A Question of Upbringing - Anthony Powell [89]
“Of course that’s Buster,” he said, when he spoke of the letter.
I was not sure that he was right. The tone of his mother’s remarks did not at all suggest arguments put forward at second-hand. They sounded much more like her own opinions. Stringham reasserted his case. The end of it was that she decided to come and talk things over.
“Really rather good of her,” said Stringham. “You can imagine how busy she must be at this time of year.”
“Do you think you will persuade her?”
“I’m going to rope in Sillery.”
“Take her to see him?”
“Have him to lunch. Will you come and play for my side?”
“I can’t play for your side, if I don’t want you to go down.”
“Well, just keep the ring then.”
This was about the stage when I began to become dimly conscious of what Short was trying to convey when he spoke of Sillery’s influence, and his intrigues; although, as far as it went, a parent’s discussion of her son’s future with a don still seemed natural enough. Sillery, I thought, was like Tiresias: for, although predominantly male, for example, in outward appearance, he seemed to have the seer’s power of assuming female character if required. With Truscott, for instance, he would behave like an affectionate aunt; while his perennial quarrel with Brightman – to take another instance of his activities – was often conducted with a mixture of bluntness and self-control that certainly could not be thought at all like a woman’s row with a man: or even with another woman; though, at the same time, it was a dispute that admittedly transcended somehow a difference of opinion between two men. Certainly Sillery had no dislike for the company of women in the way of ordinary social life, provided they made no personal demands on him. I was anxious to see how he would deal with Mrs. Foxe.
Meanwhile, I continued occasionally to see something of Quiggin, although I came no nearer to deciding which of the various views held about him were true. He was like Widmerpool, as I have said, in his complete absorption in his own activities, and also in his ambition. Unlike Widmerpool, he made no parade of his aspirations, on the contrary, keeping as secret as possible his appetite for getting on in life, so that even when I became aware of the purposeful way in which he set about obtaining what he wanted, I could never be sure where precisely his desires lay. He used to complain of the standard of tutoring, or how few useful lectures were available, and at times he liked to discuss his work in great detail. In fact I thought, at first, that he worked far harder than most of the men I knew. Later I came to doubt this, finding that Quiggin’s work was something to be discussed rather than tackled, and that what he really enjoyed was drinking cups of coffee at odd times of day. He had another characteristic with which I became in due course familiar: he was keen on meeting people he considered important, and surprisingly successful in impressing persons – as he seemed to have impressed Truscott – who might have been reasonably expected to take amiss his manner and appearance.
The subject of Quiggin came up at one of those luncheons that Short, who had a comfortable allowance, gave periodically. Mark Members, in spite of his behaviour on the earlier occasion, was again of the party (because Short regarded him as intellectually “sound”); though Brightman was the guest of honour this time. Two undergraduates, called respectively Smethwyck and Humble, were there, and perhaps others. Short was inclined to become sentimental after he had eaten and drunk a fairly large amount in the middle of the day, and he had remarked: “Quiggin must find it hard to make two ends meet up here. He told me his father used to work on the railway line outside some Midland town.”
“Not a word of truth,” said Brightman, who was the only don present. “Quiggin is in my college. I went into the whole question of his financial position