The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell [54]
‘How did it end?’
Brent pulled up a large tuft of grass and threw it from him.
‘Rather hard to answer that one,’ he said.
He spoke as if the conclusion of this relationship with Jean required much further reflection than he had at present been able to allow the subject.
‘The fact is,’ he said, ‘I liked Jean all right, and naturally I was pretty flattered that she preferred me to a chap like Bob. All the same, I always felt what you might call uneasy with her, know what I mean. You must have come across that with girls. Feel they’re a bit too good for you. Jean was too superior a wench for a chap of my simple tastes. That was what it came to. Talked all sorts of stuff I couldn’t follow. Did you ever go to that coloured night-club called the Old Plantation?’
‘Never, but I know it by name.’
‘A little coloured girl sold cigarettes there. She was more in my line, though it cost me a small fortune to get her.’
‘So the thing with Jean Duport just petered out?’
‘With a good deal of grumbling on her side, believe me, before it did. I think she’d have run away with me if I’d asked her. Didn’t quite see my way to oblige in that respect. Then one day she told me she didn’t want to see me again. As a matter of fact we hadn’t met for quite a time when she said that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Don’t know. Suppose I hadn’t done much about it. There’d been some trouble at one of our places up the river. Production dropped from forty or fifty, to twenty-five barrels a day. I had to go along there and take a look at things. That was one of the reasons why she hadn’t heard from me for some time.’
‘Fact was you were tired of it.’
‘Jean seemed to think so, the way she carried on. She was bloody rude when we parted. Anyway, she had the consolation of feeling she broke it off herself. Women like that.’
So it appeared, after all, the love affair had been brought to an end by Brent’s apathy, rather than Jean’s fickleness. Even Duport had not known that. He had supposed Brent to have been, in his own words, ‘ditched’. It had certainly never occurred to Duport, as a husband, that Brent, his own despised hanger-on, had actually been pursued by Jean, had himself done the ‘ditching’. I, too, had little cause for self-congratulation, if it came to that.
‘How did Duport find out about yourself and his wife?’
‘Through their dear little daughter.’
‘Good God – Polly? I suppose she must be twelve or thirteen by now.’
‘Quite that,’ said Brent. ‘Fancy you’re remembering. I expect Bob spoke of her when you saw him. He’s mad about that kid. Not surprising. She’s a very pretty little girl. Will need keeping an eye on soon – perhaps even now.’
‘Did Bob find out while it was still going on?’
‘Just before the end. Polly let out something about a meeting between Jean and me. Bob remarked that if it had been anyone else he’d have been suspicious. Then Jean flew off the handle and told him everything. Bob couldn’t believe it at first. Didn’t think I was up to it. He always regarded me as an absolute flop where women were concerned. It was quite a blow to him in a way. To his pride, I mean.’
In this scene between the Duports, I saw a parallel to the occasion when I had myself made a slighting remark about Jimmy Stripling, and Jean, immediately furious, had told me of her former affair with him. The pattern was, as ever, endlessly repeated. There was something to be admired in Brent’s lack of vanity in so absolutely accepting Duport’s low estimate of his own attractions, even after causing Duport’s wife to fall in love with him. Whatever other reason Brent might have had for embarking on the matter, a cheap desire to score off Jean’s husband had played no part whatever. That was certain. Duport, cuckolded or no, remained Brent’s ideal of manhood.
‘I think it’s just as well Bob finally