A Buyer's Market Part 3

"I haven't had supper," said Tompsitt. haven't had supper," said Tompsitt.

Widmerpool did not look at all pleased at Barbara's proposal; nor, for that matter, did Tompsitt, who must have realised now that instead of carrying Barbara gloriously away from a dashing rival-he had probably failed to catch Widmerpool's name at the dinner-party-he was himself to be involved in some little game played by Barbara for her own amus.e.m.e.nt. Perhaps for that reason he had felt it more dignified to deny a previous supper; for I was fairly sure that I had seen him leaving the supper-room earlier that night. I could not help feeling pleased that Barbara had insisted on my joining them, although I was at the same time aware that even this pleasure was a sign that I was by now myself less seriously concerned with her; for a few weeks before I should have endured all kind of vexation at this situation. Widmerpool, on the other hand, was by no means prepared to give in at once, though his struggles to keep Barbara to himself were feeble enough, and quite ineffectual.

"But, look here," he said. "You promised-"

"Not another word."

"But-"

"Come along-all of you."

Almost dragging Widmerpool with her, she turned, and set off towards the door of the supper-room; b.u.mped heavily into two dowagers on their way out, and said: "Oh, sorry," but did not pause. As I pa.s.sed these ladies, I caught the words "Constance Goring's girl," spoken by the dowager who had suffered least from the impact. She was evidently attempting to explain, if not excuse, this impetuosity on some hereditary ground connected with Barbara's grandfather. Her more elderly and bedraggled companion, who seemed to have been badly shaken, did not appear to find much solace in this historical, or quasi-scientific, approach to Barbara's indifferent manners. They went off together up the stairs, the elder one still muttering angrily, while Tompsitt and I followed Barbara and Widmerpool to one of many tables decorated with blue hydrangeas in gilt baskets.

The room was still fairly full of people, but we found a place in the corner underneath a picture of Murillo's school in which peasant boys played with a calf. A large supper-party, making a good deal of noise, were seated at the next table, among them Pardoe, who was telling a complicated story about something that had happened to him-or possibly a brother officer-when "on guard" at the Bank of England.

"The first thing is to get some lemonade," said Barbara, who never touched any strong drink, in spite of behaviour that often suggested the contrary.

Clearly Widmerpool had been outraged by the loss of his dance. This annoyance, on the face of it, seemed scarcely reasonable, because by that stage of the evening several "extras" had been played, causing the numbers of dances to become confused, so that there had been plenty of excuse for an unimpeachable mistake to have been made; and obviously Barbara was the kind of girl, at best, to be expected to be in a chronic state of tangle about her partners. However, such considerations seemed to carry no weight whatever with Widmerpool, who sat in silence, refusing food and drink, while he gloomily crumbled a roll of bread. Barbara, who possessed a healthy appet.i.te at all times of day or night, ordered lobster salad. Tompsitt drank-in which I joined him-a gla.s.s of what he called "The Widow." The wine had the effect of making him discourse on racing, a subject regarding which I was myself unfortunately too ignorant to dispose as summarily as I should have wished of the almost certainly erroneous opinions he put forward. Barbara embarked upon an account of her own experiences at Ascot, of no great interest in themselves, though at the same time hardly justifying the splenetic stare which Widmerpool fixed on her, while she unfolded a narrative based on the matter of starting prices for runners in the Gold Cup, a.s.sociated at the same time with the question whether or not she had been finally swindled by her bookmaker.

She was, as usual, talking at the top of her voice, so that people at surrounding tables could hear most of what she said. Owing to this very general audibility of her remarks, she became in some way drawn into an argument with Pardoe, who had apparently been a member of the same Ascot party as herself. Although Barbara's voice was not without a penetrating quality, and Pardoe, who spoke, as it were, in a series of powerful squeaks, could no doubt make the welkin ring across the parade-grounds of Wellington Barracks or Caterham, they did not, for some reason, contrive to reach any mutual understanding in their attempts to make their respective points of view plain to each other; so that at last Barbara jumped up from her seat, saying: "I'm going across to tell him just what did happen."

