A Question of Upbringing

by Anthony Powell

  “Salmon,” he remarked. “Always makes me think of Mr. Gladstone.”

  “Have some, all the same,” said Stringham. “I hope it’s fresh.”

  “Did you arrange all this lunch yourself?” asked Miss Weedon, before Sillery could proceed further with his story. “How wonderful of you. You know your mother was really distressed that she couldn’t come.”

  “The boys were at choir-practice when I passed this way,” said Sillery, determined that he should enter the conversation on his own terms. “They were trying over that bit from The Messiah” – he hummed distantly, and beat time with his fork —” you know, those children’s voices made me mighty sad.”

  “Charles used to have a nice voice, didn’t you?” said Miss Weedon: plainly more as a tribute to Stringham’s completeness of personality, rather than because the matter could be thought to be of any great musical interest.

  “I really might have earned my living that way, if it hadn’t broken,” said Stringham. “I should especially have enjoyed singing in the street. Perhaps I shall come to it yet.”

  “There’s been a terrible to-do about the way you earn your living,” said Miss Weedon. “Buster doesn’t at all like the idea of your living in London.”

  Sillery showed interest in this remark, in spite of his evident dissatisfaction at the manner in which Miss Weedon treated him. He seemed unable to decide upon her precise status in the household: which was, indeed, one not easy to assess. It was equally hard to guess what she knew, or thought, of Sillery; whether she appreciated the extent of his experience in such situations as that which had arisen in regard to Stringham. Sitting opposite him, she seemed to have become firmer and more masculine; while Sillery himself, more than ever, took the shape of a wizard or shaman, equipped to resist either man or woman from a bisexual vantage.

  This ineffective situation might have continued throughout Miss Weedon’s visit, if Moffet – about whom a word should be said – had not handed Stringham a telegram, when he brought the next course. Moffet, a tall, gloomy man, on account of his general demeanour, which was certainly oppressive enough, had in some degree contributed to Stringham’s dislike for university life. Stringham used to call Moffet “the murderer,” not on account of anything outwardly disreputable in his appearance, which might have been that of some ecclesiastical dignitary, but because of what Stringham named “the cold cruelty of Moffet’s eye.” If Moffet decided, for one reason or another, that an undergraduate on his staircase was worth cultivating, there was something sacerdotal about the precision with which he never left him free from attentions; as if the victim must be converted, come what may, to Moffet’s doctrines. Moffet had at first sight made up his mind that Stringham was one to be brought under his sway.

  One of Moffet’s tenets was in connection with the manner in which Stringham arranged several ivory elephants along the top of his mantelpiece. Stringham liked the elephants to follow each other in column: Moffet preferred them to face the room in line. I had been present, on one occasion, when Moffet, having just finished “doing the room,” had disappeared from it. Stringham walked over to the fireplace, where the elephants stood with their trunks in line, and turned them sideways. As he completed this rearrangement, Moffet came in once more through the door. Stringham had the last elephant in his hand. Moffet stared across at him forbiddingly.

  “I am afraid I do not arrange ornaments very well, sir,” said Moffet.

  “Just a whim of mine regarding elephants.”

  “I will try to remember, sir,” said Moffet. “They take a powerful lot of dusting.”

  He retired again, adding: “Thank you, sir,” as he closed the door. The incident disturbed Stringham. “Now I shall have to go down,” he said.

  However, Moffet was in an excellent mood at having an opportunity to wait on Sillery, of whom, for some reason, he approved more than of most dons. He brought in the telegram with a flourish. The message was from Stringham’s mother: she would be arriving, after all: Buster was driving her down. At this, Sillery cheered up at once; and Miss Weedon, too, saw hope that negotiations might now take place. Stringham himself seemed as indifferent as before.

  “If Buster is coming,” he said, “he will certainly queer the pitch.”

  “I am looking forward to meeting Buster,” said Sillery, smiling straight across the table to Miss Weedon. “I think I shall persuade him to our point of view.”

