Trapnel, whose rapid declension as a writer had been substantially accelerated by Pamela’s own efforts, notably destruction of his manuscript, was now to be rehabilitated, memorialized, placed in historical perspective, among those loves with whom, but for unhappy chance, all might have been well. It was Death she liked. Mrs Erdleigh had hinted as much on the night of the flying-bombs. Would Gwinnett be able to offer her Death? At least, in managing to catch and hold the frail line cast to him, he had not made a bad beginning. There was hope for his book. Glober, after instigating the Gwinnett/Pamela conversation, must now have decided to put an end to it, having said all he wanted to say to Ada. Seeing out of the corner of his eye that Gwinnett’s communion with Pamela produced no immediately lively incident, he may have judged it better to cut it short. Pamela herself anticipated anything he might be about to say.
‘Why didn’t you explain at first Professor Gwinnett was the man you need for the Trapnel film?’
Glober was not quite prepared for that question. It opened up a new subject. Pamela turned to Gwinnett again.
‘Louis wants to make a last film. I’ve told him it’s to be based on the Trapnel novel that got destroyed. X himself said there was a film there. I’ve been telling Louis the best parts of the book, which I remember absolutely. He’s not very quick about taking facts in, but he’s got round to this as a proposition.’
Glober smiled, but made no effort to elaborate the subject put forward.
‘Naturally I never read the last novel,’ said Gwinnett. ‘Did it have close bearing on Trapnel’s own life.’
‘Of course.’
Circumstances came to Glober’s aid at that moment, in the manner they do with persons of adventurous temperament put in momentary difficulty. He brought an abrupt end to the matter being discussed by jerking his head towards the far side of the room.
‘Here’s Baby – with your husband.’
Two persons, without much ceremony, were forcing a channel between the dense accumulation of intellectuals, pottering about or gazing upward. One of these new arrivals was Widmerpool, the other a smartly dressed woman of about the same age-group. Widmerpool was undoubtedly seeking his wife. Even at a distance, symptoms of that condition were easily recognizable. They were a little different, a little more agitated, than any of his other outward displays of personal disturbance. As he pushed his way through the crowd, he had the look of a man who had not slept for several nights. No doubt the journey, even by train, had been tiring, but hardly trying enough to cause such an expression of worried annoyance, irritation merging into fear.
Thinner than in his younger days, Widmerpool was less bald than Glober, even if such hair as remained was sparse and grizzled. Rather absurdly, I was a little taken aback by this elderly appearance, physical changes in persons known for a long time always causing a certain inner uneasiness – Umfraville’s sense of being let down by the rapidity with which friends and acquaintances decay, once the process has begun. Widmerpool’s air of discomfort was by no means decreased by the heavy texture, in spite of the hot weather, of the dark suit he wore. Built for him when more bulky, it hung about his body in loose folds, like clothes on a scarecrow. He seemed to have come straight from the City; having regard to recent elevation in rank, more probably the House of Lords.
The woman with him was Baby Wentworth – or whatever she was now called. When last heard of, she had been married to an Italian. I remembered her beauty, sly look, short curly hair, thirty years before, when, supposedly mistress of Sir Magnus Donners, she had also been pursued, at different levels, by both Prince Theodoric and Barnby. Now in her fifties, Baby had not at all lost her smart appearance – she too wore trousers – but, if she looked less than her age, her features also registered considerable ups and downs of fortune. She made towards Glober, abandoned again by Pamela who had resumed talk with Gwinnett. Widmerpool went straight for his wife, inserting himself without apology between her and Gwinnett, in order to reduce delay in speaking to a minimum.
‘Pam – I want a word in private at once.’
Gwinnett took a step back to allow Widmerpool easier passage. No doubt he guessed the relationship. Pamela, on the other hand, showed not the least recognition of the fact that her husband had just arrived. She took no notice of him whatsoever. Instead of offering any facility for speech, she quickly moved sideways and forward, again decreasing distance between Gwinnett and herself, blocking Widmerpool’s way, so that she could continue a conversation, which, so far as could be judged, was going relatively well.
