At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell [8]
‘Only by sight, and years ago. She is rather dotty, isn’t she?’
‘Quite dotty,’ said Lovell. ‘Lives in a complete world of her own. Fairly happy about it though, I think.’
‘Then there is one called Norah, isn’t there, who set up house with a rather strange girl I used to know called Eleanor Walpole-Wilson.’
‘That’s it. She is rather dotty too, but in a different way. That couple are said to be a ménage. Then there is Isobel. She is rather different. Priscilla is the youngest. She isn’t really “out” yet.’
I was about twenty-eight or twenty-nine at that period, to Lovell’s twenty-three or twenty-four, and through him had become aware for the first time that a younger generation was close on my heels. I told him I felt much too old and passé to take an interest in such small fry as young ladies who were not yet ‘out’.
‘Oh, I quite realise that,’ said Lovell indulgently. ‘There will certainly be elder persons there too for chaps like you who prefer serious conversation. You might like Isobel. I believe she is a bit of a highbrow when she isn’t going to night clubs.’
We drove precariously down Gloucester Road, the car emitting a series of frightening crepitations and an evil fume, while Lovell artlessly outlined his long-term plans for the seduction of Priscilla Tolland. We turned off somewhere by the Underground station. I liked the idea of going to this unknown place for an hour or so, surroundings where the cheerless Studio atmosphere might be purged away. Lovell stopped in front of a fairly large house of dark red brick, the architecture of which sounded a distant, not particularly encouraging, echo of the High Renaissance. After waiting on the doorstep for some time, the door was opened by a man of indeterminate age in shirt sleeves and carpet slippers. He might have passed for a butler. Pale and unhealthy looking, he had the air of having lived for months at a time underground in unventilated, overheated rooms. He brought with him odours of beer and cheese. Closer examination of this unkempt, moody fellow revealed him as older than he had appeared at first sight.
‘Good evening, Smith,’ said Lovell, rather grandly.
‘’Evening,’ said Smith, speaking without the smallest suggestion of warmth.
‘How are you, Smith?’
Smith looked Lovell up and down as if he considered the enquiry not merely silly, but downright insulting. He did not answer.
‘Is her Ladyship upstairs?’
‘Where do you think she’d be—in the basement?’
The tone of Smith’s voice made no concession whatever towards alleviating the asperity of this answer. Lovell showed no sign of surprise at being received so caustically, passing off the retort with a hearty laugh. Smith shambled off down the stairs, muttering to himself. He seemed thoroughly fed up, not only with Lovell, but also with his own job.
‘Smith is wonderful, isn’t he?’ said Lovell, as we mounted the staircase. ‘Aunt Molly sometimes borrows him from Erridge, when, for one reason or another, Thrubworth is closed down. I should warn you there is never an electric light bulb in the downstairs lavatory here and sometimes no bromo.’
I followed him to the first floor; and into a double drawing-room in which eight or nine persons were standing or sitting. A general though never precisely defined suggestion of chinoiserie, sustained by a profusion of Oriental bowls and jars, pervaded the decoration. Some of the furniture was obviously rather valuable: the rest, gimcrack to a degree. Pictures showed a similar variation of standard, a Richard Wilson and a Greuze (these I noted later) hanging among pastels of Moroccan native types. A dark, handsome woman, now getting a trifle plump by the emaciated standards of the period, came towards us.
‘Why, Chips,’ she said. ‘Here you are at last. We thought you would be earlier.’
‘Couldn’t get away, Aunt Molly,’ said Lovell. ‘This is Mr. Jenkins. He and I slave away writing films together.’
‘What will you drink?’ she asked. ‘Teddy, get them something to drink quickly. They must be in dire need.’
She smiled at me as if she were rather proud