‘Another matter, Nicholas. My wife—you know her, of course, I’d forgotten—Pamela, as I say, was overcome with faintness during the service. In fact had to leave the church. I hope no one noticed. She did so as quietly as possible. These attacks come on her at times. Largely nerves, in my opinion. It was arranged between us she should await me in the porch. She no doubt found the stone seat there too cold in her distressed state. I thought she might have taken refuge in our taxi, but the driver said, on the contrary, he saw her walking up the drive in the direction of the house.’
Widmerpool stopped speaking. His efforts to present in terms satisfactory to himself two quite separate problems, so that they merged into coherent shape, seemed to have broken down. The first question was what Craggs and Quiggin wanted from the executors, no doubt something to do with the matters of which Bagshaw had spoken; the second, which Widmerpool, judging by past experience, regarded as more important, the disappearance of his wife.
Frederica and Blanche, saying goodbye to the Alford relations to whom they had been talking, came over to have a word with their uncle. Alfred Tolland, still considerably discomposed by all that was happening round him, managed to effect a mumbled introduction of Widmerpool, who seized his opportunity, settling on Frederica. He began at once to put forward the advantages of having a preliminary talk, ‘quite informal’, about straightening out Erridge’s affairs. Frederica had hardly time to agree this would be a good idea, before he returned to the question of Pamela, certainly worrying him a lot. Frederica, a very competent person when it came to making arrangements, took these problems in her stride. Like Erridge, she was not greatly interested in individuals as such, so that Widmerpool’s desire to talk business, coupled with anxiety about his wife, were elements to be accepted at their face value. Neither aroused Frederica’s curiosity.
‘Where are these friends of yours now, Mr Widmerpool?’
‘In the church porch. They wanted to get out of the rain. They’re waiting—in fact waiting for me to obtain your permission, Lady Frederica, to come up to the house as I suggest. I really think the house is probably where my wife is too.’
This then was the crux of the matter. They all wanted to come up to the house. While that was arranged, Widmerpool had judged it best to confine them to the porch. Possibly there had been signs of mutiny. Judged as a group, they must have been just what Frederica would expect as representative friends of her brother, even though she could not guess, had no wish to examine, subtleties of their party’s composition. In her eyes Widmerpool’s conventional clothes, authoritative manner, made him a natural enough delegate of an otherwise fairly unpresentable cluster of Erridge hangers-on, a perfectly acceptable representative. Frederica and Erridge had been next to each other in age. Although living their lives in such different spheres, they were by no means without mutual understanding. The whim to leave complicated instructions after death was one with which Frederica could sympathize. Sorting out her brother’s benefactions gratified her taste for tidying up.
An uncertain quantity was whether or not she remembered anything of Widmerpool’s wife. There could be little doubt that at one time or another Dicky Umfraville had made some reference to Pamela’s gladiatorial sex life during the war. It would have been very unlike him to have let that pass without comment. On the other hand, Frederica not only disapproved of such goings-on, she took little or no interest in them, was capable of shutting her eyes to misbehaviour altogether. Unaccompanied by Umfraville, whose banter kept her always on guard against being ragged about what Molly Jeavons used to call her own ‘correctness’, Frederica, on such an exceptional family occasion, may have reverted to type; closing her eyes by an act of will to the fact, even if she knew that, for example, her sister Norah had been one of Pamela’s victims. In short, for one reason or another, she did not in the least at that moment concern herself with the identity of Widmerpool’s wife. While she was talking to him, Blanche and Isobel made arrangements about getting old Skerrett home. Alfred Tolland drew me aside.
‘Thought it would be all right—best—not to wear a silk hat. See you haven’t either, nor the rest of the men. Quite right. Not in keeping with the way we live nowadays. What Erridge would have preferred too, I expect. I always like to do that. Behave as—well—the deceased would have done himself. Doubt if Erridge owned a silk hat latterly. Anthony Eden hats they call this sort I’m wearing now, don’t quite know why. Mustn’t lose count of time and miss my train, because when I get back I’ve got to …’
Again one wondered what on earth he had ‘got to’ do when he returned to London. It was not the season for reunion dinners. Molly Jeavons no longer alive, he could not drop in there to be teased about family matters. To picture him at any other sort of engagement than these was difficult. It was doubtful whether amicable relations with Jeavons included visits to the house now Molly was gone. One returned to the earlier surmise that he had risen from the dead, had to report back to another graveyard by a stated time.