There was a vacant chair next to the place where Pardoe sat. If Barbara ever reached that place, there could be little doubt that she would spend the rest of her time in the supper-room-perhaps the remainder of her time at the dance-discussing with Pardoe bets, past, present, and future; because he had abandoned any effort to talk to the girl next to him, who was, in fact, amusing herself happily enough with two or three other young men in the neighbourhood. The consequence of these various circ.u.mstances was for a decidedly odd incident to take place, with Widmerpool for its central figure: an incident that brought back to me once more expressive memories of Widmerpool as he had been at school. This crisis, as it might reasonably be called, came about because Widmerpool himself must have grasped immediately that, if Barbara abandoned our table at that moment, she would be lost to him for the rest of the time both of them were under the Huntercombes' roof. That, at least, seemed the only possible explanation of the action he now took, when-just as Barbara stood up, in preparation to leave us-he s.n.a.t.c.hed her wrist.

"Look here, Barbara," he said-and he sounded in actual pain. "You can't leave me like this."

Certain actions take place outside the normal course of things so unexpectedly that they seem to paralyse ordinary capacity for feeling surprise; and I watched Widmerpool seize hold of Barbara in this way-by force-without at the precisely operative moment experiencing that amazement with which his conduct on this occasion afterwards, on reconsideration, finally struck me. To begin with, his act was a vigorous and instantaneous a.s.sertion of the will, quite out of keeping with the picture then existing in my mind of his character; for although, as I have said before, I no longer thought of him exactly as that uneasy, irrelevant figure he had seemed when we were both schoolboys, his behaviour in France, even when latent power of one kind or another had been unquestionably perceptible in him, had equally suggested a far more plodding manner of getting what he wanted.

In any case, he had been always inclined to shrink from physical contact. I remembered well how, one day at La Grenadiere, Madame Leroy's niece, Berthe, standing in the garden and pointing to the river, which shone distantly in a golden glow of evening light, had remarked: "Quel paysage feerique," and touched his arm. Widmerpool, at that instant, had started violently, almost as if Berthe's plump fingers were red-hot, or her pointed nails had sharply entered his flesh. That had been several years before, and there was no reason why he should not have changed in this, as in certain outward respects. All the same, it was wholly unexpected-and perhaps a little irritating, even in the light of comparative emanc.i.p.ation from regarding Barbara as my own especial concern-to watch him s.n.a.t.c.h at her with those blunt, gnarled fingers. Tompsitt, at that critical moment attempting to get hold of more champagne, did not notice this gesture of Widmerpool's. The grabbing movement had, indeed, taken only a fraction of a second, Widmerpool having released Barbara's wrist almost as soon as his fingers had closed upon it.

If she had been in a calmer mood, Barbara would probably, in the light of subsequent information supplied on the subject, have paid more attention to the strength, and apparent seriousness, of Widmerpool's feelings at that moment. As it was, she merely said: "Why are you so sour to-night? You need some sweetening."

She turned to the sideboard that stood by our table, upon which plates, dishes, decanters, and bottles had been placed out of the way before removal. Among this residue stood an enormous sugar castor topped with a heavy silver nozzle. Barbara must suddenly have conceived the idea of sprinkling a few grains of this sugar over Widmerpool, as if in literal application of her theory that he "needed sweetening," because she picked up this receptacle and shook it over him. For some reason, perhaps because it was so full, no sugar at first sprayed out. Barbara now tipped the castor so that it was poised vertically over Widmerpool's head, holding it there like the sword of Damocles above the tyrant. However, unlike the merely minatory quiescence of that normally inactive weapon, a state of dispensation was not in this case maintained, and suddenly, without the slightest warning, the ma.s.sive silver apex of the castor dropped from its base, as if severed by the slash of some invisible machinery, and crashed heavily to the floor: the sugar pouring out on to Widmerpool's head in a dense and overwhelming cascade.

