In making this last comment, Lady Warminster was no doubt thinking of Norman Chandler; although no one could say how much, or how little, she knew of this association, nor what she thought about it. Robert caught my eye across the table. Within the family, he was regarded as the chief authority on their step-mother’s obliquity of speech. Robert, strangely enough, had turned out to be one of the young men I had seen with Mrs Foxe at that performance of The Duchess of Malfi three or four years before. Mrs Foxe’s other two guests had been John Mountfichet, the Bridgnorths’ eldest son, and Venetia Penistone, one of the Huntercombes’ daughters. After we had become brothers-in-law, and later talked of this occasion, Robert had described to me the excitement shown by Mrs Foxe that night at the prospect of seeing Chandler after the play was over. It was only a week or two since they had met for the first time.
‘You know Mrs Foxe is rather daunting in her way,’ Robert had said. ‘At least she always rather daunts me. Well, she was trembling that night like a leaf. I think she was absolutely mad about that young actor we eventually took out to supper. She didn’t get much opportunity to talk to him, because Max Pilgrim came too and spent the whole evening giving imitations of elderly ladies.
This companionship between Mrs Foxe and Chandler still flourished. She was said to give him ‘wonderful’ presents, expecting nothing in return but the pleasure of seeing him when he had the time to spare. That one of the most exigent of women should find satisfaction in playing this humble rôle was certainly remarkable. Chandler, lively and easy-going, was quite willing to fall in with her whim. They were continually seen about together, linked in a relationship somewhere between lover with mistress and mother to son.
‘I could understand it if Norman were a sadist,’ Moreland used to say. ‘A mental one, I mean, who cut her dates and suchlike. On the contrary, he is always charming to her. Yet it still goes on. Women are inexplicable.’
During all this talk about Stringham and his parents, St John Clarke had once more dropped out of the conversation. His face was beginning to show that, although aware a self-invited guest must submit to certain periods of inattention on the part of his hostess, these had been allowed to become too frequent to be tolerated by a man of his position. He began to shift about in his chair as if he had something on his mind, perhaps wondering if he would finally be given a chance of being alone with Lady Warminster, or whether he had better say whatever he had to say in public. He must have decided that a tête-à-tête was unlikely, because he now spoke to her in a low confidential tone.
‘There was a matter I wanted to put to you, Lady Warminster, which, in the hurried circumstances of our meeting at Bumpus’s, I hardly liked to bring up. That was why I invited myself so incontinently to your house, to which you so graciously replied with an invitation to this charming lunch party. Lord Warminster – your eldest stepson – Alfred, I have begun to call him.’
St John Clarke paused, laughed a little coyly, and put his head on one side.
‘We call him Erridge,’ said Lady Warminster kindly, ‘I never quite know why. It was not the custom in my own family, but then we were different from the Tollands in many ways. The Tollands have always called their eldest son by the second title. I suppose he could perfectly well be called Alfred. And yet, somehow, Erridge is not quite an Alfred.’
She considered a moment, her face clouding, as if the problem of why Erridge was not quite an Alfred worried her more than a little, even made her momentarily sad.
‘Lady Priscilla mentioned her brother’s political sympathies just now,’ said St John Clarke, smiling gently in return, as if to express the ease with which he could cope with social fences of the kind Lady Warminster set in his way. ‘I expect you may know he is leaving for Spain almost immediately.’
‘He told me so himself,’ said Lady Warminster.
‘The fact is,’ said St John Clarke, getting rather red in the face and losing some of his courtliness of manner, ‘the fact is, Lady Warminster, your stepson has asked me to look after his business affairs while he is away. Of course I do not mean his estate, nothing like that. His interests of a politico-literary kind——’
He took up his glass, but it was empty.
‘Lord Warminster and I have been seeing a good deal of each other since his return from the East,’ he said, stifling a sigh probably caused by thought of Mona.
‘At Thrubworth?’ asked Lady Warminster.
