A Buyer's Market Part 9

"You must inspect my future wife," he said at once.

This announcement of imminent marriage was a complete surprise. Barnby had said, during the course of the evening we had spent together: "When people think they are never further from marriage, they are often, in reality, never nearer to it," but that kind of precept takes time to learn. I had certainly accepted the implication that nothing was more distant than marriage from Stringham's intentions when he had so violently abandoned Mrs. Andriadis's house; although now I even wondered whether he could have decided to repair matters by making Mrs, Andriadis herself his wife. To be able to consider this a possibility showed, I suppose, in its grasp of potentialities, an advance on my own part of which I should have been incapable earlier in the year. However, without further developing the news, he led me, to the girl from whose side he had come, who was still talking to Truscott.

"Peggy," he said, "this is an old friend of mine."

Apart from former signs given by Stringham's behaviour, external evidence had been supplied, indirectly by Anne Stepney, and directly by Rosie Manasch, to the effect that anything like an engagement was "off." Peggy Stepney, whom I now recognised from pictures I had seen of her, was not unlike her sister, with hair of the same faintly-reddish shade, though here, instead of a suggestion of disorder, the elder sister looked as if she might just have stepped gracefully from the cover of a fashion magazine; "too perfect," indeed, as Sir Gavin might have said. She was, of course, a "beauty," and possessed a kind of cold symmetry, very taking, and at the same time a little alarming. However, this exterior was not accompanied by a parallel coolness of manner; on the contrary, she could in the circ.u.mstances scarcely have been more agreeable. While we talked, we were joined by Mrs. Wentworth, at whose arrival I was conscious of a slight stiffening in Stringham's bearing, an almost imperceptible acerbity, due possibly-though by no means certainly, I thought-to the part played by Mrs. Wentworth in his sister's divorce. In comparing the looks of the two young women, it was immediately clear that Peggy Stepney was more obviously the beauty; though there was something about Mrs. Wentworth that made the discord she had aroused in so many quarters easily understandable.

"How long have I got to go on sitting next to that equerry of Theodoric's, Bill?" she asked. "I've been through his favourite dance tunes at dinner last night. I can't stand them at lunch again to-day. I'm not as young as I was."

"Talk to him about birds and beasts," said Stringham. "I've already tried that with great success-the flora and fauna of England and Wales."

Mrs. Wentworth seemed not greatly amused by this facetiousness. Her demeanour was less friendly than Peggy Stepney's, and she did no more than glance in my direction when we were introduced. I was impressed by Barnby's temerity in tackling so formidable an objective. Luncheon was announced at that moment, so that the four of us temporarily parted company.

The dining-room was hung with sixteenth-century tapestries. I supposed that they might be Gobelins from their general appearance, blue and crimson tints set against lemon yellow. They ill.u.s.trated the Seven Deadly Sins. I found myself seated opposite Luxuria Luxuria, a failing princ.i.p.ally portrayed in terms of a winged and horned female figure, crowned with roses, holding between finger and thumb one of her plump, naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s, while she gazed into a looking-gla.s.s, supported on one side by Cupid and on the other by a goat of unreliable aspect. The four-footed beast of the Apocalypse, with his seven dragon-heads dragged her triumphal car, which was of great splendour. Hercules, bearing his club, stood by, somewhat gloomily watching this procession, his mind filled, no doubt, with disquieting recollections. In the background, the open doors of a pillared house revealed a four-poster bed, with hangings rising to an apex, under the canopy of which a couple lay clenched in a priapic grapple. Among trees, to the right of the composition, further couples and groups, three or four of them at least, were similarly occupied in smaller houses and Oriental tents; or, in one case, simply on the ground.

I had been placed next to Rosie Manasch, who was, at the moment of seating herself, engaged in talk with her neighbour on the far side; and-curious to investigate some of the by-products of indulgence depicted in this sequence of animated, and at times enigmatic, incidents-I found myself fully occupied in examining un.o.btrusively the scenes spread out on the tapestry. There had been, I was dimly aware, some rearrangement of places on my right-hand side, where a chair had remained empty for a moment or two. Now a girl sat down there, next to me, to whom I had not yet, so far as I knew, been introduced, with some muttered words from Truscott, who had instigated the change of position-possibly to relieve Mrs. Wentworth from further strain of making conversation with Prince Theodoric's equerry.

