The Soldier's Art - Anthony Powell [43]
“It would interest me to hear more of this fellow Stevens. You seem to be mainly responsible for bringing him into our lives, Nick.”
“If you mean someone called Odo Stevens, he and I were on a course together at Aldershot about a year ago. I didn’t know he was in our lives. He isn’t in mine. I haven’t set eyes on him since then.”
I had scarcely thought of Stevens since he had been expelled from the course. Now the picture of him came back forcibly. Lovell’s tone was not reassuring. It was possible to guess something of what might be happening.
“You introduced him into the family,” said Lovell.
He spoke calmly, not at all accusingly, but I recognised in his eye the intention to stage a dramatic announcement.
“One weekend leave from Aldershot Stevens gave me a lift in his very brokendown car as far as Frederica’s. Then he took me back on Sunday night. Isobel was staying there. It was just before she had her baby. In fact, the birth started that night. Stevens got R.T.U.-ed soon after we got back on the course. I haven’t seen or heard of him since.”
“You haven’t?”
“Not a word.”
“Priscilla was at Frederica’s then.”
“I remember.”
“She met Stevens.”
“She must have done.”
“She’s been with him lately up in a hotel in Scotland,” said Lovell, “living more or less openly, so there’s no point in not mentioning it.”
There was nothing to be said to that. Stevens had certainly struck up some sort of an acquaintance with Priscilla on that occasion at Frederica’s. I could recall more. Some question of getting a piece of jewellery mended for her had arisen. Such additional consequences as Lovell outlined were scarcely to be foreseen when I took Stevens to the house. Nevertheless, it was an unfortunate introduction. However, this merely confirmed stories going round. No doubt Stevens, by now, was a figure with some sort of war career behind him. That could happen in the matter of a few weeks. That Stevens might be the “commando,” or whatever shape Priscilla’s alleged fancy-man took, had never suggested itself to me. Lovell lit a cigarette. He puffed out a cloud of smoke. His evident inclination to adopt a stylised approach – telling the story as we might have tried to work it out together in a film script years before – was some alleviation of immediate embarrassments caused by the disclosure. The dramatic manner he had assumed accorded with his own conception of how life should be lived. I was grateful for it. By this means things were made easier.
“When did all this start?”
“Pretty soon after they first met.”
“I see.”
“I was down at that godforsaken place on the East Coast. There was nowhere near for her to live. It wasn’t my fault we weren’t together.”
“Is Stevens stationed in Scotland?”
“So far as I know. He did rather well somewhere – was if the Lofoten raid? That sort of thing. He’s a hero on top of everything else. I suppose if I were to do something where I could get killed, instead of composing lists of signal equipment and suchlike, I might make a more interesting husband.”
“I don’t think so for a moment.”
In giving this answer, I spoke a decided opinion. To assume such a thing was a typical instance of Lovell’s taste, mentioned earlier, for the obvious. It was a supposition bound to lead to a whole host of erroneous conclusions – that was how the conjecture struck me – regarding his own, or anyone else’s, married life.
“You may be right,” he said.
He spoke as if rather relieved.
“Look at it the other way. Think of all the heroes who had trouble with their wives.”
“Who?”
“Agamemnon, for instance.”
“Well, that caused enough dislocation,” said Lovell. “What’s Stevens like, apart from his heroism?.”
“In appearance?”
“Everything about him.”
“Youngish, comes from Birmingham, traveller in costume jewellery, spot of journalism, good at languages, short, thickset, very fair hair, easy to get on with, keen on the girls.”
“Sounds not unlike me,” said Lovell, “except that up to date I’ve never travelled in costume jewellery – and I still rather pride myself on my figure.”
“There is a touch of you about him,