The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell [40]
‘Not too old?’
‘He knows the unions and gets on well with them.’
‘What does he think about the Czechs?’
‘Convinced nothing could be done short of war – at the same time not at all keen on the present situation. More of your view than mine.’
‘Is he, indeed?’ said Roddy. ‘It looked at one moment as if Donners would go to the Lords.’
‘I doubt if he ever wanted a peerage,’ said Fettiplace-Jones. ‘He has no children. My impression is that Donners is gearing his various concerns to the probability of war in spite of the settlement.’
‘Is he?’ said Roddy.
He had evidently no wish for argument with Fettiplace-Jones at that moment. The subject changed to the more general question of international guarantees.
I knew less of the political and industrial activities of Sir Magnus, than of his steady, if at times capricious, patronage of the arts. Like most rich patrons, his interests leant towards painting and music, rather than literature. Moreland described him as knowing the name of the book to be fashionably discussed at any given moment, being familiar with most of the standard authors. There Sir Magnus’s literary appreciation stopped, according to Moreland. He took no pleasure in reading. No doubt that was a wise precaution for a man of action, whose imagination must be rigorously disciplined, if the will is to remain unsapped by daydreams, painting and music being, for some reason, less deleterious than writing in that respect. I listened to Roddy and Fettiplace-Jones talking about Sir Magnus, without supposing for a moment that I should meet him again in the near future. He existed in my mind as one of those figures, dominating, no doubt, in their own remote sphere, but slightly ridiculous when seen casually at close quarters.
We had no car, so reached the Morelands’ by train.
‘It must be generations since anyone but highbrows lived in this cottage,’ said Moreland, when we arrived there. ‘I imagine most of the agricultural labourers round here commute from London.’
‘Baby Wentworth had it at one moment,’ said Matilda, a little maliciously. ‘She hated it and moved out almost at once.’
‘I’ve installed a piano in the studio,’ said Moreland. ‘I get some work done when I’m not feeling too much like hell, which hasn’t been often, lately.’
The cottage was a small, redbrick, oak-beamed affair, of some antiquity, though much restored, with a studio-room built out at the back. That was where Moreland had put his piano. He was not looking particularly well. When they were first married, Matilda had cleaned him up considerably. Now, his dark-blue suit – Moreland never made any concession to the sartorial conception of ‘country clothes’ – looked as if he had spent a restless night wearing it in bed He had not shaved.
‘What’s been wrong?’
‘That lung of mine has been rather a bore.’
‘What are you working on?’
‘My ballet.’
‘How is it going?’
‘Stuck.’
‘It’s impossible to write with Hitler about.’
‘Utterly.’
He was in low spirits. His tangled, uncut hair emphasised the look his face sometimes assumed of belonging to a fractious, disappointed child. Matilda, on the other hand, so far from being depressed, as Isobel had represented her, now seemed lively and restless. She was wearing trousers that revealed each bone of her angular figure. Her greenish eyes, rather too large mouth, for some reason always made one think she would make a more powerful, more talented actress than her stage capabilities in fact justified. These immediately noticeable features, arresting rather than beautiful, also suggested, in some indirect manner, her practical abilities, her gift for organisation. Matilda’s present exhilaration might be explained, I thought, by the fact that these abilities were put to more use now than when the Morelands had lived in London. There, except late at night, or when they lay in bed late in the morning, they were rarely to be found in their flat. Here, they must be alone together most of the day,