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By Root 3043 0

was the characteristic split personality that the arts seem specially to require, even to augment in those who practise them. Matilda, of course, knew very well the easygoing, inactive side of her husband; her grasp of that side of his character was perhaps her chief power over him. She could judge to a hair’s breadth just how much to make a convenience of having been Sir Magnus’s mistress, while stopping short of seriously upsetting Moreland’s susceptibilities on that score. Such at least, were the terms in which I myself assessed the situation. That was the background I expected to find when we stayed at the cottage. I thought that half-humorous, half-masochistic shame on Moreland’s part at thus allowing his wife to make use of a rich man who had formerly ‘kept’ her would express itself in banter, partly designed to punish himself for allowing such circumstances to arise.

As it happened, conversation had turned on Sir Magnus Donners a night or two before we were invited to the Morelands’. We were dining (at short notice, because a more ‘political’ couple had dropped out) with Isobel’s sister, Susan, married to Roddy Cutts, a Tory back-bencher. Susan greatly enjoyed giving small political dinner-parties. Roddy, hardly drinking anything himself, saw no reason to encourage the habit in others, so that wine did not exactly flow. Current affairs, however, were unrestrainedly discussed. They inhabited a hideous little mansion flat in Westminster, equipped with a ‘division bell’ for giving warning when Roddy’s vote was required in ‘the House’. Said to be rather a ‘coming man’ in the Conservative Party, he was in some disgrace with its leaders at that moment, having thrown in his lot with Churchill, Eden and the group who had abstained from voting in the ‘Munich’ division. That evening another MP, Fettiplace-Jones, was present with his wife. Fettiplace-Jones, a supporter of the Government’s policy, was at the same time too wary to cut himself off entirely from dissident members of the party. Like Roddy, his contemporary in age, he represented a northern constituency. Tall, handsome, moon-faced, with a lock of hair trained across his high forehead for the caricaturist, he seemed to require only side-whiskers and a high collar to complete the picture of a distinguished politician of the nineteenth century. His untiring professional geniality rivalled even Roddy’s remorseless charm of manner. His wife, an eager little woman with the features of the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland – possibly advised by her husband not to be controversial about Czechoslovakia – spoke sagely of public health and housing. Fettiplace-Jones himself seemed to be exploring avenues of thought that suggested no basic disagreement between himself and Roddy; in short, he himself acknowledged that we must continue to prepare for the worst. When the men were left alone, Fettiplace-Jones, rightly deciding no cigars would be available, took one from his pocket and smelled it.

‘The sole survivor,’ he said apologetically, as he made an incision. ‘Were you in the House when Attlee said that “armaments were not a policy”?’

‘Bobetty was scathing,’ said Roddy. ‘By the same token, I was talking to Duff about anti-aircraft shortages the other night.’

‘This continued opposition to conscription is going to do Labour harm in the long run,’ said Fettiplace-Jones, who no doubt wanted to avoid anything like a head-on clash, ‘even if things let up, as I hope they will.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ said Roddy, who was being more brusque than usual. ‘All the same, you’ll probably agree we ought to tackle problems of civil evacuation and food control.’

‘Do you know Magnus Donners?’

‘Never met him.’

‘I remember being greatly impressed by him as a boy,’ said Fettiplace-Jones. ‘I was taken to the House to hear a debate.’

He placed his hand on his forehead, grasping the errant lock, leaning back and smiling to himself, perhaps enjoyably contemplating the young Fettiplace-Jones’s first sight of the scene of his own future triumphs.

‘Not his delivery,’ he said quietly. ‘That was