The Acceptance World - Anthony Powell [29]
‘Maybe. And I can paint them. But can you write about them?’
‘No real tradition of how women behave exists in English writing. In France there is at least a good rough and ready convention, perhaps not always correct—riddled with every form of romanticism—but at least a pattern to which a writer can work. A French novelist may conform with the convention, or depart from it. His readers know, more or less, which he is doing. Here, every female character has to be treated empirically.’
‘Well, after all, so does every woman,’ said Barnby, another of whose dialectical habits was suddenly to switch round and argue against himself. ‘One of the troubles, I think, is that there are too many novelists like St. John Clarke.’
‘But novelists of the first rank have not always been attracted to women physically.’
‘If of the first rank,’ said Barnby, ‘they may rise above it. If anything less, homosexual novelists are, I believe, largely responsible for some of the extraordinary ideas that get disseminated about women and their behaviour.’
Barnby’s sententious tone had already indicated to me that he was himself entangled in some new adventure. Those utterances, which Mr. Deacon used to call ‘Barnby’s generalisations about women’, were almost always a prelude to a story involving some woman individually. So it had turned out on that occasion.
‘When you first make a hit with someone,’ he had continued, ‘you think everything is going all right with the girl, just because it is all right with you. But when you are more used to things, you are always on your guard—prepared for trouble of one sort or another.’
‘Who is it this time?’
‘A young woman I met on a train.’
‘How promiscuous.’
‘She inspired a certain confidence.’
‘And things are going wrong?’
‘On the contrary, going rather well. That is what makes me suspicious.’
‘Have you painted her?’
Barnby rummaged among the brushes, tubes of paint, newspapers, envelopes and bottles that littered the table; coming at last to a large portfolio from which he took a pencil drawing. The picture was of a girl’s head. She looked about twenty. The features, suggested rather than outlined, made her seem uncertain of herself, perhaps on the defensive. Her hair was untidy. There was an air of self- conscious rebellion. Something about the portrait struck me as familiar.
‘What is her name?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why not?’
‘She won’t tell me.’
‘How very secretive.’
‘That’s what I think.’
‘How often has she been here?’
‘Two or three times.’
I examined the drawing again.
‘I’ve met her.’
‘Who is she?’
‘I’m trying to remember.’
‘Have a good think,’ said Barnby, sighing. ‘I like to clear these matters up.’
But for the moment I was unable to recall the girl’s name. I had the impression our acquaintance had been slight, and was of a year or two earlier. There had been something absurd, or laughable, in the background of the occasion when we had met.
‘It would be only polite to reveal her identity by now,’ Barnby said, returning the drawing to the portfolio and making a grimace.
‘How did it start?’
‘I was coming back from a week-end with the Manaschs’. She arrived in the compartment about an hour before we reached London. We began to talk about films. For some reason we got on to the French Revolution. She said she was on the side of the People.’
‘Dark eyes and reddish hair?’
‘The latter unbrushed.’
‘Christian name, Anne?’
‘There was certainly an “A” on her handkerchief. That was a clue I forgot to tell you.’
‘Generally untidy?’
‘Decidedly. As to baths, I shouldn’t think she overdid them.’
‘I think I can place her.’
Don’t keep me in suspense.’
‘Lady Anne Stepney.’
‘A friend of yours?’
‘I sat next to her once at dinner years ago. She made the same remark about the French Revolution.’
‘Did she, indeed,’ said Barnby, perhaps a shade piqued at this apparently correct guess. ‘Did you follow up those liberal convictions at the time?’
‘On the contrary. I doubt if she would even remember my name. Her sister married Charles Stringham, whom I’ve sometimes