The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell [51]
‘Of course they are newly married …’ she had said.
That all seemed a long time ago. I glanced round the room. If the rest of Stourwater had proved disappointing – certainly less overpowering in ornate magnificence – these fantastic tapestries, on the other hand, had gained in magnitude More gorgeous, more extravagant than ever, they engulfed my imagination again in their enchanting colours, grotesque episodes, symbolic moods, making me forget once more the persons on either side of me, just as I had been unaware of Jean when she had spoken on that day, telling me we had met before. Thinking of that, I indulged in a brief moment of sentimentality permissible before social duties intervened. Then, I collected myself. I was between Matilda and Betty Templer – we were sitting at a table greatly reduced in size from that in use on the day when Prince Theodoric had been entertained at Stourwater – and, abandoning the tapestries, I became aware that Templer was chatting in his easy way to Matilda, while I myself had made no effort to engage his wife in conversation. Beyond Betty Templer, Moreland was already administering a tremendous scolding to Anne Umfraville, who, as soon as they sat down, had ventured to express some musical opinion which outraged him, an easy enough thing to do. Sir Magnus, on the other side, had begun to recount to Isobel the history of the castle.
‘Have you been to Stourwater before?’ I asked Betty Templer.
She stared at me with big, frightened eyes.
‘No.’
‘It’s rather a wonderful house, isn’t it?’
‘How – how do you mean?’
That question brought me up short. To like Stourwater, to disapprove, were both tenable opinions, but, as residence, the castle could hardly be regarded as anything except unusual. If Betty Templer had noticed none of its uncommon characteristics, pictures and furniture were not a subject to embark upon.
‘Do you know this part of the world at all?’
‘No,’ she said, after some hesitation.
‘Peter told me you lived at Sunningdale.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you been there long?’
‘Since we married.’
‘Good for getting up and down to London.’
‘I don’t go to London much.’
‘I suppose Peter gets back for dinner.’
‘Sometimes.’
She looked as if she might begin to cry. It was an imbecile remark on my part, the worst possible subject to bring up, talking to the wife of a man like Templer.
‘I expect it is all rather nice there, anyway,’ I said.
I knew that I was losing my head, that she would soon reduce me to as desperate a state, conversationally speaking, as herself.
‘Yes,’ she admitted.
‘It was extraordinary Peter’s bringing us over in the car this evening. I hadn’t seen him for ages. We used to know each other so well at school.’
‘He knows such a lot of people,’ she said.
Her eyes filled with tears. There could be no doubt of it. I wondered what was going to happen next, fearing the worst. However, she made a tremendous effort.
‘Do you live in London?’ she asked.
‘Yes, we—’
‘I used to live in London when I was married to my first husband.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘He was in – in jute.’
‘Was he?’
For the moment I saw no way of utilising this opening.
‘Are you a stockbroker?’ she asked.
‘No … I … ’
I suddenly felt unable to explain what I did, what I was. The difficulties seemed, for some reason, insuperable. Fortunately no explanation was necessary. She required of me no alternative profession.
‘Most of Peter’s friends are stockbrokers,’ she said, speaking rather more calmly, as if that thought brought some small balm to her soul, adding, a moment later, ‘Some of them live at Sunningdale.’
The situation was relieved at that moment by Matilda’s causing conversation to become general by returning to the subject of Sir Magnus and his photography.
‘You