A Buyer's Market

by Anthony Powell

  He was a large, fair young man, with unbrushed hair and a grey smudge on the left-hand side of his shirt-front: cramming for—perhaps by then even admitted to—the Foreign Office. Sir Gavin held strong views on “broadening the basis” of the selection of candidates for governmental service, and he took an interest in Tompsitt as prototype of a newer and less constricted vehicle for handling foreign affairs. Certainly Tompsitt’s appearance was calculated to dispose effectually of the myth, dear to the public mind, of the “faultlessly dressed diplomat,” and he had been educated—the details were elusive—in some manner not absolutely conventional: though his air of incivility that so delighted Sir Gavin could no doubt have been inculcated with at least equal success at any public school. It was perhaps fair to regard him a young man rather different from those normally recruited for the purpose, and, in return for this patronage, Tompsitt, supercilious in his manner to most people, accorded a deep respect to Sir Gavin’s utterances; although, a posture not uncommon in such dual relationships, this deference sometimes took the more flattering form of apparent disagreement. They had met a year or two before at a gathering of some local branch of the League of Nations Union, where Sir Gavin had given a talk on “Collective Security.”

  All the time he was reading the menu, Tompsitt smiled to himself, as if exceedingly content to exist in a world from which most, if not all, surrounding distractions had been effectively eliminated. It had to be agreed that there was some forcefulness in his complete disregard for the rest of the party. Lady Walpole-Wilson began to look rather despairing. Widmerpool, on the other hand, seemed to share, as if by instinct, Sir Gavin’s approbation for Tompsitt, or at least felt distinct interest in his personality, because after a time he ceased to give his views on the Horse in Sculpture, and cast several searching glances down the table. Sir Gavin, whose conversation was habitually diversified by a murmur of “m’m … m’m…m’m…” repeated under his breath while his interlocutor was speaking—a technique designed to discourage over-long disquisitions on the other side—did no more than nod approvingly at Tompsitt. For the first few minutes of dinner Sir Gavin had contrived to monopolise the conversation of the girls he sat between. Now, however, he concentrated more particularly on Miss Manasch, from whom, with much laughter and by-play on his part, he appeared to be attempting to extract certain concrete opinions supposedly held by her father regarding the expansion of the Donners-Brebner Company in the Balkans. His attitude suggested that he also found Miss Manasch rather unusually attractive physically.

  Now that the small, though appreciable, disturbance caused by Tompsitt’s entry had finally settled down, the moment had come for some sort of conversational skirmish to begin between Lady Anne Stepney and myself. Ever since we had been introduced, I had been wondering why her name suggested some episode in the past: an incident vaguely unsatisfactory or disturbing. The mention of Donners-Brebner now reminded me that, the uneasy recollections were in connection with this girl’s sister, Peggy, whom Stringham on that night years before at the Donners-Brebner building had spoken, perhaps not very seriously, of marrying. In fact, I remembered now that he had been on his way to dinner with their parents, the Bridgnorths. That was the last time I had seen Stringham; it must have been—I tried to remember—four or five years before. The link seemed to provide a suitable topic to broach.

  “Have you ever come across someone called Charles Stringham? I think he knows your sister.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, “one of Peggy’s pompous friends, isn’t he?”

  I found this a staggering judgment. There were all kinds of things to be said against Stringham’s conduct—he could be offhand, even thoroughly bad-mannered—but “pompous” was the last adjective in the world I ever expected to hear applied to him. It occurred to me, a second later, that she used the word with specialised meaning; or perhaps—this was most probable—merely intended to imply that her sister and Stringham were asked to grander parties than herself. Possibly she became aware that her remark had surprised me, because she added: “I hope he isn’t a great friend of yours.”

