At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell [82]
While Widmerpool sat in silence, and I pondered these matters, there came suddenly a shrill burst of sound from the dance floor. 1 saw Mrs. Haycock break away violently from Jeavons. She clasped her hands together and gave peal after peal of laughter. Jeavons, too, was smiling, in his quiet, rather embarrassed manner. Mrs. Haycock caught his hand, and led him through the other dancing couples, back to the table. She was in a great state of excitement.
‘Look here,’ she said. ‘We’ve just made the most marvellous discovery. Do you know that we both knew each other in the war—when I was a nurse?’
‘What, when you were at Dogdene?’ asked Widmerpool.
His mind, still full of the glories of that great house, remained unimpressed by this news. To him nothing could be more natural than the fact that Mrs. Haycock and Jeavons had met. She had been a V.A.D. at Dogdene: Jeavons had been a convalescent there. There was no reason why Widmerpool should even speculate upon the possibility that their Dogdene interludes had not overlapped. He was, in any case, not at all interested in the lives of others.
‘I never recognised him, which was quite mad of me, because he looks just the same.’
‘Oh, really?’ said Widmerpool.
He could not see what the fuss was about.
‘Isn’t it absolutely marvellous to meet an old friend like that?’
‘Why, yes, I suppose it is,’ said Widmerpool, without any great conviction.
‘It’s scrumptious.’
Widmerpool smiled feebly. This was plainly a situation he found hard to envisage. In any case, he was at that moment too oppressed by his own state of health to attempt appreciation of Mrs. Haycock’s former friendships.
‘Look here, Mildred,’ he said, ‘I am still feeling far from well. I really think I will go home. What about you? Shall I take you back?’
Mrs. Haycock was appalled.
‘Go back?’ she said. ‘Why, of course not. I’ve only just arrived. And, anyway, there are millions of things I want to talk about after making this marvellous discovery. It is too priceless for words. To think that I never knew all these years. It is really too extraordinary that we should never have met. I believe Molly did it on purpose.’
Widmerpool, to do him justice, did not seem at all surprised at this not very sympathetic attitude towards his own condition. There was something dignified, even a little touching, about the manner in which he absolutely accepted the fact that his state of health did not matter to Mrs. Haycock in the least. Perhaps by then already inured to indifference, he had made up his mind to expect no more from married life. More probably, this chance offered to slip away quietly by himself, going home without further trouble—even without delivering Mrs. Haycock to her hotel—was a relief to him. In any case, he seemed thankful, not only that no impediment had been put in his way of escape, but that Mrs. Haycock herself was in the best possible mood at the prospect of her own abandonment.
‘Then I can safely leave you with Peter Templer and Mrs. Taylor—or is it Mrs. Porter?’ he said. ‘You will also have Nicholas and Mr. Jeavons to look after you.’
‘My dear, of course, of course.’
Widmerpool rose a little unsteadily. Probably the people round thought, quite mistakenly, that he had had too much to drink.
‘I shall go then,’ he said. ‘I will ring you up tomorrow, Mildred. Make my apologies to Peter.’
‘Night, night,’ she said, not unkindly.
Widmerpool nodded to the rest of us, then turned, and picked his way through the dancers.
‘But this is too, too amusing,’ said Mrs. Haycock, taking Jeavons by the arm. ‘To think we should meet again like this after all these years.’
She poured out another drink for himself, and passed the bottle round the table, so delighted by the discovery of Jeavons that Widmerpool seemed now dismissed entirely from her mind. The sentiments of Jeavons himself at that moment were hard to estimate; even to know how drunk he was. He might have reminded