Books Do Furnish a Room (8 page)

‘I’ll just have a word with
Skerrett,’ said Isobel. ‘He’s looking better now. Meet you at the gate.’

Before I reached the lychgate,
a tall, rather distinguished-looking woman separated herself from other shapes
lurking among the tombstones, and came towards me. She must have sat at the
back of the church, because I had not seen her
until that moment. She was fortyish, a formal magazine-cover prettiness organized to make her seem not only younger than that, but at the same
time a girl not exactly of the present, rather of some years back. Her voice
too struck a
note at that moment equally out of fashion.

‘I thought I
must
say hullo, Nick, though it’s
years
since we met – you remember me, Mona, I used to be married to Peter Templer – what ages. Yes, poor Peter, wasn’t it sad? So brave of him at his age too.
Jeff says you’re
never
the
same in war after you’re thirty. We’re weaving about fairly close here, and I’ve
got to
scamper
home this minute, because Jeff’s quite
insane
about
punctuality. We’re living in a
horrible
house over by Gibbet Down, so I thought I
ought
to
make a pilgrimage for Alf. It’s poor Alf now too, as well as poor Peter, isn’t
it? Alf didn’t have much of a time, did he, though he
was
kindhearted in his way, even if he
abominated
spending a farthing on drink – one’s throat got absolutely
arid
travelling with him. I shall never forget Hong Kong. JG used to get so
angry
in the old days if I complained about the
drought
when we dined at Thrubworth with Alf, which wasn’t all that often. Lack of
drink was even worse when I was alone with him, I can assure you. Fancy JG
turning up today too.
So
unexpected when he does the right thing for once. I hear he lived for a time
with someone called
Lady Anne Stepney
, and
then she went off with one of the Free French. That did make me laugh – and
Gypsy here too. Do you think she
did
have
a walk out with Alf? He used to talk about seeing her at those
awful
political conferences he loved going to. I sometimes wondered. Well, we’ll never know now. I just
waved
to JG and Gypsy. I thought that would be
quite enough
.’

Isobel reappeared.

‘Your
wife
? How sad it must be to lose a
brother, I never had one, but I’m sure it is. And not at all old either, except
we’re all
centuries
old now, I feel a
million
,
but, of course – well, I don’t know – anyway, I just thought it was my
duty
to come, even in
daunting
weather. I’ll have to proceed back now with all possible speed, or Jeff will be
having
kittens
. Jeff’s an Air Vice-Marshal now. Isn’t that grand?
Burdened
with gongs. He was rather worried about my using the car for a funeral, but I
said I was going to a POW camp, and if an Air Vice-Marshal’s lady can’t inspect
a POW camp, what in hell can she do? Well, it’s been nice seeing you, Nick,
and
your
wife, not to mention having a word about those poor dears who are no more. That
erk will have to drive like
stink
if I’m
not to be late. We’ve got some personnel coming to
tea
of
all things – drink quite impossible to get for love or money these days, anyway
to dish out to all and sundry, as well you must know, so I’ll just say bye-bye
for now ...’

While talking, she had fallen
more than once into what Mr Deacon used to call a ‘vigorous pose’. Now, as she
walked away, the controlled movement of her long swift strides recalled the
artists’ model she once had been. In the road stood a large car, a uniformed
aircraftman at the wheel. She turned and waved, then disappeared within.

‘Who on earth?’

‘That’s Mona.’

‘ Not the girl Erry took to
China?’

‘Of course.’

‘Why didn’t you indicate that?
I could have had a closer look. What a pity the poor old boy didn’t hang on.
She might have kept him going.’

As the RAF car drove away, the
outlines of Alfred Tolland, picking his way between the graves, came into view.
He had been waiting for Mona to move on before he approached. It now struck me
that he must have met Widmerpool at the Old Boy dinners of Le Bas’s house,
because Alfred Tolland retained sentiments about his schooldays that
age had in no way diminished. Except for Le Bas himself, he had always – in the
days long past when I myself attended them – been the eldest present by at
least twenty years.

‘Uncle
Alfred’s a sad case in that respect,’ Hugo had remarked. ‘Personally I
applaud that great enemy of the Old School Tie, the Emperor Septimius Severus, who had a man scourged merely for drawing attention to the fact that they had been at school
together.’

