At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell [40]
It appeared that no good idea had occurred either to Eleanor or Norah for inscription in the album.
‘I shall want it back soon,’ said Hopkins, ‘because another girl I know—such a little sweetie-pie with a little fragile face like a dear little dolly—is going to write some lovely lines in it. Shall I repeat to you what she is going to write? You will love it.’
Frederica Budd, who had been listening to all this with a slight smile, imperceptibly inclined her head, as one might when a clown enquires from his audience whether they have understood up to that point the course of the trick he is about to perform. Eleanor looked as if she did not particularly wish to hear what was offered, but regarded any demur as waste of time. Hopkins spoke the words:
‘Lips may be redder, and eyes more bright;
The face may be fairer you see tonight;
But never, love, while the stars shall shine,
Will you find a heart that is truer than mine.’
There was a pause when Hopkins came to the end of her recitation, which she had delivered with ardour. She struck an attitude, her hand on her hip.
‘Sweet, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘This friend of mine read it somewhere, and she memorised it—and so have I. I love it so much. That’s the sort of thing I want. I’ll leave the album a little longer then, girls, but remember—I shall expect something really nice when you do, both of you, think of a poem. Now what about that egg?’
Norah Tolland went into the kitchen of the flat. Hopkins stood grinning at us. No one spoke. Then Norah returned. On receiving the egg, Hopkins feigned to make it disappear up the sleeves of her shirt, the cuffs of which were joined by links of black and white enamel. Then, clenching her fist, she balanced the egg upon it at arm’s length, and marched out of the room chanting at the top of her voice:
‘Balls, Picnics and Parties,
Picnics, Parties and Balls …’
We heard the sound of her heavy, low-heeled shoes pounding the boards of the uncarpeted stairs, until at length a door slammed on a floor below, and the voice was cut off with a jerk.
‘She really plays the piano jolly well,’ said Norah.
It was a challenge, but the glove was not picked up.
‘Rather an amusing person,’ said Frederica. ‘Do you see much of her?’
‘She lives a couple of floors below,’ said Eleanor. ‘She is rather too fond of looking in at all hours.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Norah. ‘I like Heather.’
‘So you’ve made up your mind about Thrubworth?’ said Frederica, as if the merits of Hopkins were scarcely worth discussing.
I explained that I must now leave them. Frederica, at the moment of saying good-bye, spoke almost warmly; as if her conjecture that I might be a support to her had been somehow justified. Norah Tolland was curt. It was agreed that I should ring up Eleanor one of these days and come to see them again. I had the impression that my departure would be the signal for a renewed outbreak of family feuds. Anxious to avoid even their preliminary barrage, I descended the rickety, foetid stairs, and proceeded on my way.
Later that evening, I found myself kicking my heels in one of those interminable cinema queues of which I have already spoken, paired off and stationary, as if life’s co-educational school, out in a ‘crocodile’, had come to a sudden standstill: that co-educational school of iron discipline, equally pitiless in pleasure and in pain. During the eternity of time that always precedes the termination of the ‘big picture’, I had even begun to wonder whether we should spend the rest of our days on that particular stretch of London pavement, when, at long last, just as rain had begun to fall, the portals of the auditorium burst open to void the patrons of the earlier performance. First came those scattered single figures, who, as if distraught by what they have seen and seeking to escape at whatever the cost, hurry blindly