‘You’re not at all like him,’ said Griselda.
‘Our lives have been different. Mine has been spent in the City, like the rest of my family. I haven’t been able to let myself go in the way a great painter can. Despite appearances, I suspect I’m very much the man I was when I was at school. I observe that the Prime Minister hasn’t been provided with a water bottle.’ He pointed to the bare green table at the end of the room. ‘That’s bad. Later I’ll have to see that something is done about it.’
The Duchess passed dancing with Edwin. Seeing Lord Roller, she smiled radiantly; then, observing that he was in conversation with Griselda, smiled again, a little ruefully.
‘I’ve been in love with Odile for twenty years,’ said Lord Roller. ‘To attempt concealment would be quite unavailing.’
‘You know you said you wouldn’t enquire further?’
‘Yes. I said that. Do you want me to enquire further? If so, I shall.’
‘Am I a pest? I should like advice.’
‘I know very little about the world outside business and politics. For that reason I should be honoured to advise you. I have all the confidence of ignorance. What is it about?’
It was the next dance and Griselda looked round for Kynaston, but there was no sign of him. She and Lord Roller went on talking.
‘I have decided to leave home. My Mother will have to get on as best she can.’
‘I can see that this is an entirely new resolution. I hope it is not based on what I just said. You must not take an old man, ignorant of life, too literally.’
‘No, Lord Roller. It is a new resolution, but I made it before I met you. The question is what best to do afterwards.’
‘I hardly know you well enough to advise you upon that. In any case, it is the most useless thing it is possible to advise upon. If you have no clear and conscious vocation in life, I advise you to marry and have children as soon as possible. Of course, I speak as a bachelor.’
‘I want your advice on something much more definite. I have few claims to a job of any kind, and, of course, a job I must have. A friend of mine has offered me one in the Secretariat of Sociology. It sounds pretty dull, because all the good jobs go to people with degrees, and I have no degree; but I have to promise to stick to it for three years. I don’t want to do that unless the result amounts to something, however small my contribution. I am sure you know all about the Secretariat of Sociology. Does it amount to anything?’
‘To save a young woman from the Secretariat of Sociology,’ replied Lord Roller, ‘I would offer her a job myself. With all the new regulations the coalition will introduce, we shall be able to carry more passengers in the business. I quite understand that you wish not to be a passenger, but that is unusual, and you can take over the work of someone on our staff who does. If you care to write to me, I’ll see what can be done. It will at least be somewhere near productive employment.’
‘But I have no capacity. I cannot even type.’
‘If typing is necessary and you do not learn to type within a month of our engaging you, we shall, of course, engage you no longer. You said you wanted to do work which amounted to something. That is the sort of obligation which work amounting to something involves.’
Griselda said: ‘Naturally.’
He rose.
‘I have enjoyed our talk. Now I must see that the Prime Minister is given his water-bottle, because the speeches will be soon, I regret to say. Have you a partner for the next dance?’
It was Mr Mackintosh’s turn.
‘Please do not wait, Lord Roller, if time is getting on. I’ll find him myself.’
‘We may meet again.’
‘Thank you for your advice.’
He bowed and departed. His gait was full of distinction, his expression of confidence. As he passed through the throng, he nodded affably from time to time.
There was still no sign of Mr Mackintosh, and Griselda, feeling isolated, and still fearing George Goss, began, faute de mieux, to look round for Kynaston. Almost at once, she saw him. He was dancing with Pamela. Where previously Griselda had resented his attaching himself so calmly and firmly to her, she now resented his having anything to do with Pamela. In both cases resentment was only one of many feelings jumping about in Griselda’s mind, most of them without rising to consciousness: and in both cases she felt that resentment was unreasonable.
Not wishing Kynaston, or Pamela either, to see her sitting by herself, she removed to a less conspicuous chair in the back row near a window. She recalled the term ‘wallflower’ and wished someone nice would speak to her. She still thought her appearance compared favourably with the appearance of the other women present, but all her immediate neighbours were dull looking people seated in small groups, indifferent to the dancing, but talking among themselves, sometimes acrimoniously. Griselda desperately wished that Louise could be there.
She began to study the scene impersonally. Though there were some beautiful women and distinguished looking men, the majority impressed as rowdy but dreary. They had, of course, Griselda recalled, been largely assembled for political rather than social reasons. There had been no sign of Mr Leech since the fun began and Mrs Hatch had now also disappeared, after a sequence of strenuous dances, doubtless in order to settle final details of the feast of rhetoric which impended. Mr Minnit, on the other hand, was dancing energetically with, as Griselda supposed, his wife. The Duke was now partnering the ravishing Lady Wolverhampton; and the Duchess one of the better dressed among the new Cabinet Ministers. In one corner there had been a minor disturbance for some time. Griselda had been only vaguely aware of the turmoil; now she perceived that it arose from attempts to prevent one of the splinter parties from posting propaganda bills on the ballroom wall. Mercifully George Goss was not to be seen. Possibly he was gone for a drink.
‘Do you think it was wise of us to exclude the Communists?’
One of the group around Griselda had dried up conversationally and a member on the outskirts of it addressed her. He was elderly in the extreme and resembled a distinguished nonconformist dignitary.
Griselda considered the question.
‘I don’t see what else we could have done.’
‘I think our appeal should be to all groups in the nation: to forget the past and think only of the future.’ The speaker’s voice and accents were great-grandpaternal. ‘I’ve always been a radical; and what are the Communists but today’s radicals? I’d be a Communist myself if I were still a young man.’
‘Hardly Zec. Not with your collection of fine old stocks and shares,’ said a hard-faced woman in his group, almost Zec’s contemporary.
‘It’s Travis Raunds who’s responsible for their not being invited,’ Zec grumbled on. ‘The man’s nothing but a despot. What do you think, young woman? Let us heed the voice of youth.’
‘I’d rather leave it,’ replied Griselda prudently, ‘to whoever issued the invitations. But tell me about Sir Travis Raunds. Is he here?’
‘Over there,’ said Zec stabbing a desiccated forefinger towards the opposite side of the room. ‘The old deathshead to the right of the centre mirror. Most reactionary man in the country. I’ve fought him all my life and he’s fought me.’
‘You flatter yourself,’ said the hard-faced woman.
Griselda stared at the man mentioned by Louise, father of Louise’s friend, Hugo Raunds. Though obviously very old, Griselda found him the most striking-looking man in the room. He had a considerable quantity of white hair, fine aristocratic bones, and a yellowish skin. Despite his years, he sat very upright and his expression was that of a censorious Buddha. His long mouth had finely shaped lips, his nose was magnificently powerful, he was clean shaven, and his eyes, Griselda, whose sight was excellent, could see across the room, were a clear yellow.