The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell [62]
‘Are they still letting Erry and Blanche inhabit their end of the house.’
‘Don’t object, so far as I hear.’
No very considerable adjustment had been necessary when Thrubworth had been taken over by the Government at the beginning of the war. Erridge, in any case, had been living in only a small part of the mansion (seventeenth-century brick, fronted in the eighteenth century with stone), his sister, Blanche, housekeeping for him. Although the place was only twenty or thirty miles from Frederica’s village, there was little or no communication between Erridge and the rest of his family. Since the outbreak of war he had become, so Isobel told me, less occupied than formerly with the practical side of politics, increasingly devoting himself to books about the Anabaptists and revolutionary movements of the Middle Ages.
‘Buster’s a contemporary of mine,’ said Umfraville, ‘a son-of-a-bitch in the top class. I’ve never told you my life story, have I?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You’ll hear it often enough when we become brothers-in-law,’ he said, ‘so I’ll start by revealing only a little now.’
Once more I thought of Odo Stevens.
‘My father bred horses for a living,’ said Umfraville. ‘It was a precarious vocation and his ways were improvident. However, he had the presence of mind to marry the daughter of a fairly well-to-do manufacturer of machinery for the production of elastic webbing. That allowed for a margin of unprofitable deals in bloodstock. If I hadn’t learnt to ride as a boy, I don’t know where I should have been. There was some crazy idea of turning me into a land-agent. Then the war came in 1914 and I got off on my own. Found my way into one of the newly formed Guards battalions. There had been terrific expansion and they didn’t turn up their noses at me and many another like me. In fact some of my brother officers were heels such as you’ve never set eyes on. I never looked back after that. Not until I fell foul of Buster Foxe. If it hadn’t been for Buster, I might have been major-general now, commanding London District, instead of counting myself lucky to be a humble member of its Movement Control staff.’
‘You remained on after the war with a regular commission?’
‘That was it,’ said Umfraville. ‘I expect you’ve heard of a French marshal called Lyautey. Pacified North Africa and all that. Do you know what Lyautey said was the first essential of an officer? Gaiety. That was what Lyautey thought, and he knew his business. His own ideas of gaiety may not have included the charms of the fair sex, but that’s another matter. Well, how much gaiety do you find among most of the palsied crackpots you serve under? Precious little, you can take it from me. It was my intention to master a military career by taking a leaf out of Lyautey’s book – not as regards neglecting the ladies, but in other respects. First of all it worked pretty well.’
‘But what has Buster Foxe to do with Marshal Lyautey?’
‘I’m coming to that,’ said Umfraville. ‘Ever heard of a girl called Dolly Braybrook?’
‘No.’
‘Dolly was my first wife. Absolute stunner. Daughter of a fellow who’d formerly commanded the Regiment. Bloody Braybrook, her father was universally termed throughout the army, and with reason. She wouldn’t have me at first, and who should blame her. Asked her again and again. The answer was always no. Then one day she changed her mind, the way women do. That pertinacity of mine has gone now. All the same, its loss has confirmed my opinion that the older I get, the more attractive I am to women.’
‘It certainly looks like it.’
‘Formerly, there was all that business of “Not tonight, darling, because I don’t love you enough”, then “Not tonight, darling, because I love you too much” – Christ, I’ve been through the whole range of it. The nearest some women get to being faithful to their husband is making it unpleasant for their lover. However, that’s by the way. The point is that Dolly married me in the end.’
‘How long did it last?’
‘A year or two. Happy as the day’s long, at least I was. I’d been appointed