The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell [65]
Flavia Wisebite’s manner towards Robert was almost maternal. She was nearer in age to Robert than to Umfraville, but gave the impression, although so different an example of it, of belonging much more to Umfraville’s generation. Both she and Umfraville might be said to represent forms of revolt, and nothing dates people more than the standards from which they have chosen to react. Robert and Flavia’s love affair, if love affair it were, took a very different shape from Frederica’s and Umfraville’s. Robert and Flavia gave no impression that, for the moment at least, they were having the time of their lives. On the contrary, they seemed very subdued. By producing Flavia at his sister’s house, Robert was at last to some extent showing his hand, emotionally speaking, something he had never done before. Perhaps he was in love. The pressures of war were forcing action on everyone. Were his efforts to get to France part of this will to action, or an attempt to escape? The last might also be true. The telephone bell rang as we were rising from table. Frederica went to answer it. She returned to the room.
‘It’s for you, Priscilla.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Nick’s friend, Mr Stevens.’
‘Oh, yes, of course,’ said Priscilla. ‘About the brooch.’
She went rather pink.
‘Priscilla’s made a hit,’ said Umfraville.
I asked Flavia whether she ever saw her mother’s former secretary, Miss Weedon, who had married my parents’ old acquaintance, General Conyers.
‘Oh, Tuffy,’ she said. ‘She used to be my governess, you know. Yes, I visited her only the other day. It is all going very well. The General read aloud to us an article he had written about heightened bi-sexuality in relation to early religiosity. He is now much more interested in psychoanalysis than in his ’cello playing.’
‘What does he think about the war?’
‘He believed a German offensive would start any moment then, probably in several places at once.’
‘In fact this Norwegian and Danish business was the beginning.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘It doesn’t sound as if things are going too well,’ Umfraville said, ‘I think we’ve taken some knocks.’
Priscilla returned.
‘It was about the brooch,’ she said. ‘Mr Stevens can’t do it himself, as one of the stones has come out, but he has arranged for someone he knows to mend it. He just wanted to warn me that he wouldn’t have it for me when he came to pick up Nick in the car.’
‘I said he was a very polite young man,’ remarked Frederica, giving her sister rather a cold look.
The rest of the weekend passed with the appalling rapidity of wartime leave, melting away so quickly that one seemed scarcely to have arrived before it was time to go. Dinner was a trifle gloomy on that account, conversation fragmentary, for the most part about the news that evening.
‘I wonder whether this heavy bombing is a prelude to a move in France,’ said Robert. ‘What do you think, Dicky?’
‘That will be the next thing.’
Towards the end of the meal, the telephone bell sounded.
‘Do answer it, Nick,’ said Frederica. ‘You’re nearest the door.’
She spoke from the kitchen, where she was making coffee. The telephone was installed in a lobby off the hall. I went out to it. A man’s voice asked if he were speaking to Frederica’s number.
‘Yes.’
‘Is Lance-Corporal Tolland there?’
‘Who is speaking?’
He named some army unit. As I returned to the dining-room, a knocking came from the front door. I told Robert he was wanted on the telephone.
‘Shall I answer the door, Frederica?’
‘It’s probably the vicar about a light showing,’ she said. ‘He’s an air-raid warden and frightfully fussy. Bring him in, if it is. He might like a cup of coffee.’
However, a tall naval officer was on the step when I opened the door. He had just driven up in a car.
‘This is Lady Frederica Budd’s house?’
‘Yes.’
‘I must apologize for calling at this hour of the night, but I believe my step-daughter, Mrs Wisebite, is staying here.’
‘She is.’
‘There