‘Pam…’
Pamela threw him a glance. Her manner suggested that a man – a very unprepossessing man at that – was trying to pick her up in a public place; some uncouth sightseer, not even a member of the Conference, having gained access to the Palazzo because the door was open, was now going round accosting ladies encountered there. Widmerpool persisted.
‘You must come with me. It’s urgent.’
She answered now without turning her head.
‘Do go away. I heard you the first time. Can’t you take a hint? I’m being shown round the house by Louis Glober. You knew he was going to be staying with Jacky. At the moment I’m talking about a rather important matter to Professor Gwinnett.’
Widmerpool’s reaction to this treatment was complex. On the one hand, he was obviously not at all surprised by blank refusal to cooperate; on the other, he could not be said to have received that refusal with anything like indifference. He paused for a moment, apparently analysing means of forcing his wife to obey; then he must have decided against any such attempt. His expression suggested the existence of one or two tricks up his sleeve, to be played when they were alone together. He was about to move away, return from wherever he had come, but, catching sight of me, stopped and nodded. Recognition evidently suggested more to him than the fact that we had not met since the night of the Election party. He went straight to the point, his manner confirming existence of some problem on his mind desperate to solve.
‘Nicholas, how are you? Staying with Jacky Bragadin? No – then you are almost certainly a member of this Conference going round? That is what I expected. Just the man I want to talk to.’
‘Congratulations on the peerage.’
‘Ah, yes. Thank you very much. Not very contemporary, such a designation sounds today, but it has its advantages. I didn’t want to leave the Commons, no one less. 1955 may have been a moral victory – several of my constituents described my campaign as a greater personal triumph than the previous poll, when I was returned – but past efforts were forgotten in a fight that was not always a clean one. As I still have a lot of work in me, the Upper Chamber, so long as it hangs on, seemed as good a place to do that work as any other. As it happens, my normal activities are rather impeded at the moment by a number of irksome matters, indeed one domestic tragedy, since my mother passed away only a few days ago at her cottage in Kirkcudbrightshire, which she always spoke of as an ideal home for her declining years. She had reached a ripe age, so that the end was not unexpected. Unfortunately, it was quite impossible for me to make a journey as far as Scotland at this particular moment. I could not attempt it. At the same time, it was painful to leave a matter like my mother’s burial in the hands of a secretary, competent as my own secretary happens to be. Something a little over and above routine competence is required at such a moment. None the less, that was what had to be done. I couldn’t be in Kirkcudbrightshire and Venice at the same time, and, little as I like the place, I had to come to Venice.’
He stopped, overwhelmed by his troubles. I did not know why I was being told all this. Widmerpool’s jaws worked up and down. He gave the impression of hesitation in asking some question. I enquired if he were in Venice on business, since he did not care for the city in other respects.
‘Yes – no – not really. A slight rest. Pamela wanted a short rest. To be quiet, out of things, just for a little. You may be able to help me, as a matter of fact, in something I want to know. Yo
ur Conference has been going on for a day or two?’
‘Yes.’
‘You meet and mix with the other members – the foreign ones, I mean?’
‘Some of them.’
‘I was hoping to kill two birds with one stone. Pamela was given an open invitation to stay in this imposing residence. The owner – Bragadin – is one of the smart international set, I understand, what the papers call café society, I’m told. All that sort of thing is a mystery to me. Distasteful too, in the highest degree. At the same time, it was convenient for Pamela to take a rest, even if in a style I myself cannot approve. But to get back to the Conference, am I right in supposing all these people round about are its members? I am. There chances to be one of them I am particularly anxious to meet, if here. It is a most lucky opportunity the two things coincided.’
‘The Conference, and your visit?’
‘Yes, yes. That is what I mean. Have you run across Dr Belkin? He is familiar to me only by name, through certain cultural societies to which I belong. By an unhappy mischance, we have never set eyes on each other, though we have corresponded – on cultural matters, of course. He was, incidentally, a mutual friend of poor Ferrand-Sénéschal. How sad that too. I am, of course, not sure that Dr Belkin will have been able to put in an appearance. He could have become too much occupied in the cultural affairs of his own country, in which he plays a central part. They may not have been able to spare him at the last moment. He is a busy man. Belkin? Dr Belkin? Have you heard anything of him, or seen him?’
