“I had dinner at a house where one of your pictures hangs,” I told him, when inquiries about my family had been made and answered.
“Good gracious,” said Mr. Deacon. “Which one?”
“Boyhood of Cyrus.”
“Was that Aberavon’s? I thought he was dead these twenty years.”
“One of his daughters became Lady Walpole-Wilson. The picture is at her house in Eaton Square.”
“Well, I’m glad to know its whereabouts,” said Mr. Deacon. “I always make bold to consider it rather a successful achievement of mine, within the limits of the size of the canvas. It is unusual for people of that sort to have much taste in art. Aberavon was the exception. He was a man with vision. I expect his descendants have hung it in some quite incongruous place.”
I thought it wiser to supply no further details on the subject of the hanging of Boyhood of Cyrus. “Skyed” in the hall was a position even the most modest of painters could hardly regard as complimentary; though I was impressed by Mr. Deacon’s perspicacity in guessing this fate. It is, indeed, strange how often persons, living in other respects quite unobjectively, can suddenly become acutely objective about some specific concern of their own. However, no answer was required, because at that moment Widmerpool suddenly stepped in.
At first, after making some sort of an apology for his earlier clumsiness, he had stood staring at Mr. Deacon and the girl as if exhibits at a freak show — which it would hardly be going too far to say they somewhat resembled — but now he seemed disposed to dispute certain matters raised by Mr. Deacon’s remarks. I had felt, immediately after making this plunge of recognition, that Widmerpool, especially in his existing mood, would scarcely be inclined to relish this company. In fact, I could not understand why he did not at once make for home, leaving us in peace to wind up the reunion, a duty that my own eagerness, perhaps misplaced, had imposed mutually upon Mr. Deacon and myself. Now to my surprise Widmerpool suddenly said: “I think, if you meet her, you will find Lady Walpole-Wilson most appreciative of art. She was talking to me about the Academy only this evening — in connection with the question of the Haig statue — and her comments were illuminating.”
Mr. Deacon was delighted by this frank expression of opinion. There was, naturally, no reason why he should possess any knowledge of Widmerpool, whom I discovered in due course to be — in Mr. Deacon’s pre-determined view and own words—“a typical empty-headed young fellow with more money than is good for him” who was now preparing to tell an older man, and an artist, “what was what in the field of painting.” This was, indeed, the kind of situation in which Mr. Deacon had all his life taken pleasure, and such eminence as he had, in fact, achieved he owed largely to making a habit of speaking in an overbearing and sarcastic, sometimes almost insulting, manner to the race thus generically described as having “more money than was good for them.” He looked upon himself as the appointed scourge of all such persons, amongst whom he had immediately classed Widmerpool. The mistake was perhaps inevitable in the circumstances. In fairness to Mr. Deacon it should be added that these onslaughts were almost without exception accepted by the victims themselves — a fact borne out by Barnby — as in some eclectic manner complimentary, so that no harm was done; even good, if the sale of Mr. Deacon’s pictures could be so regarded.
“Should I ever have the honour of meeting her Ladyship,” said Mr. Deacon, with the suggestion of a flourish, “I shall much look forward to a discussion on the subject of that interesting institution, the Royal Academy. When in need of mirth, I should be lost without it. I expect Isbister, R.A., is one of her special favourites.”
“I have not heard her mention his name,” said Widmerpool, forgoing none of his seriousness. “But, for my own part, I was not displeased with Isbister’s portrait of Cardinal Whelan at Burlington House last year. I preferred it to — was it the wife of the Solicitor-General — that was so much praised?”
It showed a rather remarkable effort of will on the part of Widmerpool, whose interest in such matters was not profound, to have been able to quote these examples on the spur of the moment; and there is no knowing into what inextricable tangle this subject would have led them both, if their conversation had not been mercifully interrupted by the girl, who now said: “Are we going to stand here all night? My feet hurt.”
“But how shameful,” said Mr. Deacon, with all his earlier formality. “I have not introduced you yet. This is Miss Gypsy Jones. Perhaps you have already met. She goes about a great deal.”
I mentioned Widmerpool’s name in return, and Miss Jones nodded to us, without showing much sign of friendliness. Her face was pale, and she possessed an almost absurdly impudent expression, in part natural outcome of her cast of features, but also, as almost immediately became apparent, in an even greater degree product of her temperament. She looked like a thoroughly ill-conditioned errand-boy. Her forehead had acquired a smudge of coal-dust or lamp-black, darker and denser than, though otherwise comparable to, the smudge on Tompsitt’s shirt-front. It seemed to have been put there deliberately to offset her crimson mouth. Like Mr. Deacon, she too clutched a pile of papers under her arm, somehow suggesting in doing so the appearance of one of those insects who carry burdens as large, or even larger, than their own puny frame.
“You must wonder why we are on our way home at this late hour,” said Mr. Deacon. “We have been attempting in our poor way to aid the cause of disarmament at Victoria Station.”
Mr. Deacon’s purpose had not, in fact, occurred to me — it is later in life that one begins to wonder about other people’s activities — nor was it immediately made clear by Gypsy Jones extracting a kind of broadsheet from the sheaf under her arm, and holding it towards Widmerpool.
“Penny, War Never Pays!” she said.
Widmerpool, almost counterfeiting the secretive gesture of Lady Walpole-Wilson pressing money on Archie Gilbert in the taxi, fumbled in his trouser pocket, and in due course passed across a coin to her. In return she gave him the sheet, which, folding it without examination, he transferred to an inner pocket on his hip or in his tails. Scarcely knowing how to comment on the dealings in which Mr. Deacon and his companion were engaged. I inquired whether night-time was the best season to dispose of this publication.
“There is the depot,” said Mr. Deacon. “And then some of the late trains from the Continent. It’s not too bad a pitch, you know.”
“And now you are going home?”
“We decided to have a cup of coffee at the stall by Hyde Park Corner,” said Mr. Deacon, adding with what could only be described as a deep giggle: “I felt I could venture there chaperoned by Gypsy. Coffee can be very grateful at this hour. Why not join us in a cup?”
While he was speaking a taxi cruised near the kerb on the far side of the road. Widmerpool was still staring rather wildly at Gypsy Jones, apparently regarding her much as a doctor, suspecting a malignant growth, might examine a diseased organism under the microscope; although I found later than any such diagnosis of his attitude was far from the true one. Thinking that physical removal might put him out of his supposed misery, I asked if he wanted to hail the passing cab. He glanced uncertainly across the street. For a second he seemed seriously to contemplate the taxi; and then, finally, to come to a decision important to himself.
“I’ll join you in some coffee, if I may,” he said. “On thinking things over, coffee is just what I need myself.”