Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [70]
Gwinnett was momentarily prevented from continuing his story by thickening of the crowd, as we approached the Piazza along a narrow street, necessitating our own advance in single file. Two nuns passed. Gwinnett turned back, indicating them.
‘Do you know the first thing Lady Widmerpool said? She asked if the place we were in didn’t make me want to turn to the religious life?’
‘How did you answer that one?’
‘I said it might be a good experience for some people. It wasn’t one I felt drawn to myself. I asked if she herself was thinking of taking the veil.’
‘Good for you.’
‘I said her clothes looked more religious than in the Palazzo.’
‘How did she take that?’
‘She laughed. She said she often felt that way. I wasn’t all that surprised. It fits in.’
The comment showed Gwinnett no beginner in female psychology. He and Pamela might be well matched. This was the first outward indication of a mystic side to her. Gwinnett for the moment had shaken off his own constraint.
‘I began to speak of Trapnel. She listened, but didn’t give much away. The next thing did startle me.’
He gave an embarrassed laugh.
‘She grabbed hold of me,’ he said.
‘You mean — ’
‘Just that.’
‘By the balls?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Literally?’
‘Quite literally. Then she hinted the story about Ferrand-Sénéschal was true.’
Coming out from under the pillars, we entered the Piazza. The square was packed with people. They trailed rhythmically backwards and forwards like the huge chorus of an opera. One of the caffè orchestras was playing selections from The Merry Widow, Widmerpool’s favourite waltz, he had said, just before Barbara Goring poured sugar over his head. The termination of the Pamela story had to be left in Gwinnett’s discretion. It was not to be crudely probed.
‘That was when she told me to call her up when I got to London. I just said I’d do that.’
‘By that time she’d let go – or was she still holding on?’
He laughed. He seemed past embarrassment now.
‘I’d disengaged her – told her to lay off.’
‘How did she take that?’
‘OK. She laughed the way she does. Then she took off.’
‘To contemplate the religious life elsewhere?’
Gwinnett did not offer an opinion on that point.
‘You heard no more from her about Trapnel?’
‘Not a word.’
Most of the tables at Florian’s seemed occupied. People from the Conference were scattered about among multitudes of tourists. Gwinnett and I moved this way or that through the crowded café, trying to find somewhere to sit. Then two chairs were vacated near the band. Making for them, we were about to settle down, when someone from the next table called out. They were a party of four, revealed to be Rosie Manasch – Rosie Stevens now for some years – her husband, Odo Stevens, and an American couple.
‘Switch the chairs round and join us,’ said Stevens. ‘We’ve just finished a Greek cruise, staying in Venice a day or two to get our breath.’
Rosie introduced the Americans, middle-aged to elderly, immensely presentable. I played Gwinnett in return. It was more characteristic of Stevens than his wife that Gwinnett and I should not be allowed to sit by ourselves. Like Glober, he had a taste for forming courts. He was a little piqued, or pretended to be, at hearing about the Conference.
‘Why do I never get asked to these international affairs? Not a grand enough writer, I suppose. Who’s turned up? Mark Members? Quentin Shuckerly? The usual crowd?’
Now in his early forties, Odo Stevens, less unchanged than Rosie, had salvaged a fair amount of the bounce associated with his earlier days; Rosie, for her part, entirely retaining an intrinsic air of plump little queen of the harem. Having decided, possibly on sight, to marry Stevens, she seemed perfectly satisfied now the step was taken. So far as that went, so did Stevens. They had two or three children. There had been ups and downs during the years preceding marriage, but these had been survived, the chief discord when Matilda Donners had shown signs of wanting to capture Stevens for herself. Owing either to Matilda’s tactical inferiority, or loss of interest