The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell [92]
‘Poor Alice Sleaford,’ said the General. ‘You must not be unkind to her, Geraldine.’
I had never before heard Miss Weedon addressed as ‘Geraldine’. When secretary to Stringham’s mother, Mrs Foxe, she had always been ‘Tuffy’. That was what Molly Jeavons called her, too. I wanted to ask about Stringham, but, in the existing circumstances, hesitated to do so. As bride of General Conyers, Miss Weedon had suddenly become such a very different sort of person, almost girlish in her manner, far from the Medusa she had once been designated by Moreland. At the same time, she still retained some of her secretary’s formality in speaking of people. However, she herself must have decided that her present position would be weakened, rather than strengthened, by all avoidance of the subject of Stringham, which, certain to turn up sooner or later, was best put at once on a solid basis. She now raised it herself.
‘I expect you want to hear about Charles,’ she said, very cheerfully.
‘Of course. How is he?’
‘Quite all right now.’
‘Really?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Charles is the fellow you were helping to look after his mother’s house, is he?’ asked General Conyers, speaking with that small touch of impatience, permissible, even to be applauded, in the light of his own engagement. ‘You knew Charles Stringham, did you, Nicholas? At school with him, were you? I hear he drank too much, but has given it up. Good thing.’
‘Is he still at Glimber?’
‘Glimber has been taken over as an evacuated government office. Charles is in London now, looking for a job. He wants to get into the army. Of course his health isn’t very good, even though he has stopped drinking. It isn’t going to be easy. There have been money troubles too. His father died in Kenya and left such money as he had to his French wife. Mrs Foxe is not nearly so rich as she was. Commander Foxe is so terribly extravagant. He has gone back to the navy, of course.’
‘Good old Buster.’
Miss Weedon laughed. She deeply detested Buster Foxe.
‘Nicholas wants to get into the army too,’ said General Conyers, anxious to dismiss the subject of Stringham and his relations. ‘He is also having difficulties. Didn’t you say so, Nicholas? Now, tell me, don’t I remember a former servant of your parents manages a hotel somewhere? Some seaside place. Very good cook, wasn’t he? I remember his soufflés. Thought we might perhaps honeymoon at his hotel. Not going to make it a long affair. Just a week or ten days. Quite enough.’
‘They have probably requisitioned the place. I was down there a month or two ago for Uncle Giles’s funeral.’
‘Saw his death in the paper. Made rather a mess of his life, didn’t he? Don’t think I set eyes on him since a week or two before the earlier war broke out.’
‘Do you remember Dr Trelawney? He was staying in the hotel.’
‘That old scoundrel. Was he, indeed? How is he?’
‘He got locked in the bathroom.’
‘Did he, did he?’ said the General thoughtfully. ‘The Essence of the All is the Godhead of the True … may be something in it. Always meant to go and have a look at Trelawney on his own ground … all that stuff about the Astral Plane …’
He pondered; then, with an effort, brought himself back to earth, when I said that I must be going.
‘Sorry not to have been more use about your own problem, Nick. Have another talk with your father. Better still, get some young fellow to help you. No good trying too high up. Somebody quite junior, like a lieutenant-colonel. That’s the kind of fellow. Very nice to have seen you. You must come and visit us after we get back. Don’t know where we shall go yet.’
I left them together, discussing that question, Miss Weedon still looking immensely pleased about everything. As the flat door closed, I heard her laughter, now quite shrill, begin again. She had reason to be pleased. Stringham, so it appeared, had been cured by her of ‘drink’; now she had captured General Conyers. The one achievement was as remarkable as the other. They were perhaps not so disparate as might at first sight appear. There was a kind of dash about Stringham comparable with