She showed sudden interest. In fact everyone at the table pricked up their ears at the supposition that St John Clarke had been received at Thrubworth. Guests at Thrubworth were rare. A new name in the visitors’ book would be a significant matter.
‘At Thrubworth,’ said St John Clarke reverently. ‘We talked there until the wee, small hours. During the past few years both of us have undergone strains and stresses, Lady Warminster. Alfred has been very good to me.’
He stared glassily down the table, as if he thought I myself might well be largely to blame for Members and Quiggin; for the disturbances the two of them must have evoked in his personal life.
‘No one can tell what may happen to Lord Warminster in Spain,’ St John Clarke said, speaking now more dramatically. ‘He knows me to be a strong supporter of the democratically elected Spanish Government. He knows I feel an equally strong admiration for himself.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Lady Warminster encouragingly.
‘At the same time, Lady Warminster, I am an author, a man of letters, not a man of affairs. I thought it only right you should know the position. I want to do nothing behind your back. Besides that, Alfred has occasional dealings with persons known to me in the past with whom I should be unwilling . . . I do not mean of course . . .’
These phrases, which seemed to appeal to Lady Warminster’s better feelings, certainly referred in the main to Quiggin.
‘Oh, I am sure he does,’ said Lady Warminster fervently. ‘I do so much sympathise with you in feeling that.’
She plainly accepted St John Clarke’s halting sentences as reprobating every friend Erridge possessed.
‘In short I wondered if I could from time to time ask your advice, Lady Warminster – might get in touch with you if necessary, perhaps even rely on you to speak with acquaintances of your stepson’s with whom – for purely personal reasons, nothing worse I assure you – I should find it distasteful to deal.’
St John Clarke made a gesture to show that he was throwing himself on Lady Warminster’s mercy. She, on her part, did not appear at all unwilling to learn something of Erridge’s affairs in this manner, although she can have had no very clear picture of St John Clarke’s aims, which were certainly not easy to clarify. No doubt he himself liked the idea of interfering in Erridge’s business, but at the same time did not wish to be brought once more in contact with Quiggin. Lady Warminster must have found it flattering to be offered the position of St John Clarke’s confidante, which would at once satisfy curiosity and be in the best interests of the family. If Erridge never came back from Spain – an eventuality which had to be considered – there was no knowing what messes might have to be cleared up. Besides, Erridge’s plans often changed. His doings had to be coped with empirically. Like less idealistic persons, he was primarily interested in pleasing himself, even though his pleasures took unusual form. Little could be guessed from an outward examination of these enthusiasms at any given moment.
‘Write to me, Mr Clarke, or telephone,’ said Lady Warminster, ‘whenever you think I can be of help. Should my health not allow me to see you at that moment, we will arrange something later.’
I had by then seen too much of Lady Warminster and her stepchildren to be surprised by the calm with which news of this sort was accepted. My own temper was in sympathy with such an attitude of mind. I looked forward to hearing Quiggin’s account of the current Erridge situation. Possibly Quiggin himself might decide to go to Spain. Such a move was not to be ruled out. No doubt he too intended to keep an eye on Erridge’s affairs; the best way
to do that might be to attach himself to Erridge’s person. The development of St John Clarke as a close friend of Erridge must be very unsympathetic to Quiggin. St John Clarke’s appeal to Lady Warminster was unexpected. He had managed to get most of it said without attracting much attention from the rest of the party, who were discussing their own affairs, but the general drift of his muttered words probably caused the turn conversation took when it became general once more.
‘Do you hold any view on what the outcome in Spain will be, Mr Clarke?’ asked George.
St John Clarke made a gesture with his fingers to be interpreted as a much watered-down version of the Popular Front’s clenched fist. Now that he had had his word with Lady Warminster about Erridge, he seemed more cheerful, although I was again struck by the worn, unhealthy texture of his skin. He still possessed plenty of nervous energy, but had lost his earlier flush. His cheeks were grey and pasty in tone. He looked a sick man.
‘Franco cannot win,’ he said.
