Books Do Furnish a Room (9 page)

An uncertain quantity was
whether or not she remembered anything of Widmerpool’s wife. There could be
little doubt that at one time or another Dicky Umfraville had made some reference
to Pamela’s gladiatorial sex life during the war. It would have been very
unlike him to have let that pass without comment. On the other hand, Frederica
not only disapproved of such goings-on, she took little or no interest in them,
was capable of shutting her eyes to misbehaviour altogether. Unaccompanied by
Umfraville, whose banter kept her always on guard against being ragged about
what Molly Jeavons used to call her own ‘correctness’, Frederica,
on such an exceptional family occasion, may have reverted to type;
closing her eyes by an act of will to the fact, even if she knew that, for example, her sister Norah had been
one of Pamela’s victims. In short, for one reason or another, she did not in the
least at that moment concern herself with the identity of
Widmerpool’s wife. While she was talking to him, Blanche
and Isobel made arrangements about getting old Skerrett
home. Alfred Tolland drew me aside.

‘Thought it would be all right – best – not to wear a silk hat.
See you haven’t either, nor the rest of the men. Quite right. Not in
keeping with the way we live nowadays. What Erridge would have preferred too, I expect. I always like
to do that. Behave as – well – the deceased would have done himself. Doubt if Erridge owned a silk hat latterly. Anthony Eden hats they call this sort I’m wearing now, don’t quite know why. Mustn’t lose count of time and miss my
train, because when I get back I’ve got to …’

Again one wondered what on earth he had ‘got to’ do when
he returned to London. It was not the season for reunion
dinners. Molly Jeavons no longer alive, he could not drop
in there to be teased about family matters. To picture him
at any other sort of engagement than these was difficult. It
was doubtful whether amicable relations with Jeavons included
visits to the house now Molly was gone. One returned
to the earlier surmise that he had risen from the dead,
had to report back to another graveyard by a stated time.

‘I haven’t seen Frederica’s
husband.’

He spoke tentatively, like many
of his own age-group, prepared always for the worst when it came to news about
the marriages of the next generation.

‘Dicky couldn’t come. He’s with
the Control Commission.’

There seemed no point in
emphasizing Umfraville’s flat refusal to turn up. The fact of his absence
seemed to bring relief to Alfred Tolland.

‘Remember I once told you
Umfraville was my fag at school? Not a word of truth in it. My fag was an older
man. Not older than Umfraville is now, of course, he was younger than me, and
naturally still is, if he’s alive, but older than Frederica’s husband would
have been at that age. Made a mistake. Found there were two Umfravilles. Been
on my conscience ever since telling you that. Hope it never got passed on. Didn’t
want to meet him, and seem to be claiming acquaintance …’

‘Probably a relation. It’s an
uncommon name.’

‘Never safe to assume people
are relations. That’s what I’ve found.’

‘Isobel’s beckoning us to a
car.’

The dilapidated Morris Eight to
which we steered him was driven by Blanche and already contained Norah.
Accommodation was cramped. As we drove away, Widmerpool was to be seen
marshalling his own party outside the porch. They were lost to sight moving in
Indian file between the tombstones, making for a large black car, the taxi in
which they had all arrived, far more antiquated than our own vehicle.

‘Of course, I knew – Mr – Mr
Whatever-his-name-is, knew his face when I saw him at the train,’ said Alfred
Tolland. ‘As soon as he spoke I remembered the excellent speech he made that
night – what’s the man’s name? – took over the house from Cordery – your man – Le
Bas – that’s the one. The night Le Bas had a stroke or something. Always
remember that speech. Full of excellent stuff. Good idea to get away from all
that – what is it,
Eheu fugaces
, something
of the sort, never any good at Latin. All that sentimental stuff, I mean, and
talk about business affairs for a change. Sound man. Great admirer of Erridge,
he told me – takes rather a different view of him to most – I don’t say
most
– anyway some of the family, who were always a bit what you might call lacking
in understanding of Erridge – not exactly disapproving but… Widmerpool, that’s
the fellow’s name. He’s an MP now. Labour, of course. Thinks very highly of Mr
Attlee. Sure he’s right… I was a bit worried about Mrs Widmerpool. So quiet.
Very shy, I expect. Rare these days for a young woman to be as quiet as that.
Thought she might be upset about something. Daresay funerals upset her. They do
some people. Beautiful young woman too. I couldn’t help looking at her. She
must have thought me quite rude. Hope somebody’s seeing to her properly after
she had to leave the service…’