More from surprise than because she wished additionally to torment him, Barbara did not remove her hand before the whole contents of the vessel-which voided itself in an instant of time-had descended upon his head and shoulders, covering him with sugar more completely than might have been thought possible in so brief a s.p.a.ce. Widmerpool's rather spa.r.s.e hair had been liberally greased with a dressing-the sweetish smell of which I remembered as somewhat disagreeable when applied in France-this lubricant retaining the grains of sugar, which, as they adhered thickly to his skull, gave him the appearance of having turned white with shock at a single stroke; which, judging by what could be seen of his expression, he might very well in reality have done underneath the glittering incrustations that enveloped his head and shoulders. He had writhed sideways to avoid the downpour, and a cataract of sugar had entered the s.p.a.ce between neck and collar; yet another jet streaming between eyes and spectacles.

Barbara was, without doubt, dismayed by the consequences of what she had done; not, I think, because she cared in the least about covering Widmerpool with sugar, an occurrence, however deplorable, that was hard to regard, with the best will in the world, as anything other than funny at that moment. This was the kind of incident, however, to get a girl a bad name; a reputation for horseplay having, naturally, a detrimental effect on invitations. So far as everyone else, among those sitting near us, were concerned, there was a great deal of laughter. Even if some of the people who laughed may also have felt sorry for Widmerpool in his predicament, there was no escape from the fact that he looked beyond words grotesque. The sugar sparkled on him like h.o.a.r-frost, and, when he moved, there was a faint rustle as of snow falling gently from leaves of a tree in some wintry forest.

It was a hard situation for anyone to carry off with dignity and good temper. Widmerpool did not exactly attempt to conform to either of these two ideal standards; though in a rather specialised sense-to the eye of an attentive observer-he displayed elements of both qualities. His reaction to circ.u.mstances was, in its way, peculiarly characteristic of his nature. He stood up, shook himself like an animal, sending out specks of sugar over many persons in the immediate vicinity, and, smiling slightly, almost apologetically, to himself, took off his spectacles and began to rub their lenses with his handkerchief.

For the second time that night I recalled Stringham's story of Budd and the banana. It must have been, I could now appreciate, just such a moment as this one. I remembered Stringham's exact phrase: "Do you know, an absolutely slavish slavish look came into Widmerpool's face." There could have been no better description of his countenance as he shook off the sugar on to the carpet beneath him. Once again the same situation had arisen; parallel acceptance of public humiliation; almost the identically explicit satisfaction derived from grovelling before someone he admired; for this last element seemed to show itself unmistakably-though only for a flash-when he glanced reproachfully towards Barbara: and then looked away. This self-immolation, if indeed to be recorded as such, was displayed for so curtailed a second that any substance possessed by that almost immediately shifting mood was to be appreciated only by someone, like myself, cognisant already of the banana incident; so that when Widmerpool pushed his way between the chairs, disappearing a minute later through the doors of the supper-room, he seemed to the world at large, perhaps correctly, to be merely a man in a towering rage. look came into Widmerpool's face." There could have been no better description of his countenance as he shook off the sugar on to the carpet beneath him. Once again the same situation had arisen; parallel acceptance of public humiliation; almost the identically explicit satisfaction derived from grovelling before someone he admired; for this last element seemed to show itself unmistakably-though only for a flash-when he glanced reproachfully towards Barbara: and then looked away. This self-immolation, if indeed to be recorded as such, was displayed for so curtailed a second that any substance possessed by that almost immediately shifting mood was to be appreciated only by someone, like myself, cognisant already of the banana incident; so that when Widmerpool pushed his way between the chairs, disappearing a minute later through the doors of the supper-room, he seemed to the world at large, perhaps correctly, to be merely a man in a towering rage.