  He put the tips of his fingers together. Miss Weedon looked a little surprised at this whole-hearted way in which Sillery offered himself as an ally. She had perhaps assumed that, as a don, he would inevitably attempt to prevent Stringham from going down. She said: “Commander Foxe’s great regret is that he never went to the university.”

  I did not know whether this remark was intended to excuse Buster, or to suggest to Sillery a line of attack.

  “No doubt he acquired a very useful education in a different sphere,” said Sillery. “I have made enquiries, and find that we have many friends in common. Bill Truscott, for example.”

  Miss Weedon did not feel equally enthusiastic about Bill Truscott. I wondered if they had crossed swords.

  “Mr. Truscott has been in the house a lot lately,” she said, guardedly.

  “Bill knows the situation perfectly,” said Sillery. “It would be a great advantage to work in harness with him.” All Miss Weedon was prepared to admit was the statement that “Mr. Truscott is always very kind.” However, Sillery’s changed mood much improved the atmosphere; luncheon continuing with less sense of strain.

  Mrs. Foxe and Buster arrived just as Moffet was clearing the table. They brought with them a hamper; caviare, grapes, a bottle of champagne. The effect of their entrance was immediate. Sillery and Miss Weedon at once abjured a great proportion of the hermaphroditic humours assumed by each of them for the purpose of more convenient association with the other: Miss Weedon relapsing into her normal role of attendance on Mrs. Foxe: Sillery steering himself more decidedly towards the part of eccentric professor, and away from the comparatively straightforward manner in which he had been discussing Stringham’s affairs. This was the first time I had seen Mrs. Foxe and Buster together. They made an unusual couple. This was not due to the fact that she was a few years the elder of the two, which was scarcely noticeable, because Buster, though he had lost some of his look of anxiety, was distinctly fatter, and less juvenile in appearance, than he had seemed in London a year or more before. He was still dressed with care, and appeared in a more amenable temper than at our earlier meeting.

  “We brought some grub down,” he said to Stringham, putting the hamper on a chair; and, turning to me, he remarked: “I think one can always use caviare, don’t you?”

  It was clear that he accepted the fact that in the presence of his wife he was a subordinate figure, wherever he might rank away from her. Mrs. Foxe’s ownership of Buster seemed complete when they were in a room together. From time to time she would glance at him as if to make sure that he were behaving himself; but her look was one of complete assurance that a word from her would be sufficient to quell even the smallest outbreak of conduct of a kind of which she might disapprove. I found out, much later, that the circumstances of their marriage had been, so far as they went, respectable enough; and that nothing could have been farther from the truth than Widmerpool’s suggestion that her divorce had been a particularly scandalous one. At that time, however, I had not heard any of the story; and I was still curious to know where she and Buster had met, and what romantic climax had been the cause of their going off together.

  Sillery now showed great activity. He moved quickly forward to Mrs. Foxe, for a moment or two engaging her in conversation that took up the threads of their acquaintanceship of years before. Then he made for Buster, on whom he evidently intended to concentrate his forces, manoeuvring him to the far end of the room; and, after a short while, taking his arm. Moffet had come in to ask if more coffee was required. He was in his element in this somewhat confused scene.
Mrs. Foxe and Buster, not yet having lunched, some sort of a picnic was now organised among the remnants of the meal just consumed.

