At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell [81]
‘How is Molly?’ she asked him.
‘Molly is all right.’
He did not sound too bright. However, he must have understood that something was exacted of him, and made an effort.
‘Where are you staying?’ he asked.
‘Jules’s.’
‘In Jermyn Street?’
‘I always have a suite there when I come over.’
Jeavons suddenly straightened himself.
‘Come and dance,’ he said.
This surprised me. I had supposed him to be speaking without much serious intention, even when he had first said he wanted to dance with her. After he had all but gone to sleep at the table, I thought he had probably found sufficient entertainment in his own reflections. On the contrary, he had now thrown off his drowsiness. Mrs. Haycock rose without the smallest hesitauon, and they took the floor together. I was sure she had not recognised Jeavons; equally certain that she was aware, as women are, that some disturbing element was abroad, involving herself in some inexplicable manner. She danced well, steering him this way and that, while Jeavons jogged up and down like a marionette, clutching her to him as he attempted the syncopated steps of some long-forgotten measure. I remembered that he himself never danced when the carpet was rolled back and the gramophone played at the Jeavonses’ house. I was still watching them circle the floor when Widmerpool returned from his absence in the inner recesses of the club. He looked worse than ever. There could be no doubt that he ought to go home to bed. He sat down beside me and groaned.
‘I think I shall have to go home,’ he said.
‘Didn’t the pills work?’
‘Quite useless. I am feeling most unwell. Why on earth have you come here with that fellow Jeavons?’
‘I ran across him earlier in the evening, and he brought me along. I’ve met Umfraville before, who runs this place.’
I felt, I did not know why, that it was reasonable for him to make this enquiry in an irritable tone; that some apology was indeed required for my appearance there at all. It was clear that the sooner Widmerpool left, the better for his state of health. He looked ghastly. I was going to suggest that he should make some sign to recall Mrs. Haycock to the table, so that they might leave immediately, when he began to speak in a lower voice, as if he had something on his mind.
‘You know what we were talking about when we last met?’
‘Yes—your engagement, you mean?’
‘I—I haven’t had an opportunity yet.’
‘You haven’t?’
I felt unwilling to reopen all that matter now, especially in his present state.
‘But we’ve been asked to stay at Dogdene.’
‘Yes?’
In spite of his malaise, Widmerpool could not keep from his voice a note of justifiable satisfaction.
‘You know the house, of course.’
‘I’ve never stayed there.’
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I mean you know about it. The Sleafords’ place.’
‘Yes, I know all that.’
‘Do you think it would be—would be the moment?’
‘It might be a very good one.’
‘Of course it would make a splendid background. After all, if any house in the country has had a romantic history, it is Dogdene,’ he said.
The reflection seemed to give him strength. I thought of Pepys, and the ‘great black maid’; and immediately Widmerpool’s resemblance to the existing portraits of the diarist became apparent. He had the same obdurate, put-upon, bad-tempered expression. Only a full-bottomed wig was required to complete the picture. True, Widmerpool shared none of Pepys’s sensibility where the arts were concerned; in the aesthetic field he was a void. But they had a common preoccupation with money and professional advancement; also a kind of dogged honesty. Was it possible to imagine Widmerpool playing a similar role with the maid? There I felt doubtful. Was that, indeed, his inherent problem? Could it be that his love affairs had always fallen short of physical attack? How would he deal with Mrs. Haycock should that be so? I wondered whether their relationship was really so incongruous as it appeared from the exterior. So often one thinks