‘I haven’t seen Frederica’s husband.’
He spoke tentatively, like many of his own age-group, prepared always for the worst when it came to news about the marriages of the next generation.
‘Dicky couldn’t come. He’s with the Control Commission.’
There seemed no point in emphasizing Umfraville’s flat refusal to turn up. The fact of his absence seemed to bring relief to Alfred Tolland.
‘Remember I once told you Umfraville was my fag at school? Not a word of truth in it. My fag was an older man. Not older than Umfraville is now, of course, he was younger than me, and naturally still is, if he’s alive, but older than Frederica’s husband would have been at that age. Made a mistake. Found there were two Umfravilles. Been on my conscience ever since telling you that. Hope it never got passed on. Didn’t want to meet him, and seem to be claiming acquaintance …’
‘Probably a relation. It’s an uncommon name.’
‘Never safe to assume people are relations. That’s what I’ve found.’
‘Isobel’s beckoning us to a car.’
The dilapidated Morris Eight to which we steered him was driven by Blanche and already contained Norah. Accommodation was cramped. As we drove away, Widmerpool was to be seen marshalling his own party outside the porch. They were lost to sight moving in Indian file between the tombstones, making for a large black car, the taxi in which they had all arrived, far more antiquated than our own vehicle.
‘Of course, I knew—Mr—Mr Whatever-his-name-is, knew his face when I saw him at the train,’ said Alfred Tolland. ‘As soon as he spoke I remembered the excellent speech he made that night—what’s the man’s name?—took over the house from Cordery—your man—Le Bas—that’s the one. The night Le Bas had a stroke or something. Always remember that speech. Full of excellent stuff. Good idea to get away from all that—what is it, Eheu fugaces, something of the sort, never any good at Latin. All that sentimental stuff, I mean, and talk about business affairs for a change. Sound man. Great admirer of Erridge, he told me—takes rather a different view of him to most—I don’t say most—anyway some of the family, who were always a bit what you might call lacking in understanding of Erridge—not exactly disapproving but … Widmerpool, that’s the fellow’s name. He’s an MP now. Labour, of course. Thinks very highly of Mr Attlee. Sure he’s right … I was a bit worried about Mrs Widmerpool. So quiet. Very shy, I expect. Rare these days for a young woman to be as quiet as that. Thought she might be upset about something. Daresay funerals upset her. They do some people. Beautiful young woman too. I couldn’t help looking at her. She must have thought me quite rude. Hope somebody’s seeing to her properly after she had to leave the service …’
This was the longest dissertation I had ever heard Alfred Tolland attempt. That he should allow himself such conversational licence showed how much the day had agitated him. He might also be trying to keep his mind from the discomfort suffered where we sat at the back of the small car. A long silence followed, as if
he regretted having given voice to so many private opinions.
‘True Thrubworth weather,’ said Norah.
She had recovered from her tears. Rain was pouring down again. Mist hid the woods on the high ground behind the house, the timber preserved from felling by St John Clarke’s fortuitous legacy to Erridge. The camp was visible enough. On either side of the drive Nissen huts were enclosed by barbed wire. The dismal climate kept the POWs indoors. A few drenched guards were the only form of life to be seen. Blanche made a circuit round the back of the house, the car passed under an arch, into the cobbled yard through which Erridge’s wing was approached. She stopped in front of a low door studded with large brass nails.
‘I’ll put the car away. Go on up to the flat.’
The door turned out to be firmly shut.
‘Probably no one at home,’ said Norah. ‘They’ve all been to the funeral. I hope Blanchie’s got the key. It would be just like her to leave the house without bringing the key with her.’
She knocked loudly. We waited in the rain. After a minute the door was opened. I expected an elderly retainer of some sort, if the knocking were answered at all. Instead of that, a squat, broad-shouldered young man, with fair curly hair and a ruddy face, stood on the threshold. He wore a grey woollen sweater and chocolate-coloured trousers patched in many places. I thought he must be some new protégé of Erridge’s about whom one had not been warned. He seemed wholly prepared for us.
