The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell [51]
‘What about Duport?’
‘Bob’s really intelligent,’ said Brent earnestly. ‘No intention of minimising your qualifications in that line, or even my own, but Bob’s a real wonder-boy.’
‘Never knew him well enough to penetrate that far.’
‘Terrific gifts.’
‘Tell me more about him.’
‘Bob can do anything he turns his hand to. Wizard at business. Pick up any job in five minutes. If he were on this course, he’d be the star-turn. Then, girls. They simply lie down in front of him.’
‘I see.’
‘But he’s not just interested in business and women.’
‘What else?’
‘You wouldn’t believe what he knows about art and all that.’
‘He never gave the impression of being that sort.’
‘You’ve got to know him well before he lets on. Have to keep your eyes open. Did you ever go to that house the Duports had in Hill Street?’
‘Years ago, when they’d let it to someone else. I was taken to a party there.’
‘That place was marvellously done up,’ said Brent. ‘Absolute perfection in my humble opinion. Bob’s got taste. That’s what I mean. All the same, he isn’t one of those who go round gushing about art. He keeps it to himself.’
I did not immediately grasp the point of this great buildup of Duport. It certainly shed a new light on him. I did not disbelieve the picture. On the contrary, in its illumination, many things became plainer. Duport’s professional brutality of manner, thus interpreted in Brent’s rough and ready style, might indeed conceal behind its façade sensibilities he was unwilling to reveal to the world at large. There was nothing unreasonable about that supposition. It might to some extent explain Duport’s relationship with Jean, even if Brent’s own connexion with her were thereby made less easy to understand. I thought of the views of my recent travelling companion, Pennistone, so plainly expressed at Mrs Andriadis’s party:
‘… these appalling Italianate fittings – and the pictures – my God, the pictures …’
However, such things were a matter of opinion. The point at issue was Duport’s character: was he, in principle, regardless of personal idiosyncrasy, what Sir Gavin Walpole-Wilson used to call a ‘man of taste’? It was an interesting question. Jean herself had always been rather apologetic about that side of her married life, so that presumably Brent was right: Duport, rather than Jean, had been responsible for the Hill Street decorations and pictures. This was a new angle on Duport. I saw there were important sides of him I had missed.
‘When you last met Bob,’ said Brent, using the tone of one about to make a confidence, ‘did he mention my name to you?’
‘He said you and he had been in South America together.’
‘Did he add anything about me and Jean?’
‘He did, as a matter of fact. I gather there was an involved situation.’
Brent laughed.
‘There was,’ he said. ‘I thought Bob would go round shooting his mouth off. Just like him. It’s Bob’s one weakness. He can’t hold his tongue.’
He sighed, as if Duport’s heartless chatter about his own matrimonial situation had aroused in Brent himself a despair for human nature. He gave the impression that he thought it too bad of Duport. I was reminded of Barnby, exasperated at some woman’s behaviour, saying: ‘It’s enough to stop you ever committing adultery again.’ The deafening vibrations of an insect-like Lysander just above us, which seemed unable to decide whether or not to make a landing, put a stop to conversation for a minute or two. When it sheered off, Brent spoke once more.
‘You said you knew Jean, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wonderful girl in her way.’
‘Very nice to look at.’
‘For a while we were lovers,’ said Brent.
He spoke in that reminiscent, unctuous