"I don't think you remember me," she said, almost at once, in a curiously harsh voice that brought back, in fact, that same sense of past years returning that Stringham's inquiry for matches had caused me at the coffee-stall. "I used to be called Jean Templer. You are a friend of Peter's, and you came to stay with us years ago."

It was true that I had not recognised her. I think we might even have exchanged words without my guessing her ident.i.ty, so little had she been in my thoughts, so unexpected a place was this to find her. That was not because she had changed greatly. On the contrary, she still seemed slim, attenuated, perhaps not-like the two other girls with whom I had been talking, and round whom my thoughts, before the distraction of the tapestry, had been drifting-exactly a "beauty;" but all the same, mysterious and absorbing: certainly pretty enough, so far as that went, just as she had seemed when I had visited the Templers after leaving school. There was perhaps a touch of the trim secretary of musical comedy. I saw also, with a kind of relief, that she seemed to express none of the qualities I had liked in Barbara, There was a sense of restraint here, a reserve at present unpredictable. I tried to excuse my bad manners in having failed at once to remember her. She gave one of those quick, almost masculine laughs. I was not at all sure how I felt about her, though conscious suddenly that being in love with Barbara, painful as some of its moments had been, now seemed a rather amateurish affair; just as my feelings for Barbara had once appeared to me so much more mature than those previously possessed for Suzette; or, indeed, for Jean herself.

"You were so deep in the tapestry," she said.

"I was wondering about the couple in the little house on the hill."

"They have a special devil-or is he a satyr?-to themselves."

"He seems to be collaborating, doesn't he?"

"Just lending a hand, I think."

"A guest, I suppose-or member of the staff?"

"Oh, a friend of the family," she said. "All newly-married couples have someone of that sort about. Sometimes several. Didn't you know? I see you can't be married."

"But how do you know they are newly married?"

"They've got such a smart little house," she said. "They must be newly married. And rather well off, too, I should say."

I was left a trifle breathless by this exchange, not only because it was quite unlike the kind of luncheon-table conversation I had expected to come my way in that particular place, but also on account of its contrast with Jean's former deportment, when we had met at her home. At that moment I hardly considered the difference that age had made, no doubt in both of us. She was, I thought, about a couple of years younger than myself. Feeling unable to maintain this show of detachment towards human-and, in especial, matrimonial-affairs, I asked whether it was not true that she had married Bob Duport. She nodded; not exactly conveying, it seemed to me, that by some happy chance their union had introduced her to an unexpected terrestrial paradise.

"Do you know Bob?"

"I just met him years ago with Peter."

"Have you seen Peter lately?"

"Not for about a year. He has been doing very well in the City, hasn't he? He always tells me so."

She laughed.

"Oh, yes," she said. "He has been making quite a lot of money, I think. That is always something. But I wish he would settle down, get married, for instance."

I was aware of an unexpected drift towards intimacy, although this sudden sense of knowing her all at once much better was not simultaneously accompanied by any clear portrayal in my own mind of the kind of person she might really be. Perhaps intimacy of any sort, love or friendship, impedes all exactness of definition. For example, Mr. Deacon's character was plainer to me than Barnby's, although by then I knew Barnby better than I knew Mr. Deacon. In short, the persons we see most clearly are not necessarily those we know best. In any case, to attempt to describe a woman in the broad terms employable for a man is perhaps irrational.

"I went to a party in your London house given by Mrs. Andriadis."

"How very grand," she said. "What was it like? We let the place almost as soon as we took it, because Bob had to go abroad. It's rather a horrid house, really. I hate it, and everything in it."

I did not know how to comment on this att.i.tude towards her own home, which-as I had agreed upon that famous night with the young man with the orchid-certainly left, in spite of its expensive air, a good deal to be desired. I said that I wished she had been present at the party.

"Oh, us," she said laughing again, as if any such eventuality were utterly unthinkable. "Besides, we were away. Bob was arguing about nickel or aluminium or something for months on end. As a matter of fact, I think we shall have to sue Mrs. Andriadis when he comes back. She has raised absolute h.e.l.l in the house. Burnt the boiler out and broken a huge looking-gla.s.s."

