A Buyer's Market Part 8

I explained that I had not come to blackmail Mr. Deacon.

"Oh, I guessed that almost at once," said Barnby. "But I was doing a bit of cleaning when you rang-the studio gets filthy-and the dust must have confused my powers of differentiation."

All this was evidently intended as some apology for earlier gruffness. As I followed up a narrow staircase, I a.s.sured him that I had no difficulty in grasping that caution might be prudent where Mr. Deacon's friends were concerned. In answer to this Barnby expressed himself very plainly regarding the majority of Mr. Deacon's circle of acquaintance. By this time we had reached the top of the house, and entered a fairly large, bare room, with a north light, used as a studio. Barnby pointed to a rickety armchair, and throwing dustpan and brush in the corner by the stove, sat down on a kind of divan that stood against one wall.

"You've known Edgar for a long time?"

"Since I was a child. But the other night was the first time I ever heard him called that."

"He doesn't let everyone use the name," said Barnby. "In fact, he likes to keep it as quiet as he can. As it happens, my father was at the Slade with him."

"He has given up painting, hasn't he?"

"Entirely."

"Is that just as well?"

"Some people hold that as a bad painter Edgar carries all before him," said Barnby. "I know good judges who think there is literally no worse one. I can't say I care for his work myself-but I'm told Sickert once found a good word to say for some of them, so there may have been something there once."

"Is he making a success of the antique business?"

"He says people are very kind. He marks the prices up a bit. Still, there always seems someone ready to pay-and I know he is glad to be back in London."

"But I thought he liked Paris so much."

"Only for a holiday, I think. He had to retire there for a number of years. There was a bit of trouble in the park, you know."

This hint of a former contretemps explained many things about Mr. Deacon's demeanour. For example, the reason for his evasive manner in the Louvre was now made plain; and I recalled Sillery's words at Mrs. Andriadis's party. They provided an ill.u.s.tration of the scope and nature of Sillery's stock of gossip. Mr. Deacon's decided air of having "gone downhill" was now also to be understood. I began to review his circ.u.mstances against a more positive perspective.

"What about War Never Pays! War Never Pays!, and Gypsy Jones?"

"The pacifism came on gradually," said Barnby. "I think it followed the period when he used to pretend the war had not taken place at all. Jones's interests are more political-world revolution, at least."

"Is she in residence at the moment?"

"Returned to the bosom of her family. Her father is a schoolmaster in the neighbourhood of Hendon. But may I ask if you, too, are pursuing her?"

After the remarks, largely incoherent, though apparently pointed enough, made by Mr. Deacon at the party, to the effect that Barnby's disapproval of Gypsy Jones's presence in the house was radically vested in his own lack of success in making himself acceptable to her, I a.s.sumed this question to be intended to ascertain whether or not I was myself to be considered a rival in that quarter. I therefore a.s.sured him at once that he could set his mind at rest upon that point, explaining that my inquiry had been prompted by the merest curiosity.

The inference on my part may have been a legitimate one in the light of what Mr. Deacon had said, but it proved to be a long way wide of the mark. Barnby appeared much annoyed at the suggestion that his own feelings for Gypsy Jones could be coloured by any sentiment short of the heartiest dislike: stating in the most formidable terms at hand his ineradicable unwillingness for that matter actual physical incapacity, to be inveigled into any situation that might threaten intimacy with her. These protests struck me at the time as perhaps a shade exaggerated, since I had to admit that, for my own part, I had found Gypsy Jones, s.l.u.ttish though she might be, less obnoxious than the impression of her conveyed by Barnby's words. However, I tried to make amends for the unjust imputation laid upon him, although, owing to their somewhat uncomplimentary nature, I was naturally unable to explain in precise terms the form taken by Mr. Deacon's misleading comments.