However, reaction took place so soon as he was gone. There fell all at once a general public dejection similar in every respect, as recorded by Stringham, to that evoked by Widmerpool's former supposedly glad acceptance of the jolt from Budd's over-ripe fruit. This frightful despondency appeared to affect everyone near enough the scene of action to share a sense of being more or less closely concerned in the affair. For my own part, oddly enough, I was able to identify this sudden sensation of discomfort, comparable to being dowsed with icy water, an instantaneous realisation-simultaneously and most emphatically conveyed in so objective a form-that I had made an egregious mistake in falling in love with Barbara. Up to that moment the situation between us had seemed to be on the way to resolving itself, on my side at least, rather sadly, perhaps not irretrievably, with excusably romantic melancholy. Now I felt quite certain that Barbara, if capable of an act of this sort, was not-and had never been-for me. This may have been a priggish or cowardly decision. Certainly I had had plenty of opportunity to draw similar conclusions from less dramatic occasions. It was, however, final. The note struck by that conclusion was a disagreeable one; totally unlike the comparatively acceptable sentiments of which it took the place.

Barbara herself at first made no serious effort to repair, morally or physically, any of the damage she had caused. Indeed, it was not easy to see what she could do. Now she went so far as to pick up the top of the sugar-castor, and, before she sat down again, returned, in their separate states, the upper and lower halves of this object to the sideboard.

"It really wasn't my fault," she said. "How on earth was I to know that the top of the wretched thing would fall off like that? People ought to screw everything of that sort on tight before they give a party."

She abandoned her project of going to sit with Pardoe, who was still very red in the face from laughter, changing her topic of conversation from racing to that of good works of some kind or other, with which she was, as I already knew, irregularly occupied in Bermondsey. There was no reason whatever to doubt the truth of her own account of the generous proportion of her time spent at the girls' club, or some similar inst.i.tution, situated there; nor her popularity with those thereby brought within her orbit. All the same, this did not seem to be the ideal moment to hear about her philanthropic activities. Barbara herself may have felt this transition of mood to have been effected with too much suddenness, because quite soon she said: "I'm going to rescue Aunt Daisy now. It isn't fair to keep her up all night. Besides, Eleanor must have been longing to go home for hours. No-no-don't dream of coming too. Good night to both of you. See you soon."

She ran off before either Tompsitt or I could even rise or say good night. We sat for a minute or two together, finishing our wine: Tompsitt smiling rather acidly to himself, as if aware of the answer to a great many questions, some of them important questions at that.

"Do you know the chap Barbara poured sugar on?" he asked, at last.

"I was at school with him."

"What was he like?"

"Rather the kind of man people pour sugar on."

Tompsitt looked disapproving and rather contemptuous. I thought at the time that his glance had reference to Widmerpool. I can now see that it was directed, almost certainly, towards my own remark, which he must have regarded, in some respects justly, as an answer inadequate to his question. Looking back on this exchange, I have no doubt that Tompsitt had already recognised as existing in Widmerpool some potential to which I was myself still almost totally blind; and, although he may neither have liked nor admired Widmerpool, he was at the same time aware of a shared approach to life which supplied a kind of bond between them. My own feeling that it would have been unjustifiable to mention the story of the banana, because I felt myself out of sympathy with Tompsitt, and, although often irritated by his behaviour, was conscious of a kind of uncertain loyalty, even mild liking, for Widmerpool, probably represented a far less instinctive and more artificial or unreal understanding between two individuals.

It would, indeed, be hard to over-estimate the extent to which persons with similar tastes can often, in fact almost always, observe these responses in others: women: money: power: whatever it is they seek; while this awareness remains a mystery to those in whom such tendencies are less highly, or not at all, developed. Accordingly, Tompsitt's acceptance of Widmerpool, and indifference, even rudeness, to many other persons of apparently greater outward consideration-in so much as I reflected on it-seemed to me odd; but this merely because, at that time, I did not understand the foundations required to win Tompsitt's approval. In any case, I saw no advantage in inquiring further into the matter at that hour, having myself already decided to go home to bed as soon as possible. Tompsitt, too, had no doubt had enough of the tete-a-tete tete-a-tete. He rose, as a matter of fact, before I did, and we walked out together, separating as soon as we had pa.s.sed through the door, Tompsitt strolling upstairs again towards the ballroom, while I made for the cloak-room. Eleanor was crossing the hall.