This was the longest
dissertation I had ever heard Alfred Tolland attempt. That he should allow
himself such conversational licence showed how much the day had agitated him.
He might also be trying to keep his mind from the discomfort suffered where we
sat at the back of the small car. A long silence followed, as if he regretted
having given voice to so many private opinions.

‘True Thrubworth weather,’ said
Norah.

She had recovered from her
tears. Rain was pouring down again. Mist hid the woods on the high ground
behind the house, the timber preserved from felling by St John Clarke’s
fortuitous legacy to Erridge. The camp was visible enough. On either side of
the drive Nissen huts were enclosed by barbed wire. The dismal climate kept the
POWs indoors. A few drenched guards were the only form of life to be seen.
Blanche made a circuit round the back of the house, the car passed under an
arch, into the cobbled yard through which Erridge’s wing was approached. She
stopped in front of a low door studded with large brass nails.

‘I’ll put the car away. Go on
up to the flat.’

The door turned out to be
firmly shut.

‘Probably no one at home,’ said
Norah. ‘They’ve all been to the funeral. I hope Blanchie’s got the key. It
would be just like her to leave the house without bringing the key with her.’

She knocked loudly. We waited
in the rain. After a minute the door was opened. I expected an elderly retainer
of some sort, if the knocking were answered at all. Instead of that, a squat,
broad-shouldered young man, with fair curly hair and a ruddy face, stood on the
threshold. He wore a grey woollen sweater and chocolate-coloured trousers
patched in many places. I thought he must be some new protégé of Erridge’s
about whom one had not been warned. He seemed wholly prepared for us.

‘Come in, please, come in.’

Blanche appeared at that
moment.

‘They’ll all be along soon, Siegfried.
Will you put the kettle on? I’ll come and help in a second. I thought we left
the door on the latch.’

‘Miss must have closed it.’

‘Mrs Skerrett did? Well, leave
it unlatched now, so the others can get in without bringing you down to open
it.’

‘Make her tea.’

‘You’ve made tea already,
Siegfried?’

‘Of course.’

Grinning delightedly about
something, apparently his own ingenuity, he bustled off.

‘Who the hell?’ asked Norah.

‘Siegfried? He’s one of the
German prisoners working on the land. He loves doing jobs about the house so
much, there seemed no point in trying to prevent him. It’s a great help, as
there’s too much for Mrs Skerrett singlehanded, especially on a day like this.’

We passed along the passages
leading to Erridge’s flat, the several rooms of which were situated up a flight
of stairs some little way from the door opening on the courtyard. In the dozen
years or so since I had last been at Thrubworth more lumber than ever had
collected in these back parts of the house, much of it no doubt brought there
after requisitioning. There was an overwhelming accumulation: furniture: pictures: rolled-up carpets: packing cases. Erridge’s father, an indefatigable wanderer over the face of the earth, had been responsible for much of this hoard, buying
everything that took his fancy. There were ‘heads’ of big game: a
suit of Japanese armour: two huge vases standing on
plinths: an idol that looked Mexican or South American. Alfred Tolland identified some of these odds and
ends as we made our way through them.

‘That oil painting on its side’s the First Jubilee. Very old-fashioned in
style. Nobody paints like that now. Those big pots are supposed to be
eighteenth-century Chinese. Walter Huntercombe came to shoot here once, and insisted they were nothing of the
sort. Nineteenth-century copies, he said, and my brother had been swindled. Of
course Warminster didn’t like that at all. Told Walter Huntercombe he was a conceited young ass. Goodness
knows where the tricycle came from.’

