A Buyers Market - Anthony Powell [13]
Just as the first sight of Boyhood of Cyrus, by its association with Mr. Deacon and life before the war, had brought back memories of childhood, the sight of Widmerpool called up in a similar manner—almost like some parallel scene from Mr. Deacon’s brush entitled Boyhood of Widmerpool—all kind of recollections of days at school. I remembered the interest once aroused in me by Widmerpool’s determination to become a success in life, and the brilliance with which Stringham used to mimic his movements and manner of speech. Indeed, Widmerpool’s presence in the flesh seemed even now less real than Stringham’s former imitations of him: a thought that had often struck me before, now renewed unexpectedly in the Walpole-Wilson’s drawing-room. Widmerpool still represented to my mind a kind of embodiment of thankless labour and unsatisfied ambition. When we had met at La Grenadière, he had talked of his activities in London, but somehow I had never been able to picture his life as an adult; idly fancying him, if thought of at all, for ever floundering towards the tape in races never won. Certainly it had not once occurred to me that I should meet him at a dinner-party given for a dance, although I recalled now that he had talked of dances; and, when I came to consider the matter, there was not the smallest reason why he should not turn up upon an occasion such as this—at the Walpole-Wilson’s house or anywhere else. That had to be admitted without question. He seemed in the best of spirits. We were immediately left together by Sir Gavin, who wandered off muttering to himself in a dissatisfied undertone about some impenetrable concerns of his own.
“Good gracious, Jenkins,” said Widmerpool, in that thick voice of his which remained quite unchanged, “I had no idea that you were a dancing man.”
“I had formed the same wrong impression about yourself.”
“But I have never seen you anywhere before.” He sounded rather aggrieved.
“We must be asked to different parties.”
This reply, made on the spur of the moment without any suggestion of seriousness—certainly not intended to discredit the dances frequented by Widmerpool—must, for some reason, have sounded caustic to his ears. Perhaps I had inadequately concealed surprise felt on learning from his manner that he evidently regarded himself as a kind of standard “spare man”: in short something closely akin to Archie Gilbert. Whatever the cause, the words had obviously given offence. He went red in the face, and made one of those awkward jerks of the body which Stringham used to imitate so deftly.
“As a matter of fact, I have been about very little this summer,” he said, frowning. “I found I had been working a shade too hard, and had to—well—give myself a bit of a rest.”
I remembered the interest he had always taken, even while still a schoolboy, in his own health and its diurnal changes In France it had been the same. A whole afternoon had been spent in Tours trying to find the right medicine to adjust the effect on him of the local wine, of which the Leroys’ vintage, drunk the night before, had been of disastrously recent growth.
“Then, the year before, I got jaundice in the middle of the season,”
“Are you fit again now?”
“I am better.”
He spoke with gravity.
“But I intend to take care of myself,” he added. “My mother often tells me I go at things too hard. Besides, I don’t really get enough air and exercise—without which one can never be truly robust.”
“Do you still go down to Barnes and drive golf-balls into a net?”
“Whenever feasible.”
He made not the smallest acknowledgment of the feat