"I meant the chap with spectacles," said Barnby. "Isn't he a friend of yours? He always seems to be round here when Jones is about. I thought she might have made a conquest of you as well"

The second that pa.s.sed before I was able to grasp that Barnby referred to Widmerpool was to be attributed to that deep-seated reluctance that still remained in my heart, in the face of a volume of evidence to the contrary, to believe Widmerpool capable of possessing a vigorous emotional life of his own. He was a person outwardly unprepossessing, and therefore, according to a totally misleading doctrine, confined to an inescapable predicament that allowed no love affairs: or, at best, love affairs of so obscure and colourless a kind as to be of no possible interest to the world at large. Apart from its many other flaws, this approach was entirely subjective in its a.s.sumption that Widmerpool must of necessity appear, even to persons of the opposite s.e.x, as physically unattractive as he seemed to me; though there could probably be counted on my side, in support of this misapprehension, the opinion of most, perhaps all, of our contemporaries at school. On the other hand, I could claim a certain degree of vindication regarding this particular point at issue by insisting, with some justice, that Gypsy Jones, on the face of it, was the last girl on earth who might be expected to occupy Widmerpool's attention; which, on his own comparatively recent showing, seemed so unhesitatingly concentrated on making a success, in the most conventional manner, of his own social life.

At least that was how matters struck me when I was talking to Barnby; though I remembered then how the two of them-Gypsy Jones and Widmerpool-had apparently found each other's company congenial at the party. It was a matter to which I had given no thought at the time. Now I considered some of the facts. Although the theory that, in love, human beings like to choose an "opposite" may be genetically unsound, there is also, so it seems, a basic validity in such emotional situations as Montague and Capulet, Cavalier and Roundhead. If certain individuals fall in love from motives of convenience, they can be contrasted with plenty of others in whom pa.s.sion seems princ.i.p.ally aroused by the intensity of administrative difficulty in procuring its satisfaction. In fact, history is full of examples of hard-headed personages-to be expected to choose partners in love for reasons helpful to their own career-who were, as often as not, the very people most to embarra.s.s themselves, even to the extent of marriage, in unions that proved subsequently formidable obstacles to advancement.

This digression records, naturally, a later judgment; although even at the time, thinking things over, I could appreciate that there was nothing to be regarded as utterly unexpected in Widmerpool, after the sugar incident, taking a fancy to someone, "on the rebound," however surprisingly in contrast with Barbara the next girl might be. When I began to weigh the characteristics of Gypsy Jones, in so far as I knew them, I wondered whether, on examination, they made, indeed, so violent an ant.i.thesis to Barbara's qualities as might at first sight have appeared. Arguments could unquestionably be brought forward to show that these two girls possessed a good deal in common. Perhaps, after all, Barbara Goring and Gypsy Jones, so far from being irreconcilably different, were in fact notably alike; Barbara's girls' club, or whatever it was, in Bermondsey even pointing to a kind of sociological preoccupation in which there was-at least debatably-some common ground.

These speculations did not, of course, occur to me all at once. Still less did I think of a general law enclosing, even in some slight degree, all who share an interest in the same woman. It was not until years later that the course matters took in this direction became more or less explicable to me along such lines-that is to say, the irresistible pressure in certain emotional affairs of the most positive circ.u.mstantial inconvenience to be found at hand. Barnby, satisfied that I was clear regarding his own standpoint, was now prepared to make concessions.

"Jones has her admirers, you know," he said. "In fact, Edgar swears that she is the toast of the 1917 Club. It's my belief that in a perverted sort of way he rather fancies her himself-though, of course, he would never admit as much."

"He talked a lot about her at the party."

"What did he say?"

"He was deploring that she found herself in rather an awkward spot."

"You know about that, do you?"

"Mr. Deacon seemed very concerned."

"You make me laugh when you call Edgar 'Mr. Deacon'," said Barnby. "It certainly makes a new man of him. As a matter of fact, I rather think Jones has solved her problem. You know, she is older than you'd think-too old to get into that sort of difficulty. What do you say to going across the road for a drink?"

On the way out of the studio I asked if one of the unframed portraits standing against the easel could be a likeness of Mrs. Wentworth. Barnby, after scarcely perceptible hesitation, agreed that the picture represented that lady.

"She is rather paintable," he explained.

"Yes?"

"But tricky at times."

The subject of Mrs. Wentworth seemed to dispirit him a little, and he remained silent until we were sitting in front of our drinks in the empty saloon bar of the pub on the corner.

"Do you have any dealings with Donners?" he asked at last.

"A friend of mine called Charles Stringham had some sort of a job with him."

