A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

by Anthony Powell

  ‘Did you often go to Sillery’s?’

  ‘Very few times after the first visit. I was not encouraged to pay too frequent calls. Just the necessary tribute from time to time. Rendering unto Sillers the things which were Sillers’. My claims could not have been less high, even for pennies that bore, so to speak, Sillery’s own image and superscription.’

  He smiled again, making, with a morsel of bread, a gesture indicative of extreme humility.

  ‘Claims on Sillers?’

  ‘Rather his claims on myself. My late father was an English chaplain on the Riviera. For a number of reasons Sillers found useful a South of France contact of that kind. Besides, my father was a personal friend of the Bishop of Gibraltar, a prelacy to attract the regard of Sillers, owing to the farflung nature of the diocese.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘But my manner of talking about Sillers sounds most ungenerous. I would not speak a word against him. He did me, as a poor student, kindnesses on more than one occasion, although he could never reconcile himself to some of my interests.’

  ‘You mean Sillery did not like you going into the Church?’

  Fenneau smiled discreetly.

  ‘Sillery had no objection to the Church—no objection to any Church—as such. He liked to have friends of all sorts, even clergymen. He did not at all mind my living in an undergraduate underworld, the bas fond of the University. The underworld, too, had its uses for Sillers—witness J. G. Quiggin, who attended that same historic tea-party.’

  ‘You know Quiggin?’

  ‘I do not often see JG these days. For a time—after meeting at Sillery’s—we became quite close friends.’

  Canon Fenneau made a sound that was not much short of a giggle, then continued.

  ‘Like Sillers, JG found some of my interests ill advised. Socially unacceptable to Sillers, they were politically decadent to JG. Hopelessly unprogressive. JG wanted everyone he knew to be interested in politics in those days. He was a keen Marxist, you may remember. I have never liked politics.’

  ‘May I ask what are these interests of yours that arouse so much antipathy?’

  Fenneau smiled, this time gravely. He did not speak for a moment. His small watery eyes gazed at me. There was a touch of melodrama in the look.

  ‘Alchemy.’

  ‘The Philosopher’s Stone? Turning base metal into gold?’

  ‘I prefer to say more in the sense of turning Man from earthly impurity to heavenly perfection. It is a conception that has always gripped me—naturally in a manner not to run counter to my cloth. Some knowledge of such matters can indeed stand a priest in good stead.’

  He spoke the last sentence a little archly. The reason for his name’s familiarity was now revealed. Fenneau’s signature would appear from time to time under reviews of books about Hermetic Philosophy, the Rosicrucians, Witchcraft, works that dealt with what might be called the scholarly end of Magic. His own outward physical characteristics—not in themselves exceptional ones in priests of any creed—were, more than in most ecclesiastics, those to be associated with the practice of occultism; fleshiness of body allied to a misty look in the eye. Dr Trelawney and Mrs Erdleigh, hierophants of other mysteries, were both exemplars of that same physical type, in spite of what was no doubt a minor matter, difference of sex. These preoccupations of Fenneau’s would explain the faintly uncomfortable sensations his proximity generated. He seemed to convey, especially when he fixed his stare, that he hoped, without making too much fuss about it, to hypnotize his interlocutor; at the very least to read what was in his mind. That, too, was a trait not unknown among conventional priests of all denominations. Canon Fenneau, clearly not at all conventional, possessed the characteristic in a marked degree.

  ‘Do you still see Mark Members?’

  ‘Not for a long time until this evening. We have never entirely lost touch, although Mark—unlike JG—considered me less than the dust beneath his chariot wheels, when we were undergraduates. Years ago I was able to help him. He carelessly wrote somewhere that Goethe mentions Paracelsus in Faust, a slip confusing Paracelsus with Nostradamus. Mark was attacked on that account by a rather unpleasant personage, of whom you will certainly have heard, who called himself Dr Trelawney.’

  ‘I’ve even met him.’

  ‘I assisted Mark in rebutting these aggressions by pointing out that Trelawney’s long and abstruse letter on the subject darkened counsel. I added that, even if Paracelsus supposed every substance to be made up of mercury, sulphur, and salt, mercury was only one of the elements. Trelawney recognized the warning.’

  ‘What was the warning?’

  ‘Mercury is conceived in alchemy as hermaphroditic. Trelawney was at that time engaged in certain practices to which he did not wish attention to be drawn. He sheered off.’

  Fenneau’s features had taken on a menacing expression. Dr Trelawney had evidently found an adversary worthy of crossing swords; perhaps, more appropriately, crossing divining rods. I retailed some of my own Trelawney contacts, beginning with the Doctor and his disciples running past the Stonehurst gate.

  ‘That too? How very interesting. May I say that you bear out a deeply held conviction of mine as to the repetitive contacts of certain individual souls in the earthly lives of other individual souls.’

  Fenneau again fixed his eyes on me. He gave the impression of a scientist who has found a useful specimen, if not a noticeably rare one. His stare was preferably not to be endured for too long. He may have been aware of that himself, because he immediately dropped this disturbing inspection. Perhaps he had settled to his own satisfaction whatever was in his mind. I took the initiative.

