A Buyers Market - Anthony Powell [21]
“No doubt about it,” said Sir Gavin. “I used to see a lot of Theodoric’s father when I was chargé d’affaires there. We often went fishing together.”
“Gavin was a great favourite with the old King,” said Lady Walpole-Wilson, as if it were a matter of mild surprise to her that her husband could be a favourite with anyone. “I am afraid Prince Theodoric’s brother is quite a different sort of person from their father. Do you remember that awkward incident when Janet was staying with us and how nice the King was?”
Sir Gavin glanced across the table at his wife, possibly apprehensive for a moment that she seemed inclined to particularise more precisely than might be desirable at the dinner table this contrast between father and son. Perhaps he did not wish to bring up the episode, whatever it had been, in which “Janet”—his sister—had been involved.
“Theodoric, on the other hand, is a serious young man,” he said. “A pity, really, that he is not King. The party given for him at their Legation was certainly dull enough—though personally I enjoy such jollifications as, for example, the court ball when our own King and Queen visited Berlin in 1913.”
“For the wedding of the Kaiser’s daughter?” Tompsitt asked, briskly.
“Princess Victoria Louise,” said Sir Gavin, nodding with approval at this scoring of a point by his satellite. “I went quite by chance, in place of Saltonstall, who—”
“Though, of course, it makes one feel quite ill to think of dancing with a German now,” said Lady Walpole-Wilson, anxiously.
She had taken the war hard.
“Do you really think so, Lady Walpole-Wilson?” said Widmerpool. “Now, you know, I can feel no prejudice against the Germans. None whatever. French policy, on the other hand, I regard at the moment as very mistaken. Positively disastrous, in fact.”
“They did the Torch Dance,” said Sir Gavin, not to be put off nostalgic reminiscences so easily. “The King and the Tsar danced, with the bride between them. A splendid sight. Ah, well, little we thought…”
“I loved the Swiss Guard when we were in Rome last winter,” said Miss Manasch. “And the Noble Guard were divine, too. We saw them at our audience.”
“But what a demoralising life for a young man,” said Lady Walpole-Wilson. “I am sure many of them must make unsuitable marriages.”
“I can just imagine myself checking a Papal Guardsman’s arms and equipment,” said Pardoe. “Sergeant-Major, this halbert is filthy.”
“I’d love to see you in those red and yellow and blue stripes, Johnny,” said Miss Manasch, with perhaps a touch of unfriendliness. “They’d suit you.”
Discussion as to whether or not ceremony was desirable lasted throughout the cutlets and ice. Lady Anne and Tompsitt were against pomp and circumstance; Eleanor and Widmerpool now found themselves on the same side in defending a reasonable degree of outward show. Tompsitt was rather pleased at the general agreement that he would go to pieces in the Tropics as a result of not changing for dinner, and certainly, so far as his evening clothes were concerned, he put his principles into practice.
“You should cart our Regimental Colour round,” said Pardoe. “Then you’d all know what heavy ceremonial means. It’s like a Salvation Army banner.”
“I’m always trying to get a decent Colour for the Guides,” said Eleanor, “and not have to carry about a thing like a child’s Union Jack. Not that anyone cares.”
“You won’t be too long, Gavin, will you?” said Lady Walpole-Wilson at this, hastily rising from the table.
By then I had only exchanged a word or two with Barbara, though this, in a way, was a mark of intimacy rather than because she had been unwilling to talk, or because any change had already consciously taken place in our relationship. Most of dinner she had spent telling Archie Gilbert rather a long story about some dance. Now she turned towards me, just before she went through the door, and gave one of those half-smiles that I associated with moments—infrequent