A Buyers Market - Anthony Powell [60]
Any such view of them was not only entirely fanciful, but perhaps also without any foundation in fact, because Truscott seemed to regard their bearing as perfectly normal. He came up to them buoyantly, and talked for a minute or two in his accustomed easy style. Mrs. Wentworth lit a cigarette, and, without smiling, watched him, her eyebrows slightly raised. Then she spoke to Sir Magnus, at which he nodded his head heavily several rimes. Perhaps arrangements were-being made for sending her home in his car, because he looked at his watch before saying good night, and asked Truscott some questions. Then Mrs. Wentworth, after giving Sir Magnus little more than a nod, went off with Truscott; who returned a minute or two later, and settled down with his employer on the sofa. They began to talk gravely, looking rather like father and son, though, strangely enough, it might have been Truscott who was playing the paternal role.
By now the crowd had thinned considerably, and the music of the hunchback’s accordion had ceased. I was beginning to feel more than a little exhausted, yet, unable to make up my mind to go home, I wandered rather aimlessly round the house, throughout which the remaining guests were now sitting about in pairs, or larger groups. Chronological sequence of events pertaining to this interlude of the party became afterwards somewhat confused in my head. I can recall a brief conversation with a woman—not pretty, though possessing excellent legs—on the subject of cheese, which she alleged to be unprocurable, at the buffet. Prince Theodoric and Sillery had disappeared, and already there was the impression, given by most parties, sooner or later, that the residue still assembled under Mrs. Andriadis’s roof was gradually, inexorably, sinking to a small band of those hard cases who can never tear themselves away from what still remains, for an hour or so longer, if not of gaiety, then at least some sort of mellow companionship, and protection from the austerities of the outer world.
Two young men strolled by, and I heard one of them say: “Poor Milly really got together quite an elegant crowd to-night.”
The other, who wore an orchid in his button-hole, replied: “I felt that Sillery imparted a faintly bourgeois note—and there were one or two extraordinary figures from the lofts of Chelsea.”
He added that, personally, he proposed to have “one more drink” before leaving, while the other murmured something about an invitation to “bacon and eggs at the Kit-Cat.” They parted company at this, and when the young man with the orchid returned from the bar, he set down his glass near me, and without further introduction, began to discuss, at large, the house’s style of decoration, of which he appeared strongly to disapprove.
“Of course it must have cost a fortune to have had all those carpets cut right up to the walls,” he said. “But why go and spoil everything by these appalling Italianate fittings—and the pictures—my God, the pictures.”
I asked if the house belonged to Mrs. Andriadis.
“Good heavens, no,” he said. “Milly has only taken it for a few months from a man named Duport.”
“Bob Duport?”
“Not an intimate friend of yours, I hope?”
“On the contrary.”
“Because his manners don’t attract me.”
“Nor me.”
“Not that I ever see him these days, but we were at the same college—before he was sent down.”
I commented to the effect that, however unsatisfactory its decoration might be, I found the house an unexpectedly sumptuous place for Duport to inhabit. The young man with the orchid immediately assured me that Duport was not short of money.
“He came into quite a bit,” he said. “And then he is one of those men money likes. He is in the Balkans at the moment—doing well there, too, I have no doubt. He is, I regret to say, that sort of man.”
He sighed,
“Is he married?”
“Rather a nice wife.”
Although I scarcely knew Bob Duport, he had always remained in my mind on account of his having been one of the company when Peter