"I've heard Baby speak of Stringham. Wasn't there something about a divorce?"

"His sister's."

"That was it," said Barnby. "But the point is-what is happening about Baby and Donners?"

"How do you mean?"

"They are seen about a lot together. Baby has been appearing with some rather nice diamond clips, and odds and ends of that sort, which seem to be recent acquisitions."

Barnby screwed up his face in thought.

"Of course," he said. "I realise that a poor man competing with a rich one for a woman should be in a relatively strong position if he plays his cards well. Even so, Donners possesses to a superlative degree the advantages of his handicaps-so that one cannot help feeling a bit agitated at times. Especially with Theodoric cutting in, though I don't think he carries many guns."

"What about Mrs. Wentworth's husband?"

"Divorced," said Barnby. "She may even want to marry Donners. The point is, in this-as, I believe, in business matters too-he is rather a man of mystery. From time to time he has a girl hanging about, but he never seems to settle down with anyone. The girls themselves are evasive. They admit to no more than accepting presents and giving nothing in return. That's innocent enough, after all."

Although he spoke of the matter as if not to be taken too seriously, I suspected that he was, at least for the moment, fairly deeply concerned in the matter of Baby Wentworth; and when conversation turned to the supposed whims of Sir Magnus, Barnby seemed to take a self-tormenting pleasure in the nature of the hypotheses he put forward. It appeared that the position was additionally complicated by the fact that he had sold a picture to Sir Magnus a month or two before, and that there was even some question of his undertaking a mural in the entrance of the Donners-Brebner building.

"Makes the situation rather delicate," said Barnby.

He was, so I discovered, a figure of the third generation (perhaps the descent, if ascertainable, would have proved even longer) in the world in which he moved: a fact that seemed to give his judgment, based on easy terms of long standing with the problems involved, a scope rather unusual among those who practise the arts, even when they themselves perform with proficiency. His father-though he had died comparatively young, and left no money to speak of-had been, in his day, a fairly successful sculptor of an academic sort; his grandfather, not unknown in the 'sixties and 'seventies, a book ill.u.s.trator in the Tenniel tradition.

There were those, as I found later, among Barnby's acquaintances who would suggest that his too extensive field of appreciation had to some degree inhibited his own painting. This may have been true. He was himself fond of saying that few painters, writers or musicians had anything but the vaguest idea of what had been thought by their forerunners even a generation or two before; and usually no idea at all, however much they might protest to the contrary, regarding each other's particular branch of aesthetic. His own work diffused that rather deceptive air of emanc.i.p.ation that seemed in those years a kind of neo-cla.s.sicism, suggesting essentially that same impact brought home to me by Paris in the days when we had met Mr. Deacon in the Louvre: an atmosphere I can still think of as excitingly peculiar to that time.

Sir Magnus's interest in him showed enterprise in a great industrialist, for Barnby was then still comparatively unknown as a painter. In some curious manner his pictures seemed to personify a substantial proportion of that wayward and melancholy, perhaps even rather spurious, content of the self-consciously disillusioned art of that epoch. I mention these general aspects of the period and its moods, not only because they serve to ill.u.s.trate Barnby, considered, as it were, as a figure symbolic of the contemporary background, but also because our conversation, when later we had dinner together that night, drifted away from personalities into the region of painting and writing; so that, by the time I returned to my rooms, I had almost forgotten his earlier remarks about such individuals as Widmerpool and Gypsy Jones, or Mrs. Wentworth and Sir Magnus Donners.

As it turned out, some of the things Barnby had told me that night threw light, in due course, on matters that would otherwise have been scarcely intelligible; for I certainly did not expect that scattered elements of Mrs. Andriadis's party would recur so comparatively soon in my life; least of all supposing that their new appearance would take place through the medium of the Walpole-Wilsons, who were involved, it is true, only in a somewhat roundabout manner. All the same, their commitment was sufficient to draw attention once again to that extraordinary process that causes certain figures to appear and reappear in the performance of one or another sequence of a ritual dance.