  Sillery must have made his point, whatever it was, with Buster almost immediately, because soon he led him back to the food, assuring us that it was extraordinary that, during his war work with the Y.M.C.A., they had never met, though how this meeting could possibly have happened he did not explain. Whatever they had found in common was satisfactory to Buster, too, since he laughed and talked with Sillery as if he had known him for years. I have sometimes wondered whether Sillery made some specific offer on that occasion: a useful business introduction, for example, might have been dangled before Buster, then, as I knew from Stringham, contemplating retirement from the Navy. On the whole it is probable that nothing more concrete took place than that the two of them were aware, as soon as they set eyes on one another, of mutual sympathy: Sillery confining himself to flattery, and perhaps allowing Buster to hear the names of some of the more impressive specimens in his collection. Whatever the reason, Stringham’s fate was settled in these first few minutes, because it was then that Buster must have decided to withdraw opposition. How serious this opposition was likely to be, if Sillery had not stepped in, is another question hard to answer. Buster might be in comparative subjection to his wife, but he was not necessarily without influence with her on that account. On the contrary, his subjection was no doubt a source of power to him in such matters. It was not surprising that he was against Stringham going down; his change of heart was much less to be expected. However, by the time Mrs. Foxe decided to leave, after scarcely any discussion over the caviare, champagne and grapes (the last of which Sillery consented to share), it was agreed that Stringham should go down at the end of the term. When he said good-bye, Sillery assured Mrs. Foxe that he was always at her service: when he took Buster’s hand he put his own left hand over their combined grip, as if to seal it: to Miss Weedon he was polite and friendly, though less demonstrative. Moffet was waiting on the stairs. Something in the dignity of his bow must have moved Buster, because a coin changed hands.

  *

  Although a letter from Uncle Giles was by no means unknown, he did not write often; and only when he wanted something done for him: requiring details of an address he had lost, for example, or transmitting an account of some project in which he was commercially interested at that moment and wished recommended to all persons his relations might come across. He possessed a neat, stiff, old-fashioned handwriting, not at all suggestive of vagaries of character. There was usually a card from him at Christmas, undecorated, and very small in size: sent out in plenty of time. When, towards the end of the Michaelmas term, an envelope arrived addressed in his angular hand, I supposed at first that he had now taken to dispatching these Christmas greetings more than a month in advance. “I am staying in London for some weeks,” he wrote, “and I should like to see you one evening. After all, I have only three nephews. I dine every night at the Trouville Restaurant. Just drop in. It is very simple, of course, but you get good value for your money. We must take care of the pennies, these days. Any night will do.” Sunny Farebrother, I remembered, had made the same remark about the pennies. The fact that I might not be in a position to “drop in” to a restaurant in London “any night” did not appear to have struck my uncle, never very good at grasping principles that might govern other people’s lives and movements. His letter was written from Harrods, so that there was no means of sending an answer; and I made up my mind that, even if I were to visit London – as I was doing, so it happened, the following day, to dine with Stringham – I should not spend the evening at the Trouville Restaurant. Uncle Giles did not state the reason for his wish to meet me, which may have sprung from completely disinterested affection for a member of his family not seen for some time. I suspected, perhaps unjustly, that such was not the motive; and, since at that age behaviour of older people seems, more often than not, entirely meaningless, I dismissed Uncle Giles’s letter from my mind, as I now think, rather inexcusably. I had not seen Stringham since the summer, and had heard very little from him on the subject of his job. For one reason or another arrangements to meet had fallen through, and I felt, instinctively, that he was passing into an orbit where we should from now on see less of each other. I was thinking about this subject that afternoon, feeling disinclined for work, watching the towers of the neighbouring college, with the leaden sky beyond, when there was a knock on the door.

  “Come in.”

  It was Le Bas.

  “I’ve been lunching with your Dean,” he said. “He mentioned your name. I thought I would look you up.”

  For some reason I felt enormously surprised to see him standing there. He had passed so utterly from daily life. This surprise was certainly not due to Le Bas having altered in appearance. On the contrary, he looked the same in all respects: except that he seemed to have shrunk slightly in size, and to have developed a kind of deadness I had not remembered in the texture of his skin. He stood by the door, as if he had just glanced in to make sure that no misbehaviour was in progress, and would proceed immediately on his way to other rooms in the college, to see that there, too, all was well. I asked him to sit down. He came farther into the room, but appeared unwilling to seat himself; standing in one of his characteristic poses, holding up both his hands, one a little above the other, like an Egyptian god, or figure from the Bayeux tapestry.

