‘I expect, in the case of your husband’s niece, that you were perfectly right.’
‘Now, do tell me, this is so interesting, what sort of things do you paint?’
‘Chiefly abstract subjects.’
‘Yes, I see, allegories and things like that. Art must be so fascinating, I always think. I have just been painted by Laszlo. By the way, did I see you at his exhibition? No? But I have seen you somewhere before, I know I have. It’s a funny thing but I never forget a face – names, now I can’t remember, but I never forget a face, do you?’
‘So few people have faces,’ said Albert, who was struggling to be polite. ‘Everyone seems to have a name, but only one person in ten has a face. The old man sitting next to Sally, for instance, has no face at all.’
‘That is my husband,’ said Lady Prague, rather tartly.
‘Then the fact must already have obtruded itself on your notice. But, take the general as an example. He hasn’t got one either, in my opinion.’
‘Oh, I see now what you mean,’ she said brightly, ‘that they are not paintable. But you surprise me. I have always been told that older people, especially men, were very paintable with all the wrinkles and lines – so much character. Now, you went, I suppose, to the Dutch exhibition?’
‘I did not. I wasn’t in London last spring, as a matter of fact, but even if I had been I should have avoided Burlington House as sedulously then as I should later in the summer. I regard the Dutch school as one of the many sins against art which have been perpetrated through the ages.’
‘You mean …’ She looked at him incredulously. ‘Don’t you like Dutch pictures?’
‘No, nor Dutch cheese, as a matter of fact!’
‘I can’t understand it. I simply worship them. There was a picture of an old woman by Rembrandt. I stood in front of it for quite a while one day and I could have sworn she breathed!’
Albert shuddered.
‘Yes, eerie, wasn’t it? I turned to my friend and said: “Laura, it’s uncanny. I feel she might step out of the frame any moment.” Laura Pastille (Mrs Pastille, that’s my friend’s name) has copied nearly all the Dutch pictures in the National Gallery. For some she had to use a magnifying glass. She’s very artistic. But I am amazed that you don’t like them. I suppose you pretend to admire all these ugly things which are the fashion now. I expect you’ll get over it in time. Epstein, for instance, and Augustus John – what d’you think about them?’
Albert contained himself with some difficulty and answered, breathing hard and red in the face, that he regarded Epstein as one of the great men of all time and would prefer not to discuss him. (General Murgatroyd, overhearing this remark, turned to Walter and asked if that ‘fella Gates’ were an aesthete. Walter looked puzzled and said that he hoped so, he hoped they all were. The general snorted and continued telling Captain Chadlington about how he had once played a salmon for two hours.)
Lady Prague then said: ‘Why do you live in Paris? Isn’t England good enough for you?’ She said this rather offensively. It was evident that Albert’s feelings for her were heartily reciprocated.
‘Well,’ he replied, ‘England is hardly a very good place for a serious artist, is it? One is not exactly encouraged to use one’s brain over here, you know. When I arrived from Paris this last time they would not even leave me my own copy of Ulysses. Things have come to a pretty pass when it is impossible to get decent literature to read.’
‘Indecent literature, I suppose you mean.’
Albert felt completely out of his depth, but to his immense relief Admiral Wenceslaus now turned upon Lady Prague the conversational gambit of, ‘And where did you come from today?’ thus making it unnecessary for him to answer.
Mr Buggins and Walter were getting on like a house on fire.
‘Curious,’ observed Mr Buggins, ‘for a house party of this size in Scotland to consist entirely of Sassenachs – seven men and not one kilt among them. I have the right, of course, to wear the Forbes tartan through my maternal grandmother, but I always think it looks bad with an English name, don’t you agree?’
‘Very bad,’ said Walter. ‘But you could wear it as a fancy dress, I suppose?’
‘The kilt, my dear sir, is not a fancy dress.’
‘My wife is Scottish; her father is Lord Craigdalloch’s brother.’
‘Yes, of course, Johnnie. Such an interesting family, the Dallochs; one of the oldest in Scotland.’
‘Really?’
‘Considering that you are allied to them by marriage it surprises me that you should not be aware of that. Why, the cellars of this castle date from the tenth century. I suppose you know how it came to be built here?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘Well, the first Thane of Dalloch had no castle and one day when he was getting old he thought he would build himself a solid dwelling-place instead of the shieling or hut that had been his head-quarters up to then. So he went to consult a wise woman who lived in a neighbouring shieling. He told her what was in his mind and asked where would be the best place for him to build his castle. She replied, “When you find a bike1 in a birk,2 busk3 there the bauk4.”
‘The story goes that as he was walking away from the old woman’s shieling he was stung by a wasp. He looked high and low for the bike, intending to destroy it, and presently found it in a birk. Instantly he recalled the witch’s words. The next day he busked the bauk and soon a bonnie castle rose round the birk, which you can see to this very day in the cellars. To me, all these old legends are so fascinating.’
He then proceeded to tell Walter the
