Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (16 page)

‘Fascinating subjects.’

‘They are in one’s own life. Less so, where others are concerned.’

‘You speak with feeling.’

‘Do I? Just my naturally vehement way of expressing myself.’

As it turned out, once the step had been taken, the Abdication become a matter of history, everything resumed an accustomed routine with much greater ease than popularly foreseen. There appeared no reason to suppose the box office for Moreland’s symphony would suffer. Priscilla (who had eventually taken the job in the organisation raising money for the promotion of opera) reported, for example, that the cross-section of the public seen through this particular microscope seemed to have settled down, after some weeks of upheaval, to its normal condition. Priscilla was not particularly interested in music – less so than Robert – but naturally this employment had brought her in touch to some degree with the musical world. At the same time, I was surprised when, the day before Moreland’s work was to be performed, Priscilla rang up and asked if she could come with us the following evening. Isobel answered the telephone.

‘I didn’t know you often went to concerts,’ she said.

‘I don’t unless I have a free ticket,’ said Priscilla.

‘Did you get a free ticket for this one?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who gave it you?’

‘One of the persons whose music is going to be played.’

‘I thought they were all dead, or living abroad, except Hugh Moreland.’

‘Hugh Moreland gave me the ticket.’

‘I didn’t know you knew him.’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Oh, yes. You met him with us, didn’t you?’

‘And other times too. I meet him in my office.’

‘You never mentioned it.’

‘Look here, can I come with you and Nick, or can’t I?’ said Priscilla. ‘I am just asking. If you think being seen in my company will get you a bad name, I’ll go alone and pretend I don’t know either of you if we meet in the bar. Nothing easier.’

This conversation was reported later by Isobel, with the information that Priscilla was dining with us the following night.

‘Typical of Hugh to present a ticket to Priscilla, who is not in the least interested in music,’ I said, ‘when all sorts of people who might be useful to him would have been delighted to be remembered in that way.’

The statement was true, at the same time disingenuous. I was a little aware of that at the time. It was a priggish remark; not even genuinely priggish. There seemed no point in adding that it was obviously more fun to give a ticket to a pretty girl like Priscilla, rather than to some uncouth musical hanger-on whose gratification might ultimately pay a doubtful dividend. I felt it one of those occasions when a show of worldliness might be used as a smoke-screen. But why should a smoke-screen be required?

‘I suppose Hugh had a few drinks at some party,’ I said, ‘and distributed tickets broadcast.’

In the end I convinced myself of the probability of this surmise. Isobel did not express any views on the subject. However, when she arrived at the flat, Priscilla explained that Moreland, the day before, had visited, in some professional capacity, the place where the Opera fund was administered. There, ‘rummaging about in his pocket for his cigarettes’, he found this spare ticket ‘crumpled up among a lot of newspaper cuttings, bits of string, and paper-clips’. He had given the ticket to Priscilla, suggesting at the same time that she should come on to Mrs Foxe’s party after the concert. That was a convincing story. It had all the mark of Moreland’s behaviour. We talked of other things; of Erridge, who had cabled for thicker underclothes to be sent him in Barcelona, indicating in this manner that he was not, as some prophesied, likely to return immediately. We discussed Erridge’s prospects in Spain. By the time we reached the concert hall, Priscilla seemed to have come with us that evening by long previous arrangement.

Moreland was fond of insisting that whatever the critics say, good or bad, all works of art must go through a maturing process before taking their allotted place in the scheme of things. There is nothing particularly original in that opinion, but those who hold firmly to it are on the whole less likely to be spoiled by praise or cast down by blame than others – not necessarily worse artists-who find heaven or hell in each individual press notice. The symphony was, in fact, greeted as a success, but not as an overwhelming success; a solid piece of work that would add to Moreland’s reputation, rather than a detonation of unexampled brilliance. Gossage, fiddling about with the mustard pot at some restaurant, had once remarked (when Moreland was out of the room) that he would be wise to build up his name with a work of just that sort. In the concert hall, there had been a lot of applause; at the same time a faint sense of anti-climax. Even for the most self-disciplined of artists, a public taken by surprise is more stimulating than a public relieved to find that what is offered can be swallowed without the least sharpness on the palate. This was especially true of Moreland, who possessed his healthy share of liking to startle, in spite of his own innate antagonism to professional startlers. However, if the symphony turned out to be a little disappointing to those who may have hoped for something more barbed, the reception was warm enough to cast no suggestion of shadow over a party of celebration.

