At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell [33]
‘I like Jeavons,’ he said. ‘I only met him once, but I took to him. Lady Molly I hardly know. Her first husband, John Sleaford, was a pompous fellow. The present Sleaford—Geoffrey—I knew in South Africa. We see them from time to time. Bertha tells me Lady Molly was teasing your Uncle Alfred a lot the other night. People say she always does that. Is it true?’
The General laughed a deep ho-ho-ho laugh again, like the demon king in pantomime. He evidently enjoyed the idea of people teasing Alfred Tolland.
‘I think she may rag Uncle Alfred a bit,’ said Frederica, without emotion. ‘If he doesn’t like it, he shouldn’t go there. I expect Erridge came up for discussion too, didn’t he?’
I suspected this was said to forestall comment about Erridge on the part of the General himself. There was a distinct rivalry between them. Men of action have, in any case, a predisposition to be jealous of women, especially if the woman is young, good looking or placed in some relatively powerful position. Beauty, particularly, is a form of power of which, perhaps justly, men of action feel envious. Possibly there existed some more particular reason: the two of them conceivably representing rival factions in their connexion with the Court. I supposed from her tone and general demeanour that Frederica could hardly approve of her eldest brother’s way of life, but, unlike her uncle, was not prepared to acquiesce in all criticism of Erridge.
‘Do you know my brother, Erridge—Warminster, rather?’ she asked me, suddenly.
She smiled like someone who wishes to encourage a child who possesses information more accurate, or more interesting, than that available to grown-ups; but one who might be too shy or too intractable to impart such knowledge.
‘I used to know him by sight.’
‘He has some rather odd ideas,’ she said. ‘But I expect you heard plenty about that at Molly Jeavons’s. They have hardly anything else to talk about there. He is a real blessing to them.’
‘Oh, I think they have got plenty to talk about,’ said Mrs. Conyers. ‘Too much, in fact.’
‘I don’t deny that Erridge has more than one bee in his bonnet,’ said the General, unexpectedly. ‘But I doubt if he is such a fool as some people seem to think him. He is just what they call nowadays introverted.’
‘Oh, Erry isn’t a fool,’ said Frederica. ‘He is rather too clever in a way—and an awful nuisance as an eldest brother. There may be something to be said for his ideas. It is the way he sets about them.’
‘Is it true that he has been a tramp?’ I asked.
‘Not actually been one, I think,’ said Frederica. ‘Making a study of them, isn’t it?’
‘Is he going to write a book about it?’ asked Mrs. Conyers. ‘There have been several books of that sort lately, haven’t there? Have you read anything else interesting, Nicholas? I always expect people like you to tell me what to put down on my library list.’
‘I’ve been reading something called Orlando,’’ said the General. ‘Virginia Woolf. Ever heard of it?’
‘I read it when it first came out.’
‘What do you think of it?’
‘Rather hard to say in a word.’
‘You think so?’
‘Yes.’
He turned to Frederica.
‘Ever read Orlando?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘But I’ve heard of it.’
‘Bertha didn’t like it,’ he said.
‘Couldn’t get on with it,’ said Mrs. Conyers, emphatically. ‘I wish St. John Clarke would write a new one. He hasn’t published a book for years. I wonder whether he is dead. I used to love his novels, especially Fields of Amaranth.’
‘Odd stuff, Orlando,’ said the General, who was not easily shifted from his subject. ‘Starts about a young man in the fifteen-hundreds. Then, about eighteen-thirty, he turns into a woman. You say you’ve read it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you like it? Yes or no?’
‘Not greatly.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘No.’
‘The woman can write, you know.’
‘Yes, I can see that. I still didn’t like it.’
The General thought again for some seconds.
‘Well, I shall read a bit more of it,’ he said, at last. ‘Don’t want