46: His Own Company
Some weeks later I went to dinner at Bryanston Square. As I heard from Katherine, Mr March was inventing excuses to keep his house full; that night he had chosen to celebrate what he regarded as a success of mine. The ‘success’ was nothing but a formality: I had just been confirmed in my college job and now, if I wanted, could stay there for life. For Mr March it was a pretext for a party; as he greeted me it seemed to be something more.
When the butler showed me into the drawing-room, cosy after the cold night outside, Mr March had already come down, and was standing among Francis and Katherine and a dozen or more of our contemporaries. It was the biggest party I had seen there since his seventieth birthday. He came across to me, swinging his arm, and the instant he shook hands, said without any introduction: ‘I always viewed your intention to support yourself by legal practice as misguided.’
It sounded brusque. It sounded unemollient. Taken aback, Katherine said: ‘He was doing well in it, after all, Mr L.’
‘No! No!’ He brushed her aside, and spoke straight to me: ‘I didn’t regard legal practice as a suitable career for someone with other burdens.’
He spoke with understanding. Although he had not once referred to it, he knew what my marriage meant: this was his way of telling me so. How much time — he broke off shyly — did I intend to devote to my London job? Three days a week, I told him: and I could feel him thinking that that was the amount of time I spent with my wife in the Chelsea house. ‘Oh well,’ he remarked, ‘so long as that brings in sufficient for your requirements.’
As with Francis, so with me, Mr March ignored any earnings from academic life. His tone had not altered; apart from the burst of sympathy, which no one else in the room recognized, he was talking as he used to do. At dinner he went on addressing us round the table, just as he had done on my earliest visits there. The only difference that I should have noticed, if I had not known what had happened, was a curious one: the food, which had always been good, was now luxurious. Mr March, living alone in Bryanston Square, was doing himself better than ever in the past.
He spread himself on anecdotes: his talent for total recall was in good working order: there was plenty of laughter. I looked at Francis. It happened that just at that time there was a disagreement between us: we had been divided by a piece of college politics. But still, as our glances met, we had a fellow-feeling. In that sumptuous dinner party, we should have been hard put to it to say why we were so uncomfortable, when Mr March himself was not. Perhaps we had counted on giving him support, which he would not take.
Towards the end of dinner, Mr March drank my health, and, still holding his glass, got into spate: ‘On the occasion of Lewis Eliot first giving me the pleasure of his company in this house, I observed to my daughter Katherine that no proper preparations had been taken for the eventuality that he might prove to be a teetotaller. I failed to observe to my daughter Katherine on the identical anniversary that no proper precautions had been taken for the eventuality that Leonard might not be disposed to welcome a four-foot-high teddy-bear.’
‘Who mightn’t like a teddy-bear?’ someone cried, apparently nervous in case Mr March was talking of himself.
‘My grandson Leonard, of course,’ shouted Mr March. ‘The anniversary of whose birth, which took place last week, coincides as to day and month, but not however as to year, with that of the first visit of Lewis Eliot to my house. Of course, the opposite mistake used to be made with even more distressing consequences, though naturally not by my daughter Katherine.’
‘What mistake?’
‘Of teetotallers not making adequate provision for non-teetotallers, as opposed to the hypothetical reception of Lewis Eliot, as previously mentioned. On accepting hospitality from my second cousin Archibald Waley I constantly found myself in an intolerable dilemma. Not owing to his extraordinary habit of gnashing his teeth which was owing to a physiological peculiarity and unconnected with any defects of temperament which he nevertheless possessed, and demonstrated by his lamentable behaviour over his expulsion from Alfred Hart’s club during a certain disagreement. My intolerable dilemma was of a different nature. I used to present myself at his house — Philip used to say that it was the most inconvenient house in Kensington — and we used to make our entrance into the dining-room in a perfectly orthodox manner that I could see no reason for objecting to. Then however we were confronted as we sat down in our places with a printed card which I have always regarded as the height of bad form, and which did not improve the situation by informing us that we were required to assimilate nine courses. It is perhaps common fairness to point out that at the relevant period it was customary to provide more elaborate refreshments than the fork-suppers we’ve all taken to fobbing off on our guests.’
‘Was this a fork supper, Mr L?’ asked a niece, waving at the plates.
‘I don’t know what else you’d call it,’ said Mr March. ‘The over-ostentation of the provender was nevertheless not the main point at issue. One could possibly have contemplated nine courses until one was discouraged by hearing the footman ask “What would you like to drink, sir?” One then enquired for possible alternatives and was given the choice “Orangeade, lemonade, lemon squash, lime juice, ginger beer, ginger ale, barley water…” It was always said that when Herbert dined there he put a flask of brandy in his trouser pocket and made an excuse to go to the lavatory at least twice during the proceedings.’ Mr March raised his voice above questions, comments, grins:
‘The presumed discomfort to Lewis Eliot as a teetotaller entering this, a non-teetotal house, was in my judgement less than that experienced by myself at Archibald Waley’s.’ He added: ‘In practice, Lewis Eliot turned out not to be a teetotaller at all. As could have been ascertained from the person instrumental in giving me the pleasure of his company. That person being my son Charles.’
No one said anything. Mr March went on: ‘At that time there was nothing to prevent me communicating with my son Charles. However, I did not, at least upon the point under discussion.’
He said it with absolute stoicism. It was a stoicism which stopped any of us taking up the reference to Charles, or mentioning him again.
I left early, before any of the others. In the square it was cold enough to take one’s breath, and in the wind the stars flashed and quivered above the tossing trees. Trying to find a taxi, I walked along the pavement, across the end of the square, as I had walked with Charles after my first visit to the house, listening to him talk about his father. I was not thinking of them, though: my thoughts had gone to my own house. Just for a random instant, I recalled our housekeeper running down the local doctors, and then admitting, in a querulous, patronizing fashion, that some people in Pimlico spoke of Charles March as a good doctor, and seemed to trust him now. That thought did not last: it drifted into others of our housekeeper, my own home.
Standing at the corner, I stamped my feet, waiting for a taxi. Through the bare trees of the garden, I could see a beam of light, as the door of Mr March’s house opened, letting out some more of his guests. Soon the party would be over. He would test the latches and switch off the lights: then he would be left in his own company.
35: The Future of Two Old Men
Since the first instalment in the Note, Charles and Mr March had not met nor spoken to each other. Charles had, however, telephoned to Katherine after the visit to Seymour. He had told her, so I gathered, that Ann had done her best to call the paper off. Whether either Katherine or Mr March believed this, I had no means of judging. But they knew I had been present. Within a few days I received a letter from Mr March, telling me that he needed my ‘friendly assistance’: would I lunch with him at his club, so that we could go together to Sir Philip’s office afterwards.