A Question of Upbringing - Anthony Powell [49]
As we strolled on towards the summer-house, built with its entrance facing obliquely from the centre of the lawn – if the central part of the garden could really be so called – Madame Leroy explained that within this precinct would be found Monsieur and Madame Dubuisson, who had been married only a short time. Having called this fact to mind, she tapped loudly on one of the supports of the arbour before venturing to escort me through its arch. After taking this precaution, she advanced in front of me, and peeped through one of the embrasures in the wall, pausing for a moment, then beckoning me on, until at last we entered the heart of the retreat in which the Dubuissons were sitting side by side.
Afterwards I discovered that Monsieur Dubuisson was only about forty. At first sight he struck me as much older, since the skin of his face fell in diamond-shaped pouches which appeared quite bloodless. Like Monsieur Örn, he wore a cap, a very flat, very large, check cap, with a long peak, like that in which apaches used to be portrayed in French comic papers or on the stage. Under this headgear, rank and greying, almost lavender-coloured hair bunched out. He held a book on his knee, but was not reading. Instead he sat gazing with a look of immense and ineradicable scepticism on his face, towards what could be seen of the garden. His long upper lip and general carriage made me think of a French version of the Mad Hatter. His bride, a stocky little woman, younger than her husband, was dressed in white from head to foot: looking as if she had prepared herself for an afternoon’s shopping in Paris, but had decided instead to spend her time knitting in the summer-house. This very domestic occupation seemed scarcely to harmonise with the suggestion – conveyed in some manner by her face, even more than her clothes – that she was not, temperamentally, a domestic person: not, at any rate, in the usual meaning of that term. As Stringham had said of Peter Templer, she did not appear to be intended by nature for “home life.” Whatever domesticity she might possess seemed superimposed on other, and perhaps more predatory, characteristics.
Though still feeling decidedly bilious, I had done my best to make myself agreeable to each of the persons in turn produced by Madame Leroy; and, such is the extraordinary power of sentiment at that age, the impact of Suzette’s personality, with its reminder of Jean, had made me forget for a while the consequences of the hors d’oeuvres. However, when Monsieur Dubuisson held out to me the book lying on his knee, and said dryly, in excellent English: “I should be interested to hear your opinion on this rendering,” my head began to go round again. The tide on the cover, Simples Contes des Collines, for the moment conveyed nothing to me. Fortunately Monsieur Dubuisson did not consider it necessary to receive an answer to his question, because, almost immediately, he went on to remark: “I read the stories in French merely as – as a matter of interest. For you see I find no – no difficulty at all in expressing myself in the language of the writer.”
The pauses were evidently to emphasise the ease with which he spoke English, and his desire to use the absolutely appropriate word, rather than on account of ignorance of phrasing. He went on: “I like Kipling. That is, I like him up to a point. Naturally one finds annoying this – this stress on nationalism. Almost blatant nationalism, I should say.”
All this conversation was now becoming a little overwhelming. Madame Leroy, engaged with Madame Dubuisson on some debate regarding en pension terms, would in any case, I think, have cut short the development of a serious literary discussion, because she was already showing indications of restlessness at Monsieur Dubuisson’s continued demonstration of his command of English. However, a new – and for me almost startling – element at that moment