Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [44]
To emphasize the awful depths of Isadore’s habits, Rosie stood on tiptoe, clasping together plump little hands that seemed subtly moulded out of pink icing sugar, then tightly caught in by invisible bands at the wrist. At forty or so, she herself was not unthinkable in terms of Lautrec’s brush, more alluring certainly than the ladies awaiting custom on the banquettes of the Rue de Moulins, though with something of their resignation. A hint of the seraglio, and its secrets, that attached to her suggested oriental costume in one of the masked ball scenes.
‘Do you ever see Hugh Moreland now? Matilda told me he’s still living with that strange woman called Maclintick. They’ve never married. Matilda says Mrs Maclintick makes him work hard.’
‘I don’t even know his address.’
That was one of the many disruptions caused by the war. Rosie returned to Fission.
‘What do you think of the Frog Footman’s beautiful wife? Did you hear what she said to that horrid girl Peggy Klein – who’s a sort of connexion, as she was once married to Charles Stringham? James had adored Peggy for years when he married her – I’ll tell you some other time. There’s the Frog Footman himself making towards us.’
Widmerpool gave Rosie a slight bow, his manner suggesting the connexion with Fission put her in a category of business colleagues to be treated circumspectly.
‘I’ve been having an interesting talk with the military attaché of one of the new Governments in Eastern Europe,’ he said. ‘He’s just arrived in London. As a matter of fact I myself have rather a special relationship with his country, as a member – indeed a founder member – of no less than two societies to cement British relations with the new regime. You remember that ineffective princeling Theodoric, I daresay.’
‘I thought him rather attractive years ago,’ said Rosie. ‘It was at Sir Magnus Donners’ castle of all places. Was the military attaché equally nice?’
‘A sturdy little fellow. Not much to say for himself, but made a good impression. I told him of my close connexions with his country. These representatives of single-party government are inclined to form a very natural distrust for the West. I flatter myself I got through to him successfully. I expect you’ve been talking about Fission. I hear you have been having sessions with our editor Bagshaw, Nicholas?’
‘He’s going to produce for me a writer called X. Trapnel, of whom he has great hopes.’
‘Camel Ride to the Tomb?’ said Rosie. ‘I thought it so good.’
‘I shall have to read it,’ said Widmerpool. ‘I shall indeed. I must be leaving now to attend to the affairs of the nation.’
Somebody came up at that moment to claim Rosie’s attention, so I never heard the story of what Pamela had said to Peggy Klein.
The promised meeting with X. Trapnel came about the following week. Like almost all persons whose life is largely spun out in saloon bars, Bagshaw acknowledged strong ritualistic responses to given pubs. Each drinking house possessed its special, almost magical endowment to give meaning to whatever was said or done within its individual premises. Indeed Bagshaw himself was so wholeheartedly committed to the mystique of The Pub that no night of his life was complete without a final pint of beer in one of them. Accordingly, withdrawal of Bagshaw’s company – whether or not that were to be regarded as auspicious – could always be relied upon, wherever he might be, however convivial the gathering, ten minutes before closing time. If – an unlikely contingency – the ‘local’ were not already known to him, Bagshaw, when invited to dinner, always took the trouble to ascertain its exact situation for the enaction of this last rite. He must have carried in his head the names and addresses of at least two hundred London pubs – heaven knows how many provincial ones – each measured off in delicate gradations in relation to the others, strictly assessed for every