Mona had required. She provided limitlessly a kind of conversational balm at once maternal and sacerdotal. The two of them settled down to a detailed discussion across the table of horoscopes and their true relation to peculiarities of character. I was for some reason reminded of Sillery dealing with some farouche undergraduate whom he wished especially to enclose within his net. Even Mona’s so recently excited interest in Quiggin was forgotten in this torrent of astrological self-examination, systematically controlled, in spite of its urgency of expression, by such a sympathetic informant. Mona seemed now entirely absorbed in Mrs. Erdleigh, whose manner, vigorous, calm, mystical, certainly dominated the luncheon table.

  The meal passed off, therefore, with more success than might have been expected from such oddly assorted company. I reflected, not for the first time, how mistaken it is to suppose there exists some ‘ordinary’ world into which it is possible at will to wander. All human beings, driven as they are at different speeds by the same Furies, are at close range equally extraordinary. This party’s singular composition was undoubtedly enhanced by the commonplace nature of its surroundings. At the same time it was evident that the Templers themselves saw nothing in the least out-of-the-way about the guests collected round their table for Sunday luncheon; except possibly the fact that both Quiggin and I were professionally connected with books.

  If Quiggin disapproved—and he did undoubtedly disapprove—of the turn taken by Mona’s and Mrs. Erdleigh’s talk, he made at first no effort to indicate his dissatisfaction. He was in possession of no clue to the fact that he had been arbitrarily deposed from the position of most honoured guest in the house that day. In any case, as a person who himself acted rarely if ever from frivolous or disinterested motives, he would have found it hard, perhaps impossible, to understand the sheer irresponsibility of his invitation. To have been asked simply and solely on account of Mona’s whim, if he believed that to be the reason, must have been in itself undeniably flattering to his vanity; but, as Mr. Deacon used sadly to remark, ‘those who enjoy the delights of caprice must also accustom themselves to bear caprice’s lash’. Even if Quiggin were aware of this harsh law’s operation, he had no means of appreciating the ruthless manner in which it had been put into execution that afternoon. Mona’s wish to see him had been emphasised by me when I had spoken with him on the telephone. If she continued to ignore him, Quiggin would logically assume that for one reason or another either Templer, or I myself, must have desired his presence. He would suspect some ulterior motive as soon as he began to feel sc
eptical as to Mona’s interest in him being the cause of his invitation. As the meal progressed, this lack of attention on her part undoubtedly renewed earlier suspicions. By the time we were drinking coffee he was already showing signs of becoming less amenable.

  I think this quite fortuitous situation brought about by the presence of Mrs. Erdleigh was not without effect on Quiggin’s future behaviour towards Mona herself. If Mrs. Erdleigh had not been at the table he would undoubtedly have received the full force of his hostess’s admiration. This would naturally have flattered him, but his shrewdness would probably also have assessed her deference as something fairly superficial. As matters turned out, apparent disregard for him keenly renewed his own former interest in her. Perhaps Quiggin thought she was deliberately hiding her true feelings at luncheon. Perhaps he was right in thinking that. With a woman it is impossible to say.

  In the early stages of the meal Quiggin had been perfectly agreeable, talking to Jean of changes taking place in contemporary poetry, and of the personalities involved in these much advertised literary experiments. He explained that he considered the work of Mark Members commendable, if more than a trifle old-fashioned.

  ‘Mark has developed smoothly from beginnings legitimately influenced by Browning, paused perhaps too long in byways frequented by the Symbolists, and reached in his own good time a categorically individual style and phraseology. Unfortunately his œuvre is at present lacking in any real sense of social significance.’

  He glanced at Mona after saying this, perhaps hoping that a former friend of Gypsy Jones might notice the political implications of his words. However he failed to catch her attention, and turned almost immediately to lighter matters, evidently surprising even Templer by sagacious remarks regarding restaurant prices in the South of France, and an unexpected familiarity with the Barrio chino quarter in Barcelona. However, in spite of this conversational versatility, I was aware that Quiggin was inwardly turning sour. This could be seen from time to time in his face, especially in the glances of dislike he was beginning to cast in the direction of Stripling. He had probably decided that, rich though Stripling might be, he was not worth cultivating.