  “How are you getting on, Jenkins?” he asked, at last agreeing, though with apparent reluctance, to occupy an arm-chair. “You have a nice view from here, I see.”

  He rose again, and stared out of the window for a minute or two, at the place where clouds had begun to darken the sky. The sound of undergraduate voices came up from below. Le Bas turned his gaze down on the passers-by.

  “I expect you know the story of Calverley throwing pebbles at the Master of Balliol’s window,” he said. “Just to make him look out for the benefit of some visitors. Parkinson was some sort of a connection of Calverley’s, I believe. I saw Parkinson the other day. In fact I rowed in a Duffers’ Eight with him. Parkinson was in your time, wasn’t he? Or am I confusing dates?”

  “Yes, he was. He only went down from here last year.”

  “He missed his ‘blue,’ didn’t he?”

  “I think he was only tried out a couple of times.”

  “Who else is there from my house?”

  “Stringham went down last term.”

  “Went down, did he? Was he sent down?”

  “No, he —”

  “Of course I remember Stringham,” said Le Bas. “Wrote a shocking hand. Never saw such a fist. What was he sent down for?”

  “He wasn’t sent down. He got a job with Donners-Brebner. I am going to see him tomorrow.”

  “Who else?” insisted Le Bas, who had evidently never heard of Donners-Brebner.

  “I saw Templer not long ago. He is in the City now.”

  “Templer?” said Le Bas. “Oh, yes, Templer. In the City, is he? Did he go up to the university?”

  “No.”

  “Probably just as well,” said Le Bas. “Still it might have toned him down a bit. I suppose as it is he will spend the rest of his life wearing those startling socks. It was Templer, wasn’t it, who always wore those dreadful socks?”

  “Yes – it was.”

  “Still, he may grow out of it,” said Le Bas.

  “Or them,” I said; and, since Le Bas did not smile, added: “I stayed in the same French family as Widmerpool, the summer after I left.”

  “Ah yes, Widmerpool.”

  Le Bas thought for a long time. He climbed up on to the fender, and began to lift himself by the edge of the mantelpiece. I thought for a moment that he might be going to hoist himself right on to the shelf; perhaps lie there.

  “I was never quite happy about Widmerpool,” he admitted at last.

  This statement did not seem to require an answer.

  “As you probably know,” said Le Bas, “there were jo
kes about an overcoat in the early days.”

  “I remember being told something about it.”

  “Plenty of keenness, but somehow —”

  “He used to train hard.”

  “And a strong – well —” Le Bas seemed rather at a loss, ending somewhat abruptly with the words: “Certain moral qualities, admirable so far as they went, but —”

  I supposed he was thinking of the Akworth affair, which must have caused him a good deal of trouble.

  “He seemed to be getting on all right when I saw him in France.”

  This statement seemed in the main true. “I am glad to hear it,” said Le Bas. “Very glad. I hope he will find his level in life. Which college did you say?”

  “He didn’t go to the university.”

  “What is he going to be?”

  “A solicitor.”

  “Do none of my pupils consider a degree an advantage in life? I hope you will work hard for yours.”.

  Facetiously, I held up a copy of Stubbs’s Charters that happened to be lying at hand on the table. “Do you know Sillery?” I asked.

  “Sillery? Sillery? Oh, yes, of course I know Sillery,” Le Bas said; but he did not rise to this bait. There was a pause.

  “Well, I have enjoyed our talk,” Le Bas said. “I expect I shall see you on Old Boy Day.”

  He got up from the chair, and stood for a few seconds, as if undecided whether or not to bring his visit to an end.

  “Friendships have to be kept up,” he said, unexpectedly.

  I suppose that his presence had recalled – though unconsciously – the day of Braddock alias Thorne; because for some reason, inexplicable to myself, I said: “Like Heraclitus.”

  Le Bas looked surprised.

  “You know the poem, do you?” he said. “Yes, I remember you were rather keen on English.”