The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [220]
He defined his condition to Angela after the first week of the régime. “I’m not rejuvenated or invigorated. I’m etherealized.”
“You look like a ghost.”
“Exactly. I’ve lost sixteen pounds three ounces.”
“You’re overdoing it. No one else keeps these absurd rules. We aren’t expected to. It’s like the ‘rien ne va plus’ at roulette. Mrs. What’s-her-name has found a black market in the gym kept by the sergeant-instructor. We ate a grouse pie this morning.”
They were in the well-kept grounds. A chime of bells announced that the brief recreation was over. Basil tottered back to his masseuse.
Later, light-headed and limp, he lay down and stared once more at the ceiling paper.
As a convicted felon might in long vigils search his history for the first trespass that had brought him to his present state, Basil examined his conscience. Fasting, he knew, was in all religious systems the introduction to self-knowledge. Where had he first played false to his destiny? After the conception of Barbara; after her birth. She, in some way, was at the root of it. Though he had not begun to dote on her until she was eight years old, he had from the first been aware of his own paternity. In 1947, when she was a year old, he and Angela had gone to New York and California. That enterprise, in those days, was nefarious. Elaborate laws restricted the use of foreign currencies and these they had defied, drawing freely on undisclosed assets. But on his return he had made a full declaration to the customs. It was no immediate business of theirs to inquire into the sources of his laden trunks. In a mood of arrogance he had displayed everything and paid without demur. There lay the fount and origin of the deviation into rectitude that had disfigured him in recent years. As though waking after a night’s drunkenness—an experience common enough in his youth—and confusedly articulating the disjointed memories of outrage and absurdity, he ruefully contemplated the change he had wrought in himself. His voice was not the same instrument as of old. He had first assumed it as a conscious imposture; it had become habitual to him; the antiquated, wordly-wise moralities which, using that voice, he had found himself obliged to utter, had become his settled opinions. It had begun as nursery clowning for the diversion of Barbara; a parody of Sir Joseph Mannering; darling, crusty old Pobble performing the part expected of him; and now the parody had become the persona.
His meditation was interrupted by the telephone. “Will you take a call from Mrs. Sothill?”
“Babs.”
“Basil. I just wondered how you were getting on.”
“They’re very pleased with me.”
“Thin?”
“Skinny. And concerned with my soul.”
“Chump. Listen. I’m concerned with Barbara’s soul.”
“What’s she been up to?”
“I think she’s in love.”
“Rot.”
“Well, she’s moping.”
“I expect she misses me.”
“When she isn’t moping she’s telephoning or writing letters.”
“Not to me.”
“Exactly. There’s someone in London.”
“Robin Trumpington?”
“She doesn’t confide.”
“Can’t you listen in on the telephone?”
“I’ve tried that, of course. It’s certainly a man she’s talking to. I can’t really understand their language but it sounds very affectionate. You won’t like it awfully if she runs off, will you?”
“She’d never think of such a thing. Don’t put ideas into the child’s head, for God’s sake. Give her a dose of castor oil.”
“I don’t mind, if you don’t. I just thought I should warn.”
“Tell her I’ll soon be back.”
“She knows that.”
“Well, keep her under lock and key until I get out.”
Basil reported the conversation to Angela. “Barbara says Barbara’s in love.”
“Which Barbara?”
“Mine. Ours.”
“Well, it’s quite normal at her age. Who with?”
“Robin Trumpington, I suppose.”
“He’d be quite suitable.”
“For heaven’s sake, Angie, she’s only a child.”
“I fell in love at her age.”
“And a nice mess that turned out. It’s someone