  I was about to reply that Stringham was, indeed, a “great friend” of mine, when I remembered that by now this description could scarcely be held to be true, since I had not seen nor heard of him for so long that I had little or no idea what he was doing with himself; and, for all I knew, he might almost have forgotten my existence. I had to admit to myself that, for my own part, I had not thought much about him either, since we had last met; though this sudden realisation that we now barely knew one another was, for a moment, oddly painful. In any event, nothing seemed to have come out of his talk of wanting to marry Peggy Stepney, and mention of his name had been, in the circumstances, perhaps tactless.

  “I haven’t seen him for three or four years.”

  “Oh, I thought you might know him well.”

  “I used to.”

  “As a matter of fact, Peggy hasn’t spoken of Charles Stringham for ages,” she said.

  She did not actually toss her head—as girls are sometimes said to do in books—but that would have been the gesture appropriate to the tone in which she made this comment. It was evident that the subject of Stringham could supply no basis for discussion between us. I searched my mind for other themes. Lady Anne herself showed no sign of making any immediate contribution. She left the remains of her clear soup, and fixed her eyes on Miss Manasch; whether to satisfy herself about technical detail regarding the red dress, or to observe how well she was standing up to Sir Gavin’s interrogation, which hovered between flirtation and apprisement how best to handle his investments, I was unable to decide. Whatever the question, it was settled fairly quickly in her mind during the brief period in which soup plates were removed and fried sole presented.

  “What do you do?” she asked. “I think men always enjoy talking about their work.”

  I had the disturbing impression that she was preparing for some sort of a war between the sexes—as represented by herself and me—to break out at any moment. What vehement role she saw herself as playing in the life that surrounded us was problematical; some deep-felt resentment, comparable to Eleanor’s and yet widely differing from hers, clearly existed within her: her clothes, no doubt outward and visible sign of this rebellion against circumstance. I told her my firm specialised in art books, and attempted to steer a line from Mestroviç with unsuccessful results. We talked for a time of Botticelli, the only painter in whom she appeared to feel any keen interest, a subject which led to the books of St. John Clarke, one of which was a story of Renaissance Italy. This was the author mentioned by Widmerpool as writing to The Times regarding the Haig statue.

  “And then there was one about the French Revolution.”

  “I was on the side of the People,” she said, resolutely.

  This assertion opened the road to discussion deeper, and altogether more searching, than I felt prepared to pursue at that stage of dinner. As it happened, there were by then signs all round the table of conversation becoming moribund. Lady Walpole-Wilson must have noticed this falling off, because she remarked at large that there were two dances being given that evening.

  “And both in Belgrave Square,” said Archie Gilbert.

  He sounded relieved that for once at least his self-imposed duties would not keep him travelling all over London; his worst nights being no doubt those experienced—as must happen once in a way—on occasions when a party was given in some big house at Richmond or Roehampton, while there was also, on the same night, perhaps more than one ball to be attended in the heart of London.

  “The Spaniards are having some sort of a reception there, too,” said Tompsitt, who, having satisfied his immediate hunger, seemed disposed to show himself more genial than earlier. “At their new Embassy.”

  “I’m rather glad we don’t have to attend those big official crushes any more as a duty,” said Lady Walpole-Wilson, with a sigh. “We had to turn out in honour of Prince Theodoric the other night, and, really,
it was too exhausting. Now that one is rather out of touch with that world one does so much prefer just to see one’s own friends.”

  “Is Prince Theodoric over for long?” asked Widmerpool, assuming an air of importance. “I understand he is here largely for economic reasons—I believe Donners-Brebner are considering big expansions in his country.”

  “Base metals, for one thing,” said Tompsitt, with at least equal empressement. “There has also been talk of installing a railway to the coast. Am I right, Sir Gavin?”

  At the phrase “base metals” there had passed over Archie Gilbert’s face perhaps the most imperceptible flicker of professional interest, that died down almost immediately as he turned once more to speak with Barbara of dance bands.

  “No doubt about it,” said Sir Gavin. “I used to see a lot of Theodoric’s father when I was chargé d’affaires there. We often went fishing together.”

