“Moderate.”
“Mostly women, I fear.”
“A sprinkling of men.”
“I heard they were getting quite painfully empty. It’s a pity, because Brightman is such an able fellow. He won golden opinions as a young man,” said Sillery.
“But tell me, how do you find Brother Quiggin?”
I hardly knew what to say. However, Sillery seemed to require no answer. He said: “Brother Quiggin is an able young man, too. We must not forget that.”
Stringham did not seem much in the mood for Sillery. He moved away towards the window. A gramophone was playing in the rooms above. Outside, the weather was hot and rather stuffy.
“I hope my mother is not going to be really desperately late,” he said.
We waited. Sillery began to describe a walking tour he had once taken in Sicily with two friends, one of whom had risen to be Postmaster-Generaclass="underline" the other, dead in his twenties, having shown promise of even higher things. He was in the middle of an anecdote about an amusing experience they had had with a German professor in a church at Syracuse, when there was a step on the stairs outside. Stringham went to the door, and out on to the landing. I heard him say: “Why, hallo, Tuffy. Only you?”
Miss Weedon’s reply was not audible within the room. She came in a moment later, looking much the same as when I had seen her in London. Stringham followed. “My mother is awfully sorry, Sillers, but she could not get away at the last moment,” he said. “Miss Weedon very sweetly motored all the way here, in order that we should not have a vacant place at the table.”
Sillery did not take this news at all well. There could be no doubt that he was deeply disappointed at Mrs. Foxe’s defection; and that he did not feel Miss Weedon to be, in any way, an adequate substitute for Stringham’s mother. We settled down to a meal that showed no outward prospect of being particularly enjoyable. Stringham himself did not appear in the least surprised at this miscarriage of plans. He was evidently pleased to see Miss Weedon, who, of the two of them, seemed the more worried that a discussion regarding Stringham’s future would have to be postponed. Sillery decided that the first step was to establish his own position in Miss Weedon’s eyes before, as he no doubt intended, exploring her own possibilities for exploitation.
“Salmon,” he remarked. “Always makes me think of Mr. Gladstone.”
“Have some, all the same,” said Stringham. “I hope it’s fresh.”
“Did you arrange all this lunch yourself?” asked Miss Weedon, before Sillery could proceed further with his story. “How wonderful of you. You know your mother was really distressed that she couldn’t come.”
“The boys were at choir-practice when I passed this way,” said Sillery, determined that he should enter the conversation on his own terms. “They were trying over that bit from The Messiah” — he hummed distantly, and beat time with his fork —” you know, those children’s voices made me mighty sad.”
“Charles used to have a nice voice, didn’t you?” said Miss Weedon: plainly more as a tribute to Stringham’s completeness of personality, rather than because the matter could be thought to be of any great musical interest.
“I really might have earned my living that way, if it hadn’t broken,” said Stringham. “I should especially have enjoyed singing in the street. Perhaps I shall come to it yet.”
“There’s been a terrible to-do about the way you earn your living,” said Miss Weedon. “Buster doesn’t at all like the idea of your living in London.”
Sillery showed interest in this remark, in spite of his evident dissatisfaction at the manner in which Miss Weedon treated him. He seemed unable to decide upon her precise status in the household: which was, indeed, one not easy to assess. It was equally hard to guess what she knew, or thought, of Sillery; whether she appreciated the extent of his experience in such situations as that which had arisen in regard to Stringham. Sitting opposite him, she seemed to have become firmer and more masculine; while Sillery himself, more than ever, took the shape of a wizard or shaman, equipped to resist either man or woman from a bisexual vantage.
This ineffective situation might have continued throughout Miss Weedon’s visit, if Moffet — about whom a word should be said — had not handed Stringham a telegram, when he brought the next course. Moffet, a tall, gloomy man, on account of his general demeanour, which was certainly oppressive enough, had in some degree contributed to Stringham’s dislike for university life. Stringham used to call Moffet “the murderer,” not on account of anything outwardly disreputable in his appearance, which might have been that of some ecclesiastical dignitary, but because of what Stringham named “the cold cruelty of Moffet’s eye.” If Moffet decided, for one reason or another, that an undergraduate on his staircase was worth cultivating, there was something sacerdotal about the precision with which he never left him free from attentions; as if the victim must be converted, come what may, to Moffet’s doctrines. Moffet had at first sight made up his mind that Stringham was one to be brought under his sway.
One of Moffet’s tenets was in connection with the manner in which Stringham arranged several ivory elephants along the top of his mantelpiece. Stringham liked the elephants to follow each other in column: Moffet preferred them to face the room in line. I had been present, on one occasion, when Moffet, having just finished “doing the room,” had disappeared from it. Stringham walked over to the fireplace, where the elephants stood with their trunks in line, and turned them sideways. As he completed this rearrangement, Moffet came in once more through the door. Stringham had the last elephant in his hand. Moffet stared across at him forbiddingly.
“I am afraid I do not arrange ornaments very well, sir,” said Moffet.
“Just a whim of mine regarding elephants.”
“I will try to remember, sir,” said Moffet. “They take a powerful lot of dusting.”
He retired again, adding: “Thank you, sir,” as he closed the door. The incident disturbed Stringham. “Now I shall have to go down,” he said.
However, Moffet was in an excellent mood at having an opportunity to wait on Sillery, of whom, for some reason, he approved more than of most dons. He brought in the telegram with a flourish. The message was from Stringham’s mother: she would be arriving, after alclass="underline" Buster was driving her down. At this, Sillery cheered up at once; and Miss Weedon, too, saw hope that negotiations might now take place. Stringham himself seemed as indifferent as before.
“If Buster is coming,” he said, “he will certainly queer the pitch.”
“I am looking forward to meeting Buster,” said Sillery, smiling straight across the table to Miss Weedon. “I think I shall persuade him to our point of view.”
He put the tips of his fingers together. Miss Weedon looked a little surprised at this whole-hearted way in which Sillery offered himself as an ally. She had perhaps assumed that, as a don, he would inevitably attempt to prevent Stringham from going down. She said: “Commander Foxe’s great regret is that he never went to the university.”
I did not know whether this remark was intended to excuse Buster, or to suggest to Sillery a line of attack.
“No doubt he acquired a very useful education in a different sphere,” said Sillery. “I have made enquiries, and find that we have many friends in common. Bill Truscott, for example.”
Miss Weedon did not feel equally enthusiastic about Bill Truscott. I wondered if they had crossed swords.
“Mr. Truscott has been in the house a lot lately,” she said, guardedly.
“Bill knows the situation perfectly,” said Sillery. “It would be a great advantage to work in harness with him.” All Miss Weedon was prepared to admit was the statement that “Mr. Truscott is always very kind.” However, Sillery’s changed mood much improved the atmosphere; luncheon continuing with less sense of strain.