"Off to get my bonnet and shawl," she remarked, delighted that for her, at least, another dance was at an end.

I handed in the ticket, and was waiting while they looked for my hat, when Widmerpool himself appeared from the back regions of the house. He, and no doubt others too, had engaged in a thorough scouring of his person and clothes, most of, the sugar having been by now removed, though a few grains still glistened round the b.u.t.ton-hole of his silk lapel. He appeared also to have recovered his normal self-possession, such as it was. One of the servants handed him an opera hat, which he opened with a sharp crepitation, placing it on his head at a tilt as we went down the steps together. The night was a little cooler, though still mild enough.

"Which way do you go?" he asked.

"Piccadilly."

"Are you taxi-ing?"

"I thought I might walk."

"It sounds as if you lived in a rather expensive area," said Widmerpool, a.s.suming that judicial air which I remembered from France.

"Shepherd Market. Quite cheap, but rather noisy."

"A flat?"

"Rooms-just beside an all-night garage and opposite a block of flats inhabited almost exclusively by tarts."

"How convenient," said Widmerpool; rather insincerely, I suspected.

"One of them threw a lamp out of her window the other night."

"I go towards Victoria," said Widmerpool.

He had evidently heard enough of a subject that might reasonably be regarded as an unpleasant one, because the local prost.i.tutes were rowdy and aggressive: quite unlike the sad sisterhood of innumerable novels, whose members, by speaking of the days of their innocence, bring peace to lonely men, themselves compromised only to unburden their hearts. My neighbours quarrelled and shouted all night long; and, when business was bad, were not above tapping on the ground-floor window in the small hours.

"My mother's flat is near the Roman Catholic Cathedral," Widmerpool added. "We usually let it for a month or two later on in the summer, if we can find a tenant, and take a cottage in the country. Last year we went quite near the Walpole-Wilsons at Hinton Hoo. We are going to do the same next month. I take my holiday then, and, if working, come up every day."

We strolled towards Grosvenor Place. I hardly knew whether or not to condole with him on the sugar incident. Widmerpool marched along, breathing heavily, rather as if he were taking part in some contest.

"Are you going to the Whitneys' on Thursday!" he asked suddenly.

"No."

"Neither am I."

He spoke with resignation; perhaps with slight relief that he had met another who remained uninvited to the Whitneys' dance.

"What about Mrs. Soundness?"

"I can't think why, but I haven't been asked to Mrs. Soundness's," said Widmerpool, almost petulantly. "I was taken to dinner there not so long ago-at rather short notice, I agree. But I expect I shall see you at Bertha, Lady Drum's and Mrs. Arthur Clinton's."

"Probably."

"I am dining with Lady Augusta Cutts for the Drum-Clinton dance," said Widmerpool. "One eats well at Lady Augusta's. But I feel annoyed-even a little hurt-about Mrs. Soundness. I don't think I could possibly have done or said anything at dinner to which exception might have been taken."

"The card may have gone astray in the post."

"As a matter of fact," said Widmerpool, "one gets very tired of these dances."

Everyone used to say that dances bored them; especially those young men-with the honourable exception of Archie Gilbert-who never failed to respond to an invitation, and stayed, night after night, to the bitter end. Such complaints were made rather in the spirit of people who grumble at the inconvenience they suffer from others falling in love with them. There was, of course, nothing out of the way in Widmerpool, who had apparently been attending dances for several years, showing by that time signs of disillusionment, especially in the light of his experience at the Huntercombes'; although the way he was talking suggested that he was still keen enough to receive invitations. This projection of himself as a "dancing man," to use his own phrase, was an intimation-many more were necessary before the lesson was learnt-of how inadequate, as a rule, is one's own grasp of another's a.s.sessment of his .particular role in life. Widmerpool's presence at the Walpole-Wilsons' had at first struck me, rather inexcusably perhaps, as just another proof of the insurmountable difficulties experienced by hostesses in their untiring search for young men at almost any price. It had never occurred to me, when at La Grenadiere he had spoken of London dances, that Widmerpool regarded himself as belonging to the backbone of the system.