Erridge’s flat, at the top of a
flight of narrow stairs at the end of the corridor, in most respects a severely
unadorned apartment, with the air of a temple consecrated to the beliefs of a
fanatically austere sect, included a few pieces of furniture that suggested
quite another sort of life. His disregard for luxury, anything like fastidious
selection of objects, allowed shabby chairs and tables that had seen better
days in other parts of the house. In the sitting-room someone – probably
Frederica – had removed from the wall the pedigree-like chart, on which what
appeared to be descending branches of an ancient lineage, had turned out an
illustration of the principles of world economic distortion; now, in any case,
hopelessly outdated in consequence of the war.

The books on the shelves, most
of them published twelve or fifteen years before, gave the impression of having
been bought during the same period of eighteen months or
two years:
Russia’s
Productive System … The Indian Crisis… Anthology
of Soviet Literature… Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx … From Peasant to
Collective Farmer
. There was also a complete set
of Dickens in calf, a few standard poets, and – Erridge’s vice, furtive, if not
absolutely secret – the bound volumes of
Chums
and the
Boy’s
Own Paper
, the pages of which he would turn unsmiling for
hours at times of worry or irritation. Erridge’s Russian enthusiasms had died
down by the late thirties, but he always retained a muted affection for the
Soviet system, even when disapproving. This fascination for an old love was
quite different from Bagshaw’s. Bagshaw delighted in examining every
inconsistency in the Party Line: who was liquidated: who in the ascendant:
which heresies persecuted: which new orthodoxies imposed. Such mutations were
painful to Erridge. He preferred not to be brought face to face with them. He
was like a man who hoped to avoid the distress of hearing of the depravities
into which an adored mistress has fallen.

In this room Erridge had
written his letters, eaten his meals, transacted political business with Craggs
and Quiggin, read, lounged, moped, probably seduced Mona, or
vice versa
, the same, or alternate, process possibly applying
also to Gypsy Jones – or rather Lady Craggs. He used rarely to digress into
other parts of the house. The ‘state apartments’ were kept covered in dust
sheets. Once in a way he might have need to consult a book in the library, to
which few volumes had been added since the days of the Chemist-Earl, who had
brought together what was then regarded as an unexampled collection of works on
his own subject. Once in a way a guest – latterly these had become increasingly
rare – likely to be a new political contact of one kind or another, for
example, an unusually persistent refugee, might be shown round. Erridge had
never entirely conquered a taste for exhibiting his own belongings, even though
rather ashamed of the practice, and of the belongings themselves.

The once wide assortment of
journals on a large table set aside for this purpose had been severely reduced
– probably by Frederica again – to a couple of daily newspapers, neither of a
flavour her brother would have approved. Beyond this table stood a smaller one
at which Erridge and his guests, if any, used to eat. The most comfortable
piece of furniture in the room was a big sofa facing the fireplace, its back to
the door. The room appeared to be empty when entered, the position of this sofa
concealing at first the fact that someone was reclining at full length upon it.
Walking across the room to gain a view of the park from the window, I saw the
recumbent figure was Pamela’s. Propped against cushions, a cup of tea beside
her on the floor, by the teacup an open book, its pages downward on the carpet,
she was looking straight ahead of her, apparently once more lost in thought. I
asked if she were feeling better. She turned her large pale eyes on me.

‘Why should I be feeling
better?’

‘I don’t know. I just enquired
as a formality. Don’t feel bound to answer.’

For once she laughed.

‘I mean obviously you weren’t
well in church.’

‘Worse than the bloody corpse.’

‘Flu?’

‘God knows.’

‘A virus?’

‘It doesn’t much matter does
it?’

‘Diagnosis might suggest a
cure.’

‘Are Kenneth and those other
sods on their way here?’

‘So I understand.’

‘The kraut got me some tea.’

‘That showed enterprise.’

‘He’s got enterprise all right.
Why’s he at large?’

‘He’s working on the land
apparently.’

‘His activities don’t seem
particularly agricultural.’

‘He winkled himself into the
house somehow.’

‘He knows his way about all
right. He was bloody fresh. Who’s that awful woman we travelled down with
called Lady Craggs?’

The sudden appearance beside us
of Alfred Tolland spared complicated exposition of Gypsy’s origins. In any case
the question had expressed an opinion rather than request for information.
Alfred Tolland gazed down at Pamela. He seemed to be absolutely fascinated by
her beauty.