A Buyers Market - Anthony Powell [85]
“Oh, any moment now,” Stringham said. “I’m not sure it isn’t this afternoon. To be precise, the second week in October. My mother can’t make up her mind whether to laugh or cry. I think Buster is secretly rather impressed.”
I found it impossible to guess whether he was getting married because he was in love, because he hoped by taking this step to find a more settled life, or because he was curious to experiment with a new set of circumstances. The absurdity of supposing that exact reasons for marriage can ever be assigned had not then struck me; perhaps excusably, since it is a subject regarding which everyone considers, at least where friends are concerned, the assumption of categorical knowledge to be an inalienable right. Peggy Stepney herself looked pleased enough, though the formality of her style was calculated to hide outward responses. There had been an incident—hardly that—while we had been talking before luncheon. She had let her hand rest on a table in such a way that it lay, at least putatively, in Stringham’s direction. He had placed his own hand over hers, upon which she had jerked her fingers away, almost angrily, and begun to powder her face. Stringham had shown absolutely no sign of noticing this gesture. His first movement had been made, so it had appeared, almost automatically, not even very specifically as a mark of affection. It was possible that some minor quarrel had just taken place; that she was teasing him; that the action had no meaning at all. Thinking of the difficulties inherent in his situation, I began to turn over once more the meeting with Jean, and asked Stringham if he knew that Peter Templer’s sister was one of the guests at Stourwater.
“Didn’t even know he had a sister—of course, yes, I remember now—he had two at least. One of them, like my own, was always getting divorced.”
“This is the younger one. She is called Mrs. Duport.”
“What, Baby’s friend?”
He did not show the least interest. It was inexplicable to me that he had apparently noticed her scarcely at all; for, although Widmerpool’s love for Barbara had seemed an outrageous presumption, Stringham’s indifference to Jean was, in the opposite direction, almost equally disconcerting. My own feelings for her might still be uncertain, but his attitude was not of indecision so much as complete unawareness. However, the thought of Mrs. Wentworth evidently raised other questions in his mind.
“What sort of progress is Theodoric making with Baby?” he asked.
Truscott smiled, making a deprecatory movement with his finger to indicate that the matter was better undiscussed: at least while we remained on the terrace.
“Not very well, I think,” Stringham said. “It will be Bijou Ardglass, after all. I’ll have a bet on it.”
“Did the Chief strike you as being a bit off colour at luncheon, Charles?” Truscott asked, ignoring these suppositions.
He spoke casually, though I had the impression he might be more anxious about Sir Magnus’s state of temper than he wished outwardly to admit.
“I heard him say once that it took all sorts to make a world,” said Stringham. “He ought to write some of his aphorisms down so that they are not forgotten. Would it be an occasion for the dungeons?”
He made this last remark in that very level voice of his that I recognised, as of old, he was accustomed to employ when intending to convey covert meaning to some apparently simple statement or question. Truscott pouted, and lowered his head in rather arch reproof. I saw that he was amused about some joke shared in secret between them and I knew that I had judged correctly in suspecting latent implication in what Stringham had said.
“Baby doesn’t like it.”
“Who cares what Baby likes?”
“The Chief is never unwilling,” Truscott said, still smiling. “It certainly might cheer him up. You ask him, Charles.”
Sir Magnus was talking to Lady Huntercombe