At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell [95]
By that time I began to feel even a little uneasy, having no idea at all what might be coming next.
‘When you came to tea with us not so long ago, I told you I had been reading about this business of psychoanalysis. Don’t tie myself down to Freud. Jung has got some interesting stuff too. No point in an amateur like myself being dogmatic about something he knows little or nothing about. Just make a fool of yourself. Don’t you agree?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Well, a rather interesting illustration of some of the points I’d been reading about happened to come my way the other day. Care to hear about it?’
‘I should like to very much indeed.’
‘In connexion with this fellow you say you were at school with—this fellow Widmerpool—who wanted to marry my sister-in-law, Mildred.’
‘I hear the engagement is off.’
‘You knew that already?’
‘I was told so the other day.’
‘Common knowledge, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Know why it’s off?’
‘No. But I wasn’t altogether surprised.’
‘Nor was I, but it is an odd story. Not to be repeated, of course. Happened during their stay at Dogdene. Perhaps you’ve heard about that too?’
‘I knew they were going to Dogdene.’
‘Ever stopped there yourself?’
‘No. I’ve never met either of the Sleafords.’
‘I was once able to do Geoffrey Sleaford a good turn in South Africa,’ said the General. ‘He was A.D.C. to the Divisional Commander, and a more bone-headed fellow I never came across. Sleaford—or Fines, as he was then—had landed in a mess over some mislaid papers. I got him out of it. He is a stupid fellow, but always grateful. Made a point of trying out our poodle dogs at his shoots. Then Bertha knew Alice Sleaford as a girl. Went to the same dancing class. Bertha never much cared for her. Still, they get on all right now. Long and the short of it is that we stop at Dogdene from time to time. Uncomfortable place nowadays. Those parterres are very fine, of course. Alice Sleaford takes an interest in the garden. Wonderful fruit in the hot-houses. Then there is the Veronese. Geoffrey Sleaford has been advised to have it cleaned, but won’t hear of it. Young fellow called Smethyck told him. Smethyck saw our Van Troost and said it was certainly genuine. Nice things at Dogdene, some of them, but I could name half a dozen houses in England I’d rather stop at.’
None of this seemed to be getting us much further so far as Widmerpool was concerned. I waited for development. General Conyers did not intend to be hurried. I suspected that he might regard this narrative he was unfolding in so leisurely a manner as the last good story of his life; one that he did not propose to squander in the telling. That was reasonable enough.
‘I was not best pleased,’ he said, ‘when Bertha told me we had been asked to Dogdene at the same time as Mildred and her young man. I know the Sleafords don’t have many people to stop. All the same it would have been quite easy to have invited some of their veterans. Even had us there by ourselves. Just like Alice Sleaford to arrange something like that. Hasn’t much tact. All the same, I thought it would be a chance to get to know something about Widmerpool. After all, he was going to be my brother-in-law. Got to put up with your relations. Far better know the form from the beginning.’
‘I’ve been seeing Widmerpool on and off for ages,’ I said, hoping to encourage the General’s flow of comment. ‘I really know him quite well.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now, look here,’ he said. ‘Have you ever noticed at all how Widmerpool gets on with women?’
‘He never seemed to find them at all easy to deal with. I was surprised that he should be prepared to take on someone like Mrs. Haycock.’
We had plunged into an intimacy of discussion that I had never supposed possible with an older man of the General’s sort.
‘You were?’
‘Yes.’
‘So was I,’ he said. ‘So was I. Very surprised. And