She reminded me immediately of her brother in this disavowal of being the kind of person asked to Mrs. Andriadis's parties; for the setting in which we found ourselves seemed, on the face of it to be perfectly conceivable as an extension of Mrs. Andriadis's sort of entertaining. Indeed, it appeared to me, in my inexperience, that almost exactly the same chilly undercurrent of conflict was here perceptible as that permeating the house in Hill Street a month or two before. Dialectical subtleties could no doubt be advanced-as Stringham had first suggested, and remarks at Sillery's had seemed to substantiate-to demolish Sir Magnus's pretensions, hierarchically speaking, to more than the possession of "a lot of money;" in spite of various testimonials paid to him, at Hinton and elsewhere, on the score of his greatness in other directions. However, even allowing that Sir Magnus might be agreed to occupy a position only within this comparatively modest category of social differentiation, such a.s.sets as were his were not commonly disregarded, even in the world of Mrs. Andriadis. Her sphere might be looked upon, perhaps, as a more trenchant and mobile one, though it was doubtful if even this estimate were beyond question.

In fact, I was uncertain whether or not I might have misunderstood Jean, and that she had intended to imply that her existence was at a higher, rather than lower, plane. Some similar thought may have struck her too, because, as if in explanation of a matter that needed straightening out, she said: "Baby brought me here. She wanted someone to play for her side, and Bob's aluminium fitted in nicely for this week-end, as Theodoric knew Bob-had even met him."

The concept of "playing for her side" opened up in the imagination fascinating possibilities in connection with Mrs. Wentworth's position in the household. I remembered the phrase as one used by Stringham when enlisting my own support in connection with his project of "going down" from the university after a single term of residence-the time, in fact, when he had asked his mother to lunch to meet Sillery. However, the status of Mrs. Wentworth at the castle was obviously not a matter to be investigated there and then, while, in addition to any question of diffidence in inquiring about that particular affair, Jean's initial display of vivacity became suddenly exhausted, and she sank back into one of those silences that I remembered so well from the time when we had first met. For the rest of the meal she was occupied in fragmentary conversation with the man on her right, or I was myself talking with Rosie Manasch; so that we hardly spoke to one another again while in the dining-room.

The rest of the members of the luncheon-party, on the whole, appeared to be enjoying themselves. Prince Theodoric, sitting at the other end of the long table between Lady Walpole-Wilson and Lady Huntercombe, was conversing manfully, though he looked a shade cast down. From time to time his eyes wandered, never for more than an instant, in the direction of Mrs. Wentworth, who had cheered up considerably under the stimulus of food and drink, and was looking remarkably pretty. I noticed that she made no effort to return the Prince's glances, in the manner she had employed at Mrs. Andriadis's party. Truscott was clearly doing wonders with Miss Walpole-Wilson, whose wide social contacts he must have regarded as of sufficient importance, possibly as an ancillary factor in publicising Donners-Brebner concerns, to justify, on his own part, slightly more than normal attention. It was even possible, though I thought on the whole improbable, that Miss Walpole-Wilson's rather unaccommodating exterior might, in itself, have been sufficient to put Truscott on his mettle to display, without ulterior motive, his almost unequalled virtuosity in handling intractable material of just the kind Miss Walpole-Wilson's personality provided. In rather another field, I had seen Archie Gilbert, on more than one occasion, do something of that sort; on the part of Truscott, however, such relatively frivolous expenditure of energy would have been unexpected.

Only Eleanor, still no doubt contemplating hound puppies and their diet, or perhaps disapproving in general of the a.s.sembled company's formal tone, appeared uncompromisingly bored. Sir Magnus himself did not talk much, save intermittently to express some general opinion. His words, wafted during a comparative silence to the farther end of the table, would have suggested on the lips of a lesser man processes of thought of a ba.n.a.lity so painful-of such profound and arid depths, in which neither humour, nor imagination, nor, indeed, any form of human understanding could be thought to play the smallest part-that I almost supposed him to be speaking ironically, or teasing his guests by acting the part of a bore in a drawing-room comedy. I was far from understanding that the capacity of men interested in power is not necessarily expressed in the brilliance of their conversation. Even in daylight he looked young for his age, and immensely, almost unnaturally, healthy.

