The Soldier's Art - Anthony Powell [79]
“He’s leaving it.”
“He is?”
In spite of a conviction that Widmerpool’s gifts were not being given sufficient scope, Farebrother did not sound altogether pleased to hear this matter was going to be put right. He asked the question with more open curiosity than he had showed until then.
“I don’t think it’s a secret.”
“Even if it is, it will go no further with me. What’s ahead of him?”
“The Cabinet Offices, he told me, though I believe it’s not official yet.”
Farebrother whistled, one of those crude expressions of feeling he would allow himself from time to time, which seemed hardly to accord with the dignity of the rest of his demeanour. I remembered him making a similar popping sound with his lips, at the same time snapping his fingers, when some beautiful woman’s name had come into the conversation staying at the Templers’.
“The Cabinet Offices, by God,” he said. “Has he been promoted?”
“I gather he goes there in his present rank, but thinks there’s a good chance of going up pretty soon.”
“I see.”
Farebrother showed a little relief at Widmerpool’s promotion being delayed, if only briefly. He had plainly been disturbed by what he had heard.
“The Cabinet Offices,” he repeated with emphasis. “Well, that’s very exalted. I only hope what I’ve come to tell him won’t make any difference. However, as I said before, better not refer to that until I’ve seen him.”
He shook his head. Widmerpool came back to the room at that moment. He was fidgeting with the collar of his battle-dress, always a sign he was put out. It looked as if the interview with A. & Q. had not gone too well. Seeing Farebrother sitting there was not welcome to him either.
“Oh, hallo, Sunny,” he said, without much warmth.
“I came along to bid you farewell, Kenneth, and now I hear from Nicholas you’re on the move like myself.”
Widmerpool showed a touch of surprise at Farebrother using my first name, then remembered we had formerly known each other.
“I forgot you’d both met,” he said. “Yes, I’m going. Did Nicholas tell you where?”
“Scarcely revealed anything,” said Farebrother.
Not for the first time, I noted his caution, and was grateful for it, though Widmerpool seemed to want his destination known.
“The Cabinet Offices.”
Widmerpool could not conceal his own satisfaction.
“I say, old boy.”
The comparative enthusiasm Farebrother managed to infuse into this comment was something of a masterpiece in the exercise of dissimulation.
“It will mean work, morning, noon and night,” said Widmerpool. “But there’ll undoubtedly be interesting contacts.”
“There will, old boy, I bet there will – and promotion.”
“Possibly.”
“Quite soon.”
“Oh, you never know in the bloody army,” said Widmerpool, thought of his new job inducing a better humour, marked as usual by the assumption of his hearty military manner, “but what’s happening to you, Sunny, if you say you’re going too?”
“One of these secret shows.”
“Baker Street?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Promotion too?”
Farebrother nodded modestly.
“That’s the only reason I’m taking it. Need the pay. Much rather do something straightforward, if I had the choice.”
Widmerpool could not have been pleased to hear that Farebrother was about to become a lieutenant-colonel, while he himself, however briefly, remained a major. Indeed, it probably irritated him that Farebrother should be promoted at all. At the same time, a display of self-control rare with him, he contrived to show no concern, his manner being even reasonably congratulatory. This was no doubt partly on account of the satisfactory nature of his own promised change of employment, but, as he revealed on a later occasion, also because of the low esteem in which he held the organisation which Farebrother was about to join.
“A lot of scallywags, in my opinion,” he said later.
Farebrother was certainly acute enough to survey their respective future situations from much the same point of view, that is to say appreciating the fact that, although he might himself be now ahead, Widmerpool’s potentialities for satisfying ambition must be agreed to enjoy