Hearing Secret Harmonies - Anthony Powell [74]
‘During a battle some knights were standing apart, plotting against their king. A witch passed, and turned them into stone for their treachery.’
‘Perhaps a witch will be waiting at the stile, and do the same to the quarry directors. Then we’ll have a second monument up here.’
Mr Goldney did not reply. He looked rather prim, shocked at so malign a concept, or unwilling to countenance light words on the subject of folklore. Rain had possibly soaked him past the threshold of small-talk. Mr Tudor, in company with Mrs Salter, both very wet, joined us. Mr Tudor showed signs of a tempered optimism so far as to the outcome of the meeting.
‘The Advisory Committee will have to get together again, Mr Goldney. Will Thursday at the same hour suit you? There’s the correspondence with the Alkali Inspector we ought to go through again in relation to new points raised in consequence of today’s meeting.’
‘That’s all right for me, Mr Tudor, and I’d like to bring up haulage problems.’
Mrs Salter sliced at a bramble with her pruning-hook.
‘Even Mr Gollop admits haulage problems. At first he was evasive. I wouldn’t have that’
Isobel, after a final word with Mr Todman, caught us up.
‘Who was the man you were talking to on the ridge?’
‘I’ll tell you about it on the way home.’
‘You looked a very strange couple silhouetted against the skyline.’
‘We were.’
‘A bit sinister.’
‘Your instincts are correct.’
The company scattered to their cars. Mr Gauntlett, an elderly woodland sprite untroubled by rain – if anything, finding refreshment in a downpour – disappeared on foot along a green lane. The rest of us drove away. The meeting had been a success in spite of the weather. Its consequence, assisted by the findings of the Advisory Committee, and the individual activities of Mr Tudor, was that a Government Enquiry was ordered by the Ministry. To have brought that about was a step in the right direction, even if the findings of such an Enquiry must always be unpredictable. That was emphasized by Mr Gauntlett, when I met him some weeks later, out with his gun, and the labrador that had replaced Daisy.
‘Ah. We shall see what we shall see.’
He made no further reference to nocturnal horned dancers round about The Devil’s Fingers. Neither did I, though their image haunted the mind. It was not quite the scene portrayed by Poussin, even if elements of the Seasons’ dance were suggested in a perverted form; not least by Widmerpool, perhaps naked, doing the recording. From what Gwinnett had said, a battle of wills seemed to be in progress. If, having decided that material things were vain, Widmerpool had turned to the harnessing of quite other forces, it looked as if he were losing ground in rivalry with a younger man. Perhaps the contest should be thought of – if Widmerpool were Orlando – as one of Orlando’s frequent struggles with wizards. Or – since the myth was in every respect upsidedown – was Murtlock even Widmerpool’s Astolpho, playing him false?
I did not see Delavacquerie again until the early autumn. I wanted to hear his opinion about Gwinnett’s inclusion in the rites at The Devil’s Fingers. As someone belonging to a younger generation than my own, coming from a different hemisphere, a poet with practical knowledge of the business world, who possessed personal acquaintance with several of the individuals concerned in an episode that took a fairly high place for horror, as well as extravagance, Delavacquerie’s objective comment would be of interest. For one reason or another – I, too, was away for a month or more – we did not meet; nor did I hear anything further of Gwinnett himself, or his associates of that night.
When a meeting with Delavacquerie took place he announced at once that he was feeling depressed. That was not uncommon. It was usually the result of being put out about his own business routine, or simply from lack of time to ‘write’. He did not look well, poor states of health always darkening his complexion. I thought it more than possible that the trip with Polly Duport had not been a success; projected marriage decided