  “Gavin was a great favourite with the old King,” said Lady Walpole-Wilson, as if it were a matter of mild surprise to her that her husband could be a favourite with anyone. “I am afraid Prince Theodoric’s brother is quite a different sort of person from their father. Do you remember that awkward incident when Janet was staying with us and how nice the King was?”

  Sir Gavin glanced across the table at his wife, possibly apprehensive for a moment that she seemed inclined to particularise more precisely than might be desirable at the dinner table this contrast between father and son. Perhaps he did not wish to bring up the episode, whatever it had been, in which “Janet”—his sister—had been involved.

  “Theodoric, on the other hand, is a serious young man,” he said. “A pity, really, that he is not King. The party given for him at their Legation was certainly dull enough—though personally I enjoy such jollifications as, for example, the court ball when our own King and Queen visited Berlin in 1913.”

  “For the wedding of the Kaiser’s daughter?” Tompsitt asked, briskly.

  “Princess Victoria Louise,” said Sir Gavin, nodding with approval at this scoring of a point by his satellite. “I went quite by chance, in place of Saltonstall, who—”

  “Though, of course, it makes one feel quite ill to think of dancing with a German now,” said Lady Walpole-Wilson, anxiously.

  She had taken the war hard.

  “Do you really think so, Lady Walpole-Wilson?” said Widmerpool. “Now, you know, I can feel no prejudice against the Germans. None whatever. French policy, on the other hand, I regard at the moment as very mistaken. Positively disastrous, in fact.”

  “They did the Torch Dance,” said Sir Gavin, not to be put off nostalgic reminiscences so easily. “The King and the Tsar danced, with the bride between them. A splendid sight. Ah, well, little we thought…”

  “I loved the Swiss Guard when we were in Rome last winter,” said Miss Manasch. “And the Noble Guard were divine, too. We saw them at our audience.”

  “But what a demoralising life for a young man,” said Lady Walpole-Wilson. “I am sure many of them must make unsuitable marriages.”

  “I can just imagine myself checking a Papal Guardsman’s arms and equipment,” said Pardoe. “Sergeant-Major, this halbert is filthy.”

  “I’d love to see you in those red and yellow and blue stripes, Johnny,” said Miss Manasch, with perhaps a touch of unfriendliness. “They’d suit you.”

  Discussion as to whether or not ceremony was desirable lasted throughout the cutlets and ice. Lady Anne and Tompsitt were against pomp and circumstance; Eleanor and Widmerpool now found themselves on the same side in defending a reasonable degree of outward show. Tompsitt was rather pleased at the general agreement that he would go to pieces in the Tropics as a result of not changing for dinner, and certainly, so far as his evening clothes were concerned, he put his principles into practice.

  “You should cart our Regimental Colour round,” said Pardoe. “Then you’d all know what heavy ceremonial means. It’s like a Salvation Army banner.”

  “I’m always trying to get a decent Colour for the Guides,” said Eleanor, “and not have to carry about a thing like a child’s Union Jack. Not that anyone cares.”

  “You won’t be too long, Gavin, will you?” said Lady Walpole-Wilson at this, hastily rising from the table.

  By then I had only exchanged a word or two with Barbara, though this, in a way, was a mark of intimacy rather than because she had been unwilling to talk, or because any change had already consciously taken place in our relationship. Most of dinner she had spent telling Archie Gilbert rather a long story about some dance. Now she turned towards me, just before she went through the door, and gave one of those half-smiles that I associated with moments—infrequent moments—when she was not quite sure of herself: smiles which I found particularly hard to resist, because they seemed to show a less familiar, more mysterious side of her that noisiness and ragging were partly designed to conceal. On that occasion her look seemed to be intended perhaps to reconcile the fact that throughout the meal she had allowed me so little of her attention. Sir Gavin assured his wife that we would “not be long” in further occupation of the dining-room; and, when the door was closed, he moved the port in the direction of Pardoe.

  “I hear you’re letting your shooting,” he remarked.

  “Got to cut down somewhere,” said Pardoe. “That seemed as good a place as anywhere to begin.”

