A Buyers Market - Anthony Powell [78]
“I explained to Donners that we should be quite a large party,” said Sir Gavin, “but he would not hear of anyone being left behind. In any case, there is plenty of room there, and the castle itself is well worth seeing.”
“I don’t think I shall come after all, Gavin,” said Miss Walpole-Wilson. “No one will want to see me there—least of all Prince Theodoric. Although I dare say he is too young to remember the misunderstanding that arose, when I stayed with you, regarding that remark about ‘travesty of democratic government’—and you know I never care for people with too much money.”
“Oh, come, Janet,” said Sir Gavin. “Of course they will all want to see you—the Prince especially. He is a very go-ahead fellow, everyone who has met him agrees. As a matter of fact, you know as well as I do, the old King laughed heartily when I explained the circumstance of your remark. He made a rather broad joke about it. I’ve told you a thousand times. Besides, Donners is not a bad fellow at all.”
“I can’t get on with those people—ever.”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘those people’,” said Sir Gavin, a trifle irritably. “Donners is no different from anyone else, except that he may be a bit richer. He didn’t start life barefoot—not that I for one should have the least objection if he had, more power to his elbow—but his father was an eminently solid figure. He was knighted, I believe, for what that’s worth. Donners went to some quite decent school. I think the family are of Scandinavian, or North German, extraction. No doubt very worthy people.”
“Oh, I do hope he isn’t German,” said Lady Walpole-Wilson. “I never thought of that.”
“Personally, I have a great admiration for the Germans—I do not, of course, mean the Junkers,” said her sister-in-law. “They have been hardly treated. No one of liberal opinions could think otherwise. And I certainly do not object to Sir Magnus on snobbish grounds. You know me too well for that, Gavin. I have no doubt, as you say, that he has many good points. All the same, I think I had better stay at home. I can make a start on my article about the Bosnian Moslems for the news-sheet of the Minority Problems League.”
“If Aunt Janet doesn’t go, I don’t see why I should,” said Eleanor. “I don’t in the least want to meet Prince Theodoric.”
“I do,” said Rosie Manasch. “I thought he looked too fetching at Goodwood.”
In the laugh that followed this certainly tactful expression of preference, earlier warnings of potential family difference died away. Sir Gavin began to describe, not for the first time, the occasion when, as a young secretary in some Oriental country, he had stained his face with coffee-grounds and, like Haroun-al-Raschid, “mingled” in the bazaar: with, so it appeared, useful results. The story carried dinner safely to the dessert, a stage when Pardoe brought conversation back once more to Sunday’s expedition by asking whether Sir Magnus Donners had purchased Stourwater from the family with whom Barbara was staying in Scotland, for whose house he was himself bound on leaving Hinton.
“He bought it from a relation of mine,” said Rosie Manasch. “Uncle Leopold always says he sold it—with due respect to you, Eleanor—because the hunting round here wasn’t good enough. I think it was really because it cost too much to keep up.”
“It is all very perfect now,” said Sir Gavin. “Rather too perfect for my taste. In any case, I am no medievalist.”
He looked round the table challengingly after saying this, rather as Uncle Giles was inclined to glare about him after making some more