"You must come and lunch with me in the City," he said. "Have you an office in that part of the world?"

Thinking it unlikely that he would ring up, I gave him the telephone number, explaining that my work did not take place in the City. He made some formal inquiries about the firm, and seemed rather disapproving of the nature of the business.

"Who exactly buys 'art books'?"

His questions became more searching when I tried to give an account of that side of publishing, and of my own part in it. After further explanations, he said: "It doesn't sound to me a very serious job."

"Why not?"

"I can't see it leading to much."

"What ought it to lead to?"

"You should look for something more promising. From what you say, you do not even seem to keep very regular hours."

"That's its great advantage."

Widmerpool shook his head, and was silent for a time. I supposed him to be pondering my affairs-trying to find a way in which my daily occupation could be directed into more ambitious avenues-and I felt grateful, indeed rather touched, at any such interest. However, it turned out that he had either dismissed my future momentarily from his mind when he spoke again, or the train of thought must somehow have led him back to his own problems, because his words were quite unexpected.

"To tell the truth," he said, "I was upset-very upset-by what happened to-night."

"It was silly of Barbara."

"It was more than silly," said Widmerpool, speaking with unusual intensity, his voice rising in tone. "It was a cruel thing to do. I shall stop seeing her."

"I shouldn't take it all too seriously."

"I shall certainly take it seriously. You are probably not aware of the situation."

"What situation?"

"As I think I told you before dinner, Barbara and I used to live near each other in the country. She knows well what my feelings are for her, even though I may not have expressed them in so many words. Of course I see now that it was wrong to take hold of her as I did."

This disclosure was more than a little embarra.s.sing, both for its unexpectedness and also in the light of my own sentiments, or at least former sentiments, on the subject of Barbara. At that stage of life all sorts of things were going on round about that only later took on any meaning or pattern. Thus some people enjoyed distinctly public love affairs, often quickly forgotten, while others fell in love without anyone, perhaps even including the object of their love, knowing or caring anything about these covert affections. Only years later, if at all, could the consequences of such bottled-up emotions sometimes be estimated: more often, of course, they remained entirely unknown. In Widmerpool's case, for example, I had no idea, and could, I suppose, have had no idea, that he had been in love with Barbara all the time that I myself had adored her. Moreover, in those days, as I have already indicated, I used to think that people who looked and behaved like Widmerpool had really no right to fall in love at all, far less have any success with girls-least of all a girl like Barbara-a point of view that in due course had, generally speaking, to be revised: sometimes in mortifying circ.u.mstances. This failure to recognise Widmerpool's pa.s.sion had, of course, restricted any understanding of his conduct, when at the supper table he had appeared so irritable from the mere consequence of the loss of a dance. I could now guess that, while we sat there, he had been burning in the fires of h.e.l.l.

"Of course I appreciate that the Gorings are a family of a certain distinction," said Widmerpool. "But without the Gwatkin money they would never be able to keep up Pembringham Woodhouse as they do."

"What was the Gwatkin money?"

"Gwatkin was Lord Aberavon's family name. The peerage was one of the last created by Queen Victoria. As a matter of fact the Gwatkins were perfectly respectable landed stock, I believe. And, of course, the Gorings have not produced a statesman of the first rank since their eighteenth-century ancestor-and he is entirely forgotten. As you probably know, they have no connection whatever with the baronets of the same name."

He produced these expository facts as if the history of the Gorings and the Gwatkins offered in some manner a key to his problem.

"What about Barbara's father?"

"As a young man he was thought to show promise of a future in the House of Lords," said Widmerpool. "But promise in that Chamber has become of late years increasingly difficult to develop to any satisfactory end. He performed, I have been told, a lot of useful work in committee, but he never held office, and sank into political obscurity. As I heard Sir Horrocks Rusby, K.C., remark at dinner the other night: 'It's no good being useful if you don't achieve recognition.' Sir Horrocks added that this maxim was a natural corollary of the appearance of sin being as bad as sin itself. On the other hand the farming at Pembringham is some of the most up-to-date in the country, and that is well known."

