The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell [61]
‘That’s what I thought. We didn’t manage to find anyone we knew in common, but I believe I met him years ago for a minute or two at a party.’
‘Didn’t the Lovells talk about someone called Pennistone when they came back from Venice? I remember Chips explaining that he was no relation to the Huntercombes, because the name was spelt with a double-n. I have an idea Pennistone lives in Venice – some story of a contessa, beautiful but not very young. That’s how I’m beginning to feel myself.’
‘Anyway, it’s nice to meet again, darling.’
‘It’s been a long time.’
‘A bloody long time.’
‘It certainly has.’
Later that weekend, when I found him pacing the lawn, Umfraville himself supplied some of the background wanting in his own story.
‘Look here, old boy,’ he said, when I joined him, ‘how do you think you and the others are going to stand up to having me as a brother-in-law?’
‘A splendid prospect.’
‘Not everyone would think so,’ he said. ‘You know I must be insane to embrace matrimony again. Stark, staring mad. But not half as mad as Frederica to take me on. Do you realize she’ll be my fifth? Something wrong with a man who keeps marrying like that. Must be. But I really couldn’t resist Frederica. That prim look of hers. All the same, fancy her accepting me. You’d never expect it, would you. All that business of her emptying the royal slops. She’ll have to give up that occupation of course. No good trying to be an Extra Woman of the Bedchamber with me in the offing. Not a bloody bit of use. You can just picture H.M. saying: “Why’s that fellow turned up again? I remember him. He used to be a captain in my Brigade of Guards. I had to get rid of him. He’s a no-gooder. What does he mean by showing his ugly face again at Buck House? I won’t stand it. Off with his head.” You agree, don’t you?’
‘I see what you mean.’
Umfraville stared at me with bloodshot eyes. When we had first met at Foppa’s, I had wondered whether he was not a little mad. The way he spoke now, even though it made me laugh, created the same disquieting impression. He nodded his head, smiling to himself, still contemplating his own characteristics with absolute absorption. I suddenly saw that Umfraville had been quite right when he said he was like Odo Stevens. Here again was an almost perfect narcissism, joined in much the same manner to a great acuteness of observation and relish for life.
‘You’re going to have a professional cad for a brother-in-law, old boy,’ he said, ‘make no mistake about that. Just to show you I know what I’m talking about when I apply that label to myself, I’ll confide a secret. I was the one who took our little friend Flavia’s virginity in Kenya years ago. Still, if that were the worst thing that ever happened to poor Flavia, she wouldn’t have had much to complain about. Fancy being married to Cosmo Flitton and Harrison F. Wisebite in one lifetime.’
‘Isobel and I had already discussed whether you and Mrs Wisebite had ever been in bed together.’
‘You had? That shows you’re a discerning couple. She’s a bright girl, your wife. Well, the answer is in the affirmative. You knew Flavia’s brother Charles, didn’t you?’
‘I used to know him well. I haven’t seen him for years.’
‘Met Charles Stringham in Kenya too. Came out for a month or two when he was quite a boy. I liked him very much. Then he took to drink, like so many other good chaps. Flavia says he has recovered now, and is in the army. Charles used to talk a lot about that bastard, Buster Foxe, whom their mother married when she and Boffles Stringham parted company. Charles hated Buster’s guts.’
‘I haven’t seen Commander Foxe for ages.’
‘Neither have I, thank God, but I hear he’s in the neighbourhood. At your brother-in-law, Lord Warminster’s home, in fact. He’ll soon be my brother-in-law, too. Then there’ll be hell to pay.’
‘But what on earth is Buster, a sailor, doing at Thrubworth? I thought it was a Corps Headquarters.’
‘Thrubworth isn’t an army set-up any longer. It’s still requisitioned, but they turned the place into one of those frightfully secret inter-service