Books Do Furnish a Room (3 page)

‘Comely,’ said Sillery. ‘That’s
what I’ve been told – comely.’

He was more convulsed than
ever.

‘Certainly, certainly,’ allowed
Short. ‘She is generally agreed to be good looking. I should myself describe
her as a little —’

Short’s power to define
feminine beauty abandoned him at this point. He simply made a gesture with his
hand. Unmarried himself, he spoke as if prepared to concede that good looks in
a wife, anyway the wife of a public man, might reasonably be regarded as a
cause for worry.

‘I expect she’ll make a good
canvasser, an admirable canvasser.’

Sillery rocked.

‘Sillers, what are you getting
at?’

Short spoke quite irritably. I
laughed.

‘I see Nick knows what I mean,’
said Sillery.

‘What does Nick know?’

‘I met her during the war, when
she was called Pamela Flitton. She was an ATS driver.’

‘What’s your story, Sillers? I
see you must have a story.’

Short spoke in a tone intended
to put a stop to frivolous treatment of what had been until then a serious
subject, Widmerpool’s career. Being in the last resort rather afraid of
Sillery, he was clearly not too sure of his ground. No doubt even Short had
heard rumours, however muffled, of Pamela’s goings-on. Sillery decided to play
with him a little longer.

‘My information about Mrs
Widmerpool brought in a few picturesque details, Leonard. Just a few
picturesque details – I say no more than that. I call her young Mrs Widmerpool
because I understand she is appreciably junior to her spouse.’

‘Yes, she’s younger.’

‘The name of a certain MP on
the Opposition benches has been mentioned as a frequent escort of hers.’

‘By whom?’

‘I happen to have a friend who
knows Mrs W quite well.’

Sillery sniggered. Short pursed
his lips.

‘A man?’

The question seemed just worth
asking.

‘No, Nick, not a man. A young
lady. You didn’t think an old fogey like me knew any young ladies, did you? You
were quite wrong. This little friend of mine happens also to be a friend of Mrs
Widmerpool – so you see I am in a strong position to hear about her doings.’

Sillery’s own sexual tastes
had, of course, been endlessly debated by generations of undergraduates and
dons. It was generally agreed that their physical expression was never further
implemented than by a fair amount of arm-pinching and hair-rumpling of the
young men with whom he was brought in contact; not necessarily even the better-looking
ones, if others had more substantial assets to offer in the power world. More
ardent indiscretions charged against him had either no basis, or were long
forgotten in the mists of the past. Certainly he was held never to have taken
the smallest physical interest in a woman, although at the same time in no way
setting his face against all truck with the opposite sex. Sillery’s attitude
might in this respect be compared with the late St John Clarke’s, both equally
appreciative of invitations from ladies of more or less renowned social status
and usually mature age; ‘hostesses’, in short, now an extinct species, though
destined to rise again like Venus from a sea of logistic impediment.
Accordingly, Sillery was right to suppose his boast would cause surprise. The
scandal-mongering female friend would probably turn out to be a young married
woman, I thought, the wife of a don. Before Sillery had time further to develop
his theme, from which he showed signs of deriving a lot of pleasure in the form
of teasing Short, a knock sounded on the door.

‘Come in, come in,’ cried
Sillery indulgently. ‘Who is this to be? What a night for visitors. Quite like
old times.’

He must have expected another
version of Short or myself to enter the room. If so, he made a big mistake.
Afar more dramatic note was struck; dramatic, that is, for those used to the
traditional company to be met in Sillery’s rooms, also in the light of his
words immediately before. A young woman, decidedly pretty, peeped in. Leaning
on the door knob, she smiled apologetically, registering a diffidence not
absolutely convincing.

‘I’m sorry, Sillers. I see you’re
engaged. I’ll come round in the morning. I’d quite thought you’d be alone.’

This was certainly striking
confirmation of Sillery’s boast that he had contacts with young women. However,
its corroboration in this manner did not seem altogether to please him. For
once, a rare thing, he appeared uncertain how best to deal with this visitor:
dismiss her, retain her. He grinned, but with a sagging mouth. The intrusion
posed a dilemma. Short looked embarrassed too, indeed went quite pink. Then
Sillery recovered himself. ‘Come in, Ada, come in. You’ve arrived at just the
right moment. We all need the company of youth.’