I was about to answer that the name was unknown to me, when Pamela, overhearing Widmerpool’s strained, eager tone, got her word in first. She turned from where she stood with Gwinnett, looked straight at her husband, and laughed outright. It was not a friendly laugh.
‘You won’t find your friend Belkin here.’
She spoke under her breath, almost in a hiss, still laughing. Widmerpool’s face altered. He swallowed uneasily. When he replied he was quite calm.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I say.’
‘You only know about Belkin because you’ve heard me refer to him.’
‘That’s sufficient.’
‘What information have you got regarding him then?’
‘Just what you’ve told me. And a few small items I’ve picked up elsewhere.’
‘But I haven’t told you anything – I – that was what I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘Why should you think he won’t be here? You don’t know him personally any more than I do. Nothing I’ve said gave you any reason to draw that conclusion. Only quite a recent development makes me want to meet him rather urgently.’
‘It wasn’t what you said. It was what Léon-Joseph said.’
Considering the circumstances, Widmerpool took that comment stoically, though he was showing signs of strain.
He seemed to want most to get to the bottom of Pamela’s insinuation.
‘He told you this before he …’
Widmerpool put the question composedly, as if what had happened to Ferrand-Sénéschal did not matter much, only out of respect he did not name it.
‘No,’ said Pamela, also speaking quietly. ‘He told me after he’d died, of course – Leon-Joseph appeared to me as a ghost last night, and gave the information. He was gliding down the Grand Canal, walking on the water like Jesus, except that he was carrying his head under his arm like Mary Queen of Scots. I recognized the head by those blubber lips and rimless spectacles. The blubber lips spoke the words: “A cause de ses sentiments stalinistes, Belkin est foutu.”’
Widmerpool appeared more disconcerted by the implications of Pamela’s words than resentful of their ironic intonation. She said no more for the moment, returning to Gwinnett, who had politely moved a little to one side, when she broke off to take part in this last interchange. He must by then know for certain she was engaged with her husband. Opportunity was now more available than earlier to estimate Pamela’s potentialities. This readiness of Gwinnett’s to withdraw into the background showed comprehension. Widmerpool again thought things over for a moment. Then he made a step in his wife’s direction. Once more Gwinnett moved away. Widmerpool was fairly angry now. Anger and fright seemed to make up his combined emotions.
‘If this is true – Léon-Joseph really told you something of the kind before he died – why on earth didn’t you pass it on?’
‘Why should I?’
‘Why should you?’
‘Yes?’
Widmerpool, almost shaking now, was just able to control himself.
‘You know its importance – if true … which I doubt… the whole point of making this contact… the consequences … you know perfectly well what I mean …’
It looked as if the consequences, whatever they were likely to be, remained too awesome to put into words. Pamela turned her head away, and upward. Resting lightly the tips of her fingers on her hips, she leant slowly back on her heels, revealing to advantage the slimness of her still immensely graceful neck. She tipped her head slightly to one side, apparently lost once more in fascination by the legend of Candaules and Gyges. Widmerpool could stand this treatment no longer. He burst out.
‘What are you looking at? Answer my question. This is a serious matter, I tell you.’
Pamela did not reply at once. When she did so, she spoke in the absent strain of someone who has just made an absorbing discovery.
‘There’s a picture up there of a man exhibiting his naked wife to a friend. Have you inspected it yet?’
Widmerpool did not reply this time. His face was yellow. The look he gave her suggested that, of all things living, she was the most abhorrent to him. Pamela continued her soft, almost cooing commentary, a voice in complete contrast with her earlier sullenness.