‘That went all right, didn’t it?’ said Isobel.

‘It seemed to.’

‘I thought it absolutely wonderful,’ said Priscilla.

I felt great curiosity at the prospect of seeing Mrs Foxe’s house again, not entered since the day when, still a schoolboy, I had lunched there with Stringham and his mother. Nothing had changed in the pillared entrance hall. There was, of course, absolutely no reason why anything should have changed, but I had an odd feeling of incongruity about reappearing there as a married man. The transition against this same backcloth was too abrupt. Some interim state, like steps in the gradations of freemasonry, seemed to have been omitted. We were shown up to a crimson damask drawing-room on the first floor, at one end of which sliding doors were open, revealing the room at right angles to be the ‘library’ – with its huge malachite urn, Romney portrait, Regency bookcases – into which Stringham had brought me on that earlier visit. There I had first encountered the chilly elegance of Commander Foxe; also witnessed Stringham’s method of dealing with his mother’s ‘current husband’.

Commander Foxe, as it happened, was the first person I saw when we came through the door. He was talking to Lady Huntercombe. From a certain bravado in his manner of addressing her, I suspected he had probably let himself off attending the concert. Mrs Foxe came forward to meet us as we were announced, looking just as she looked at
The Duchess of Malfi
, changeless, dazzling, dominating. As an old friend of Lady Warminster’s, she had, of course, known Isobel and Priscilla as children. She spoke to them for a moment about their stepmother’s health, then turned to me. I was about to recall to her the circumstances in which we had formerly met in what was now so dim a past, wondering at the same time what on earth I was going to say about Stringham, mention of whose name was clearly unavoidable, when Mrs Foxe herself forestalled me.

‘How well I remember when Charles brought you to luncheon here. Do you remember that too? It was just before he sailed for Kenya. We all went to the Russian Ballet that night. Such a pity you could not have come with us. What fun it was in those days … Poor Charles … He has had such a lot of trouble … You know, of course . But he is happier now. Tuffy looks after him – Miss Weedon; you met her too when you came here, didn’t you? – and Charles has taken to painting. It has done wonders.’

‘I remember his caricatures.’

Stringham could not draw at all in the technical sense, but he was a master of his own particular form of graphic representation, executed in a convention of blobs and spidery lines, very effective for producing likenesses of Le Bas or the other masters at school. I could not imagine what Stringham’s ‘painting’ could be. This terminology put the activity into quite another setting.

‘Charles uses gouache now,’ said Mrs Foxe, speaking with that bright firmness of manner people apply especially to close relations attempting to recover from more or less disastrous mismanagement of their own lives, ‘designing theatrical costumes and that sort of thing. Norman says they are really quite good. Of course, Charles has had no training, so it is probably too late for him to do anything professionally. But the designs have originality, Norman thinks. You know Norman talks a lot about you and Isobel. He adores you both. Norman made me read one of your books. I liked it very much.’

She looked a bit pathetic when she said that, making me feel in this respect perhaps Chandler had gone too far in his exercise of power. However, other guests coming up the stairs at our heels compelled a forward movement. Moreland red in the face, appeared in Mrs Foxe’s immediate background. We offered our congratulations. He muttered a word or two about the horror of having a new work performed; seemed very happy about everything. We left him talking to Priscilla, herself rather pink, too, with the excitement of arrival. The party began to take more coherent shape. Mrs Foxe had, on the whole, most dutifully followed Moreland’s wishes in collecting together his old friends, rather than arranging a smart affair of her own picking and choosing. Indeed, the far end of the crimson drawing-room could almost have been a corner of the Mortimer on one of its better nights; the group collected there making one feel that at any moment the strains of the mechanical piano would suddenly burst forth. The Maclinticks, Carolo, Gossage, with several other musicians and critics known to me only by sight, were present, including a famous conductor of a generation older than Moreland’s, invited probably through acquaintance with Mrs Foxe in a social way rather than because of occasional professional contacts between Moreland and himself. This distinguished person was conversing a little loudly and self-consciously, with a great deal of gesticulation, to show there was no question of condescension from himself towards his less successful colleagues. Near this knot of musicians stood Chandler’s old friend, Max Pilgrim, trying to get a word or two out of Rupert Wise, another of Chandler’s friends – indeed, a great admiration of Chandler’s – a male dancer known for his strict morals and lack of small talk. Wise’s engagement to an equally respectable female member of the
corps de ballet
had recently been announced. Mrs Foxe had promised to give them a refrigerator as a wedding present.