  “Outgoings very heavy?”

  “A lot of things to be brought up to date.”

  The two of them settled down to discuss Shropshire coverts, with which Sir Gavin had some familiarity since his father-in-law, Lord Aberavon, had settled on the borders of that county during the latter part of his life; though the house had been sold at his death. Archie Gilbert, having successfully undertaken the operation of releasing the ladies from the room, returned to the chair next to mine. I asked who was giving the other dance that night.

  “Mrs. Samson.”

  “What will it be like?”

  “Probably better than the Huntercombes’. Mrs. Samson has got Ambrose—though of course the band is not everything.”

  “Are you going to Mrs. Samson’s.”

  He gave the ghost of a smile at what he must have regarded as a question needlessly asked.

  “I expect I shall look in.”

  “Is it for Daphne?”

  “For Cynthia, the youngest girl,” he said, with gentle reproof at the thoughtlessness once more shown in putting this inquiry, which betrayed an altogether insufficiently serious approach to the world of dances. “Daphne has been out for ages.”

  On the other side of the table Widmerpool seemed, for some reason, determined to make a good impression on Tompsitt. Together they had begun to talk over the question of the Far East; Tompsitt treating Widmerpool’s views on that subject with more respect than I should have expected him to show.

  “I see the Chinese marshals have announced their victory to the spirit of the late Dr. Sun Yat-sen,” Widmerpool was saying.

  He spoke rather as if he had himself expected an invitation to the ceremony, but was prepared to overlook its omission on this occasion. Tompsitt, pursing his lips, rather in Widmerpool’s own manner, concurred that such solemn rites had indeed taken place.

  “And the Nationalists have got to Pekin,” Widmerpool pursued.

  “But who are the Nationalists?” asked Tompsitt, in a measured voice, gazing round the table with an air of quiet aggression. “Can anyone tell me that?”

  Neither Archie Gilbert nor I ventured any attempt to clarify the confused situation in China; and not even Widmerpool seemed disposed to hazard any immediate interpretation of conflicting political aims there. There was a pause, at the end of which he said: “I dare say we shall have to consider tariff autonomy—with reservations, of course.”

  Tompsitt nodded, biting his lip a trifle. Widmerpool’s face assumed a dramatic expression that made him look rather like a large fish moving swiftly through opaque water to devour a smaller one. Sir Gavin had begun to grow r
estive as scraps of this stimulating dialogue were wafted across to him, and he now abandoned the subject of Salopian pheasants in favour of trenchant examination of Celestial affairs.

  “To speak of treaty-revision before China has put her house in order,” he announced rather slowly, between puffs of his cigarette, “is thought by some—having regard to the status quo—substantially to put the cart before the horse. The War-Lords—”

  “A cousin of mine in the Coldstream went out last year,” Pardoe interrupted. “He said it wasn’t too bad.”

  “Was that at Kowloon?” asked Widmerpool, speaking somewhat deferentially. “I hear, by the way, they are sending the Welsh Guards to Egypt instead of a Line regiment.”

  “You spoke of treaty revision, Sir Gavin,” said Tompsitt, ignoring Widmerpool’s adumbrations on the incidence of the trooping season. “Now it seems to me that we should strike when the iron is hot. The iron has never been hotter than at this moment. There are certain facts we have got to face. For example—”

  “Some of them were under canvas on the race-course,” said Pardoe. “Not that there were any starters, I should imagine.” And, presumably with a view to disposing finally of the Chinese question and turning to subjects of more local interest, he added: “You know, legalising the tote is going to make a big difference to racing.”

  Sir Gavin looked dissatisfied with the turn taken by—or rather forced on—the conversation; possibly, in fact certainly, possessing further views on the international situation in the East which he was not unwilling to express. However, he must have decided that time did not allow any return to these matters, for he made, as it were, a mystic circle before himself in the air with the decanter, as if to show that the fate of China—and of racing too, for that matter—was in the lap of the gods.