‘What about the Germans and Italians?’ said George. ‘It doesn’t look as if non-intervention will work. It has been a failure from the start.’
‘In that case,’ said St John Clarke, evidently glad to find an opportunity to pronounce this sentence, ‘can you blame Caballero for looking elsewhere for assistance.’
‘Russia?’
‘In support of Spain’s elected government.’
‘Personally, I am inclined to think Franco will win,’ said George.
‘Is that to your taste?’ asked St John Clarke mildly.
‘Not particularly,’ George said. ‘Especially if that has got to include Hitler and Mussolini. But then Russia isn’t to my taste either. It is hard to feel much enthusiasm for the way the Government side go on, or, for that matter, the way they were going before the war broke out.’
‘People like myself look forward to a social revolution in a country that has remained feudal far too long,’ said St John Clarke, speaking now almost benignly, as if the war in Spain was being carried on just to please him personally, and he himself could not help being flattered by the fact. ‘We cannot always be living in the past.’
This expressed preference for upheaval for its own sake roused Roddy Cutts. He began to move forward his knives and forks so that they made a pattern on the table, evidently a preliminary to some sort of a speech. St John Clarke was about to expand his view on revolution, when Roddy cut him short in measured, moderate, parliamentary tones.
‘The question is,’ Roddy said, ‘whether the breakdown of the internal administration of Spain – and nobody seriously denies the existence of a breakdown – justified a military coup d’état. Some people think it did, others disagree entirely. My own view is that we should not put ourselves in the position of seeming to encourage a political adventurer of admittedly Fascist stamp, while at the same time expressing in no uncertain terms our complete lack of sympathy for any party or parties which allow the country’s rapid disintegration into a state of lawlessness, which can only lead, through Soviet intrigue, to the establishment of a Communist régime.’
‘I think both sides are odious,’ said Priscilla. ‘Norah backs the Reds, like Erry. She and Eleanor Walpole-Wilson have got a picture of La Pasionaria stuck up on the mantelpiece of their sitting-room. I asked them if they approved of shooting nuns.’
St John Clarke’s expression suggested absolute neutrality on that point.
‘The tradition of anti-clericalism in Spain goes back a long way, Lady Priscilla,’ he said, ‘especially in Catalonia.’
Roddy Cutts had no doubt been studying Spanish history too, because he said: ‘You will find an almost equally unbroken record of Royalism in Navarre, Mr Clarke.’
‘I haven’t been in Spain for years,’ said Lady Warminster, in her low, musical voice, speaking scarcely above a whisper. ‘I liked the women better than the men. Of course they all have English nannies.’
Luncheon at an end, St John Clarke established himself with Blanche in a corner of the drawing-room, where he discoursed of the humour of Dickens in a rich, sonorous voice, quite unlike the almost falsetto social diction he had employed on arrival. Blanche smiled gently, while with many gestures and grimaces St John Clarke spoke of Mr Micawber and Mrs Nickleby. They were still there, just beginning on Great Expectations, when I set out for the nursing home, carrying messages of good-will to Isobel from the rest of the family.
A future marriage, or a past one, may be investigated and explained in terms of writing by one of its parties, but it is doubtful whether an existing marriage can ever be described directly in the first person and convey a sense of reality. Even those writers who suggest some of the substance of married life best, stylise heavily, losing the subtlety of the relationship at the price of a few accurately recorded, but isolated, aspects. To think at all objectively about one’s own marriage is impossible, while a balanced view of other people’s marriage is almost equally hard to achieve with so much information available, so little to be believed. Objectivity is not, of course, everything in writing; but, even after one has cast objectivity aside, the difficulties of presenting marriage are inordinate. Its forms are at once so varied, yet so constant, providing a kaleidoscope, the colours of which are always changing, always the same. The moods of a love affair, the contradictions of friendship, the jealousy of business partners, the fellow feeling of opposed commanders in total war, these are all in their way to be charted. Marriage, partaking of such – and a thousand more – dual antagonisms and participations, finally defies definition. I thought of some of these things on the way to the nursing home.