Their summons to the country, although, as an invitation, acceptable to say the least at that time of year, was in itself, unless regarded from a somewhat oblique angle, not specially complimentary. This was because Eleanor herself looked upon house-parties at Hinton Hoo without enthusiasm, indeed with reluctance, cla.s.sing them as a kind of extension of her "season," calculated on the whole to hinder her own chosen activities by bringing to her home people who had, in a greater or lesser degree, to be entertained; thereby obstructing what she herself regarded, perhaps with reason, as the natural life of the place. There was no doubt something to be said for this point of view; and her letter, painfully formulated, had made no secret of a sense of resignation, on her own part, to the inevitable, conveying by its spirit, rather than actual words, the hope that at least I, for one, as an old, if not particularly close, friend, might be expected to recognise the realities of the situation, and behave accordingly.

Eleanor's candour in this respect certainly did not preclude grat.i.tude. On the other hand, it had equally to be admitted that some fundamental support sustaining the Walpole-Wilson family life had become at some stage of existence slightly displaced, so that a visit to Hinton, as to all households where something fundamental has gone obscurely wrong, was set against an atmosphere of tensity. Whether this lack of harmony had its roots in Sir Gavin's professional faux pas faux pas or in some unresolved imperfection in the relations.h.i.+p of husband and wife could only be conjectured. Hard up as I was at that moment for entertainment, I might even have thought twice about staying there-so formidable could this or in some unresolved imperfection in the relations.h.i.+p of husband and wife could only be conjectured. Hard up as I was at that moment for entertainment, I might even have thought twice about staying there-so formidable could this ambience ambience sometimes prove-if I had not by then been wholly converted to Barbara's view that "Eleanor was not a bad old girl when you know her." sometimes prove-if I had not by then been wholly converted to Barbara's view that "Eleanor was not a bad old girl when you know her."

I was rather glad to think that Barbara herself was in Scotland, so that there would be no likelihood of meeting her at her uncle's house. I felt that, if we could avoid seeing each other for long enough, any questions of sentiment-so often deprecated by Barbara herself-could be allowed quietly to subside, and take their place in those niches of memory especially reserved for abortive emotional entanglements of that particular kind. often deprecated by Barbara herself-could be allowed quietly to subside, and take their place in those niches of memory especially reserved for abortive emotional entanglements of that particular kind.

All the same, this sensation of starting life again, as it were, with a clean sheet, made me regret a little to find on arrival that the a.s.sembled house-party consisted only of Sir Gavin's unmarried sister, Miss Janet Walpole-Wilson, Rosie Manasch, and Johnny Pardoe. On the way down in the train I had felt that it would be enjoyable to meet some new girl, even at risk of becoming once more victim to the afflictions from which I had only recently emerged. However, it seemed that no such situation was on this occasion likely to arise. Miss Janet Walpole-Wilson I knew of only by name, though I had heard a great deal about her from time to time when talking to Eleanor, who, possessing a great admiration for her aunt, often described the many adventures for which she was noted within the family.

The other two guests, although in theory a perfectly suitable couple to invite together, were, I thought, not quite sure whether they liked one another. Barnby used to say that a small man was at more of a disadvantage with a small woman than with a big one, and it was certainly true that the short, squat, black figures of Rosie Manasch and Pardoe sometimes looked a little absurd side by side. "Johnny is so amusing," she used to say, and he had been heard to remark: "Rosie dances beautifully," but almost any other pair of Eleanor's acquaintances would have liked each other as well, if not better. As a matter of fact, Sir Gavin, hardly concealed a certain tendresse tendresse for Rosie, which may have accounted for her presence; and he certainly felt strong approval of Pardoe's comfortable income. Eleanor's own indifference to the matter might be held to excuse her parents for asking to the house guests who at least appealed in one way or another to their own tastes. for Rosie, which may have accounted for her presence; and he certainly felt strong approval of Pardoe's comfortable income. Eleanor's own indifference to the matter might be held to excuse her parents for asking to the house guests who at least appealed in one way or another to their own tastes.

The red brick Queen Anne manor house stood back from the road in a small park, if such an unpretentious setting of trees and paddocks could be so called. A walled orchard on the far side stretched down to the first few cottages of the village. The general impression of the property was of an estate neat and well superintended, rather than large. The place possessed that quality, perhaps more characteristic of country houses in England than in some other parts of Europe, of house and grounds forming an essential part of the landscape. The stables stood round three sides of a courtyard a short way from the main buildings, and there Eleanor was accustomed to spend a good deal of her time, with animals of various kinds, housed about the loose-boxes in hutches and wooden crates.

