Alison Charwell – in and of this world, so spryly soulful, debonaire, free, and cosy – lived within a stone’s throw of Fleur, in a house pleasant, architecturally, as any in London. Forty years old, she had three children and considerable beauty, wearing a little fine from mental and bodily activity. Something of an enthusiast, she was fond of Michael, in spite of his strange criticisms, so that his matrimonial venture had piqued her from the start. Fleur was dainty, had quick natural intelligence – this new niece was worth cultivation. But, though adaptable and assimilative, Fleur had remained curiously un-assimilated; she continued to whet the curiosity of Lady Alison, accustomed to the close borough of choice spirits, and finding a certain poignancy in contact with the New Age on Fleur’s copper floor. She met with an irreverence there, which, not taken too seriously, flipped her mind. On that floor she almost felt a back number. It was stimulating.
Receiving Fleur’s telephonic inquiry about Gurdon Minho, she had rung up the novelist. She knew him, if not well. Nobody seemed to know him well; amiable, polite, silent, rather dull and austere; but with a disconcerting smile, sometimes ironical, sometimes friendly. His books were now caustic, now sentimental. On both counts it was rather the fashion to run him down, though he still seemed to exist.
She rang him up. Would he come to a dinner tomorrow at her young nephew, Michael Mont’s, and meet the younger generation? His answer came, rather high-pitched:
‘Rather! Full fig, or dinner jacket?’
‘How awfully nice of you I they’ll be ever so pleased. Full fig, I believe. It’s the second anniversary of their wedding.’ She hung up the receiver with the thought: ‘He must be writing a book about them!’
Conscious of responsibility, she arrived early.
It was a grand night at her husband’s Inn, so that she brought nothing with her but the feeling of adventure, pleasant after a day spent in fluttering over the decision at ‘Snooks’. She was received only by Ting-a-ling, who had his back to the fire, and took no notice beyond a stare. Sitting down on the jade green settee, she said:
‘Well, you funny little creature, don’t you know me after all this time?’
Ting-a-ling’s black shiny gaze seemed saying: ‘You recur here, I know; most things recur. There is nothing new about the future.’
Lady Alison fell into a train of thought: The new generation! Did she want her own girls to be of it! She would like to talk to Mr Minho about that – they had had a very nice talk down at Beechgroves before the war. Nine years ago – Sybil only six, Joan only four then! Time went, things changed! A new generation! And what was the difference! ‘I think we had more tradition!’ she said to herself softly.
A slight sound drew her eyes up from contemplation of her feet Ting-a-ling was moving his tail from side to side on the hearth-rug, as if applauding. Fleur’s voice, behind her, said:
‘Well, darling, I’m awfully late. It was good of you to get me Mr Minho. I do hope they’ll all behave. He’ll be between you and me, anyway; I’m sticking him at the top, and Michael at the bottom, between Pauline Upshire and Amabel Nazing. You’ll have Sibley on your left, and I’ll have Aubrey on my right, then Nesta Gorse and Walter Nazing; opposite them Linda Frewe and Charles Upshire. Twelve. You know them all. Oh! and you mustn’t mind if the Nazings and Nesta smoke between the courses. Amabel will do it. She comes from Virginia – it’s the reaction. I do hope she’ll have some clothes on; Michael always says it’s a mistake when she has; but having Mr Minho makes one a little nervous. Did you see Nesta’s skit in The Bouquet? Oh, too frightfully amusing – clearly meant for L.S.D.! Ting, my Ting, are you going to stay and see all these people? Well, then, get up here or you’ll be trodden on. Isn’t he Chinese? He does so round off the room.’
Ting-a-ling laid his nose on his paws, in the centre of a jade green cushion.
‘Mr Gurding Minner!’
The well-known novelist looked pale and composed. Shaking the two extended hands, he gazed at Ting-a-ling, and said:
‘How nice! How are you, my little man?’
Ting-a-ling did not stir. ‘You take me for a common English dog, sir!’ his silence seemed to say.
‘Mr and Mrs Walter Nazon, Miss Lenda Frow.’
Amabel Nazing came first, clear alabaster from her fair hair down to the six inches of gleaming back above her waistline, shrouded alabaster from four inches below the knee to the gleaming toes of her shoes; the eminent novelist mechanically ceased to commune with Ting-a-ling.
Walter Nazing, who followed a long way up above his wife, had a tiny line of collar emergent from swathes of black, and a face, cut a hundred years ago, that slightly resembled Shelley’s. His literary productions were sometimes felt to be like the poetry of that bard, and sometimes like the prose of Marcel Proust. ‘What oh!’ as Michael said.