At the end of the meal, on leaving the dining-room, Sir Gavin, who had one of his favourite schemes to discuss, cornered Lord Huntercombe, and they went off together. Lord Huntercombe, a small man, very exquisite in appearance and possessing a look of ineffable cunning, was trustee of one, if not more, of the public galleries, and Sir Gavin was anxious to interest him in a project, dear to his heart, of which he had spoken at Hinton, regarding the organisation of a special exhibition of pictures to be thought of as of interest in connection with the history of diplomatic relations between England and the rest of the world. The two of them retired among the yew hedges, Lord Huntercombe's expression presaging little more than sufferance at the prospect of listening to Sir Gavin's plan. The rest of the party broke up into groups. Jean, just as she used to disappear from the scene in her own home, was nowhere to be found on the terrace, to which most of the party now moved. Peggy Stepney, too, seemed to have gone off on her own. Finding myself sitting once more with Stringham and Truscott, I asked when the wedding was to take place.

"Oh, any moment now," Stringham said. "I'm not sure it isn't this afternoon. To be precise, the second week in October. My mother can't make up her mind whether to laugh or cry. I think Buster is secretly rather impressed."

I found it impossible to guess whether he was getting married because he was in love, because he hoped by taking this step to find a more settled life, or because he was curious to experiment with a new set of circ.u.mstances. The absurdity of supposing that exact reasons for marriage can ever be a.s.signed had not then struck me; perhaps excusably, since it is a subject regarding which everyone considers, at least where friends are concerned, the a.s.sumption of categorical knowledge to be an inalienable right. Peggy Stepney herself looked pleased enough, though the formality of her style was calculated to hide outward responses. There had been an incident-hardly that-while we had been talking before luncheon. She had let her hand rest on a table in such a way that it lay, at least putatively, in Stringham's direction. He had placed his own hand over hers, upon which she had jerked her fingers away, almost angrily, and begun to powder her face. Stringham had shown absolutely no sign of noticing this gesture. His first movement had been made, so it had appeared, almost automatically, not even very specifically as a mark of affection. It was possible that some minor quarrel had just taken place; that she was teasing him; that the action had no meaning at all. Thinking of the difficulties inherent in his situation, I began to turn over once more the meeting with Jean, and asked Stringham if he knew that Peter Templer's sister was one of the guests at Stourwater.

"Didn't even know he had a sister-of course, yes, I remember now-he had two at least. One of them, like my own, was always getting divorced."

"This is the younger one. She is called Mrs. Duport."

"What, Baby's friend?"

He did not show the least interest. It was inexplicable to me that he had apparently noticed her scarcely at all; for, although Widmerpool's love for Barbara had seemed an outrageous presumption, Stringham's indifference to Jean was, in the opposite direction, almost equally disconcerting. My own feelings for her might still be uncertain, but his att.i.tude was not of indecision so much as complete unawareness. However, the thought of Mrs. Wentworth evidently raised other questions in his mind.

"What sort of progress is Theodoric making with Baby?" he asked.

Truscott smiled, making a deprecatory movement with his finger to indicate that the matter was better undiscussed: at least while we remained on the terrace.

"Not very well, I think," Stringham said. "It will be Bijou Ardgla.s.s, after all. I'll have a bet on it."

"Did the Chief strike you as being a bit off colour at luncheon, Charles?" Truscott asked, ignoring these suppositions.

He spoke casually, though I had the impression he might be more anxious about Sir Magnus's state of temper than he wished outwardly to admit.

"I heard him say once that it took all sorts to make a world," said Stringham. "He ought to write some of his aphorisms down so that they are not forgotten. Would it be an occasion for the dungeons?"

He made this last remark in that very level voice of his that I recognised, as of old, he was accustomed to employ when intending to convey covert meaning to some apparently simple statement or question. Truscott pouted, and lowered his head in rather arch reproof. I saw that he was amused about some joke shared in secret between them and I knew that I had judged correctly in suspecting latent implication in what Stringham had said.

"Baby doesn't like it."

"Who cares what Baby likes?"

"The Chief is never unwilling," Truscott said, still smiling. "It certainly might cheer him up. You You ask him, Charles." ask him, Charles."

