Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [35]
‘The sooner I get out, the better I’ll be pleased.’
‘Ought to thank for the cupper, I suppose.’
Craggs looked round the room. Frederica, as it turned out, had gone to fetch some testamentary document for Widmerpool’s inspection. While they had been speaking Roddy Cutts took the opportunity of slipping away and standing by Pamela, who was listening to a story Hugo was telling about his antique shop. She ignored Roddy, who, seeing his wife’s eye on him, drifted away again. Widmerpool drummed his fingers against the window frame while he waited. Until Roddy’s arrival in her neighbourhood, Pamela had given the appearance of being fairly amenable to Hugo’s line of talk. Now she put her hand to her forehead and turned away from him. She went quickly over to Widmerpool and spoke. The words, like his answer, were not audible, but she raised her voice angrily at whatever he had said.
‘I tell you I’m feeling faint again.’
‘All right. We’ll go the minute I get this paper – what is that, my dear Tolland? – yes, of course we’re taking you in the taxi. I was just saying to my wife that we’re leaving the moment I’ve taken charge of a document Lady Frederica’s finding for me.’
He spoke absently, his mind evidently on business matters. Pamela made further protests. Widmerpool turned to Siegfried, who was arranging the cups, most of them odd ones, in order of size at the back of the table.
‘Fritz, mein Mann, sagen Sie bitte der Frau Gräfin, dass Wir jetzt abfahren.’
‘Sofort, Herr Oberst.’
Pamela was prepared to submit to no such delays. ‘I’m going at once – I must. I’m feeling ghastly again.’
‘All right, dearest. You go on. I’ll follow – the rest of us will. I can’t leave without obtaining that paper.’
Widmerpool looked about him desperately. Marriage had greatly reduced his self-assurance. Then a plan suggested itself.
‘Nick, do very kindly escort Pam to the door. She’s not feeling quite herself, a slight recurrence of what she went through earlier. Those passages are rather complicated, as I remember from arriving. Your sister-in-law’s looking for a document I need. I must stay for that, and to thank her for her hospitality.’
Pamela had certainly gone very white again. She looked as if she might be going to faint. Her withdrawal from church, in the light of previous behaviour likely to be prompted by sheer perversity, now took on a more excusable aspect. That she was genuinely feeling ill was confirmed by the way she agreed without argument to the suggested compromise. We at once set off down the stairs together, Pamela bidding no one goodbye.
‘Is the taxi outside?’
‘Parked in the yard.’
‘Your coat?’
‘Lying on some of that junk by the door.’
We hurried along. About halfway to the goal of the outside door, amongst the thickest of the bric-a-brac that littered the passage, she stopped.
‘I’m feeling sick.’
This was a crisis indeed. If we returned to Erridge’s quarters, again negotiating the stairs and passing through the sitting-room, resources existed – in the Erridge manner, unelaborate enough – for accommodating sudden indisposition of this sort, but the sanctuary, such as it was, could not be called near. I lightly sketched in the facilities available, their means of approach. She looked at me without answering. She was a greenish colour by now.
‘Shall we go back?’
‘Back where?’
‘To the bathroom – ’
Pamela seemed to consider the suggestion for a second. She glanced round about, her eyes coming to rest on the two tall oriental vessels, which Lord Huntercombe had disparaged as nineteenth-century copies. Standing about five foot high, patterned in blue, boats sailed across their surface on calm sheets of water, out of which rose houses on stilts, in the distance a range of jagged mountain peaks. It was a peaceful scene, very different from the emergency in the passage. Pamela came to a decision. Moving rapidly forward, she stepped lightly on one of the plinths where a huge jar rested, in doing so showing a grace I could not help admiring in spite of the circumstances. She