‘Come in, please, come in.’
Blanche appeared at that moment.
‘They’ll all be along soon, Siegfried. Will you put the kettle on? I’ll come and help in a second. I thought we left the door on the latch.’
‘Miss must have closed it.’
‘Mrs Skerrett did? Well, leave it unlatched now, so the others can get in without bringing you down to open it.’
‘Make her tea.’
‘You’ve made tea already, Siegfried?’
‘Of course.’
Grinning delightedly about something, apparently his own ingenuity, he bustled off.
‘Who the hell?’ asked Norah.
‘Siegfried? He’s one of the German prisoners working on the land. He loves doing jobs about the house so much, there seemed no point in trying to prevent him. It’s a great help, as there’s too much for Mrs Skerrett singlehanded, especially on a day like this.’
We passed along the passages leading to Erridge’s flat, the several rooms of which were situated up a flight of stairs some little way from the door opening on the courtyard. In the dozen years or so since I had last been at Thrubworth more lumber than ever had collected in these back parts of the house, much of it no doubt brought there after requisitioning. There was an overwhelming accumulation: furniture: pictures: rolled-up carpets: packing cases. Erridge’s father, an indefatigable wanderer over the face of the earth, had been responsible for much of this hoard, buying everything that took his fancy. There were ‘heads’ of big game: a suit of Japanese armour: two huge vases standing on plinths: an idol that looked Mexican or South American. Alfred Tolland identified some of these odds and ends as we made our way through them.
‘That oil painting on its side’s the First Jubilee. Very old-fashioned in style. Nobody paints like that now. Those big pots are supposed to be eighteenth-century Chinese. Walter Huntercombe came to shoot here once, and insisted they were nothing of the sort. Nineteenth-century copies, he said, and my brother had been swindled. Of course Warminster didn’t like that at all. Told Walter Huntercombe he was a conceited young ass. Goodness knows where the tricycle came from.’
Erridge’s flat, at the top of a flight of narrow stairs at the end of the corridor, in most respects a severely unadorned apartment, with the air of a temple consecrated to the beliefs of a fanatically austere sect, included a few pieces of furniture that suggested quite another sort of life. His disregard for luxury, anything like fastidious selection of objects, allowed shabby chairs and tables that had seen better days in other parts of the house. In the sitting-room someone—probably Frederica—had removed from the wall the pedigree-like chart, on which what appeared to be descending branches of an ancient lineage, had turned out an illustration of the principles of world economic distribution; now, in any case, hopelessly outdated in consequence of the war.
The books on the shelves, most of them published twelve or fifteen years before, gave the impression of having been bought during the same period of eighteen months or two years: Russia’s Productive System … The Indian Crisis … Anthology of Soviet Literature … Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx … From Peasant to Collective Farmer. There was also a complete set of Dickens in calf, a few standard poets, and—Erridge’s vice, furtive, if not absolutely secret—the bound volumes of Chums and the Boy’s Own Paper, the pages of which he would turn unsmiling for hours at times of worry or irritation. Erridge’s Russian enthusiasms had died down by the late thirties, but he always retained a muted affection for the Soviet system, even when disapproving. This fascination for an old love was quite different from Bagshaw’s. Bagshaw delighted in examining every inconsistency in the Party Line: who was liquidated: who in the ascendant: which heresies persecuted: which new orthodoxies imposed. Such mutations were painful to Erridge. He preferred not to be brought face to face with them. He was like a man who hoped to avoid the distress of hearing of the depravities into which an adored mistress has fallen.
In this room Erridge had written his letters, eaten his meals, transacted political business with Craggs and Quiggin, read, lounged, moped, probably seduced Mona, or vice versa; the same, or alternate, process possibly applying also to Gypsy Jones—or rather Lady Craggs. He used rarely to digress into other parts of the house. The ‘state apartments’ were kept covered in dust sheets. Once in a way he might have need to consult a book in the library, to which few volumes had been added since the days of the Chemist-Earl, who had brought together what was then regarded as an unexampled collection of works on his own subject. Once in a way a guest—latterly these had become increasingly rare—likely to be a new political contact of one kind or another, for example, an unusually persistent refugee, might be shown round. Erridge had never entirely conquered a taste for exhibiting his own belongings, even though rather ashamed of the practice, and of the belongings themselves.
