Hearing Secret Harmonies - Anthony Powell [35]
‘Hullo, Sunny.’
Farebrother’s face at once lost its smile. Instead, it assumed an expression of rueful compassion. It was the face he had put on when Widmerpool, then a major on the staff, seemed likely to be sacked from Divisional Headquarters. Farebrother, an old enemy, had dropped in to announce that fact.
‘Nicholas, how splendid to meet again after all these years. You find me on my way back from a sad occasion. I am returning from Kensal Green Cemetery. The last tribute to an old friend. One of these fellows I’d known for a mighty long time. Life will never be quite the same again without him. We didn’t always hit it off together – but, my goodness, Nicholas, he was someone known to you too. I’ve just been to Jimmy Stripling’s funeral. Poor old Jimmy. You must remember him. You and I stayed at the Templers’, a hundred years ago, when Jimmy was there. He was the old man’s son-in-law in those days. Tall chap, hair parted in the middle, keen on motor-racing. I always remember how Jimmy, and some of the rest of the house-party, tried to play a trick on me, after we’d come back from a ball, and I had gone up to bed. Poor old Jimmy hoped to put a po in my hatbox. I was too sharp for him.’
Farebrother shook his head in sadness at the folly of human nature, folly so abjectly displayed by Jimmy Stripling in hoping to outwit Farebrother in a matter of that sort. I saw now that a black tie added to the sombre note struck by the rest of his clothes.
‘Jimmy and I used to do a lot of business together in our early City days. He always pretended we didn’t get on well. Then, poor old boy, he gave up the City – he was in Lloyd’s, hadn’t done too badly there, and elsewhere – gave up his motor-racing, got a divorce from Peter Templer’s sister, and began mixing himself up with all sorts of strange goings-on that couldn’t have been at all good for the nerves. Old Jimmy was a highly strung beggar in his way. Took up with a strange lady, who told fortunes. Occultism, all that. Not a good thing. Bad thing, in fact. The last time I saw him, only a few years ago, he was driving along Piccadilly in a car that could have been fifty years old, if it was a day. Jimmy must have lost all his money. His cars were once his pride and joy. Always had the latest model before anyone else. Now he was grinding along in this old crock. I could have wept at seeing Jimmy reduced to an old tin can like that.’
Farebrother, a habit of his when he told almost any story, suddenly lowered his voice, at the same time looking round to see if we were likely to be overheard, though no one else was sitting at our end of the compartment.
‘It was even worse than that, I fear. There weren’t many at the funeral but those who were looked a rum lot, to say the least. I got into conversation with one of the few mourners who was respectably dressed. Turned out he was a member of Lloyd’s, like Jimmy, though he hadn’t seen him for a long time. Do you know what had happened? When that fortune-telling lady of Jimmy’s was gathered in, he took up with a boy. Would you have believed it? Jimmy may have behaved like a crackpot at times, but no one ever guessed he had those tastes. This bloke I talked to told me he’d heard that a lot of undesirables used to live off Jimmy towards the end. I don’t think he’d have invented the tale on account of the funny types at the funeral. Jimmy’s boy was there. In fact he was more or less running the show. He wore a sort of coloured robe, hair not much short of his shoulders. Good-looking lad in his way, if you’d cleaned him up a bit. Funnily enough, I didn’t at all take against him, little as I’m drawn to that type as a rule. Even something I rather liked,