The Acceptance World - Anthony Powell [77]
‘Who did he marry?’
This question discomposed him even further. He cleared his throat several times and took a gulp of claret, nearly choking himself.
‘As a matter of fact I believe she is a distant cousin of mine—perhaps not,’ he said. ‘I can never remember that sort of thing—yes, she is, though. Of course she is.’
‘Yes?’
‘One of the Bridgnorth girls—Anne, I think.’
‘Anne Stepney?’
‘Yes, yes. That’s the one. You probably know her.’
‘I do.’
‘Thought you would.’
‘But she is years younger.’
‘She is a bit younger. Yes, she is a bit younger. Quite a bit younger. And he has been married before, of course.’
‘It makes his fourth wife, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, I believe it does. His fourth wife. Pretty sure it does make his fourth.’
Tolland looked at me in absolute despair, I think not so much at the predicament in which Anne Stepney had involved herself, as at the necessity for such enormities to emerge in conversation. The news was certainly unforeseen.
‘What do the Bridgnorths think about it?’
It was perhaps heartless to press him on such a point, but, having been told something so extraordinary as this, I wanted to hear as much as possible about the circumstances. Rather unexpectedly, he seemed relieved to report on that aspect of the marriage.
‘The fellow who told me in the Guards’ Club said they were making the best of it.’
‘There was no announcement?’
‘They were married in Paris,’ said Tolland. ‘So this fellow in the Guards’ Club—or was it Arthur’s?—told me. My brother, Warminster, when he was alive, used to talk about Umfraville. I think he liked him. Perhaps he didn’t. But I think he did.’
‘I was at school with a Tolland.’
‘My nephew. Did you know his brother, Erridge? Erridge has succeeded now. Funny boy.’
Sir Gavin Walpole-Wilson had mentioned a ‘Norah Tolland’ as friend of his daughter, Eleanor. She turned out to be a niece.
‘Warminster had ten children. Big family for these days.’
We rose at that moment to drink the King’s health; and Le Bas’s. Then Le Bas stood up, gripping the table with both hands as if he proposed to overturn it. This was in preparation for the delivery of his accustomed speech, which varied hardly at all year by year. His guttural, carefully enunciated consonants echoed through the room.
‘… cannot fail to be gratifying to see so many of my former pupils here tonight … do not really know what to say to you all … certainly shall not make a long speech … these annual meetings have their importance … encourage a sense of continuity … give perhaps an opportunity of taking stock … friendship … I’ve said to some of you before … needs keeping up … probably remember, most of you, lines quoted by me on earlier occasions …
And I sat by the shelf till I lost myself,
And roamed in a crowded mist,
And heard lost voices and saw lost looks,
As I pored on an old School List.
… verses not, of course, in the modern manner … some of us do not find such appeals to sentiment very sympathetic … typically Victorian in their emphasis … all the .. . rather well describe what most of us—well—at least some of us—may—feel—experience—when we meet and talk over our …’
Here Le Bas, as usual, paused; probably from the conviction that the word ‘schooldays’ had accumulated various associations in the minds of his listeners to which he was unwilling to seem to appeal. The use of hackneyed words had always been one of his preoccupations. He was, I think, dimly aware that his own bearing was somewhat clerical, and was accordingly particularly anxious to avoid the appearance of preaching a sermon. He compromised at last with ‘… other times …’ returning, almost immediately, to the poem; as if the increased asperity that the lines now assumed would purge him from the imputation of sentimentality to which he had referred. He cleared his throat harshly.
‘…You will remember how it goes later …
There were several