Free A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell

who came into the room was about thirty or thirty-five, I suppose, though at the time she impressed me as older. Dressed in black, she was dark and not bad-looking, with a beaky nose. ‘Charles,’ she said; and, as she smiled at him, she seemed so positively delighted that her face took on a sudden look of intensity, almost of anxiety, the look that women’s faces sometimes show at a moment of supreme pleasure.
    That quick, avid glance disappeared immediately, though she continued to smile towards him.
    ‘This is Miss Weedon,’ said Stringham, laughing in a friendly way, as he took her left hand in his right. ‘How have you been, Tuffy?’
    Though less glacial than Buster, Miss Weedon was not overwhelmingly affable when she gave me a palm that felt cool and brittle. She said in an aside: ‘You know they nearly forgot to take a ticket for you for the Russian Ballet tonight.’
    ‘Good gracious,’ said Stringham. ‘What next?’
    However, he did not show any sign of being specially put out by this lapse on the part of his family.
    ‘I saw to it that they got an extra one.’
    ‘Thank you, Tuffy.’
    She had perhaps hoped for something more exuberant in the way of gratitude, because her face hardened a little, while she continued to fix him with her smile.
    ‘We have just been talking to Buster,’ Stringham said, plainly dismissing the subject of the tickets.
    She put her head a little on one side and remarked: ‘I am sure that he was as charming as ever.’
    ‘If possible, even more so.’
    ‘Buster has been behaving very well,’ she said.
    ‘I am glad to hear it.’
    ‘Now I must rush off and do some things for your mother before luncheon.’
    She was gone in a flash. Stringham yawned. I asked about Miss Weedon. Stringham said: ‘Tuffy? Oh, she used to be my sister’s governess. She stays here a lot of the time. She does all my mother’s odd jobs—especially the Hospital.’
    He laughed, as if at the thought of the preposterous amount of work that Miss Weedon had to undertake. I was not very clear as to what ‘the Hospital’ might be; but accepted it as an activity natural enough for Mrs. Foxe.
    ‘Tuffy is a great supporter of mine,’ Stringham added: as if in explanation of something that needed explaining.
    He did not extend this statement. A moment or two later his mother appeared. I thought her tremendously beautiful: though smaller than the photograph in Stringham’s room had suggested. Still wearing a hat, she had just come into the house. She kissed him, and said: ‘Everything is in a terrible muddle. I really can’t decide whether or not I want to go to Glimber for Christmas. I feel one ought to; but it is so frightfully cold.’
    ‘Come to Kenya with me, instead,’ said Stringham. ‘Glimber is much too draughty in the winter. Anyway, it would probably kill Buster, who is used to snug cabins.’
    ‘It would be rather fun to spend Christmas on the boat.’
    ‘Too jolly for words,’ said Stringham.
    ‘Buster had to lunch out. Did you see him?’
    ‘I hear he is buying a new car.’
    ‘He really did need one,’ she said.
    This could hardly have been meant for an apology, but her voice sounded a little apprehensive. Changing the subject, she turned to me and said: ‘I think poor Mr. LeBas must be so glad that Charles has left at last. He used to write the most pathetic letters about him. Still, you weren’t expelled, darling. That was clever of you.’
    ‘It took some doing,’ Stringham said.
    In view of their relationship, this manner of talking was quite unlike anything I had been used to; though, in a general way, fitting the rough outline pieced together from scraps of information regarding his home, or stories about his mother, that Stringham had from time to time let fall. He had, for example, once remarked that she liked interfering in political matters, and I wondered whether some startling intrigue with a member, or members, of the Cabinet would be revealed during