A Buyers Market - Anthony Powell [47]
I excused myself decisively from any such undertaking on grounds of lacking aptitude for any kind of salesmanship.
“Not everyone feels it a bounden duty,” said Mr. Deacon. “I need not tell you that Gypsy is scarcely a colleague I should choose, if I were a free agent, but she is so keen I cannot very well raise objection. Her political motives are not identical with my own, but Pacifism is ally of all who desire this country’s disarmament. Do you know, I even put her up at my place? After all, you can’t expect her to get all the way back to Hendon Central at this time of night. It wouldn’t be right.”
He spoke almost with unction at the nobility of such self-sacrifice, and, finishing his champagne at a gulp, wiped the corners of his mouth carefully with a silk handkerchief. On the wall opposite us, one of the panels of the room had been replaced—possibly with the object of increasing the rather “daring” effect at which decoration of the house evidently aimed—with squares of looking-glass, in the reflections of which could be observed the changing pattern made by the occupants of the room.
The lady with the tiara had at last reluctantly abandoned the magnum to her bearded opponent (now accommodated with a younger, though less conspicuous, woman), and, apparently much flattered by the attention, she was accepting a cigarette from the Negro’s long case, which he was holding out towards her, the metal seeming delicately matched in tone with the skin of its owner’s hand, also the tint of old gold. Beyond this couple, the gentleman with the eye-glass and medals was now talking to a figure whose back-view—for some reason familiar—showed an immensely time-worn suit of evening clothes, the crumpled tails of which hung down almost to its wearer’s heels, giving him the appearance of a musical-hall comedian, or conjuror of burlesque, whose baggy Charlie Chaplin trousers, threatening descent to the ground at any moment, would probably reveal red flannel, grotesquely spotted, or some otherwise traditionally comic, underclothes, or lack of them, beneath. Matted white hair protruded over the back of this person’s collar, and he was alternately rubbing together his hands and replacing them in the pockets of these elephantine trousers, while he stood nodding his head, and sagging slightly at the knees. I suddenly became aware, with some surprise, that the man with the medals was Colonel Budd—Margaret Budd’s father—who held some minor appointment at Court. He had also perhaps, “come on” from the Huntercombes’.
“She reposes herself at the back of the shop,” said Mr. Deacon, pursuing the topic of his connection with Gypsy Jones. “I make up the bed—a divan—myself, with some rather fine Cashmere shawls a former patron of mine left me in his will. However, I don’t expect she will need them on a warm night like this. Just as well, if they’re not to be worn to shreds. As a matter of fact they are going for a mere song if you happen to know anyone interested in Oriental textiles. I can always find something else to put over Gypsy. Of course Barnby doesn’t much like her being there.”
I did not at that time know who Barnby might be, though I felt sure that I had heard of him; connecting the name—as it turned out, correctly—with painting.
“I see his point,” said Mr. Deacon, “even though I know little of such things. Gypsy’s attitude naturally—perhaps Barnby would prefer me to say ‘unnaturally’—offends his amour propre. In some ways he is not an ideal tenant himself. I don’t want women running up and down stairs all day long—and all night long too, for that matter—just because I have to put up with Gypsy in a good cause.”
He spoke complainingly, and paused for breath, coughing throatily, as if he might be suffering from asthma. Both of us helped ourselves to another drink. Meanwhile, seen in the looking-glass, Colonel Budd and the wearer of the Charlie Chaplin trousers now began to edge their way round the wall to where a plump youth