The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [225]
IV
Sonia Trumpington had never remarried. She shared a flat with her son Robin but saw little of him. Mostly she spent her day alone with her needlework and in correspondence connected with one or two charitable organizations with which, in age, she had become involved. She was sewing when Basil sought her out after luncheon (oysters again, two dozen this time with a pint of champagne—his strength waxed hourly) and she continued to stitch at the framed grospoint while he confided his problem to her.
“Yes, I’ve met Charles Albright. He’s rather a friend of Robin’s.”
“Then perhaps you can tell me what Barbara sees in him.”
“Why, you, of course,” said Sonia. “Haven’t you noticed? He’s the dead spit—looks, character, manner, everything.”
“Looks? Character? Manner? Sonia, you’re raving.”
“Oh, not as you are now, not even after your cure. Don’t you remember at all what you were like at his age?”
“But he’s a monster.”
“So were you, darling. Have you quite forgotten? It’s all as clear as clear to me. You Seals are so incestuous. Why do you suppose you got keen on Barbara? Because she’s just like Barbara Sothill. Why is Barbara keen on Charles? Because he’s you.”
Basil considered this proposition with his newly resharpened wits.
“That beard.”
“I’ve seen you with a beard.”
“That was after I came back from the Arctic and I never played the guitar in my life,” he said.
“Does Charles play the guitar? First I’ve heard of it. He does all sorts of things—just as you did.”
“I wish you wouldn’t keep bringing me into it.”
“Have you quite forgotten what you were like? Have a look at some of my old albums.”
Like most of her generation Sonia had in youth filled large volumes with press-cuttings and photographs of herself and her friends. They lay now in a shabby heap in a corner of the room.
“That’s Peter’s twenty-firster at King’s Thursday. First time I met you, I think. Certainly the first time I met Alastair. He was Margot’s boyfriend then, remember? She was jolly glad to be rid of him. . . . That’s my marriage. I bet you were there.” She turned the pages from the posed groups of bride, bridegroom and bridesmaids to the snapshots taken at the gates of St. Margaret’s. “Yes, here you are.”
“No beard. Perfectly properly dressed.”
“Yes, there are more incriminating ones later. Look at that . . . and that.”
They opened successive volumes. Basil appeared often.
“I don’t think any of them very good likenesses,” said Basil stiffly. “I’d just come back from the Spanish front there—of course I look a bit untidy.”
“It’s not clothes we’re talking about. Look at your expression.”
“Light in my eyes,” said Basil.
“1937. That’s another party at King’s Thursday.”
“What a ghastly thing facetious photographs are. What on earth am I doing with that girl?”
“Throwing her in the lake. I remember the incident now. I took the photograph.”
“Who?”
“I’ve no idea. Perhaps it says on the back. Just ‘Basil and Betty.’ She must have been much younger than us, not our kind at all. I’ve got an idea she was the daughter of some duke or other. The Stayles—that’s who she was.”
Basil studied the picture and shuddered. “What can have induced me to behave like that?”
“Youthful high spirits.”
“I was thirty-four, God help me. She’s very plain.”
“I’ll tell you who she is—was. Charles Albright’s mother. That’s an odd coincidence if you like. Let’s look her up and make sure.”
She found a Peerage and read: “Here we are. Fifth daughter of the late duke. Elizabeth Ermyntrude Alexandra, for whom H.R.H. The Duke of Connaught stood sponsor. Born 1920. Married 1940 Clarence Albright, killed in action 1943. Leaving issue. Died 1956. I remember hearing about it—cancer, very young. That’s Charles, that issue.”
Basil gazed long at the photograph. The girl was plump and, it seemed, wriggling; annoyed rather than amused by the horseplay. “How one forgets. I suppose she was quite a friend of mine once.”
“No, no. She was just someone Margot produced for Peter.”
Basil’s imagination, once so fertile of mischief, lately so dormant,