‘How were they all?’ asked Isobel.
We went over the luncheon party in detail; discussed the news about Erridge. Isobel was returning the following day, so that there were domestic arrangements to be rehearsed, mysteries of the labyrinth of married life fallen into abeyance with her imprisonment, now to be renewed with her release.
‘I shan’t be sorry to come home.’
‘I shan’t be sorry for you to be home again.’
Late in the afternoon I left the place. Its passages somewhat like those of Uncle Giles’s pied-à-terre, the Ufford, were additionally laden with the odour of disinfectant, more haunted with human kind. As in the Ufford, it was easy to lose your way. Turning a corner that led to the stairs, I suddenly saw in front of me, of all people, Moreland, talking to a tall, grey-haired man, evidently a doctor, because he carried in his hand, like a stage property in a farce, a small black bag. Moreland looked hopelessly out of place in these surroundings, so that the two of them had some of the appearance of taking part in a play. The doctor was talking earnestly, Moreland fidgeting about on his feet, evidently trying to get away without too great a display of bad manners. We had not met for over a year – although occasionally exchanging picture postcards – because Moreland had taken a job at a seaside resort known for pride in its musical activities. Sooner or later to be a conductor in the provinces was a destiny Moreland had often predicted for himself in moods of despondency. I knew little or nothing about his life there, nor how his marriage was going. The postcards dealt usually with some esoteric matter that had caught his attention – a peculiar bathing dress on the beach, peepshows on the pier, the performance of pierrots – rather than the material of daily life. In the earlier stages of marriage, Matilda was keeping pace pretty well with circumstances not always easy from shortage of money. When he caught sight of me, Moreland looked quite cross, as if I had surprised him in some situation of which he was almost ashamed.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ he asked brusquely.
‘Visiting my wife.’
‘Like me.’
‘Is Matilda in this awful place too?’
‘But of course.’
He, too, had seemed in the depths of gloom when I first saw him; now, delighted at encountering a friend in these unpromising surroundings, he began to laugh and slap a rolled-up newspaper against his leg. Matilda had made him buy a new suit
, in general cleaned up his appearance.
‘So you have come back to London.’
‘Inevitably.’
‘For good?’
‘I had to. I couldn’t stand the seaside any longer. Matilda is about to have a baby, as a matter of fact. That is why I am haunting these portals.’
‘Isobel has just had a miscarriage.’
‘Oh, Lord,’ said Moreland, ‘I am always hearing about miscarriages. I used to think such things were quite out of date, and took place only in Victorian times when ladies – as Sir Magnus Donners would say – laced themselves up “a teeny, teeny little bit too tight”. Rather one of Sir Magnus’s subjects. I may add I shall be quite bankrupt unless Matilda makes up her mind fairly soon. She keeps on having false alarms. It is costing a fortune.’
He began to look desperately worried. The man with the black bag took a step forward.
‘Both you gentlemen might be surprised if I told you incidence of abortion,’ he said in a thin rasping voice, ‘recently quoted in medical journals.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Moreland. ‘This is Dr Brandreth.’
I saw the man to be the Brandreth who had been at school with me. Four or five years older, he had probably been unaware of my existence at that time, but I had seen him again at least once in later life, notably at that Old Boy Dinner at which our former housemaster, Le Bas, had fainted, an occasion when Brandreth, as a doctor, had taken charge of the situation. Tall and bony, with hair like the locks of a youngish actor who has dusted over his skull to play a more aged part in the last act, Brandreth possessed those desiccated good looks which also suggest the theatre. I began to explain that I knew him already, that we had been schoolboys together, but he brushed the words aside with a severe ‘Yes, yes, yes . . .’ at the same time taking my hand in a firm, smooth, interrogatory, medical grip, no doubt intended to give confidence to a patient, but in fact striking at once a disturbing interior dread at the possibilities of swift and devastating diagnosis.
Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 2 Page 32