Within, there existed, rather unexpectedly, that somewhat empty, insistently correct appearance of the private dwellings of those who have spent most of their lives in official residences of one kind or another. A few mementoes of posts abroad were scattered about. For example, an enormous lacquer cabinet in the drawing-room had been brought from Pekin-some said Tokyo-by Sir Gavin, upon the top of which stood several small, equivocal figures carved in wood by the Indians of an obscure South American tribe. The portraits in the dining-room were mostly of Wilson forebears: one of them, an admiral, attributed to Zoffany. There was also a large painting of Lady Walpole-Wilson's father by the Academician, Isbister (spoken of with such horror by Mr. Deacon), whose portrait of Peter Templer's father I remembered as the only picture in the Templer home. This canvas was in the painter's earlier manner, conveying the impression that at any moment Lord Aberavon, depicted in peer's robes, would step from the frame and join the company below him in the room.

The Wilsons had lived in the county for a number of generations, but Sir Gavin had bought Hinton (with which he possessed hereditary connections through a grandmother) only after retirement. This comparatively recent purchase of the house was a subject upon which Sir Gavin's mind was never wholly at rest; and he was always at pains to explain that its owners.h.i.+p was not to be looked upon as an entirely new departure so far as any hypothetical status might be concerned as a land-owner "in that part of the world."

"As a matter of fact, the Wilsons are, if anything, an older family than the Walpoles-well, perhaps not that, but at least as old," he used to say. "I expect you have heard of Beau Wilson, a young gentleman who spent a lot of money in the reign of William and Mary, and was killed in a duel. I have reason to suppose he was one of our lot. And then there was a Master of the Mint a bit earlier. The double-barrel, which I greatly regret, and would discard if I could, without putting myself and my own kith and kin to a great deal of inconvenience, was the work of a great-uncle-a most consequential a.s.s, between you and me, and a bit of a sn.o.b, I'm afraid-and has really no basis whatever, beyond the surname of a remote ancestor in the female line."

He was accustomed to terminate this particular speech with a number of "m'ms," most of them interrogative, and some uneasy laughter. His sister, on this occasion, looked rather disapproving at these excursions into family history.

She was a small, defiant woman, some years younger than Sir Gavin, recently returned from a journey in Yugoslavia, where she had been staying with a friend married to a British consul in that country. Although spoken of as "not well off," Miss Janet Walpole-Wilson was also reported to maintain herself at a respectable level of existence by intermittent odd jobs that varied between acting as secretary, usually in a more or less specialised capacity, to some public figure, often a friend or relative of the family; alternatively, by undertaking, when they travelled abroad, the role of governess or duenna to children of relations, some of whom were rather rich.

"Aunt Janet says you must never mind asking," Eleanor had informed me, when speaking of the ease with which Miss Walpole-Wilson, apparently on account of her freedom from inhibition upon this point, always found employment. Her aunt certainly seemed to have enjoyed throughout her life a wide variety of confidences and experiences. She dressed usually in tones of brown and green, colours that gave her for some reason, possibly because her hats almost always conveyed the impression of being peaked, an air of belonging to some dedicated order of female officials, connected possibly with public service in the woods and forests, and bearing a load of responsibility, the extent of which was difficult for a lay person-even impossible if a male-to appreciate, or wholly to understand. The outlines of her good, though severe, features were emphasised by a somewhat reddish complexion.

Sir Gavin, though no doubt attached to his sister, was sometimes openly irritated by her frequent, and quite uncompromising, p.r.o.nouncements on subjects that he must have felt himself, as a former diplomatist of some standing, possessing the right, at least in his own house, to speak of with authority. Lady Walpole-Wilson, on the other hand, scarcely made a secret of finding the presence of her sister-in-law something of a strain. A look of sadness would steal over her face when Miss Walpole-Wilson argued with Sir Gavin about ethnological problems in the Sanjak of Novi Bazar, or spoke of times when "the Ford's big end went in the Banat," or "officials made themselves so disagreeable at Nish:" geographical ent.i.ties of that kind playing a great part in her conversation. Although seriously concerned with the general welfare of the human race, she sometimes displayed a certain capricious malignity towards individuals, taking, for example, a great dislike to Pardoe, though she showed a guarded friends.h.i.+p towards Rosie Manasch. I was relieved to find her att.i.tude to myself suggested nothing more hostile than complete indifference.

