This attempt to lighten the tension was not very successful. Maclintick leaned down and tapped his pipe against his heel. Mrs Maclintick, though silent, was white with anger.
‘What about Toscanini?’ she demanded suddenly.
‘What about him?’ said Maclintick.
‘The Fascists slapped his face.’
‘Well?’
‘I suppose you approve of that.’
‘I don’t like the Fascists any more than you do,’ said Maclintick. ‘You know that perfectly well. It was me that Blackshirt insisted on taking to the police station in Florence, not you. You tried to truckle to him.’
‘Anyway,’ said Mrs Maclintick, ‘I want the Government in Spain to win – not the Communists.’
‘How are you going to arrange that, if they do defeat Franco? As it is, the extremists have taken over on the side of “the Government”, as you call it. How are you going to arrange that the nice, liberal ones come out on top?’
‘What do you know about it?’ said his wife, speaking now with real hatred. ‘What do you know about politics?’
‘More than you.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Doubt it, then.’
There was a moment during the pause that followed this exchange of opinion when I thought she might pick up one of the battered table knives and stick it into him. All this time, Carolo had remained absolutely silent, as if unaware that anything unusual was going on round him, unaware of Spain, unaware of civil war there, unaware of Communists, unaware of Fascists, his expression registering no more than its accustomed air of endurance of the triviality of those who inhabited the world in which he unhappily found himself. Now he finished the beer, wiped his mouth again with the pocket handkerchief, and rose from the table.
‘Got to remove myself,’ he said in his North Country burr.
‘What time will you be back?’ asked Maclintick.
‘Don’t know.’
‘I suppose someone will have to let you in.’
‘Suppose they will.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ burst out Mrs Maclintick. ‘I’ll let him in, you fool. What does it matter to you ? You never open a door for anyone, not even your precious friends. It’s me that does all the drudgery in this house. You never do a hand’s turn, except sitting upstairs messing about with a lot of stuff that is really out of your reach – that you are not quite up to.’
By this time everyone was standing up.
‘I think probably Nick and I ought to be going too,’ said Moreland, the extent of his own discomposure making him sound more formal than usual. ‘I’ve got to get up early tomorrow . . . go and see Matilda . . . one thing and another . . .’
He succeeded in suggesting no more than the fact that the Maclinticks’ house had become unbearable to him. Maclintick showed no sign of surprise at this sudden truncation of our visit, although he smiled to himself rather grimly.
‘Do you want to take the book about Chabrier?’ he asked. ‘Borrow it by all means if you would like to read the rest of it.’
‘Not at the moment, thanks,’ said Moreland. ‘I have got too much on hand.’
Carolo had already left the house by the time we reached the front door. Without bidding us farewell, Mrs Maclintick had retired in silence to the kitchen, where she could be heard clattering pots and pans and crockery. Maclintick stood on the doorstep biting his pipe.
‘Come again,’ he said, ‘if you can stand it. I’m not sure how long I shall be able to.’
‘It won’t be till after Matilda has given birth,’ Moreland said.
‘Oh, I forgot about that,’ said Maclintick. ‘You’re going to become a father. Well, good night to you both. Pleasant dreams.’
He shut the door. We set off up the street.
‘Let’s walk by the river for a bit to recover,’ Moreland said. ‘I’m sorry to have let you in for all that.’
‘Was it a representative Maclintick evening?’
‘Not one of their best. But they understand each other in an odd way. Of course, that is the sort of thing people say just before murder takes place. Still, you grasp what I mean when I insist it is good for Maclintick to see friends occasionally. But what on earth can Carolo be doing there ? Everyone must be pretty short of cash for Carolo to live with the Maclinticks as a lodger. I should not have thought either party would have chosen that. All the pubs are shut by now in this area, aren’t they?’
Cutting down to the Embankment, we walked for a time beside the moonlit, sparkling river, towards Vauxhall Bridge and along Millbank, past the Donners-Brebner Building dominating the far shore like a vast penitentiary, where I had called for Stringham one night years before, when he had been working there.
‘Married life is unquestionably difficult,’ Moreland said. ‘One may make a slightly better shot at it than the Maclinticks, but that doesn’t mean one has no problems. I shall be glad when this baby is born. Matilda has not been at all easy to deal with since it started. Of course, I know that is in the best possible tradition. All the same, it makes one wonder, with Maclintick, how long one will be able to remain married. No, I don’t mean that exactly. It is not that I am any less fond of Matilda, so much as that marriage – this quite separate entity – somehow comes between us. However, I expect things will be all right as soon as the baby arrives. Forgive these morbid reflections. I should really write them for the Sunday papers, get paid a huge fortune for it and receive an enormous fan-mail. The fact is, I am going through one of those awful periods when I cannot work. You know what hell that is.’
Moreland and I parted company, making arrangements to meet soon. The subject of marriage cropped up again, although in a different manner, when Widmerpool lunched with me the following week.