However, Le Bas dinners could
explain why Widmerpool and Alfred Tolland had travelled down together after
seeing each other at the station. Widmerpool was, in fact, now revealed as
standing close behind, as if he expected Alfred Tolland to make some statement
that concerned himself or his party, the rest of whom were no longer to be
seen. They could be concealed by mist, or have left in a body after the
committal. To make sure his own presence as a mourner was not overlooked by
Erridge’s family would be characteristic of Widmerpool, even though the reason
for his attendance remained at present unproclaimed. He was looking even more
worried than in the church. If he had merely desired to register attendance and
go away, he would certainly have pushed in front of Alfred Tolland, whose
hesitant, deferential comportment always caused delays, particularly at a time
like this. Neat, sad, geared perfectly in outward appearance to the sombre
nature of the occasion, Tolland stood, head slightly bent, gazing at the damp
grass beneath his feet. He had once admitted to having travelled as far as
Singapore. One wondered how he had ever managed to get there and back again.
Unlikely he had taken with him a girl like Mona, though one could never tell.
Barnby always used to insist it was misplaced to speak categorically about
other people’s sexual experiences, whoever they were.

‘Uncle Alfred?’

‘My dear Isobel, this is very …’

He was all but incapable of
finishing a sentence, a form of
diffidence implying unworthiness to force a personal opinion on others. Even
when Alfred Tolland spoke his own views, they were hedged round with every sort
of qualification. Erridge’s passing, the company in which he found himself on
the way down, stirred within him concepts far too unmanageable to be
accommodated in a single phrase. Isobel helped him out.

‘A very sad occasion, Uncle
Alfred. Poor Erry. It was so unexpected.’

‘Yes – quite unexpected. These
things are unexpected sometimes. Absolutely unexpected, in fact. Of course
Erridge always did …’

What did Erridge always do? The
question was capable of many answers. The wrong thing? Know he was a sick man?
Fear the winter? Hope the end would be sudden? Want Alfred Tolland to reveal
some special secret after his own demise? Perhaps just ‘do the unexpected’. On
the whole that termination was the most probable. Alfred Tolland, this time
unassisted by Isobel, may have feared that any too direct statement about what
Erridge ‘did’ might sound callous, if spoken straight out. Instead of
completing, he altogether abandoned the comment, this time bringing out in its
entirety another concept, quite different in range.

‘I’m feeling rather ashamed.’

‘Ashamed, Uncle Alfred?’

‘Never got down here for George’s
… In bed, as a matter of fact.’

‘Nothing bad, I hope, Uncle
Alfred.’

‘Had a bit of – chest. Felt
ashamed, all the same. Not absolutely right now, but can get about. Can’t be
helped. Didn’t want to stay away when it came to the head of the family.’

He spoke as if he would have
risen from the dead to reach the funeral of the head of the family. Perhaps he had.
The idea was not to be too lightly dismissed. There something not wholly of
this world about him. Time, for example, seemed to mean nothing. One hoped he would come
soon to the point of what he had to say. Although the worst of the rain
had stopped, a pervasive damp struck up from the ground and into the bones. Obviously something was on his
mind. In the background Widmerpool shifted about, stamping his feet and kicking them together.

‘We’ll give you a lift back to
the house, Uncle Alfred, if you want
one. That’s if any of the cars will start. Some of them are rather ancient. It
may be rather a squeeze.’

‘Quite forgot, quite forgot …
These good people I travelled down with … shared a taxi from the station … Mr –
met him at those dinners Nicholas and I … and his wife … very good looking …
another couple too, Sir Somebody and Lady Something … also another old friend
of Erridge’s … nice people … something they wanted to ask…’

Alfred Tolland turned towards
Widmerpool, in search of help, to give words to a matter not at all easy to
summarize in a few broken phrases. At least he himself found that hard, which
was usual enough, even if the situation were not as ticklish as this one
appeared. Widmerpool, not happy himself, was prepared at the same time to
accept his cue. He began to speak in his least aggressive manner.

‘Two things, Nicholas – though
I don’t expect you’re really the person to ask, sure as I am, as an old friend,
you’ll be prepared to act for us as – well, as what? – intermediary, shall we
say? You know already, I think, the other members of the party I came down with.
J. G. Quiggin, of course – must know him as a literary bloke yourself – and as
for Sir Howard and Lady Craggs, of course you remember them.’