‘Not colder than Rupe’s heart,’ Chandler had commented. ‘It was my suggestion. He may have a profile like Apollo, but he’s got a mind like Hampstead Garden Suburb.’

The Huntercombes, as well as the celebrated conductor, were certainly contributed to the party by Mrs Foxe rather than by Moreland. Once – as I knew from remarks let fall by Stringham in the past – Mrs Foxe would have regarded Lady Huntercombe as dreadfully ‘slow’, and laughed at her clothes, which were usually more dramatic than fashionable. However, now that Mrs Foxe’s energies were so largely directed towards seeking ways of benefiting Chandler and his friends, Lord Huntercombe’s many activities in the art world had to be taken into account. In his capacity as trustee of more than one public gallery, Lord Huntercombe was, it was true, concerned with pictures rather than with music or the theatre. At the same time, his well recognised abilities in his own field had brought him a seat on several committees connected with other branches of the arts or activities of a generally ‘cultural’ sort. Lord Huntercombe, small and immensely neat, was indeed a man to be reckoned with. He had caught napping one of the best known Bond Street dealers in the matter of a Virgin and Child by Benozzo Gozzoli (acquired from the gallery as the work of a lesser master, later resoundingly identified), also so nicely chosen the moment to dispose of his father’s collection of English pastels that he obtained nearly twice their market value.

Lady Huntercombe, as usual majestically dressed in a black velvet gown, wore a black ribbon round her neck clipped with an elaborate ornament in diamonds. She took a keen interest in music, more so than her husband, who liked to be able himself to excel in his own spheres of patronage, and was not musically inclined. I remembered Lady Huntercombe expressing her disappointment after Stringham’s wedding at the manner in which the choir had sung the anthem. ‘Dreadfully sharp,’ I heard her say at the reception. ‘It set my teeth on edge.’ Now she was talking to Matilda, to the accompaniment of animated and delighted shakings of her forefinger, no doubt indicative of some special pleasure she had taken in Moreland’s symphony; apparently at the same time trying to persuade Matilda – who seemed disposed to resist these advances – to accept some invitation or other similar commitment.

Moving towards the inner room, I observed that Chandler’s small bronze of
Truth Unveiled by Time
, long ago bought from the Caledonian Market and rescued from Mr Deacon’s shop after his death, had now come finally to rest on the console table under the Romney. Chandler himself was standing beside the table, stirring a glass of champagne with a gold swizzle-stick borrowed from Commander Foxe. Although Chandler might hold Mrs Foxe under his sway, she, on her part, had in some degree tamed him too. His demeanour had been modified by prolonged association with her. He was no longer quite the
gamin
of the Mortimer.

‘Hullo, my dear,’ he said. ‘Fizz always gives me terrible hiccups, unless I take the bubbles away. You know Buster, of course.’

Commander Foxe, greyer now, a shade bulkier than when I had last seen him, was at the same time, if possible, more dignified as a result of these outward marks of maturity. He retained in his dress that utter perfection of turn-out that stopped so brilliantly short of seeming no more than the trappings of a tailor’s dummy. His manner, on the other hand, had greatly changed. He had become chastened, almost humble. I could not imagine how I had ever found him alarming; although, even with this later development of geniality, there still existed a suggestion that below the surface he knew how to make himself disagreeable if need be. I mentioned where we had last met. He at once recollected or pretended to recollect, the occasion; the essence of good manners and friendliness, almost obsequious in his desire to please.