Sir Magnus was talking to Lady Huntercombe only a short distance from us. Stringham moved across the terrace towards them. As he came up, Lady Huntercombe, whose features and dress had been designed to recall Gainsborough's Mrs. Siddons, turned, almost as if she had been expecting his arrival, and pointed with an appropriately dramatic gesture, to the keep of the castle, as if demanding some historical or architectural information. I could see Stringham repress a smile. Her words had perhaps made his inquiry easier to present. Before answering, he inclined towards Sir Magnus, and, with perhaps more deference than had been common to his manner in former days, put some question. Sir Magnus, in reply, raised his eyebrows, and-like Truscott a few minutes earlier, who had perhaps unconsciously imitated one of his employer's mannerisms-made a deprecatory movement with his forefinger; his face at the same time taking on the very faintest suggestion of a deeper colour, as he in turn addressed himself to Lady Huntercombe, apparently requesting her opinion on the point brought to his notice by Stringham. She nodded at once in such a way as to indicate enthusiasm, the rather reckless gaiety of a great actress on holiday, one of the moods, comparatively limited in range, to which her hat and general appearance committed her. Stringham looked up and caught Truscott's eye.

The result of the consultation was a public announcement by Truscott, as Sir Magnus's mouthpiece, that our host, who had by then spoken a word with Prince Theodoric, would himself undertake a personally conducted tour of the castle, "including the dungeons." This was the kind of exordium Truscott could undertake with much adroitness, striking an almost ideal mean between putting a sudden stop to conversation, and, at the same time, running no risk of being ignored by anyone in the immediate neighbourhood. No doubt most of those a.s.sembled round about had already made the inspection at least once. Some showed signs of unwillingness to repeat the performance. There was a slight stir as sightseers began to sort themselves out from the rest. The end of the matter was that about a dozen persons decided to make up the company who would undertake the tour. They were collected into one group and led indoors.

"I'll get the torches," said Truscott.

He went off, and Stringham returned to my side, "What is the joke?"

"There isn't one, really," he said, but his voice showed that he was keeping something dark.

Truscott returned, carrying two electric torches, one of which he handed to Stringham. The party included Prince Theodoric, Lady Huntercombe, Miss Janet Walpole-Wilson, Eleanor, Rosie Manasch, and Pardoe: together with others, unknown to me. Stringham went ahead with Truscott, who acted as princ.i.p.al guide, supplying a conjunction of practical information and historical detail, in every way suitable to the circ.u.mstances of the tour. As we moved round, Sir Magnus watched Truscott with approval, but at first took no part himself in the exposition. I felt certain that Sir Magnus was secure in exact knowledge of the market price of every object at Stourwater: that kind of insight that men can develop without possessing any of the aesthete's, or specialist's cognisance of the particular category, or implication, of the valuable concerned. Barnby used to say that he knew a chartered accountant, scarcely aware even how pictures are produced, who could at the same time enter any gallery and pick out the most expensively priced work there "from Masaccio to Matisse," simply through the mystic power of his own respect for money.

We pa.s.sed through room after room, apartments of which the c.u.mulative magnificence seemed only to enhance the earlier fancy that, at some wave of the wand-somewhat in the manner of Peer Gynt-furniture and armour, pictures and hangings, gold and silver, crystal and china, could turn easily and instantaneously into a heap of withered leaves blown about by the wind. From time to time Prince Theodoric made an appreciative comment, or Miss Walpole-Wilson interjected a minor correction of statement; although, in the latter case, it was clear that Truscott's effective handling of the matter of sitting next to her at luncheon had greatly reduced the potential of her critical a.s.sault.

We made an end of that part of the interior of the castle to be regarded as "on show," returning to the ground floor, where we came at length to the head of a spiral staircase, leading down to subterranean depths. Here Sir Magnus was handed one of the torches by Truscott, and from this point he took over the role of showman. There was a slight pause. I saw Stringham and Truscott exchange a look.

"We are now descending to the dungeons," said Sir Magnus, his voice trembling slightly. "I sometimes think that is where we should put the girls who don't behave."

He made this little speech with an air almost of discomfort. A general t.i.tter rippled across the surface of the party, and there was a further pause, as of expectancy, perhaps on account of an involuntary curiosity to learn whether he would put this decidedly threatening surmise to practical effect. Truscott smiled gently, rather like a governess, or nanny, of wide experience who knows only too well that "boys will be boys." I could see from Stringham's face that he was suppressing a tremendous burst of laughter. It struck me, at this moment, that such occasions, the enjoyment of secret laughter, remained for him the peak of pleasure, for he looked suddenly happier; more buoyant, certainly, than when he had introduced me to Peggy Stepney. What perverse refinements, verbal or otherwise, were actually implied by Sir Magnus's words could only be guessed. It seemed that this remark, as an a.s.sertion of opinion, had always to be uttered at this point in the itinerary, and that its unfailing regularity was considered by his secretaries-if Stringham and Truscott could be so called-as an enormous hidden joke.