One, perhaps the chief, bone of contention lying between herself and her brother was Miss Walpole-Wilson's conviction that the traditions of his service, by their very nature, must have rendered him impervious to anything in the way of new ideas or humanitarian concepts; so that much of Sir Gavin's time was taken up in attempting to demonstrate to his sister that, so far from lagging behind in the propagation of reforms of almost every kind, he was prepared to go, theoretically at least, not only as far as, but even farther than, herself. Both of them knew Sillery, who had recently stayed in the neighbourhood, and for once they were in agreement that he was "full of understanding." The subject of Sillery's visit came up at dinner on the night of my arrival.

"It was at Stourwater," said Lady Walpole-Wilson. "As a matter of fact we have been asked over there on Sunday. Prince Theodoric is staying there with Sir Magnus Donners."

I knew the castle by name, and was even aware in a vague kind of way that it had often changed hands during the previous fifty or hundred years; but I had never seen the place, nor had any idea that Sir Magnus Donners lived there.

"And I so much wanted that afternoon to see those two hound puppies Nokes is walking," said Eleanor. "Now it turns out we are being forced to go to this ghastly luncheon-party."

"Got to be civil to one's neighbours, my dear," said Sir Gavin. "Besides, Theodoric has particularly asked to see me."

"I don't know what you call 'neighbours'," said Eleanor. "Stourwater is twenty-five miles, at least."

"Nonsense," said Sir Gavin. "I doubt if it is twenty-three."

His att.i.tude towards Eleanor varied between almost doting affection and an approach most easily suggested by the phrase "making the best of a bad job." There were times when she vexed him. Arguing with her father brought out the resemblance between the two of them, though features that, in Sir Gavin, seemed conventionalised to the point, almost, of stylisation took on a peculiar twist in his daughter. As she sat there at the table, I could recognise no similarity whatever to Barbara-of whom at times I still found myself thinking-except for their shared colouring.

"I explained to Donners that we should be quite a large party," said Sir Gavin, "but he would not hear of anyone being left behind. In any case, there is plenty of room there, and the castle itself is well worth seeing."

"I don't think I shall come after all, Gavin," said Miss Walpole-Wilson. "No one will want to see me there-least of all Prince Theodoric. Although I dare say he is too young to remember the misunderstanding that arose, when I stayed with you, regarding that remark about 'travesty of democratic government'-and you know I never care for people with too much money."

"Oh, come, Janet," said Sir Gavin. "Of course they will all want to see you-the Prince especially. He is a very go-ahead fellow, everyone who has met him agrees. As a matter of fact, you know as well as I do, the old King laughed heartily when I explained the circ.u.mstance of your remark. He made a rather broad joke about it. I've told you a thousand times. Besides, Donners is not a bad fellow at all."

"I can't get on with those people-ever."

"I don't know what you mean by 'those people'," said Sir Gavin, a trifle irritably. "Donners is no different from anyone else, except that he may be a bit richer. He didn't start life barefoot-not that I for one should have the least objection if he had, more power to his elbow-but his father was an eminently solid figure. He was knighted, I believe, for what that's worth. Donners went to some quite decent school. I think the family are of Scandinavian, or North German, extraction. No doubt very worthy people."

"Oh, I do hope he isn't German," said Lady Walpole-Wilson. "I never thought of that."

"Personally, I have a great admiration for the Germans-I do not, of course, mean the Junkers," said her sister-in-law. "They have been hardly treated. No one of liberal opinions could think otherwise. And I certainly do not object to Sir Magnus on sn.o.bbish grounds. You know me too well for that, Gavin. I have no doubt, as you say, that he has many good points. All the same, I think I had better stay at home. I can make a start on my article about the Bosnian Moslems for the news-sheet of the Minority Problems League."