  ‘Nietzsche thought individual experiences were recurrent, though he put it rather differently. But what did you mean by saying “that too”? ’

  ‘I was astonished to hear that as a child you should have known Trelawney.’

  ‘Only by sight. I did not meet him till years later. It is true that, as a child, he haunted my imagination—at times rather more than I liked. Haunting the imagination was the closest we came to acquaintance at that early period.’

  ‘Haunters of the imagination have already come close to the imagination’s owner. From that early intimacy would you give any credence to the claim of Scorpio Murtlock that in him—Scorpio—Trelawney has returned in the flesh? Some proclaim that as well as Scorpio himself.’

  The question was asked this time very quietly, put forward in this unemphatic manner, I think, deliberately to startle. In fact there can be little doubt that Canon Fenneau had such a motive in view. I took the enquiry as matter-of-factly as possible, while accepting its unexpectedness as an impressive conversational broadside. It would have been bad manners to admit less.

  ‘You know Murtlock too?’

  ‘Since he was quite a little boy.’

  Fenneau spoke reflectively, almost sentimentally.

  ‘What was he like as a child?’

  ‘A beautiful little boy. Quite exceptionally so. And very intelligent. He was called Leslie then.’

  Fenneau smiled at the contrast between Murtlock’s nomenclature, past and present.

  ‘You still see him?’

  ‘From time to time. I have been seeing something of him recently. That was why I was aware he would be known to you. You may have read about certain antagonisms Scorpio was encountering. I believe a good deal never got into the papers. In consequence of this rumpus there was some talk of a television programme about the cult—one of the series After Strange Gods, in which Lindsay Bagshaw recently made a comeback, but perhaps you don’t watch television—and I was approached as a possible compère. I had to say that I had long been a friend of Scorpio’s, but could not publicly associate myself, even as a commentator, with his system, if it can be so called. Mr Bagshaw himself came to see me. It transpired, in the course of conversation, that Scorpio had visited you in the country.’

  ‘That was produced as a reference?

  ‘Mr Bagshaw seemed to t
hink it a good one.’

  I did not often see Bagshaw these days, but made a mental note to take the matter up with him, if we ran across each other.

  ‘Murtlock was one of your flock in his young days?’

  That was an effort to set the helm, so far as Fenneau was concerned, in a more professionally clerical direction; not exactly a call to order, so much as a plea for better defined premises for discussion of Murtlock’s goings-on. If I were to be brought in by Bagshaw as a sort of reference for Murtlock’s respectability—on the strength of allowing the caravan to be put up for one night—I had a right to be told more about Murtlock. That he had been a pretty little boy might be a straightforward explanation for extending patronage to him, but, anyway as a clergyman, it seemed up to Fenneau to provide a less sensuous basis for their early association together. After further biographical background was given, enquiries could proceed as to whether Fenneau himself had set Murtlock on the path to become a mage. Fenneau was in no way unwilling to elaborate the picture.

  ‘Scorpio once sang in my choir. That was when I was in south London. His parents kept a newspaper shop. As ever in these cases, there was an interesting heredity. Both mother and father belonged to a small fanatical religious sect, but I won’t go into that now. It was with great difficulty that I secured their son for the choir. I should never have done so, had Leslie himself not insisted on joining. His will was stronger than theirs.’

  ‘Did you yourself introduce him to what might, in general terms, be called alchemy?’

  ‘On the contrary, Scorpio—Leslie as he was then—already possessed remarkable gifts of a kinetic kind. As you certainly know, there has been of late years a great revival of interest in what can only be called, in many cases, the Black Arts, I fear. It was quite by chance that Scorpio’s natural leanings fell within a province with which I had long concerned myself. Mystical studies—my Bishop agrees—can be unexpectedly valuable in combating the undesirable in that field.’

  Fenneau’s mouth went a little tight again at mention of his Bishop, the eyes taking on a harder, less misty surface. It was permissible to feel that the Bishop himself—elements of exorcism perhaps out of easy reach at that moment—could have agreed, not least from trepidation at prospect of being transformed into a toad, or confined for a thousand years within a hollow oak.

  ‘What happened to Murtlock after he left your choir?’

  ‘A success story, even if a strange one. After singing so delightfully—I wish you could have heard his solo:

  Now we are come to the sun’s hour of rest,

  The lights of evening round us shine.

  —Leslie won a scholarship at a choir-school. He was doing splendidly there. Then a most unfortunate thing happened. It was quite out of the ordinary. He developed a most unhappy influence over the choirmaster. Influence is a weak word in the circumstances.’

  ‘You mean—’

  Fenneau smiled primly this time.

  ‘That is certainly what one might expect. There had been trouble of that sort earlier. Leslie was quite a little boy then, hardly old enough to understand. The man was not convicted—I think rightly—as there was a possibility that Leslie had—well—invented the whole thing, but, as people said at the time, no smoke without fire. That unhappy possibility did not arise with the choirmaster. I knew him personally, a man of blameless life. There are, of course, men of blameless life, who yield to sudden temptation—lead us not into Thames Station, as the choirboys are said to have prayed—and there is no question but Leslie was an unusually handsome boy. No one could fail to notice that. Not that he wasn’t a boy with remarkable qualities other than physical ones. At the same time I am satisfied that not a hint of improper conduct took place on the part of the choirmaster.’

