A Question of Upbringing - Anthony Powell [23]
“Hallo, you fellows,” he said, without looking up from his cigarette-holder, at which he appeared to be sneering, as if this object were not nearly valuable enough to presume to belong to him.
“Hallo.”
Stringham took a step forward, and, without moving farther into the room, stood for a moment looking more than ever like Veronese’s Alexander. Then he introduced me. Buster slipped his cigarette-holder into his pocket, and nodded. He had a way of making one feel remarkably ill at ease. He said: “It’s a blow, but I have to leave you.”
“Aren’t you lunching here?” said Stringham.
“I am trying to buy a Bentley from a man awfully cheap. I’ve got to keep him sweet.”
“Did you sell the Isotta?”
“I had to.”
Buster smiled a little sadly, as if in half public acknowledgment that he himself had long since seen through any illusions once possessed regarding the extent of his wife’s fortune; but indicating by the same smile that he had learnt how to bear his disappointment. Stringham said: “Where are you taking him?”
“Claridge’s.”
“Will you ply him with drink?”
“Hock, I think. That is what I am feeling like myself. Are you coming to the Russian Ballet to-night?”
“I didn’t know I was asked,” Stringham said. “I’d like to.”
“Do.”
“Anyone for lunch?”
“Only Tuffy. She will be glad to see you.”
“Then we will wish you good luck with your deal.”
I was conscious that some sort of a duel had been taking place, and that Stringham had somehow gained an advantage by, as it were, ordering Buster from the room. Buster himself began to smile, perhaps recognising momentary defeat, to be disregarded from assurance of ultimate victory. Like a man effortlessly winning a walking-race, he crossed the carpet with long, easy strides: at the same time separating from himself some of the eddies of cold air that surrounded him, and bequeathing them to the atmosphere of the room after he had left it. I was relieved at his departure. Stringham moved across to the window. He said: “He gets himself up rather like Peter Templer, doesn’t he?”
“Have they ever met?”
To my surprise, Stringham laughed aloud.
“Good Lord, no,” he said.
“Wouldn’t they like each other?”
“It is an interesting question.”
“Why not try it?”
“I am devoted to Peter,” Stringham said, “but really I’m not sure one could have him in the house, could one?”
“Oh?”
“Well, I don’t really mean that,” said Stringham. “Not literally, of course. But you must admit that Peter doesn’t exactly fit in with home life.”
“I suppose not.”
“You agree?”
“I see what you mean.”
I certainly saw what Stringham meant; even though the sort of home life that included Buster provided a picture rather different from that which the phrase ordinarily suggested to me from my own experience. At the moment however, I was chiefly conscious of a new balance of relationship between Stringham and Templer. Although their association together possessed a curiously unrelenting quality, like the union of partners in a business rather than the intimacy of friends, I had always thought of Templer as a far closer and more established crony of Stringham’s than was I myself; and it had never crossed my mind that Stringham might share at all the want of confidence that, at least in the earlier stages of our acquaintance, I had sometimes felt towards Templer. Templer certainly did not appear to be designed for domestic life: though for that matter the same might be said of Stringham. Before I could ponder the question further, someone descending the stairs passed in through the door left ajar by Buster. Catching sight of this person, Stringham called out: “Tuffy, how are you?”
The woman who came into the room was about thirty or thirty-five, I suppose, though at the time she impressed me as older. Dressed in black, she was dark and not bad-looking, with a beaky nose. “Charles,” she said;