Linda Frewe, whom Fleur at once introduced to Gurdon Minho, was one about whose work no two people in her drawing-room ever agreed. Her works Trifles and The Furious Don had quite divided all opinion. Genius according to some, drivel according to others, those books always roused an interesting debate whether a slight madness enhanced or diminished the value of art. She herself paid little attention to criticism – she produced.
‘The Mr Minho? How interesting! I’ve never read anything of yours.’
Fleur gave a little gasp.
‘What – don’t you know Mr Minho’s cats? But they’re wonderful. Mr Minho, I do want Mrs Walter Nazing to know you. Amabel – Mr Gurdon Minho.’
‘Oh! Mr Minho – how perfectly lovely! I’ve wanted to know you ever since my cradle.’
Fleur heard the novelist say quietly:
‘I could wish it had been longer;’ and passed on in doubt to greet Nesta Gorse and Sibley Swan, who came in, as if they lived together, quarrelling over L.S.D., Nesta upholding him because of his ‘panache’, Sibley maintaining that wit had died with the Restoration; this fellow was alive!
Michael followed with the Upshires and Aubrey Greene, whom he had encountered in the hall. The party was complete.
Fleur loved perfection, and that evening was something of a nightmare. Was it a success? Minho was so clearly the least brilliant person there; even Alison talked better. And yet he had such a fine skull. She did hope he would not go away early. Someone would be almost sure to say ‘Dug up!’ or ‘Thick and bald!’ before the door closed behind him. He was pathetically agreeable, as if trying to be liked, or, at least, not despised too much. And there must, of course, be more in him than met the sense of hearing. After the crab soufflé he did seem to be talking to Alison, and all about youth. Fleur listened with one ear.
‘Youth feels… main stream of life… not giving it what it wants. Past and future getting haloes… Quite! Contemporary life no earthly just now… No… Only comfort for us – we’ll be antiquated, some day, like Congreve, Sterne, Defoe… have our chance again… Why? What is driving them out of the main current? Oh! Probably surfeit… newspapers… photographs. Don’t see life itself, only reports… reproductions of it; all seems shoddy, lurid, commercial… Youth says: “Away with it, let’s have the past or the future!”’
He took some salted almonds, and Fleur saw his eyes stray to the upper part of Amabel Nazing. Down there the conversation was like Association football – no one kept the ball for more than one kick. It shot from head to head. And after every set of passes someone would reach out and take a cigarette, and blow a blue cloud across the unclothed refectory table. Fleur enjoyed the glow of her Spanish room – its tiled floor, richly coloured fruits in porcelain, its tooled leather, copper articles, and Soames’s Goya above a Moorish divan. She headed the ball promptly when it came her way, but initiated nothing. Her gift was to be aware of everything at once. ‘Mrs Michael Mont presented’ the brilliant irrelevances of Linda Frewe, the pricks and stimulations of Nesta Gorse, the moonlit sliding innuendoes of Aubrey Greene, the upturning strokes of Sibley Swan, Amabel Nazing’s little cool American audacities, Charles Upshire’s curious bits of lore, Walter Nazing’s subversive contradictions, the critical intricacies of Pauline Upshire; Michael’s happy-go-lucky slings and arrows, even Alison’s knowledgeable quickness, and Gurdon Minho’s silences – she presented them all, showed them off, keeping her eyes and ears on the ball of talk lest it should touch earth and rest. Brilliant evening; but – a success?
On the jade green settee, when the last of them had gone and Michael was seeing Alison home, she thought of Minho’s ‘Youth – not getting what it wants.’ No! Things didn’t fit. ‘They don’t fit, do they, Ting!’ But Ting-a-ling was tired, only the tip of one ear quivered. Fleur leaned back and sighed. Ting-a-ling uncurled himself, and putting his forepaws on her thigh, looked up in her face. ‘Look at me,’ he seemed to say, ‘I’m all right. I get what I want, and I want what I get. At present I want to go to bed.’
‘But I don’t,’ said Fleur, without moving.
‘Just take me up!’ said Ting-a-ling.
‘Well,’ said Fleur, ‘I suppose – It’s a nice person, but not the right person, Ting.’
Ting-a-ling settled himself on her bare arms.
‘It’s all right,’ he seemed to say. ‘There’s a great deal too much sentiment and all that, out of China. Come on!’