‘We will not take too long over our meal, if you do not mind,’ he said, speaking only after he had hung his hat, topcoat and umbrella on a peg in the hall. ‘I am, as usual, very busy. That is why I am a minute or two after time. There is a lot of work on hand as a matter of fact. You probably know that I have accepted the commitment of advising Donners-Brebner regarding the investment of funds for their pension scheme. Sir Magnus, in general an excellent man of business for immediate negotiation, is sometimes surprisingly hesitant in matters of policy. Unexpectedly changeable, too. In short Sir Magnus doesn’t always know his own mind. Above all, he is difficult to get hold of. He will think nothing of altering the hour of appointment three or four times. I have had to point out to his secretary more than once that I must make a schedule of my day just as much as Sir Magnus must plan his.’
All the same, in spite of petty annoyances like Sir Magnus’s lack of decision, Widmerpool was in far better form than at our last luncheon together, two or three years before, a time when he had himself been thinking of marriage. He ate more than on that occasion, although for drink he still restricted himself to a glass of water, swallowing pills both before and after the meal.
‘Brandreth recommended these tablets,’ he said. ‘He says they are soothing. I find him on the whole a satisfactory medical adviser. He is rather too fond of the sound of his own voice, but he has a sensible attitude towards things. Brandreth is by no means a fool. Nothing narrow about him like so many doctors.’
‘Did you go to him because you knew him at school?’
‘No, no,’ said Widmerpool. ‘What an idea. For a man to have shared one’s education is, in my eyes, no special recommendation to my good graces. I suppose I could have formed some early impression of his character and efficiency. I regret to say that few, if any, of my school contemporaries struck me sufficiently favourably for me to go out of my way to employ their services. In any case, Brandreth was that amount older than myself to make it difficult to judge his capabilities – certainly his capabilities as a medical man. At the same time, it is true to say that our connexion has something to do with the fact we were at school together. Do you remember that Old Boy Dinner at which Le Bas fainted? I was impressed by the manner in which Brandreth
handled that situation – told the rest of the party to go about their business and leave Le Bas to him. I liked that. It is one of my principles in life to surround myself with persons whose conduct has satisfied me. Usually the people themselves are quite unaware that they have benefited by the fact that, at one time or another, they made a good impression on me. Brandreth is a case in point.’
‘The opposite process to entertaining angels unawares?’
‘I don’t quite know what you mean,’ said Widmerpool. ‘But tell me about yourself, your married life, Nicholas. Where are you living? I dined with your brother-in-law, George Tolland, not long ago. I am never sure that it is a wise thing for soldiers to go into business. If fellows enter the army, let them stay in the army. That is true of most professions. However, he gave me some acceptable advice regarding raising money for my Territorials. The mess fund balance always seems low.’
Widmerpool rarely showed great interest in other people’s affairs, but his good humour that day was such that he listened with more attention than usual when subjects unconnected with himself were ventilated. I wondered if some business deal had put him in such a genial mood. Conversation drifted to such matters.
‘Things are looking up a little in the City,’ he said, when luncheon was over. ‘I foresee that the rhythm of the trade circle is moving towards improvement. I have been doing some small calculations on my own account to verify how matters stand. It will interest you to hear my findings. As you know, the general level of dividends is the major determinant of general stock values and market prices over a long period of time. Over shorter periods stock prices fluctuate more widely than dividends. That is obvious, of course. I worked out, for example, that since the Slump, stock prices have risen between 217 per cent and 218½ per cent. So far as I could ascertain, dividends have not exceeded 62¾ per cent to 64 per cent. Those are my own figures. I do not put them forward as conclusive. You follow me?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘Setting aside a European war,’ said Widmerpool, ‘which I do not consider a strong probability in spite of certain disturbing features, I favour a reasoned optimism. I hold views, as it happens, on the interplay of motions and emotions of the Stock Exchange, which, in my opinion, are far more amenable to appraisement than may be supposed by the tyro. My method could not be simpler. I periodically divide the market price of stocks – as expressed by some reliable index – by the dividend paid on the index. What could be easier than that. You agree?’
‘Of course.’
‘But lest I should seem to pontificate upon my own subject, to be over-occupied with the sordid details of commerce, let me tell you, Nicholas, that I have been allowing myself certain relaxations.’
‘You have?’
‘As you know, my mother has always urged me to spend more time seeking amusement. She thinks I work too hard.’
‘I remember your telling me.’
I did not know what he was aiming at. There was no doubt he was pleased about something. He seemed uncertain whether or not to reveal the reason for that. Then, suddenly, his gratification was explained.
‘I have been moving in rather exalted circles lately,’ he said, giving a very satisfied smile.
‘Indeed?’
‘Not exactly royal – that is hardly the word yet . . . You understand me . . . ?’
‘I think so.’
‘It was an interesting experience.’
‘Have you actually met . . .’
Widmerpool bowed his head, suggesting by this movement the knowledge of enviable secrets. At the same time he would allow no admission that might be thought compromising either to himself or those in high places whose reputation must rightly be shielded. I tried to extort more from him without any success.
‘When did this happen?’
‘Please do not press me for details.’
He was now on his dignity. There was a moment of silence. Widmerpool took a deep breath, as if drawing into his lungs all the health-giving breezes of the open sea of an elevated social life.