  The thought extended the smile of Fenneau’s long mouth into ogreish proportions. He moved quickly from the prim to the blunt.

  ‘Not even pawing. Leslie assured me himself.’

  ‘Murtlock gave the impression of being tough when I met him. I should have thought he would be as tough about sex, as about anything else.’

  ‘You are right. Let me speak plainly. Leslie—Scorpio by now—is tough. That does not mean he is necessarily badly behaved in matters of sex. I have always thought him not primarily interested in sex. What he seeks is moral authority.’

  ‘Mightn’t he use sex to gain moral authority?’

  Fenneau gave me an odd look.

  ‘That is another matter. Possibly he might. I can only say that all who had anything to do with the choirmaster affair agreed that sex—in any commonplace use of the word—did not come into it. At the same time, having known Leslie from his earliest years, I was not altogether surprised at what happened. I felt sure something of the sort would take place sooner or later. I knew it would grieve me.’

  ‘Had he ever tried to impose his moral authority in your own case?’

  I thought Fenneau deserved the question. He showed no disposition to resent or sidestep it. When he spoke he gazed into the distance beyond me.

  ‘Fortunately I knew how to handle the gifts Leslie had been granted.’

  ‘How did the choir-school story end?’

  ‘Most tragically. The choirmaster was going to be a difficult man to replace. Good men are always at a premium, let alone good schoolmasters. Leslie—or should I already call him Scorpio?—was leaving at the end of the following term to take up another scholarship. He had done nothing against the rules. Every effort was made to persuade the choirmaster to exert his own will sufficiently to contend with the few months that remained. It was no good. His will had altogether gone. He was in too demoralized a state to stay on. He wished to be relieved of his appointment without delay.’

  ‘The choirmaster left, Murtlock remained?’

  ‘That was so. The unfortunate man took a job at another school, in quite a different part of the country. He was thought to be doing well there. Alas, just before the opening of the summer term, the poor fellow was found drowned in the swimming-pool.’

  Fenneau sighed.

  ‘What’s Murtlock’s present position, over and above people objecting to what he does at prehistoric monuments? How far does he model himself on Trelawney? When he stayed with us he appeared to have indulged in nothing worse than burning laurel leaves, and scenting a bucket with camphor.’

  ‘Camphor? I am glad to hear of that. Camphor traditionally preserves chastity. With regard to Trelawney, I hope Scorpio has purged away the more unpleasant side. Harmony is the watchword. Harmony, as such, is not to be disapproved. I fear things are not always allowed to rest there. An element of Gnosticism emphasizes the duality of austerity and licence, abasement as a source of power, also elements akin to the worship of Mithras, where the initiate climbed through seven gates, or up seven ascending steps, imagery of the soul’s ascent through the spheres of the Planets—as Eugenius Philalethes says—hearing secret harmonies.’

  ‘I remember Trelawney’s friend, Mrs Erdleigh, quoting that. Did you know her?’

  ‘Myra Erdleigh was ubiquitous.’

  Toasts and speeches began to take place. When these were over, lighting a cigar, Fenneau began to speak of Gnosticism, and the Mithraic mysteries. I was relating how Kipling’s Song to Mithras had so much puzzled my former Company Commander, Rowland Gwatkin (whose obituary, recently printed in the Regimental Magazine, said he had taken an active interest in Territorial and ex-Service organizations to the end), when, several seats opposite having been vacated by guests rising to relieve themselves, or stroll round the pictures, Widmerpool moved down to one of these empty chairs. I had forgotten all about him, even the possibility put forward by Members that another unscheduled speech of Widmerpool’s might take place. Close up, he looked even more like a down-at-heel artist than at a distance. The scarlet sweater was torn and dirty. Nodding to me, he addressed himself to Fenneau.

  ‘Canon Fenneau, I think?’

  ‘Your servant.’

  Fenneau said that like
a djinn rising vaporously from an unsealed bottle.

  ‘May I introduce myself? My name is Widmerpool—Ken Widmerpool. I am called by some Lord Widmerpool. Don’t bother about the Lord. It is irrelevant. We have never met, Canon. I am no churchgoer nowadays, though once I served my turn as a churchman.’

  Hoping to disengage myself from whatever business Widmerpool had with Fenneau—impossible to imagine what that could be—I was about to make off, having myself planned to do a lightning tour of the pictures, in search of interesting specimens from the past. Widmerpool delayed this.

  ‘Nick Jenkins here will vouch for my credentials. We’ve known each other more years than I like to think. Canon Fenneau, I have a request to make.’

  Fenneau watched Widmerpool with the eye of a croupier, fixed on the spinning roulette wheel, ready to deal with any number that might turn up, in this case none endowed with power to break the bank, whatever sum put on, at whatever odds.

  ‘Let me say at once, Lord Widmerpool, that it is supererogatory to tell me about yourself. You are, if I may say so, too famous for that to be necessary.’