One to admit that ‘Sir Howard
and Lady Craggs’ conjured up a rather different picture from Mr Deacon’s
birthday party, Gypsy lolling on Craggs’s knee, struggling to divert a too
exploratory hand back to a wide area of pink thigh. If it came to that, one had
one’s own reminiscences of Lady Craggs in an easy-going mood.

‘We all wanted, of course, to
pay last respects to your late brother-in-law, Lord Warminster – much to my
regret I never managed to meet him – but there was also something else. This
seemed a golden opportunity to have a preliminary word, if possible, with the
appropriate member, or members, of the family, now collected together, as to
the best means of approaching certain matters arisen in consequence of Lord
Warminster’s death.’

Widmerpool paused. He was
relieved to have made a start on whatever he wanted to say, for clearly this
was by no means the end.

‘The late Lord Warminster left
certain instructions in connexion with the publishing house Sir Howard Craggs –
well, we can talk about all that later. As I say, this seemed a good moment to
have a tentative word with the – in short with the executors, as I understand,
Mr Hugo Tolland and Lady Frederica Umfraville.’

Whatever complications now
threatened were beyond conjecture. Within the family it had been generally
agreed that for Erridge to leave the world without arranging some testing
problem to be settled by his heirs and successors, was altogether unthinkable.
The form such a problem, or problems, might
take was naturally not to be anticipated. That Widmerpool should be involved in
any such matters was unlooked for. His relief at having made the statement about
Erridge’s dispositions, whatever they were, turned out
to be due to anxiety to proceed to a far more troublesome
enquiry from his own point of view.

‘Another matter, Nicholas. My
wife – you know her, of course, I’d forgotten – Pamela, as I say, was overcome
with faintness during the service. In fact had to leave the church. I
hope no one noticed. She did so as quietly as possible. These attacks come on her at times. Largely nerves, in my opinion.
It was arranged between us she should await me in the porch. She no doubt found the stone seat there too cold in
her distressed state. I thought she might have taken refuge
in our taxi, but the driver said, on the contrary, he saw
her walking up the drive in the direction of the house.’

Widmerpool stopped speaking. His efforts to present in terms satisfactory to himself two quite separate problems, so
that they merged into coherent shape, seemed to have broken
down. The first question was what Craggs and Quiggin wanted from the executors, no
doubt something to do with the matters of which Bagshaw had spoken; the second,
which Widmerpool, judging by past experience, regarded
as more important, the disappearance of his wife.

Frederica and Blanche, saying
goodbye to the Alford relations to whom they had been talking, came over to
have a word with their uncle. Alfred Tolland, still considerably discomposed by
all that was happening round him, managed to effect a mumbled introduction of
Widmerpool, who seized his opportunity, settling on Frederica. He began at once
to put forward the advantages of having a preliminary talk, ‘quite informal’,
about straightening out Erridge’s affairs. Frederica had hardly time to agree
this would be a good idea, before he returned to the question of Pamela,
certainly worrying him a lot. Frederica, a very competent person when it came
to making arrangements, took these problems in her stride. Like Erridge, she
was not greatly interested in individuals as such, so that Widmerpool’s desire
to talk business, coupled with anxiety about his wife, were elements to be
accepted at their face value. Neither aroused Frederica’s curiosity.

‘Where are these friends of
yours now, Mr Widmerpool?’

‘In the church porch. They
wanted to get out of the rain. They’re waiting – in fact waiting for me to
obtain your permission, Lady Frederica, to come up to the house as I suggest. I
really think the house is probably where my wife is too.’

This then was the crux of the
matter. They all wanted to come up to the house. While that was arranged,
Widmerpool had judged it best to confine them to the porch. Possibly there had
been signs of mutiny. Judged as a group, they must have been just what
Frederica would expect as representative friends of her brother, even though
she could not guess, had no wish to examine, subtleties of their party’s
composition. In her eyes Widmerpool’s conventional clothes, authoritative
manner, made him a natural enough delegate of an otherwise fairly unpresentable
cluster of Erridge hangers-on, a perfectly acceptable representative. Frederica
and Erridge had been next to each other in age. Although living their lives in
such different spheres, they were by no means without mutual understanding. The
whim to leave complicated instructions after death was one with which Frederica
could sympathize. Sorting out her brother’s benefactions gratified her taste
for tidying up.