Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell [76]
‘That was what the judge thought,’ said Mrs Maclintick.
‘What used he to play?’ asked Priscilla.
‘Military marches,’ said Mrs Maclintick, ‘night after night. Not surprising the poor woman had to go into a home after getting her divorce.’
‘My mother would have liked that,’ said Stringham. ‘She adores watching troops march past. She always says going to reviews was the best part of being married to Piers Warrington.’
‘Not in the middle of the night,’ said Priscilla. ‘He might have chosen something quieter. Tales from Hoffmann or Handel’s Cradle Song.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Moreland. ‘Aut Sousa aut Nihil has always been my motto in cases of that sort. Think if the man had played Hindemith. At least he wasn’t a highbrow.’
‘He was just another musical husband,’ said Mrs Maclintick fiercely. ‘I am not saying he was any worse than Maclintick, I am not saying he was any better. I am just telling you the way musicians treat their wives. Telling you the sort of husband I have to put up with.’
‘My own complaint about marriage is a very different one,’ said Stringham. ‘I admit my former wife was not musical. That might have made things worse. All the same, you never know. If she had been, she could have talked all the time about music while her sister, Anne, was chattering away about Braque and Dufy. It would have formed a counter-irritant. Poor Anne. Marrying Dicky Umfraville was a dreadful judgment on her. Still, a party is no place for vain regrets – certainly not vain regrets about one’s ex-sister-in-law.’
‘You should have seen Maclintick’s sister,’ said Mrs Maclintick, ‘if you are going to grumble about your sister-in-law.’
‘We will visit her, if necessary, dear lady, later in the evening,’ said Stringham. ‘The night is still young.’
‘You can’t,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘She’s dead.’
‘My condolences,’ said Stringham. ‘But, as I was saying, my former wife was not musical. Music did not run in the family. Mountfichet was not a house to stimulate music. You might compose a few dirges there, I suppose. Even they would have cheered the place up – the morning-room especially.’
‘I was going to stay at Mountfichet once,’ said Priscilla. ‘Then Hugo got chicken-pox and we were all in quarantine.’
‘You had a narrow escape, Lady Priscilla,’ said Stringham. ‘You are unaware of your good fortune. No, what I object to about marriage is not the active bad behaviour – like your musical friend playing the gramophone in the small hours. I could have stood that. I sleep abominably anyway. The gramophone would while away time in bed when one lies awake thinking about love. What broke me was the passive resistance. That was what got me down.’
Moreland began to laugh unrestrainedly again, thrusting the handkerchief in his mouth until it nearly choked him. He too had had a good deal to drink. Mrs Maclintick clenched her teeth in obvious approval of what Stringham had said. Stringham went on uninterrupted.
‘It is a beautiful morning,’ he said. ‘For some reason you feel relatively well that day. You make some conciliatory remark. No answer. You think she hasn’t heard. Still asleep perhaps. You speak again. A strangled sigh. What’s wrong? You begin to go through in your mind all the awful things you might have done.’
‘Maclintick never dreams of going through the awful things he has done,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘It would take far too long for one thing. Anyway, he never thinks about them at all. If you so much as mention one or two of them, he gets out of bed and sleeps on the sofa in his work-room.’
‘Look here,’ said Moreland, still laughing convulsively, ‘I really cannot have my old friend Maclintick maligned in this manner without a word of protest. I know you are married to him, and marriage gives everyone all sorts of special rights where complaining is concerned—’
‘You begin adding up your sins of commission and omission,’ Stringham continued inexorably. ‘Did one get tight? It seems months and months since one was tight, so it can’t be that. Did one say something silly the night before? Much more likely. Not that