"Were you going to propose to Barbara?"

"You don't suppose I have the money to marry, do you?" he said violently. "That is why I am telling you all this."

He spoke as if everyone ought already to be familiar with his emotional predicament; indeed, as if it were not only un.o.bservant, but also rather heartless on my part, to have failed to comprehend the implications of his earlier ill-humour. By some curious manipulation of our respective positions-a trick of his I remembered from our time together at the Leroys'-his manner contrived also to suggest that I was being at once callous and at the same time unnecessarily inquisitive about his private affairs. Such aspects of this sudden revelation about himself and Barbara occurred to me only after I had thought things over the following day. At that moment I was not even particularly struck by the surprising fact that Widmerpool should suddenly decide to unburden himself on the subject of a love affair to someone whose relationship to him was neither that of an intimate friend, nor yet sufficiently remote to justify the man-to-man methods of imparting confidences employed by the total stranger who unfolds his life story in a railway carriage or bar. However, I was impressed at that point chiefly by the fact that Widmerpool had described so closely my own recently pa.s.sed dilemma: a problem formerly seeming to admit of no solution, from which I had now, however, been freed as abruptly and absolutely as its heavy obligation had so mysteriously arisen in the months before.

By this time we had come to Grosvenor Place, in sight of the triumphal arch, across the summit of which, like a vast paper-weight or capital ornament of an Empire clock, the Quadriga's horses, against a sky of indigo and silver, pranced desperately towards the abyss. Here our ways divided. It was on the tip of my tongue to say something of my own position regarding Barbara; for it is always difficult to hear anyone lay claim to having endured the agonies of love without putting forward pretensions to similar experience: especially when the same woman is in question. Whether or not some such reciprocal confidence, advisable or the contrary, would finally have pa.s.sed between us is hard to say. Probably any material I could have contributed to the subject would have proved all but meaningless, or at best merely irritating, to Widmerpool in his current mood. That is my opinion in face of subsequent dealings with him. However, at that stage in the walk one of those curious changes took place in circ.u.mstances of mutual intercourse that might almost be compared, scientifically speaking, with the addition in the laboratory of one chemical to another, by which the whole nature of the experiment is altered: perhaps even an explosion brought about.

For a minute or two we had been standing by the edge of the pavement. Widmerpool was no doubt preparing to say good night, because he took a sudden step backward. Like so many of his movements, this one was effected awkwardly, so that he managed to precipitate himself into the path of two persons proceeding, side by side, in the direction of Hyde Park Corner. There was, in fact, a minor collision of some force, in which the other parties were at once established as a comparatively elderly man, unusually tall, and a small woman, or girl. Upon the last of these Widmerpool had apparently trodden heavily, because she exclaimed in a raucous voice: "Hi, you, why the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l can't you go where you're looking!"

So aggressive was the manner in which this question was put that at first I thought the pair of them were probably drunk: a state which, in addition, the discrepancy between their respective heights for some reason quite illogically helped to suggest. Widmerpool began to apologise, and the man now answered at once in a deep tone: "No, no. Of course it was an accident. Gypsy, I have told you before that you must control yourself when you are out with me. I will not tolerate gratuitous rudeness."

There was something strangely familiar about these words. He was grey-haired and hatless, carrying a fairly bulky parcel of newspapers, or so they appeared, under his left arm. His voice bore with it memories of time long past. Its tone was, indeed, laden with forgotten a.s.sociations of childhood; those curious, rather fearful responses weighted with a sense of restriction and misgiving. Even so, there was also something about the stranger that seemed to belong to the immediate present; something that made me feel that a matter which had to do with him, even on that very evening, had already been brought to my notice. Yet his presence conveyed, too, an instant and vertiginous sense of being "abroad," this last impression suddenly taking shape as that of a far-off visit to Paris. The same scattered records of sight and sound that Boyhood of Cyrus Boyhood of Cyrus had suggested when first seen at the Walpole-Wilsons'. I had another look at the whitening hairs, and saw that they were Mr. Deacon's, last surveyed, years before, on that day in the Louvre among the Peruginos. had suggested when first seen at the Walpole-Wilsons'. I had another look at the whitening hairs, and saw that they were Mr. Deacon's, last surveyed, years before, on that day in the Louvre among the Peruginos.