The once wide assortment of journals on a large table set aside for this purpose had been severely reduced—probably by Frederica again—to a couple of daily newspapers, neither of a flavour her brother would have approved. Beyond this table stood a smaller one at which Erridge and his guests, if any, used to eat. The most comfortable piece of furniture in the room was a big sofa facing the fireplace, its back to the door. The room appeared to be empty when entered, the position of this sofa concealing at first the fact that someone was reclining at full length upon it. Walking across the room to gain a view of the park from the window, I saw the recumbent figure was Pamela’s. Propped against cushions, a cup of tea beside her on the floor, by the teacup an open book, its pages downward on the carpet, she was looking straight ahead of her, apparently once more lost in thought. I asked if she were feeling better. She turned her large pale eyes on me.
‘Why should I be feeling better?’
‘I don’t know. I just enquired as a formality. Don’t feel bound to answer.’
For once she laughed.
‘I mean obviously you weren’t well in church.’
‘Worse than the bloody corpse.’
‘Flu?’
‘God knows.’
‘A virus?’
‘It doesn’t much matter does it?’
‘Diagnosis might suggest a cure.’
‘Are Kenneth and those other sods on their way here?’
‘So I understand.’
‘The kraut got me some tea.’
‘That showed enterprise.’
‘He’s got enterprise all right. Why’s he at large?’
‘He’s working on the land apparently.’
‘His activities don’t seem particularly agricultural.’
‘He winkled himself into the house somehow.’
‘He knows his way about all right. He was bloody fresh. Who’s that awful woman we travelled down with called Lady Craggs?’
The sudden appearance beside us of Alfred Tolland spared complicated exposition of Gypsy’s origins. In any case the question had expressed an opinion rather than request for information. Alfred Tolland gazed down at Pamela. He seemed to be absolutely fascinated by her beauty.
‘Do hope you’re …’
‘I’m what?’
‘Better.’
He brought the word out sharply. Probably he ought always to be treated in an equally brusque manner, told to get on with it, make a move, show a leg, instead of being allowed to maunder on indefinitely trying to formulate in words his own obscurities of thought; licence that his relations had fallen too long into the habit of granting without check. Siegfried appeared again, this time carrying a tray loaded with cups and saucers. His personality lay somewhere between that of Odo Stevens and Mrs Andriadis’s one-time boy-friend, Guggenbühl, now Gainsborough. He made firmly towards Alfred Tolland, who stood between him and the table where he planned to lay the tea things.
‘Sir, excuse, you are in the way, please.’
Called to order only a second before by Pamela, Alfred Tolland again reacted more quickly than usual. He almost jumped aside. Siegfried pushed adroitly past him, set the tray on a table, then returned to retrieve Pamela’s cup from the floor.
‘More of tea, Miss, please?’
‘No.’
‘Not good?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘Why not so?’
‘God knows.’
‘Another cup then, please. There is enough. China tea for the ration more easy.’
‘I said I don’t want any more.’
‘No?’
She did not answer this time, merely closed her eyes. Siegfried, not in the least put out, showed no sign of going away. He and Alfred Tolland stood side by side staring at Pamela, expressing in their individual and contrasted ways boundless silent admiration. Her contempt for both of them was absolute. It seemed only to stimulate more fervent worship. After remaining thus entranced for some little time, Siegfried must have decided that after all work came first, because he suddenly hurried away, no less complacent and apparently finding the situation irresistibly funny. He had certainly conceived a more down-to-earth estimate of Pamela’s character and possibilities than Alfred Tolland, who was in any case taken over at that moment by Blanche. He allowed himself to be led away, showing signs of being even a little relieved at salvage in this manner. Pamela opened her eyes again, though only to look straight in front of her. When I spoke of a meeting with Ada Leintwardine, she showed a little interest.
A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement Page 7