‘I think we are going to see some great changes, Nicholas,’ he said, ‘and welcome ones. There is much – as I have often said before – to be swept away. I feel sure the things I speak of will be swept away. A new broom will soon get to work. I venture to hope that I may even myself participate in this healthier society to which we may look forward.’
‘And you think we shall avoid war?’
‘Certainly, I do. But I was speaking for once of society in its narrower sense – the fashionable world. There is much in the prospect before us that attracts me.’
I wondered if he were again planning to marry. Widmerpool, as I had noticed in the past, possessed certain telepathic powers, sometimes to be found in persons insensitive to the processes of thought of other people except in so far as they concern themselves; that is to say he seemed to know immediately that some idea about him was germinating in a given person’s mind – in this case that I was recalling his fiasco with Mrs Haycock.
‘I expect you remember that the last time you were lunching with me I was planning matrimony myself,’ he said. ‘How fortunate that nothing came of it. That would have been a great mistake. Mildred would not have made at all a suitable wife for me. Her subsequent conduct has caused that to become very plain. It was in the end a relief to my mother that things fell out as they did.’
‘How is your mother?’
‘As usual, she is positively growing younger,’ said Widmerpool, pleased by this enquiry. ‘And together with her always keen appreciation of youth, she tries, as I have said, to persuade me to venture more often into a social world. She is right. I know she is right. I made an effort to follow her advice – with the satisfactory consequence that I have more than half imparted to you.’
It was no good hoping to hear any more. Like Moreland dropping hints about his love affairs, Widmerpool hoped only to whet my curiosity. He seemed anxious to convince me that, although his own engagement had been broken off in embarrassing circumstances, he had been left without any feeling of bitterness.
‘I hear Mildred Haycock has returned to the South of France,’ he said. ‘Really the best place for her. I won’t repeat to you a story I was told about her the other day. For my own part, I see no reason to hurry into marriage. Perhaps, after all, forty is the age at which to find a mate. I believe Léon Blum says so in his book. He is a shrewd man, Monsieur Blum.’
3
PEOPLE TALKED AS as if it were a kind of phenomenon that Matilda should ever have given birth to a child at all: the unwillingness of the world to believe that anyone – especially a girl who has lived fairly adventurously – might exist for a time in one manner, then at a later date choose quite another way of life. The baby, a daughter, survived only a few hours. Matilda herself was very ill. Even when she recovered, Moreland remained in the deepest dejection. He had worried so much about his wife’s condition before the child was born that he seemed almost to have foreseen what would happen. That made things no better. About that time, too, there was a return of trouble with his lung: money difficulties obtruded: everything went wrong: depression reigned. Then, after some disagreeable weeks, two unexpected jobs turned up. Almost from one day to the next Moreland recovered his spirits. There was, after all, no reason why they should not in due course have another child. The financial crisis was over: the rent paid: things began to look better. All the same, it had to be admitted the Morelands did not live very domestically. The routine into which married life is designed inexorably to fall was still largely avoided by them. They kept rigorously late hours. They were always about together. A child would not have fitted easily into the circumstances of their small, rather bleak flat (no longer what Moreland had begun to call ‘my former apolaustic bachelor quarters’) where they were, in fact, rarely to be found.
We used to see a good deal of the Morelands in those days, dining together sometimes at Foppa’s, sometimes at the Strasbourg, afterwards going to a film, or, as Morela
nd really preferred, sitting in a pub and talking. He would develop a passion for one particular drinking place – never the Mortimer after marriage – then tire of it, inclination turning to active aversion. Isobel and Matilda got on well together. They were about the same age; they had the nursing home in common. Matilda had recovered quickly, after an unpromising start. She found apparent relief in describing the discomfort she had suffered, although speaking always in a manner to cast a veil of unreality over the experience. Lively, violent, generous, she was subject, like Moreland himself, to bouts of deep depression. On the whole the life they lived together – so wholly together – seemed to suit her. Perhaps, after all, people were right to think of her as intended by nature for a man’s mistress and companion, rather than as cast for the rôle of mother.
‘Matilda’s father was a chemist,’ Moreland once remarked, when we were alone together, ‘but he is dead now – so one cannot get special terms for purges and sleeping pills.’
‘And her mother?’
‘Married again. They were never on very good terms. Matty left home very young. I think everyone was rather glad when she struck out on her own.’
Two of my sisters-in-law, as it happened, had come across Matilda in pre-Moreland days. These were Veronica, George Tolland’s wife, and Norah, who shared a flat with Eleanor Walpole-Wilson. Veronica, whose father was an auctioneer in a country town not far from Stourwater Castle, was one of the few people to know something of Matilda’s early life. They had, indeed, been at school together.
‘I was much older, of course,’ Veronica said. ‘I just remember her right down at the bottom of the junior school, a little girl you couldn’t help noticing. She was called Betty Updike then.’
‘How did you ever discover Matilda was the same girl?’
‘When I was living at home and divorcing Fred, I met a local girl in the High Street who’d got a job on the Daily Mail. She began to talk about Sir Magnus Donners and said: “Do you know the piece called Matilda Wilson he is always seen around with is really Betty Updike”.’
Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 2 Page 35