He looked much the same, except that there was now something wilder-even a trifle sinister-in his aspect; a representation of Lear on the heath, or Peter the Hermit, in some nineteenth-century historical picture, preaching a crusade. Sandals worn over black socks gave an authentically medieval air to his extremities. The former role was additionally suggested by the undeniably boyish exterior of his companion, whose hair was cut short: barbered, in fact, in a most rough-and-ready fashion in the style then known as an "Eton crop." This young woman might, so far as outward appearances were concerned, have pa.s.sed easily on the stage for the aged king's retainer, for, although her manner was more actively combative than the Fool's, the shortness of her skirt, and bare knees, made her seem to be clad in a smock, or tunic, of the kind in which the part is sometimes played.

When I think of that encounter in Grosvenor Place, my attempt to reintroduce myself to Mr. Deacon in such circ.u.mstances seems to me strange, foolhardy even, and the fact still more extraordinary that he should almost immediately have succeeded in grasping my own ident.i.ty. It was an occasion that undoubtedly did more credit to Mr. Deacon's social adroitness than to my own, because I was still young enough to be only dimly aware that there are moments when mutual acquaintance may be allowed more wisely to pa.s.s unrecognised. For example, to find a white-haired gentleman wandering about the streets in the small hours in the company of a young woman wearing an ample smear of lipstick across her face, and with stockings rolled to the knee, might easily prove a juncture when former meetings in irreproachable surroundings could, without offence, have been tactfully disregarded; although, as it turned out, there was not the smallest breath of scandal at that moment encompa.s.sing either of them.

"I had dinner at a house where one of your pictures hangs," I told him, when inquiries about my family had been made and answered.

"Good gracious," said Mr. Deacon. "Which one?"

"Boyhood of Cyrus."

"Was that Aberavon's? I thought he was dead these twenty years."

"One of his daughters became Lady Walpole-Wilson. The picture is at her house in Eaton Square."

"Well, I'm glad to know its whereabouts," said Mr. Deacon. "I always make bold to consider it rather a successful achievement of mine, within the limits of the size of the canvas. It is unusual for people of that sort to have much taste in art. Aberavon was the exception. He was a man with vision. I expect his descendants have hung it in some quite incongruous place."

I thought it wiser to supply no further details on the subject of the hanging of Boyhood of Cyrus Boyhood of Cyrus. "Skyed" in the hall was a position even the most modest of painters could hardly regard as complimentary; though I was impressed by Mr. Deacon's perspicacity in guessing this fate. It is, indeed, strange how often persons, living in other respects quite un.o.bjectively, can suddenly become acutely objective about some specific concern of their own. However, no answer was required, because at that moment Widmerpool suddenly stepped in.

At first, after making some sort of an apology for his earlier clumsiness, he had stood staring at Mr. Deacon and the girl as if exhibits at a freak show-which it would hardly be going too far to say they somewhat resembled-but now he seemed disposed to dispute certain matters raised by Mr. Deacon's remarks. I had felt, immediately after making this plunge of recognition, that Widmerpool, especially in his existing mood, would scarcely be inclined to relish this company. In fact, I could not understand why he did not at once make for home, leaving us in peace to wind up the reunion, a duty that my own eagerness, perhaps misplaced, had imposed mutually upon Mr. Deacon and myself. Now to my surprise Widmerpool suddenly said: "I think, if you meet her, you will find Lady Walpole-Wilson most appreciative of art. She was talking to me about the Academy only this evening-in connection with the question of the Haig statue-and her comments were illuminating."