Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [51]
‘Baby, I believe you’ve met every man in the Eastern Hemisphere, and quite a few in the Western too.’
Possibly a small touch of malice was voiced. Baby may have thought that She looked sulky. I remembered Barnby’s passion for her, his comment how Sir Magnus never minded his girls having other commitments. That was hardly a subject to bridge our once slender acquaintance. Her manner, not outstandingly friendly, minimally accepted former meetings had taken place.
‘Aren’t you fed up with this heat?’ she said. ‘Everybody’s dripping. Look at Louis. Isn’t he a disgusting sight?’
Glober murmured consciously good-natured protests. ‘Am I, Baby? But not everyone. Look at Lord Widmerpool, he’s fresh as a daisy. I believe he’s right to take that Milan route. I’ll do the same myself next time.’
Drawing attention in this manner to Widmerpool’s appearance was indication that Glober made no pretence of liking him. Baby did not even smile. Her demeanour wafted through the Tiepolo room a breath of the Nineteen-Twenties. Like one who hands on the torch of a past era of folk culture, she had somehow preserved intact, from ballroom and plage, golf course and hunting field, a social technique fashionable then, even considered alluring. This rather unblissful breeze blowing across the years recalled a little Widmerpool’s former fiancée, Mrs Haycock (Baby’s distant cousin), though Baby herself had always been far the better-looking. She stopped a long way short of displaying the stigmata a lifetime of late parties and casual love affairs had bestowed on Mrs Haycock. Nevertheless, she had developed some of the same masculine hardening of the features, voice rising to a bark, elements veering in the direction of sex-change, threatened by too constant adjustment of husbands and lovers; comparable with the feminine characteristics acquired from too pertinacious womanizing.
‘Are you hopping over to the Lido for a dip this evening, Louis? A bathe will do you good. Freshen you up. Then I’m going to visit Mrs Erdleigh, the famous clairvoyante, who’s in Venice. Why don’t you come there too? She’ll tell your fortune.’
Glober shook his head glumly at the thought of looking into the future. He showed no great keenness to bathe either.
‘I’ll have to think about the Lido. Get my priorities straight.’
Widmerpool was becoming impatient again.
‘Your Dr Brightman is talking for a very long time,’ he said. ‘Who is she?’
‘A very distinguished scholar.’
‘Oh.’
Jacky Bragadin was as eager to get away from Dr Brightman as Widmerpool to be put in contact with her. In Jacky Bragadin’s efforts to escape, the two of them arrived beside us. Dr Brightman swept everyone in.
‘I’ve been talking to our host about his Foundation. I thought something might be done for Russell Gwinnett. Where’s he gone?’
‘It must be on paper,’ said Jacky Bragadin. ‘Always on paper. The name sent to the Board. They look into such matters.’
He sounded desperate. Dr Brightman, pausing to explain that I wrote novels, ignored his misery. The information made Jacky Bragadin horribly uneasy, but at least resulted in a let-out from further discussion of his Foundation. I told Dr Brightman that Widmerpool wanted to meet one of the Executive Committee. At that she began to question Widmerpool too. Without great originality of subject matter, I spoke to Jacky Bragadin of the beauty of the ceiling.
‘Nice colour,’ he said, his heart not in the words.
‘We were discussing the story —’
Jacky Bragadin’s despair began rapidly to increase again at that. He laid his hand on my sleeve beseechingly.
‘You must see the other rooms … They all must …’
He peered, without much hope, at Baby, still trying to persuade Glober to bathe. Widmerpool and Dr Brightman went off together, presumably to try and find a