A Buyers Market - Anthony Powell [40]
He had just returned the second cup as equally unsatisfactory, when someone at my elbow asked: “Can one get matches here?” I was standing half-turned away from the counter, listening to Mr. Deacon, and did not see this new arrival. For some reason the voice made me glance towards Widmerpool; not because its tone bore any resemblance to his own thick utterance, but because the words suggested, oddly enough, Widmerpool’s almost perpetual presence as an unvaried component of everyday life rather than as an unexpected element of an evening like this one. A moment later someone touched my arm, and the same voice said: “Where are you off to, may I ask, in all those fine clothes?” A tall, pale young man, also in evening dress, though without a hat, was standing beside me.
At first sight Stringham looked just the same; indeed, the fact that on the former occasion, as now, he had been wearing a white tie somehow conveyed the illusion that he had been in a tail-coat for all the years since we had last met. He looked tired, perhaps rather irritable, though evidently pleased to fall in like this with someone known to him. I was conscious of that peculiar feeling of restraint in meeting someone, of whom I had once seen so much, now dropped altogether from everyday life: an extension—and refinement, perhaps—of the sensation no doubt mutually experienced between my parents and Mr. Deacon on that day in the Louvre: more acute, because I had been far more closely associated with Stringham than ever they with Mr. Deacon. The presence of Widmerpool at the stall added a touch of fantasy to Stringham’s appearance at that spot; for it was as if Widmerpool’s own antics had now called his mimic into being as inexorable accessory to any real existence to which Widmerpool himself might aspire. I introduced Mr. Deacon and Gypsy Jones.
“Why, hallo, Stringham,” said Widmerpool, putting down his coffee-cup with a clatter and puffing out his cheeks in a great demonstration of heartiness. “We haven’t met since we were at Le Bas’s.”
He thought, no doubt—if he thought of the matter at all—that Stringham and I were friends who continued to see each other often, inevitably unaware that this was, in fact, our first meeting for so long. Stringham, on his side, clearly supposed that all four of us—Widmerpool, Mr. Deacon, Gypsy Jones, and myself—had been spending an evening together; though it was obvious that he could determine no easy explanation for finding me in Widmerpool’s company, and judged our companionship immensely funny. He laughed a lot when I explained that Widmerpool and I had been to the Huntercombes’ dance.
“Well, well,” he said. “It’s a long time since I went to a dance. How my poor mother used to hate them when my sister was first issued to an ungrateful public. Was it agony?”
“May one inquire why you should suppose a splendid society ball to have been agony?” asked Mr. Deacon, rather archly.
There could be no doubt that, at first sight, he had taken a great fancy to Stringham. He spoke in his ironically humorous voice from deep down in his throat.
“In the first place,” said Stringham, “I rather dislike being crowded and uncomfortable—though, heaven knows, dances are not the only places where that happens. A most serious criticism I put forward is that one is expected, when attending them, to keep at least moderately sober.”
When he said this, it struck me that Stringham had already, perhaps, consumed a few drinks before meeting us.
“And otherwise behave with comparative rectitude?” said Mr. Deacon, charmed by this answer. “I believe I understand you perfectly.”
“Exactly,” said Stringham. “For that reason I am now on my way—as I expect you are too—to Milly Andriadis’s. I expect that will be crowded and uncomfortable too, but at least one can behave as one wishes there.”
“Is that woman still extorting her toll from life?” asked Mr. Deacon.
“Giving a party in Hill Street this very night. I assumed you were all going there.”
“This coffee tastes of glue,” said