Irresolution, in any case
observable only to those accustomed to the absolute certainty of decision
belonging to Sillery’s past, had only been momentary. Now he was himself again,
establishing by these words that, for all practical purposes, there was no
difference between his own age and that of Short and myself, anyway so far as ‘Ada’
was concerned. He settled down right away to get the last ounce out of this new
puppet, if puppet she were. The girl was in her twenties, fair, with a high
colour, a shade on the plump side, though only enough to suggest changes in the
female figure then pending.

‘I didn’t want to disturb you,
Sillers. I didn’t really, but I’m almost sure you gave me the wrong notebook
yesterday. There were two years missing at least.’

Her manner, self-possessed, was
also forthcoming. She smiled round at all of us, not at all displeased at
finding unexpected company in Sillery’s rooms. It looked as if some twist of
post-war academic administration had committed Sillery to aspects of tutoring
that included the women’s colleges. In the old days that would have been much
against all his known principles, but changed conditions, possibly in the line
of post-graduate courses, might have brought about some such revolutionary
situation in the University as now constituted.

‘Two years missing?’ said
Sillery. ‘That will never do, Ada, that will never do, but I must introduce you
to two old friends of mine. Mr Short, one of our most cultivated and humane of
bureaucrats, and Mr Jenkins who is – you just explained to me, Nick, but I can’t
recall for the minute – no, no, don’t tell me, I’ll remember in a second – come
here to do some research of a very scholarly kind, something he is planning to
write – Burton, yes, Burton, melancholy and all that. This is Miss
Leintwardine, my – well – my secretary. That’s what you are, Ada, ain’t you?
Sounds rather fast. All sorts of jokes about us, I’m sure. Sit ’ee down, Ada,
sit ’ee down. I’ll look into your complaints forthwith.’

Miss Leintwardine took a chair.
Clearly well used to Sillery’s ways and diction, she accepted this presentation
of herself as all part of the game. In the role of secretary she was a little
more explicable, though why on earth Sillery should require a secretary was by
no means apparent. Perhaps a secretary went with being made a peer. Whatever it
was, he now retired to a corner of the room, where, lowering himself on to the
floor, he squatted on the worn carpet, while he began to rummage about amongst
a lot of stuff stored away in the bottom of a cupboard. All the time he kept up
a stream of comment.

‘What a way to preserve sacred
memories. Isn’t that just like me? Might be a lot of old boots for all the
trouble I’ve taken. Nineteen-eight… nineteen-four … here we are, I think, here
we are.’

Miss Leintwardine, who had sat
down as requested, showed willingness to make herself agreeable by a laudatory
reference to a novel I had written before the war. She was about to expand her
views on this subject, but, whatever other modifications had taken place in
Sillery’s approach, tolerance of his guests’ books being discussed in front of
him was not among them. Sillery’s enemies were inclined to imply that aversion
to other people writing was the fruit of pure envy, but it was much more
probable that talk about ‘writing’ simply bored him, unless arousing a sense of
conflict. He began a loud confused monologue to put a stop to all other
conversation, then suddenly found what he sought, closed the cupboard and rose
without effort, holding two or three tattered exercise books. He cast these on
the table.

‘Here they are. I don’t know
what I can have been thinking about, Ada. Was it the nineteen-twelve volume I
gave you? Let me have a look. Ah, no, I think I understand now. This is
supplementary. Ada’s helping me get my old diaries in order. Not only typing
them, but giving me her valuable – I should say invaluable – advice. I’m
pleading as a suppliant before the inexorable tribunal of Youth. That’s what it
comes to. Don’t know what I’d do without her. I’d be lost, wouldn’t I, Ada?’

‘You certainly would, Sillers.’

‘Diaries?’ said Short. ‘I didn’t
know you kept a diary, Sillers?’

Sillery, laughing heartily,
lowered himself again into a vast collapsed armchair in which he lay crouched.

‘Nobody did, nobody did. Strict
secret. Of course it’s possible nothing will appear until old Sillers is dead
and gone. That’s no reason why the diaries shouldn’t be put in proper order.
Then perhaps a few selections might be published. Who can tell until Ada has
done her work – and who should help make the decision better than Ada?’

