Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (11 page)

‘I am doing what I can to help,’ Miss Weedon had said, when we had met at the Jeavons house not long before my marriage.

Then, I had wondered what she meant. Now I saw that restraint, even actual physical restraint, might have been in her mind. Perhaps nothing short of physical restraint would meet Stringham’s case. It was at least arguable. Miss Weedon seemed to be providing something of the sort.

‘Molly will be glad of the additional rent,’ said Lady Warminster, who seemed to be warming to the subject, now that its alcoholic aspects had faded into the background. ‘She has been complaining a lot lately about being hard up. I tremble to think what Ted’s doctor’s bill must be like at any time. What difficulties he has with his inside. However, he is off slops again, I hear.’

‘Have the Stringhams any money?’ George asked.

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Lady Warminster, speaking as if the mere suggestion of anyone, let alone the Stringhams, having any money was in itself a whimsical enough notion. ‘But I believe Amy was considered quite an heiress when she first appeared in London and old Lady Amesbury took her about a lot. She was South African, you know. Most of it spent now, I should think. Amy has always been quite thoughtless about money. She is very wilful. People said she was brought up in a very silly way. I suppose she probably lives now on what her first husband, Lord Warrington, left in trust. I don’t think Charles’s father – ”Boffles”, as he used to be called – had a halfpenny to bless himself with. He used to be very handsome, and so amusing. He looked wonderful on a horse. He is married now to a Frenchwoman he met at a tennis tournament in Cannes, and he farms in Kenya. Poor Amy, she has some rather odd friends.’

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 role 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
téte-à-téte
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 regime.’

‘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.