There was also the point to be remembered that Baby Wentworth, as Truscott had earlier reminded Stringham, "did not like" these visits to the dungeons. I recalled some of Barnby's speculations regarding the supposed relationship between her and Sir Magnus. While scarcely to be supposed that, in truth, he physically incarcerated Mrs. Wentworth, or his other favourites, in the manner contemplated, frequent repet.i.tion of the words no doubt drew attention to sides of his nature that a girl often seen in his company might reasonably prefer to remain unemphasised. Sir Magnus's eyes had, in fact, paused for a second on Rosie Manasch when he had spoken that sentence. Now they ranged quickly over the faces of Lady Huntercombe, Miss Janet Walpole-Wilson, and Eleanor: coming to rest on the ingenuous profile of a little fair girl whose name I did not know. Then, moistening his lips slightly, he beckoned us on. The party began to descend the stairs, Sir Magnus leading the way.

It so happened that at that moment my shoe-lace came unfastened. There was an oak bench by the side of the staircase, and, resting my foot on this, I stooped to retie the lace, which immediately, as is the way, re-knotted itself tightly, delaying progress for a minute or more. The heels of the women echoed on the stones as the people clattered down the stairs, and then the sound of voices grew fainter, until hum of chatter and shuffle of feet became dim, ceasing at last in the distance. As soon as the shoe-lace was tied once more, I started off quickly down the steps, beside which an iron rail had been fixed as a banister. The way was dark, and the steps cut deep, so that I had slowed up by the time I came, only a short way below, to a kind of landing. Beyond this s.p.a.ce the stairs continued again. I had pa.s.sed this stage, and had just begun on the second flight, when a voice-proceeding apparently from out of the walls of the castle-suddenly spoke my name, the sound of which echoed round me, as the footsteps of the party ahead had echoed a short time before.

"Jenkins?"

I have to admit that I was at that moment quite startled by the sound. The tone was thick and interrogative. It seemed to emerge from the surrounding ether, a voice from out of the twilight of the stair, isolated from human agency, for near approach of any speaker, up or down the steps, Would have been audible to me before he could have come as close as the sound suggested. A second later I became aware of its place of origin, but instead of relief at the simple explanation of what had at first seemed a mysterious, even terrifying, phenomenon, a yet more nameless apprehension was occasioned by the sight revealed. Just level with my head-as I returned a step or more up the stair-was a narrow barred window, or squint, through the iron grill of which, his face barely distinguishable in the shadows, peered Widmerpool.

"Where is the Chief?" he asked, in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

Once in a way, for a brief instant of time, the subconscious fantasies of the mind seem to overflow, so that we make, in our waking moments, a.s.sumptions as outrageous and incredible as those thoughts and acts which provide the commonplace of dreams. Perhaps Sir Magnus's allusion to the appropriate treatment of "girls who don't behave," presumably intended by him at least in a relatively jocular manner, as he had p.r.o.nounced the sentence, although, it was true, his voice had sounded unnaturally serious, had, for some unaccountable reason, resulted in the conjuration of this spectre, as the image seemed to be, that took form at that moment before my eyes. It was a vision of Widmerpool, imprisoned, to all outward appearance, in an underground cell, from which only a small grating gave access to the outer world: even those wider horizons represented only by the gloom of the spiral staircase. I felt a chill at my heart in the fate that must be his, thus immured, while I racked my brain, for the same brief instant of almost unbearable anxiety, to conjecture what crime, or dereliction of duty, he must have committed to suffer such treatment at the hands of his tyrant.

I record this absurd aberration on my own part only because it had some relation to what followed, for, so soon as anything like rational thought could be brought to bear on the matter, it was clear to me that Widmerpool was merely speaking from an outer pa.s.sage of the castle, constructed on a lower level than the floor from which, a short time earlier, we had approached the head of the spiral stair. He had, in fact, evidently arrived from the back entrance, or, familiar with the ground plan of the building, had come by some short cut straight to this window.

"Why are you staring like that?" he asked, irritably.

I explained as well as I could the circ.u.mstances that caused me to be found in this manner wandering about the castle alone.

"I gathered from one of the servants that a tour was in progress," said Widmerpool. "I came over with the draft speech for the Incorporated Metals dinner. I am spending the week-end with my mother, and knew the Chief would like to see the wording as soon as possible-so that I could make a revision when one or two points had been settled. Truscott agreed when I rang up."

