The Acceptance World - Anthony Powell [33]
‘I see you have an Isbister in the hall,’ he said, dryly.
The harsh inflexion of his voice made it possible to accept this comment as a compliment, or, alternatively, a shared joke. Templer at once took the words in the latter sense.
‘Couldn’t get rid of it,’ he said. ‘I suppose you don’t know anybody who would make an offer? An upset price, of course. Now’s the moment.’
‘I’ll look about,’ said Quiggin. ‘Isbister was a typical artist- business man produced by a decaying society, don’t you think? As a matter of fact Nicholas and I have got to have a talk about Isbister in the near future.’
He grinned at me. I hoped he was not going to raise the whole question of St. John Clarke’s introduction there and then. His tone might have meant anything or nothing, so far as his offer of help was concerned. Perhaps he really intended to suggest that he would try to sell the picture for Templer; and get a rake-off. His eyes continued to stray over the very indifferent nineteenth-century seascapes that covered the walls; hung together in patches as if put up hurriedly when the place was first occupied. No doubt that was exactly what had happened to them. In the Templers’ house by the sea they had hung in the dining-room. Before the Isbister could be discussed further, the two other guests arrived.
The first through the door was a tall, rather overpowering lady, followed closely by Jimmy Stripling himself, looking much older than I had remembered him. The smoothness of the woman’s movements, as she advanced towards Mona, almost suggested that Stripling was propelling her in front of him like an automaton on castors. I knew at once that I had seen her before, but could not at first recall the occasion: one so different, as it turned out, from that of the moment.
‘How are you, Jimmy?’ said Templer.
Stripling took the woman by the arm.
‘This is Mrs. Erdleigh,’ he said, in a rather strangled voice. ‘I have told you so much about her, you know, and here she is.’
Mrs. Erdleigh shook hands graciously all round, much as if she were a visiting royalty. When she came to me, she took my hand in hers and smiled indulgently.
‘You see I was right,’ she said. ‘You did not believe me, did you? It is just a year.’
Once more, suffocating waves of musk-like scent were distilled by her presence. By then, as a matter of fact, a month or two must have passed beyond the year that she had foretold would precede our next meeting. All the same, it was a respectable piece of prognostication. I thought it wiser to leave Uncle Giles unmentioned. If she wished to speak of him, she could always raise the subject herself. I reflected, at the same time, how often this exterior aspect of Uncle Giles’s personality must have remained ‘unmentioned’ throughout his life; especially where his relations were concerned.
However, Mrs. Erdleigh gave the impression of knowing very well what was advisable to ‘mention’ and what inadvisable. She looked well; younger, if anything, than when I had seen her at the Ufford, and smartly dressed in a style that suggested less than before her inexorably apocalyptic role in life. In fact, her clothes of that former occasion seemed now, in contrast, garments of a semi- professional kind; vestments, as it were, appropriate to the ritual of her vocation. With Stripling under her control—as he certainly was—she could no doubt allow herself frivolously to enjoy the fashion of the moment.
Stripling himself, on the other hand, had changed noticeably for the worse in the ten years or more gone since our former meeting. His