"If Aunt Janet doesn't go, I don't see why I should," said Eleanor. "I don't in the least want to meet Prince Theodoric."

"I do," said Rosie Manasch. "I thought he looked too fetching at Goodwood."

In the laugh that followed this certainly tactful expression of preference, earlier warnings of potential family difference died away. Sir Gavin began to describe, not for the first time, the occasion when, as a young secretary in some Oriental country, he had stained his face with coffee-grounds and, like Haroun-al-Raschid, "mingled" in the bazaar: with, so it appeared, useful results. The story carried dinner safely to the dessert, a stage when Pardoe brought conversation back once more to Sunday's expedition by asking whether Sir Magnus Donners had purchased Stourwater from the family with whom Barbara was staying in Scotland, for whose house he was himself bound on leaving Hinton.

"He bought it from a relation of mine," said Rosie Manasch. "Uncle Leopold always says he sold it-with due respect to you, Eleanor-because the hunting round here wasn't good enough. I think it was really because it cost too much to keep up."

"It is all very perfect now," said Sir Gavin. "Rather too perfect for my taste. In any case, I am no medievalist."

He looked round the table challengingly after saying this, rather as Uncle Giles was inclined to glare about him after making some more or less tendentious statement, whether because he suspected that one or other of us, in spite of this disavowal, would charge him with covert medievalism, or in momentary hesitation that, in taking so high a line on the subject of an era at once protracted and diversified, he ran risk of exposure to the impeachment of "missing something" thereby, was uncertain.

"There is the Holbein, too," said Lady Walpole-Wilson. "You really must come, Janet, I know you like pictures."

"The castle belongs, like Bodiam, to the later Middle Ages," said Sir Gavin, a.s.suming all at once the sing-song tones of a guide or lecturer. "And, like Bodiam, Stourwater possesses little or no historical interest, as such, while remaining, so far as its exterior is concerned, architecturally one of the most complete, and comparatively unaltered, fortified buildings of its period. For some reason-"

"-for some reason the defences were not dismantled-'sleighted,' I think you call it-at the time of the Civil Wars," cut in Lady Walpole-Wilson, as if answering the responses in church, or completing the quotation of a well-known poem to show apreciation of its aptness. "Though subsequent owners undertook certain improvements in connection with the structural fabric of the interior, with a view to increasing Stourwater's convenience as a private residence in more peaceful times."

"I have already read a great deal of what you have been saying in Stourwater and Its Story Stourwater and Its Story, a copy of which was kindly placed by my bed," said Miss Walpole-Wilson. "I doubt if all the information given there is very accurate."

For some reason a curious sense of excitement rose within me at prospect of this visit. I could not explain to myself this feeling, almost of suspense, that seemed to hang over the expedition. I was curious to see the castle, certainly, hut that hardly explained an anxiety that Eleanor's hound puppies, or Miss Walpole-Wilson's humours, might prevent my going there. That night I lay awake thinking about Stourwater as if it had been the sole motive for my coming to Hinton: fearing all the time that some hitch would occur. However, the day came and we set out, Miss Walpole-Wilson, in spite of her earlier displeasure, finally agreeing to accompany the party, accommodated in two cars, one of them driven by Sir Gavin himself. There was perhaps a tacit suggestion that he would have liked Rosie Manasch to travel with him, but, although as a rule not unwilling to accept his company, and approval, she chose, on this occasion, the car driven by the chauffeur.

When we came to Stourwater that Sunday morning, the first sight was impressive. Set among oaks and beeches in a green hollow of the land, the castle was approached by a causeway crossing the remains of a moat, a broad expanse of water through which, with great deliberation, a pair of black swans, their pa.s.sage sending ripples through the pond weed, glided between rushes swaying gently in the warm September air. Here was the Middle Age, from the pages of Tennyson, or Scott, at its most elegant: all sordid and painful elements subtly removed. Some such thought must have struck Sir Gavin too, for I heard him murmuring at the wheel: "'And sometimes thro' the mirror blue The knights come riding two and two ..."