"Truscott is showing the party round."

"Of course."

All this demonstrated clearly that arrangements initiated by Truscott at Mrs. Andriadis's party had matured in such a manner as to graft Widmerpool firmly on to the Donners-Brebner organisation, upon the spreading branches of which he seemed to be already positively blossoming. Before I could make further inquiries, on the tip of my tongue, regarding such matters as the precise nature of his job, or the closeness of touch maintained by him with his chief in tasks like the writing of speeches, Widmerpool continued to speak in a lower and more agitated tone, pressing his face between the iron bars, as if attempting to worm his way through their narrow interstices. Now that my eyes had become accustomed to the oddness of his physical position, some of the earlier illusion of forcible confinement dissolved; and, at this later stage, he seemed merely one of those invariably power-conscious beings-a role for which his temperament certainly well suited him-who preside over guichets guichets from which tickets are dispensed for trains or theatres. from which tickets are dispensed for trains or theatres.

"I am glad to have an opportunity for speaking to you alone for a moment," he said. "I have been worried to death lately."

This statement sent my thoughts back to his confession about Barbara on the night of the Huntercombes' dance, and I supposed that he had been suddenly visited with one of those spasms of frustrated pa.s.sion that sometimes, like an uncured disease, break out with renewed virulence at a date when treatment seemed no longer necessary. After all, it was only in a fit of anger, however justifiable, that he had sworn he would not see her again. No one can choose, or determine, the duration of such changes of heart. Indeed, the circ.u.mstances of his decision to break with her after the sugar incident made such a renewal far from improbable.

"Barbara?"

He tried to shake his head, apparently in vehement negation, but was prevented by the bars from making this movement at all adequately to convey the force of his feelings.

"I was induced to do an almost insanely indiscreet thing about the girl you introduced me to."

The idea of introducing Widmerpool to any girl was so far from an undertaking I was conscious ever of having contemplated, certainly a girl in relation to whom serious indiscretion on his part was at all probable, that I began to wonder whether success in securing the Donners-Brebner job had been too much for his brain, already obsessed with self-advancement, and that he was, in fact, raving. It then occurred to me that I might have brought him into touch with someone or other at the Huntercombes', although no memory of any introduction remained in my mind. In any case, I could not imagine how such a meeting might have led to a climax so ominous as that suggested by his tone.

"Gypsy," he said, hesitating a moment over the name, and speaking so low as to be almost inaudible4 "What about her?"

The whole affair was hopelessly tangled in my head. I could remember that Barnby had said something about Widmerpool being involved with Gypsy Jones, but I have already spoken of the way of looking at life to which, in those days, I subscribed-the conception that sets individuals and ideas in hermetically sealed receptacles-and the world in which such things could happen at which Widmerpool seemed to hint appeared infinitely removed, I cannot now think why, from Stourwater and its surroundings. However, it was at last plain that Widmerpool had, in some manner, seriously compromised himself with Gypsy Jones. A flood of possible misadventures that could have played an unhappy part in causing his distress now invaded my imagination.

"A doctor was found," said Widmerpool.

He spoke in a voice hollow with desperation, and this news did not allay the suspicion that whatever was amiss must be fairly serious; though for some reason the exact cause of his anxiety still remained uncertain in my mind.

"I believe everything is all right now," he said. "But it cost a lot of money. More than I could afford. You know, I've never even committed a technical offence before-like using the untransferable half of somebody else's return ticket, or driving a borrowed car insured only in the owner's name."

Giving expression to his dismay seemed to have done him good: at least to have calmed him.

"I felt I could mention matters to you as you were already familiar with the situation," he said. "That fellow Barnby told me you knew. I don't much care for him."

Now, at last, I remembered the gist of what Mr. Deacon had told me, and, incredible as I should have supposed their course to be, the sequence of events began to become at least dimly visible: though much remained obscure. I have spoken before of the difficulties involved in judging other people's behaviour by a consistent standard-for, after all, one must judge them, even at the price of being judged oneself-and, had I been told of some similar indiscretion on the part, say, of Peter Templer I should have been particularly disturbed. There is, or, at least, should be, a fitness in the follies each individual pursues and uniformity of pattern is, on the whole, rightly preserved in human behaviour. Such unwritten regulations seemed now to have been disregarded wholesale.

