Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell [34]
‘Lady Warminster, I am indeed ashamed of myself,’ he said in a high, rich, breathless, mincing voice, like that of an experienced actor trying to get the best out of a minor part in Restoration comedy. ‘I must crave the forgiveness of you and your guests.’
He gave a rapid glance round the room to discover whom he had been asked to meet, at the same time diffusing about him a considerable air of social discomfort. Lady Warminster accepted St John Clarke’s hand carefully, almost with surprise, immediately relinquishing it, as if the texture or temperature of the flesh dissatisfied her.
‘I hope you were not expecting a grand luncheon party, Mr Clarke,’ she said. ‘There are only a few of the family here, I am afraid.’
Plainly, that was only too true. There could be no doubt from St John Clarke’s face, flushed with running up the stairs, that he had hoped for something better than what he found; perhaps even a téte-à-téte with his hostess, rather than this unwieldy domestic affair, offering neither intimacy nor splendour. However, if disappointed at first sight, he was an old campaigner in the ups and downs of luncheon parties; he knew how to make the best of a bad job.
‘Much, much pleasanter,’ he murmured, still gazing suspiciously round the room. ‘And I am sure you will agree with me, Lady Warminster, in thinking, so far as company is concerned, enough is as bad as a feast, and half a loaf in many ways preferable to the alternative of a whole one or the traditional no bread. How enjoyable, therefore, to be just as we are.’
Although his strongly outlined features were familiar from photographs in the papers, I had never before met this well-known author. Something about St John Clarke put him in the category – of which Widmerpool was another example – of persons at once absurd and threatening. St John Clarke’s head recalled Blake’s, a resemblance no doubt deliberately cultivated, because the folds and crannies of his face insistently suggested a self-applauding interior activity, a desire to let everyone know about his own ‘mental strife’. I had seen him in person on a couple of occasions, though never before closely: once, five or six years earlier, walking up Bond Street with his then secretary Mark Members; a second time, on that misty afternoon in Hyde Park, propelled in a wheeled chair by Mona and Quiggin (who had replaced Members), while the three of them marched in procession as part of a political demonstration. Although he still carried himself with some degree of professional panache, St John Clarke did not look well. He might have been thought older than his years; his colour was not that of a man in good health. Once tall and gaunt in appearance, he had grown fat and flabby, a physical state which increased for some reason his air of being a dignitary of the Church temporarily passing, for some not very edifying reason, as a layman. Longish grey hair and sunken, haunted eyes recalled Mr Deacon’s appearance, probably because both belonged to the same generation, rather than on account of much similarity about the way their lives had been lived. Certainly St John Clarke had never indulged himself in Mr Deacon’s incurable leanings towards the openly disreputable. On the contrary, St John Clarke had been straitlaced, as much from inclination as from policy, during his decades of existence as a writer