At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell [80]
I thought for a second that she must refer to a personal obligation she owed to some male group living probably on the Riviera, to be generically thus classified. Seeing that she had not made herself clear, she added:
‘My two sons, you know.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘They are always cropping up.’
‘Are they at school?’
‘Yes, of course they are,’ she said, as if that were a foolish question to ask. ‘That is, when they haven’t been expelled.’
She stared at me fixedly after saying this, still seeming to imply that I should already know about her sons, especially the fact that they were continually being expelled from school. Uncertain whether or not she intended to strike a jaunty or sombre note, I did not know whether to laugh or commiserate. In fact, so peculiar was her tone that I wondered now whether she were entirely sane. Although in most respects impossible to imagine anyone less like Mrs. Conyers, a change of expression, or tone of voice, would suddenly recall her sister. For example, when she spoke of her children, I was reminded of Mrs. Conyers invoking the General. There was, however, one marked difference between them. Mrs. Conyers bestowed about her a sense of absolute certainty that she belonged—could only belong to the class from which she came, the world in which she lived. Mrs. Haycock, on the other hand, had by then largely jettisoned any crude certainties of origin. She may even have decided deliberately to rid herself of too embarrassing an inheritance of traditional thought and behaviour. If so, she had been on the whole successful. Only from time to time, and faintly, she offered a clue to correct speculation about herself: just as Jeavons would once in a way display the unmistakable action of his marriage on his point of view. On the whole, Mrs. Haycock’s bluff manner suggested long association with people who were rich, but rich without much concern about other aspects of life.
‘Of course I know they are dreadfully badly behaved,’ she said. ‘But what am I to do?’
She had that intense, voluble manner of speaking, often characteristic of those who are perhaps a little mad: a flow of words so violent as to give an impression of lack of balance.
‘How old are they?’
‘Fourteen and fifteen.’
Widmerpool, who at that moment looked in no state to shoulder such responsibilities as a couple of adolescent stepsons habitually expelled from school, leant across the table to address Mrs. Haycock.
‘I think I’ll retire for a minute or two,’ he said, ‘and see what taking a couple of those pills will do.’
‘All right, my own, off you go.’
Widmerpool scrambled out from where he sat in the corner next to the wall, and made for the door.
‘Isn’t he priceless?’ said Mrs. Haycock, almost with pride. ‘Do you know his mother?’
‘I’ve met her.’
‘Do you know that she suggested that she should live with us after we were married?’
Again she spoke in that strange, flat voice, looking hard at me, so that I did not know how to reply; whether to express horror or indulge in laughter. However, she herself seemed to expect no answer to her question. Whatever her feelings about Widmerpool’s mother, they lay too deep for words. Instead of continuing to discuss her personal affairs, she pointed to Jeavons.
‘Your friend seems to be going to sleep,’ she said. ‘You know I have always heard so much about him, and, although I’ve known Molly for years, I only met him for the first time the other night.’
Her observation about Jeavons’s state was true. Templer and his girl had risen to dance, and Jeavons had fallen into a coma similar to those in which General Conyers would sometimes sink. Jeavons seemed to have lost all his earlier enthusiasm to dance with Mrs. Haycock, a change of heart due probably to the amount of beer he had drunk earlier