In point of fact Templer was, so far as I knew, capable of conducting his affairs without recourse to such extremities; and a crisis of this kind appeared to me so foreign to Widmerpool's nature-indeed, to what might almost be called his station in life-that there was something distinctly shocking, almost personally worrying, in finding him entangled with a woman in such circ.u.mstances. I could not help wondering whether or not there had been, or would be, material compensation for these mental, and financial, sufferings. Having regarded him, before hearing of his feelings for Barbara, as existing almost in a vacuum so far as the emotion of love was concerned, an effort on my own part was required to accept the fact that he had been engaged upon so improbable, indeed, so sinister, a liaison. If I had been annoyed to find, a month or two earlier, that he considered himself to possess claims of at least, some tenuous sort on Barbara, I was also more than a trifle put out to discover that Widmerpool, so generally regarded by his contemporaries as a dull dog, had been, in fact, however much he might now regret it, in this way, at a moment's notice, prepared to live comparatively dangerously.

"I will tell you more some other time. Naturally my mother was distressed by the knowledge that I have had something on my mind. You will, of course, breathe a word to no one. Now I must find the Chief. I think I will go to the other end of this pa.s.sage and cut the party off there. It is almost as quick as coming round to where you are."

His voice had now lost some of its funereal note, returning to a more normal tone of impatience. The outline of his face disappeared as suddenly as it had become visible a minute or two before. I found myself alone on the spiral staircase, and now hurried on once more down the steep steps, trying to digest some of the information just conveyed. The facts, such as they were, certainly appeared surprising enough. I reached the foot of the stair without contriving to set them in any very coherent order.

Other matters now intervened. The sound of voices and laughter provided an indication of the path to follow, leading along a pa.s.sage, pitch-dark and smelling of damp, at the end of which light flashed from time to time. I found the rest of the party standing about in a fairly large vaulted chamber, lit by the torches held by Sir Magnus and Truscott. Attention seemed recently to have been directed to certain iron staples, set at irregular intervals in the walls a short way from the paved floor.

"Where on earth did you get to?" asked Stringham, in an undertone. "You missed an ineffably funny scene."

Still laughing quietly to himself, he went on to explain that some kind of horse-play had been taking place, in the course of which Pardoe had borrowed the dog-chain that was almost an integral part of Eleanor's normal equipment, and, with this tackle, had attempted by force to fasten Rosie Manasch to one of the staples. In exactly what manner this had been done I was unable to gather, but he seemed to have slipped the chain round her waist, producing in this manner an imitation of a captive maiden, pa.s.sable enough to delight Sir Magnus. Rosie Manasch herself, her bosom heaving slightly, seemed half cross, half flattered by this attention on Pardoe's part. Sir Magnus stood by, smiling very genially, at the same time losing none of his accustomed air of asceticism. Truscott was smiling, too, although he looked as if the situation had been allowed to get farther out of control than was entirely comfortable for one of his own cautious temperament. Eleanor, who had recovered her chain, which she had doubled in her hand and was swinging about, was perhaps not dissatisfied to see Rosie, sometimes a little patronising in her tone, reduced to a state of fl.u.s.ter, for she appeared to be enjoying herself for the first time since our arrival at the castle. It was perhaps a pity that her father had missed the tour. Only Miss Janet Walpole-Wilson stood sourly in the shadows, explaining that the supposed dungeon was almost certainly a kind of cellar, granary, or storehouse; and that the iron rings, so far from being designed to shackle, or even torture, unfortunate prisoners, were intended to support and secure casks or trestles. However, no one took any notice of her, even to the extent of bothering to contradict.

"The Chief was in ecstasies," said Stringham. "Baby will be furious when she hears of this."

This description of Sir Magnus's bearing seemed a little exaggerated, because nothing could have been more matter-of-fact than the voice in which he inquired of Prince Theodoric: "What do you think of my private prison, sir?"

The Prince's features had resumed to some extent that somewhat embarra.s.sed fixity of countenance worn when I had seen him at Mrs. Andriadis's; an expression perhaps evoked a second or two earlier by Pardoe's performance, the essentially schoolboy nature of which Prince Theodoric, as a foreigner, might have legitimately failed to grasp. He seemed at first to be at a loss to know exactly how to reply to this question, in spite of its evident jocularity, raising his eyebrows and stroking his dark chin.