Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [47]
‘Pam – I want a word in private at once.’
Gwinnett took a step back to allow Widmerpool easier passage. No doubt he guessed the relationship. Pamela, on the other hand, showed not the least recognition of the fact that her husband had just arrived. She took no notice of him whatsoever. Instead of offering any facility for speech, she quickly moved sideways and forward, again decreasing distance between Gwinnett and herself, blocking Widmerpool’s way, so that she could continue a conversation, which, so far as could be judged, was going relatively well.
‘Pam…’
Pamela threw him a glance. Her manner suggested that a man – a very unprepossessing man at that – was trying to pick her up in a public place; some uncouth sightseer, not even a member of the Conference, having gained access to the Palazzo because the door was open, was now going round accosting ladies encountered there. Widmerpool persisted.
‘You must come with me. It’s urgent.’
She answered now without turning her head.
‘Do go away. I heard you the first time. Can’t you take a hint? I’m being shown round the house by Louis Glober. You knew he was going to be staying with Jacky. At the moment I’m talking about a rather important matter to Professor Gwinnett.’
Widmerpool’s reaction to this treatment was complex. On the one hand, he was obviously not at all surprised by blank refusal to cooperate; on the other, he could not be said to have received that refusal with anything like indifference. He paused for a moment, apparently analysing means of forcing his wife to obey; then he must have decided against any such attempt. His expression suggested the existence of one or two tricks up his sleeve, to be played when they were alone together. He was about to move away, return from wherever he had come, but, catching sight of me, stopped and nodded. Recognition evidently suggested more to him than the fact that we had not met since the night of the Election party. He went straight to the point, his manner confirming existence of some problem on his mind desperate to solve.
‘Nicholas, how are you? Staying with Jacky Bragadin? No – then you are almost certainly a member of this Conference going round? That is what I expected. Just the man I want to talk to.’
‘Congratulations on the peerage.’
‘Ah, yes. Thank you very much. Not very contemporary, such a designation sounds today, but it has its advantages. I didn’t want to leave the Commons, no one less. 1955 may have been a moral victory – several of my constituents described my campaign as a greater personal triumph than the previous poll, when I was returned – but past efforts were forgotten in a fight that was not always a clean one. As I still have a lot of work in me, the Upper Chamber, so long as it hangs on, seemed as good a place to do that work as any other. As it happens, my normal activities are rather impeded at the moment by a number of irksome matters, indeed one domestic tragedy, since my mother passed away only a few days ago at her cottage in Kirkcudbrightshire, which she always spoke of as an ideal home for her declining years. She had reached a ripe age, so that the end was not unexpected. Unfortunately, it was quite impossible for me to make a journey as far as Scotland at this particular moment. I could not attempt it. At the same time, it was painful to leave a matter like my mother’s burial in the hands of a secretary, competent as my own secretary happens to be. Something a little over and above routine competence is required at such a moment. None the less, that was what had to be done. I couldn’t be in Kirkcudbrightshire and Venice at