‘I know you can’t tell one picture from another, haven’t the slightest idea what those square, flat, brightly coloured surfaces are, which people put in frames, and hang on their walls, or why they hang them there. You probably think they conceal safes with money in them, or compromising documents, possibly dirty books and postcards. The favourite things you think it better to keep hidden away. All the same, the subject of this particular picture might catch your attention – for instance remind you of those photographs shut up in the secret drawer of that desk you sometimes forget to lock. I didn’t know about them till the other day. I didn’t even know you’d taken them. Wasn’t that innocent of me? How Leon-Joseph laughed, when I told him. You were careless to forget about turning the key.’
Widmerpool had gone a pasty yellowish colour when his wife quoted Ferrand-Sénéschal’s alleged conjecture about Dr Belkin’s reasons for absenting himself from the Conference. Now the blood came back into his face, turning it brick red. He was furious. Even so, he must have grasped that whatever had to be said must wait for privacy. He made a powerful effort at self-control, which could not be concealed. Then he spoke quite soberly.
‘You don’t know how things stand, why it was necessary for me to come here. When you do, you will see you are being rather silly. There have been unfortunate developments certainly, absurd ones. Even if Belkin does not turn up, there will be a way out, but, if he is here, that will be easier. We’ll have a talk later about the best way of handling matters. This may concern you as much as me, so please do not be frivolous about it.’
Pamela was uninterested.
‘I haven’t the least idea what matters need handling. Oh, yes – the picture on the ceiling? You mean that? You want more explanation? Well, the wife there, whose husband arranged for his chum to have a peep at her in that charming manner, handled things by getting the chum who’d enjoyed the eyeful to do the husband in.’
She looked about for Gwinnett again. He was on the other side of the room, in front of a highly coloured piece of Venetian eighteenth-century sculpture, torso of a Turk. Gwinnett was examining the elaborate folds of the marble turban. Pamela went to join him. There could b
e no doubt she was interested in Gwinnett. What had taken place between the Widmerpools had attracted no attention from surrounding members of the Conference, nor Bragadin guests. Gwinnett himself could hardly have failed to notice its earlier pungency, but may not have caught the drift. Pamela might well be on her way to give him an account of that. Perhaps his Trapnel studies had prepared him for something of the sort; perhaps he supposed this the manner English married couples normally behaved. Considering the things said, both Widmerpools could have appeared outwardly unruffled, the colour of Widmerpool’s face reasonably attributable to the heat of the day, and texture of his clothes. He still seemed uncertain whether or not his wife had spoken with authority on the subject of Belkin. He looked at her questioningly for a second. When he turned to me again, his thoughts were far away.
‘I wonder what’s the best course to take about Belkin. The first thing to do is to make sure whether or not he’s here. How can I find that out?’
‘Ask one of the Executive Committee. Dr Brightman, over there, would know whom to tackle. She’s talking to our host.’
Jacky Bragadin, not paying much attention to whatever Dr Brightman was saying to him, was casting anxious glances round the room. A few members of the Conference had begun to drift into the next gallery, by far the larger majority continuing to contemplate the Tiepolo. Jacky Bragadin seemed to fear the story of Candaules and Gyges had hypnotized them, caused an aesthetic catalepsy to descend. Their state threatened to turn his home into a sort of Sleeping Beauty’s Palace, rows of inert vertical figures of intellectuals, for ever straining sightless eyes upward towards the ceiling, impossible to eject from where they stood. He waved his hands.
‘This way,’ he cried. ‘This way.’
He may have been merely regretful that his guests should exhaust so much appreciation on this single aspect, even if a highly prized one, of his treasures, anxious that should not be done to detriment of other splendid items. Most likely of all, he wanted to get us out of the place, hoped our sightseeing would be undertaken with all possible dispatch, leaving him and his guests in peace; or whatever passed for peace in such a house-party. One wondered how he could ever have been foolhardy enough to have presented Pamela with an open invitation to stay any time she liked. The cause, in his case, would not have been love. Possibly he had never done so. She had forced herself on him. It was waste of time to speculate how the Widmerpools had managed to install themselves in the Palazzo. Jacky Bragadin, like most rich people, was well able to attend to his own interests. He must have had his reasons.
Temporary Kings Page 11
