‘Of course, Ralph is a painter,’ said Moreland, afterwards. ‘He has a studio. Time, place and a respectable motive for a visit are all at his command. None of these things are to be despised where girls are concerned.’
‘Time and Space, as usual.’
‘Time and Space,’ said Moreland.
The incident was not only an illustration of Barnby’s adroitness in that field, but also an example of Moreland’s diffidence, a diffidence no doubt in part responsible for the admixture of secretiveness and exhibitionism with which he conducted his love affairs. By exhibitionism, I mean, in Moreland’s case, no more than a taste for referring obliquely from time to time to some unrevealed love that possessed him. I supposed that this habit of his explained his talk of marriage the day – five or six years after our first meeting – when we had listened together to the song of the blonde singer; especially when he refused to name the girl – or three girls – he might be considering as a wife. It was therefore a great surprise to me when his words turned out to be spoken seriously. However, I did not at first realise how serious they were; nor even when, some weeks later, more about the girl herself was revealed.
He suggested one day that we should go together to The Duchess of Malfi, which was being performed at a small theatre situated somewhat off the beaten track; one of those ventures that attempt, by introducing a few new names and effects, momentarily to dispel the tedium of dramatic routine.
‘Webster is always a favourite of mine,’ Moreland said. ‘Norman Chandler has for the moment abandoned dancing and the saxophone, and is playing Bosola.’
‘That should be enjoyable. Has he quite the weight?’
Chandler had moved a long way since the day when I had first seen him at the Mortimer, when Mr Deacon had spoken so archly of having acquired his friendship through a vegetarian holiday. Now Chandler had made some name for himself, not only as a dancer, but also as an actor; not in leading roles, but specialising in smaller, unusual parts suitable to his accomplished, but always intensely personal, style. I used to run across him occasionally with Moreland, whose passion for mechanical pianos Chandler shared; music for which they would search London.
‘I also happen to know the Cardinal’s mistress,’ said Moreland, speaking very casually.
This remark suddenly struck a chord of memory about something someone had said a few days before about the cast of this very play.
‘But wasn’t she Sir Magnus Donners’s mistress too? I was hearing about that. It is Matilda Wilson, isn’t it, who is playing that part – the jolie laide Donners used to be seen about with a year or two ago? I have always wanted to have a look at her.’
Moreland turned scarlet. I realised that I had shown colossal lack of tact. This must be his girl. I saw now why he had spoken almost apologetically about going to the play, as if some excuse were required for attending one of Webster’s tragedies, even though Moreland himself was known by me to be greatly attached to the Elizabethan dramatists. When he made the suggestion that we should see the play together I had suspected no ulterior motive. Now, it looked as if something were on foot.
‘She was mixed up with Donners for a time,’ he said, ‘that is quite true. But several years ago now. I thought we might go round and see her after the performance. Then we could have a drink – even eat if we felt like it – at the Café Royal or somewhere like that.’
To hold a friend in the background at a certain stage of a love affair is a technique some men like to employ; a method which spreads, as it were, the emotional load, ameliorating risks of dual conflict between the lovers themselves, although at the same time posing a certain hazard in the undue proximity of a third party unencumbered with emotional responsibility – and therefore almost always seen to better advantage than the lover himself. Close friends probably fall in love with the same woman less often in life than in books, though the female spirit of emulation will sometimes fix on a husband or lover’s friend out of a mere desire to show that a woman can do even better than her partner in the same sphere. Moreland and I used to agree that, in principle, we liked the same kind of girl; but never, so long as I knew him, did we ever find ourselves in competition.
The news that he was involved with Matilda Wilson, might even be thinking of marrying her – for that was the shape things seemed to be taking – was surprising in a number of ways. I had never seen the girl herself, although often hearing about her during her interlude with Sir Magnus, a person round whom gossip accumulated easily, not only because he was very rich, but also on account of supposedly unconventional tastes in making love. Sir Magnus was said to be reasonably generous with his girls, and, provided he was from time to time indulged in certain respects, not unduly demanding. It was characteristic of the situations in which love lands people that someone as sensitive as Moreland to life’s grotesque aspects should find himself handling so delicate an affair, where perhaps even marriage was the goal. When we arrived at the theatre we found Mark Members waiting in the foyer. Members was the kind of person who would know by instinct that Moreland was interested in Matilda Wilson, and might be expected to make some reference to her past with Sir Magnus with the object of teasing Moreland with whom he was on prickly terms. However, the subject did not arise. Members had just finished straightening his tie in a large looking-glass. He was now looking disdainfully round him.
‘What a shabby lot of highbrows have turned out tonight,’ he said, when he saw us. ‘It makes me ashamed to be one.’
‘Nobody guesses you are, Mark,’ said Moreland. ‘Not in that natty new suit. They think you are an actuary or an average adjuster.’
Members laughed his tinny laugh.
‘How is sweet music?’ he asked. ‘How are your pale tunes irresolute, Moreland? When is that opera of yours we hear so much about going to appear?’
‘I’ve knocked off work on the opera for the moment,’ said Moreland. ‘I’m concentrating on something slighter which I think should appeal to music-lovers of your temperament. It is to be called Music for a Maison de Passe: A Suite.’
We passed on to where Gossage was standing a short way off by the curtain that screened the foyer from the passage leading to the auditorium. Gossage was talking with a great display of respect to a lady dressed rather too exquisitely for the occasion; the audience that night, as Members had truly remarked, being decidedly unkempt. This lady, slight in figure, I recognised at once as Mrs Foxe, mother of my old friend, Charles Stringham. I had not seen Stringham since Widmerpool and I had put him to bed after too much to drink at an Old Boy Dinner. Mrs Foxe herself I had not set eyes on for ten years; the day she and Commander Foxe had lunched with Stringham in his rooms in college to discuss whether or not he should ‘go down’ before taking a degree.
Mrs Foxe was quite unchanged. Beautiful in early middle age, she remained still untouched by time. She was accompanied by a girl of seventeen or eighteen, and two young men who looked like undergraduates. Evidently she was hostess to this party, whom I supposed to be relations; connexions possibly of her first husband, Lord Warrington, or her third husband, Buster Foxe. Stringham, child of the intermediate marriage of this South African millionaire’s daughter, used to boast he had no relations; so they were presumably not cousins of his. Gossage, parting now from Mrs Foxe with many smiles and bows, nodded to Moreland with an air of considerable satisfaction as he hurried past. When we reached our seats I saw that Mrs Foxe and her party were sitting a long way away from us. Since I hardly supposed she would remember me, I decided not to approach her during the entr’actes. In any case, she and I had little in common except Stringham himself, of whom I then knew nothing except that his marriage had broken up and he was said to be still drinking too much. He had certainly drunk a lot the night Widmerpool and I had put him to bed. Another reason for taking no step in Mrs Foxe’s direction was that a stage in my life had been reached when I felt that to spend even a short time with a party of that kind would be ‘boring’. For the moment, I had put such things behind me. Perhaps at some future date I should return to them; for the time being I rather prided myself on preferring forms of social life where white ties were not worn. I was even glad there was no likelihood of chance recognition.