The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell [103]
‘We’ll dine together,’ I said. ‘Is there anywhere in the neighbourhood?’
‘A place halfway up Gloucester Road on the right. It’s called the Scarlet Pimpernel. The food is not as bad as it sounds. They’ll send out for drinks.’
‘Do you feel equal to the Scarlet Pimpernel, Hugh?’
Moreland, almost past speech, nodded.
‘Give him your key, Teddy,’ said Molly Jeavons. ‘We can find him another in the morning.’
Jeavons fumbled in one of the pockets of his overall and handed a key to Moreland.
‘I’ll probably be pottering about when you come in,’ he said, ‘can’t get to sleep if I turn in early. Come back with him, Nick. We might be able to find a glass of beer for you.’
I went across the room to take leave of Widmerpool and his mother. When I came up to her, Mrs Widmerpool turned her battery of teeth upon me, smiling fiercely, like the Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, her shining, ruddy countenance advancing closer as she continued to hold my hand in hers.
‘I expect you are still occupied with your literary pursuits,’ she said, taking up our conversation at precisely the point at which it had been abandoned.
‘Some journalism—’
‘This is not a happy time for book-lovers.’
‘No, indeed.’
‘Still, you are fortunate.’
‘Why?’
‘With your bookish days, not, like Kenneth, in arms.’
‘He seems a Happy Warrior.’
‘It is not in his nature to remain in civil life at time of war,’ she said.
‘I will say good night, then.’
‘Good luck to you,’ she said, ‘wherever you may find yourself in these troublous times.’
She gave me another smile of great malignance, returning immediately to her discussions about rent. Widmerpool half raised his hand in a gesture of farewell. Moreland and I left the house together.
‘What the hell were you doing in that place?’ he asked, as we walked up the street.
‘Molly Jeavons is an aunt of Isobel’s. It is a perfectly normal place for me to be. Far stranger that you yourself should turn up there.’
‘You’re right about that,’ Moreland said. ‘I can’t quite make out how I did. Things have been moving rather quickly with me the last few months. Who was that terrifying woman you said good-bye to?’
‘Mother of the man in spectacles called Widmerpool. You met him with me at a nursing home years ago.’
‘No recollection,’ said Moreland, ‘though he seemed familiar. His mother began on Scriabin as soon as I arrived in the house. Told me the Poème de l’Extase was her favourite musical work. I say, I’m feeling like hell. Far from de l ’extase.’
‘What’s been happening? I didn’t even know you’d left the country.’
‘The country, as it were, left me,’ said Moreland. ‘At least Matilda did, which came to much the same thing.’
‘How did all this come about?’
‘I hardly know myself.’
‘Has she gone off with somebody?’
‘Gone back to Donners.’
The information was so grotesque that at first I could hardly take it seriously. Then I saw as a possibility that a row might have taken place and Matilda done this from pique. At certain seasons, Matilda, admittedly, had a fairly rough time living with Moreland. She might require a short spell of rich life to put her right, although (as Mrs Widmerpool could have said) wartime was hardly the moment to pursue rich life. Sir Magnus Donners, as a former lover, himself no longer young, would provide a comparatively innocuous vehicle for such a temporary interlude. The Moreland situation, regarded in these cold-blooded terms, might be undesirable certainly, at the same time not beyond hope.
‘I’ll tell the story when we get to the restaurant,’ said Moreland. ‘I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast. Just had a few doubles.’
We found the Scarlet Pimpernel soon after this. The place was not full. We took a table in the corner at the back of the room. At this early stage of the war, it was still possible to order a bottle of wine without undue difficulty and expense. The food, as Molly Jeavons had said, turned out better than might have been expected from the mob-caps of the waitresses and general tone of the establishment. After some soup and a glass of wine Moreland began