The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell [56]
‘She was mixed up with an uncle of mine – in fact he left her his money, such as it was.’
The bequest had caused great annoyance in the family, almost as much on account of Uncle Giles turning out to own a few thousands, as because of the alienation of the capital sum.
‘Must have made it quite lately as the result of some very risky speculation,’ my father had said at the time. ‘Never thought Giles had a penny to bless himself with.’
‘Let’s go over and talk to her,’ said Stevens. ‘She’s good value.’
He had that taste, peculiar to certain egotists, to collect together close round him everyone he might happen to know in any given area.
‘Oh, God,’ said Pamela. ‘Need we? I suppose she flattered you.’
‘Go on, Nicholas,’ he said. ‘Ask Mrs Erdleigh to join us, if you know her as well.’
I agreed to do this, more from liking the idea of meeting Mrs Erdleigh again than to please Stevens. As I approached, she herself turned towards me.
‘I wondered when you would speak,’ she said gently.
‘You’d already seen me in the hall?’
‘Often in this building. But we must not anticipate our destinies. The meeting had to wait until tonight.’
From the way she spoke, it was to be assumed that she was so far above material contacts that the impetus of our reunion must necessarily come from myself. The magical course of events would no doubt have been damaged had she taken the initiative and addressed me first.
‘What a night.’
‘I could not sleep,’ she said, as if that were a matter for surprise. ‘The omens have not been good for some days past, though in general better than for many months. I can see at once from your face that you are well situated. The Centaur is friend to strangers and exiles. His arrow defends them.’
‘Come and talk to us. There’s a young man called Odo Stevens, who has done rather well as a soldier – been very brave, I mean – and a girl called Pamela Flitton. He says he knows you already.’
‘I met your young army friend on the roof when I was engaged in certain required exsufflations. He is under Aries, like your poor uncle, but this young man has the Ram in far, far better aspect, the powerful rays of Mars favouring him rather than the reverse, as they might some – your uncle, for example.’
I told her I had seen the Ufford – where we had first met – now in such changed circumstances. She was not at all interested, continuing to speak of Stevens, who had evidently made an impression on her.
‘It is the planet Mars that connects him with that very beautiful young woman,’ she said. ‘The girl herself is under Scorpio – like that unhappy Miss Wartstone, so persecuted by Saturn – and possesses many of the scorpion’s cruellest traits. He told me much about her when we talked on the roof. I fear she loves disaster and death – but he will escape her, although not without an appetite for death himself.’
Mrs Erdleigh smiled again, as if she appreciated, even to some extent approved, this taste for death in both of them.
‘Lead me to your friends,’ she said. ‘I am particularly interested in the girl, whom I have not yet met.’
She picked up the black box, which presumably contained spells and jewellery, carrying the helmet in her other band. We returned to Stevens and Pamela. They were having words about a bar of chocolate, produced from somewhere and alleged to have been unfairly divided. Stevens jumped up and seized Mrs Erdleigh by the hand. It looked as if he were going to kiss her, but he stopped short of that. Pamela put on the helmet that had been lying beside her on the seat. This was evidently a conscious gesture of hostility.
‘This is Miss Flitton,’ said Stevens.
Pamela made one of her characteristically discouraging acknowledgments of this introduction. I was curious to see whether Mrs Erdleigh would exercise over her the same calming