If Glober sought drama, he was disappointed. At least he was disappointed if he wanted fireworks in the form of violent opposition or bad temper. In another sense—for anyone who knew the stakes for which Gwinnett was playing—the reception he received was intensely dramatic, more so than any brush-off could have been, however defiant. The mere fact that Gwinnett himself, not Pamela, took the offensive was in itself impressive.
‘I’d hoped very much to meet you while I was in Venice, Lady Widmerpool. I didn’t know I’d have this luck.’
He spoke very simply. Pamela gave him one of her blank stares. She did not speak. At that stage of their meeting it looked as if Gwinnett were going to get, if nothing worse, a characteristic rejection. She allowed him to take her hand, withdrawing it quickly.
‘I’m writing a book on X. Trapnel,’ Gwinnett said.
He paused. This frontal attack, taking over an active rôle, thrusting Pamela even momentarily into the passive, suggested something of Gwinnett’s potential. He said the words quietly, quite a different quietness from Glober’s, though suggesting something of the same muted strength. They were spoken almost casually, a statement just given for information, no more, before going on to speak of other things. There was no question of blurting out in an uncontrolled manner the nature of his ‘project’, what he wanted for it from her. To use such a tone was to tackle the approach in an effective, possibly the only effective, manner. It exhibited a fine appreciation of the fact that to gain Pamela’s cooperation with regard to the biography was a matter of now or never. He must sink or swim. Gwinnett undoubtedly saw that. I admired him for attempting no compromise. There was again a parallel between Gwinnett’s tone with Pamela, and the way he had replied to Glober, the one conveying only the merest atom of overt friendliness, just as the other conveyed possibly the reverse, difference between the two almost imperceptible. While this had been taking place, Glober had transferred his attention to Ada. They were chattering away together as if friends for years.
‘I think you knew him,’ said Gwinnett. ‘Trapnel, I mean.’
Pamela, who had as usual registered no immediate outward reaction to his first statement, still remained silent. Gwinnett was silent too. In that, he showed his strength. After making the initial announcement of his position, he made no effort to develop the situation. They stood looking at each other. There was a long pause during which one felt anything might happen: Pamela walk away: burst out laughing: overwhelm Gwinnett with abuse: strike him in the face. After what seemed several minutes, but could only have been a second or two, Pamela spoke. Her voice was low.
‘Poor X,’ she said.
She sounded deeply moved, not far from tears. Gwinnett inclined his head a little. That movement was no more than a quiver, quick, awkward, at the same time reverential in its way, wholly without affectation. He too seemed to feel strong emotion. Something had been achieved between them.
‘Yes—Trapnel wasn’t always a lucky guy it seems.’
Now, it had become Trapnel’s turn to join the dynasty of Pamela’s dead lovers. Emotional warmth in her was directed only towards the dead, men who had played some part in her life, but were no more there to do so. That was how it looked. The first time we had ever talked together, she had described herself as ‘close’ to her uncle, Charles Stringham, almost suggesting a sexual relationship. Stringham’s circumstances made nothing more unlikely, in any physical form, although, in the last resort, close relationship of a sexual kind does not perhaps necessarily require such expression, something even undesired, except in infinitely sublimated shape. When, for example, Pamela had been racketing round during the war, with all sorts of lovers, from all sorts of nations, she had refused to give herself to Peter Templer (in his own words ‘mad about her’); after he was killed calling him the ‘nicest man I ever knew’.
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. Widmerpol 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. Your 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—Léon-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.
Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 4 Page 34