‘But, Sillers, they’ll be
absolutely …’

Short was again without words.
Only an ingrained professional habit of avoiding superlatives, so he implied,
prevented him from giving more noisy expression to welcome a Journal kept by
Sillery.

‘You’ve met
everybody
,
Sillers. They’ll be read as the most notable chronicle of our time.’

Sillery made no attempt to deny
that judgment. He screwed up his eyes, laughed a great deal, blew out his
moustache. Miss Leintwardine took up the exercise books from the table. She
glanced through them with cold professional competence.

‘That’s better, Sillers. These
are the ones. I’d better bear them away with me.’

She rose from the chair, smiling,
friendly, about to leave. Sillery held up his right hand, as if to swear a
solemn oath.

‘Stay, Ada. Stay and talk with
us a while. You must meet people younger than myself sometimes, eligible
bachelors like Mr Short. By the way, these gentlemen are contemporaries of
another friend of ours, Mark Members, whom you talked of when he was up the
other day lecturing on whatever it was. He’s left the Ministry of Information
now.’

‘
Kleist, Marx,
Sartre, the Existentialist Equilibrium
.’

‘Of course,’ said Sillery. ‘One
of Vernon Gainsborough’s
jeux d’esprit
. I
can’t remember, Leonard, whether you’ve met our latest Fellow. He’s a German – or
rather was – a “good” German, of course, called Werner Guggenbühl, but
Gainsborough’s better, we all agree. Of patrician background, but turned early
to the Left.’

‘You’re interested in German
literature, Miss Leintwardine?’ asked Short.

He must have hoped to gloss
over Sillery’s rather malicious reference to ‘eligible bachelors’, but notably
failed in this attempt to guide conversation into intellectual channels.

‘We were talking of old friends
like Mark,’ said Sillery. ‘J. G. Quiggin, Bill Truscott, all names with which
you are familiar from my reminiscing, Ada. Conversation led from them to that
interesting couple the Widmerpools, about whom you were speaking when we last
met. How goes that union? Well, I hope.’

These last sentences put an end
to doubt, explaining Sillery’s momentary uncertainty at Ada Leintwardine’s
arrival. He was well satisfied at the surprise she caused, the confirmation by
her presence that he numbered ‘young ladies’ amongst his acquaintance, but at
the same time he had been faced with the decision whether or not to reveal her
as his source of Widmerpool information. It was in the Sillery tradition to brag
of a great spy network, while keeping secret the names of individual agents. At
the same time, with an audience like Short and myself, fullest advantage might
be derived from Miss Leintwardine by admitting her as fount of that
information, now she was on the spot. That at any rate was what happened.
Sillery had decided the veil of mystery was not worth sustaining, especially as
Miss Leintwardine herself might at any moment give the show away. However, it
turned out she was well aware that contacts with the Widmerpool ménage were too
profitable to be squandered in casual enquiry. She was giving nothing away that
evening. This attitude was probably due also to other matters connected with
her relationship with Sillery which only came to light some minutes later.

‘They’re both all right so far
as I know, Sillers.’

‘Leonard here lives in the same
block of flats.’

‘Oh, do you?’

She spoke politely, no more.

‘You were saying Mrs W finds
the place rather poky,’ persisted Sillery.

Miss Leintwardine did not
choose to answer that one. Instead, she addressed herself to me.

‘I think you know Pam and
Kenneth, Mr Jenkins. They spoke of you. Like so many people, Pam’s been having
rather a painful reaction now the war’s over. Tired, I mean, and listless.
Always ill. We’ve been friends since we were in the ATS together.’

‘She was a driver in the ATS
when I first met her.’

‘Then we both went into secret
shows, different ones, and always kept
in touch – but for God’s sake don’t let’s talk about the
war. Such a boring subject.’

Sillery shouted assent to that,
showing distinct signs of displeasure at this interchange. What was the good of presenting Ada
Leintwardine as a woman of mystery, if she shared a crowd of acquaintances in
common with another guest? Besides, long experience of extracting information
out of people must have warned him she was not prepared to furnish anything of
great interest that evening, unless matters took an unexpected turn. Grasp of
the fact was to Sillery’s credit, in some degree justifying the respect paid
him in such traffickings by Short and others. He rose
once more from his chair, again throwing himself to the floor with surprising
suppleness of movement, to scrabble further at the stuff in the cupboard.