Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [80]
Of course a friend of Pamela’s like Ada Leintwardine – a position in which Ada was, as a woman, probably unique – was thrown into a great state of commotion when the news, such as it was, broke. It was confirmed by L. O. Salvidge to the extent that two or three weeks before he had seen Trapnel in The Hero, accompanied by a very beautiful girl with a pale face and dark hair. They had stayed in the saloon bar only a few seconds, not even ordering drinks. Trapnel wanted to make some arrangement with one of the auxiliaries. Salvidge’s information predated the night at Widmerpool’s. Ada conceded not only that she had now lost all touch with Pamela, but – an unexampled admission on Ada’s part – could claim no suspicion whatever as to what must have been going on. This amounted to confession that, however profound her own powers of intuition, they had fallen short of paramountcy in probing this particular sequence of emotional development. All she had supposed was that Trapnel had been ‘rather intrigued’ by Pamela; the notion that he should sufficiently flatter himself as to allow dreams of her mastery was something quite beyond credibility. Ada’s alliance with Pamela had, in fact, never taken the form of frequentation of the Widmerpool household. They had just been ‘girls together’ outside Pamela’s married life. Ada continually repeated her disbelief.
‘It can’t really be Trapnel.’
Not only did Trapnel himself no longer appear at the Fission office, his representatives now dropped off too. Bagshaw had recently retired to bed with flu. For once the new number was fully made up, left to be seen through the press by the latest secretary, a red-haired, freckled girl called Judy, whom Bagshaw himself had produced from somewhere or other, alleging that she was not at all stupid, but unreliable at spelling. Judy had just brought in a stack of advance copies of the magazine when in due course I arrived to carry out the normal stint with the books. These were being examined by Quiggin and Ada, who were both on the Fission side of the backyard.
Quiggin, possibly under the influence of Ada, had now for the most part abandoned his immediately post-war trappings suggesting he had just come in from skirmishing with a sten-gun in the undergrowth, though traces remained in a thick grey shirt. On the whole he had settled for a no-nonsense middle-aged intellectual’s style of dress, a new suit in dark check and bow tie, turn-out better suited to his station as an aspiring publisher. Ada was laughing at what they were reading, Quiggin less certain that he was finding the contribution funny. He had taken his hands from the jacket pockets of the check suit, and was straightening the lapels rather uneasily.
‘There’s going to be a row,’ said Ada.
She was pleased rather than the reverse by that prospect. Quiggin himself seemed not wholly displeased, though his amusement was combined with anxiety, which the Sweetskin case was sufficient to explain. An extract from Ada’s own novel was to be included in this current number. Her work in progress had not yet been given a tide, but it was billed as ‘daring’, so that in the cold light of print Quiggin might fear the police would now step in where Fission too was concerned.
‘Are you going to be prosecuted, Ada?’
‘I was laughing at X’s piece. Read this.’
She handed me a copy of the magazine. It was open at Widmerpool’s article Assumptions of Autarchy v. Dynamics of Adjustment. Since she had indicated Trapnel’s piece as the focus of interest, I turned back to the list of contents to find the page. Ada snatched it from me.
‘No, no. Where I gave