There was, in fact, no one about at all; neither knights nor hinds, this absence of human life increasing a sense of unreality, as if we were travelling in a dream. The cars pa.s.sed under the portcullis, and across a cobbled quadrangle. Beyond this open s.p.a.ce, reached by another archway, was a courtyard of even larger dimensions, in the centre of which a sunken lawn had been laid out, with a fountain at the centre, and carved stone flower-pots, shaped like urns, at each of the four corners. The whole effect was not, perhaps, altogether in keeping with the rest of the place. Through a vaulted gateway on one side could be seen the high yew hedges of the garden. Steps led up to the main entrance of the castle's domestic wing, at which the cars drew up.

Mounted effigies in Gothic armour guarded either side of the door by which we entered the Great Hall; and these dramatic figures of man and horse struck a new and somewhat disturbing note; though one at which the sunken garden had already hinted. Such implications of an over-elaborate solicitude were followed up everywhere the eye rested, producing a result altogether different from the cool, detached vision manifested a minute or two earlier by grey walls and towers rising out of the green, static landscape. Something was decidedly amiss. The final consequence of the pains lavished on these halls and galleries was not precisely that of a Hollywood film set, the objects a.s.sembled being, in the first place, too genuine, too valuable; there was even a certain sense of fitness, of historical a.s.sociation more or less correctly a.s.sessed. The display was discomforting, not contemptible. The impression was of sensations that might precede one of those episodes in a fairy story, when, at a given moment, the appropriate spell is p.r.o.nounced to cause domes and minarets, fountains and pleasure-gardens, to disappear into thin air; leaving the hero-in this case, Sir Magnus Donners-s.h.i.+vering in rags beneath the blasted oak of a grim forest, or scorched by rays of a blazing sun among the rocks and boulders of some desolate mountainside. In fact, Sir Gavin's strictures on Stourwater as "too perfect" were inadequate as a delineation to the extent of being almost beside the point.

I had supposed that, in common with most visits paid on these terms in the country, the Walpole-Wilson group might be left most of the time huddled in a cl.u.s.ter of their own, while the Donners house-party, drawn together as never before by the arrival of strangers, would discourse animatedly together at some distance off, the one faction scarcely mixing at all with the other. This not uncommon predicament could no doubt in a general way have been exemplified soon after we had been received by Sir Magnus-looking more healthily clerical than ever-in the Long Gallery (at the far end of which hung the Holbein, one of the portraits of Erasmus), had not various unforeseen circ.u.mstances contributed to modify what might be regarded as a more normal course of events. For example, among a number of faces in the room possessing a somewhat familiar appearance, I suddenly noticed Stringham and Bill Truscott, both of whom were conversing with an unusually pretty girl.

We were presented, one by one, to Prince Theodoric, who wore a grey flannel suit, unreservedly continental in cut, and appeared far more at his ease than at Mrs. Andriadis's party: smiling in a most engaging manner when he shook hands. He spoke that scrupulously correct English, characteristic of certain foreign royalties, that confers on the language a smoothness and flexibility quite alien to the manner in which English people themselves talk. There was a word from him for everyone. Sir Gavin seized his hand as if he were meeting a long lost son, while Prince Theodoric himself seemed, on his side, equally pleased at their reunion. Lady Walpole-Wilson, probably because she remembered Prince Theodoric only as a boy, showed in her eye apparent surprise at finding him so grown-up. Only Eleanor's, and her aunt's firmly-clasped lips and stiff curtsey suggested entire disapproval.

Further introductions took place. The Huntercombes were there-Lord Huntercombe was Lord Lieutenant of the county-and there were a crowd of persons whose ident.i.ties, as a whole, I failed to a.s.similate; though here and there was recognisable an occasional notability like Sir Horrocks Rusby, whose name I remembered Widmerpool mentioning on some occasions, who had not so long before achieved a good deal of prominence in the newspapers as counsel in the Derwent.w.a.ter divorce case. I also noticed Mrs. Wentworth-whom Sir Horrocks had probably cross-questioned in the witness-box-still looking rather sulky, as she stood in one of the groups about us. When the formalities of these opening moves of the game had been completed, and we had been given c.o.c.ktails, Stringham strolled across the room. His face was deeply burned by the sun. I wondered whether this was the result of the Deauville trip, of which Mrs. Andriadis had spoken, or if, on the contrary, division between them had been final. He had not wholly lost his appearance of fatigue.