‘On the contrary.’
‘I insist.’
‘No, no, absurd.’
‘Mr. Gilbert!’
‘Really.’
‘I shall be very cross.’
‘Not possibly.’
During the several seconds that elapsed before we finally drew up, delayed for a time by private cars and other taxis waiting in a queue in front of our own, the contest continued between them; so that by the moment when the taxi had at last stopped dead in front of the Huntercombes’ house, and Archie Gilbert, flinging open the door, had reached the pavement, I was still doubtful whether or not he had capitulated. Certainly he had ejected himself with great rapidity, and unhesitatingly paid the taxi-driver, brushing aside a proffered contribution.
There seemed no reason to suppose, as Barbara had suggested, that we might have come too early. On the contrary, we went up the carpeted steps into a hall full of people, where Sir Gavin, whose taxi had arrived before our own, was already waiting impatiently for the rest of his party. His reason for personal attendance at a dance which he would not have normally frequented was presumably because the Huntercombes lived near the Walpole-Wilsons in the country. In fact there could be no doubt that a good many country neighbours had been asked, for, even on the way up the stairs, densely packed with girls and young men, some of them already rather hot and flushed, there was that faint though perceptible flavour of the hunt ball to be observed about some of the guests. While putting away our hats, curiosity had overcome me, and I asked Archie Gilbert whether he had, in fact, refused or accepted Lady Walpole-Wilson’s money. At the coarseness of the question his smile had been once again somewhat reproving.
‘Oh, I took it,’ he said. ‘Why not? It wasn’t enough. It never is.’
These words made me wonder if, after all, some faint trace of dissatisfaction was concealed deep down under that armour of black-and-white steel that encased him; and, for a moment, the terrible suspicion even suggested itself that, night after night, he danced his life away through the ball-rooms of London in the unshakable conviction that the whole thing was a sham. Was he merely stoical like the Spartan boy—clad this time in a white tie—with the fox of bitterness gnawing, through stiff shirt, at his vitals. It was a thought in its horror to be dismissed without further examination. Such cynicism could hardly be possible. His remark, however, had for some reason recalled the occasion when I had been leaving the Templers’ house and Mr. Farebrother had added his shilling to the chauffeur’s tip.
‘Have you ever come across someone called Sunny Farebrother?’ I asked.
‘Of course I’ve met him. Quite interested in the metal market, isn’t he? He is rather well known in the City for his charm.’
I saw that I had been right in supposing that the pair of them had something in common. Archie Gilbert had, indeed, sounded surprised that I should ever have been in doubt about his knowing Farebrother. Meanwhile, we had proceeded almost to the top of the stairs and were about to reach the first-floor landing, where a big man-servant with a huge bottle nose was bawling out the names of the guests in a contemptuous, raucous voice that well suggested his own keen enjoyment of the duty.
‘. . . Sir Gavin and Lady Walpole-Wilson . . . Miss Walpole-Wilson . . . Captain Hackforth . . . Mr. Cavendish . . . Lady Anne Stepney . . . Miss Budd . . . Miss Manners . . . Mr. Pardon . . . Mr. Tompsey . . . Lady Augusta Cutts . . . Miss Cutts . . . Lord Erridge . . . Miss Mercy Cutts . . . Lord and Lady Edward Wentworth . . . Mr. Winterpool . . .’
It was a fearful struggle to get through the door into the ballroom. Even the bottle-nosed man, familiar with such tumult as he must have been, had to pause and smile broadly to himself once or twice; but whether amused at the confusion of the crowd, or at the hash he was himself making of their individual names, it was impossible to guess. The whining of the band seemed only to encourage the appalling tussle taking place on stairs and landing.
‘I took one look at you—
That’s all I meant to do—
And then my heart—stood still . . .’
Hanging at the far end of the ballroom was a Van Dyck—the only picture of any interest the Huntercombes kept in London—representing Prince Rupert conversing with a herald, the latter being, I believe, the personage from whom the surviving branch of the family was directly descended. The translucent crystals of the chandeliers oscillated faintly as the dancers below thumped by. A knot of girls were standing not far from the door, among them Eleanor, who, in a purposeful manner, was pulling on a pair of long white gloves. These gloves, always affected by her, were evidently a kind of symbol assumed in connexion with her own attitude towards dances; at once intended to keep her partners physically farther from her, at the same time creaking ominously, as if voicing the audible disapproval of their wearer, whenever she moved her arms. We took the floor together. Eleanor danced well, though implacably. I asked how long she had known Widmerpool, mentioning that we had been at school together.
‘Uncle George used to get his liquid manure from Mr. Widmerpool’s father when he was alive,’ said Eleanor curtly. ‘We tried some at home, but it was a failure. Different soil, I suppose.’
Widmerpool’s old acquaintance with Barbara’s family, and his own presence that night at the Walpole-Wilsons’, were now both satisfactorily explained. There could be no doubt that the fertiliser mentioned by Eleanor was the basic cause of the secrecy with which he had always been inclined to veil his father’s business activities; for, although there was, of course, nothing in the faintest degree derogatory about agricultural science—Lord Goring himself was, after all, evidence of that fact—I had been associated with Widmerpool long enough to know that he could not bear to be connected personally with anyone, or anything, that might be made, however remotely, the subject of ridicule which could recoil even in a small degree upon himself. He was, for example, as I discovered much later, almost physically incapable of making himself agreeable to a woman whom he regarded as neither good-looking nor, for some other reason, worth cultivating: a trait vested, perhaps, in a kind of natural timidity, and a nature that required a sense of support from the desirable qualities of company in which he found himself. This characteristic of his, I can now see, was an effort to obtain a kind of vicarious acquisition of power from others. Accordingly, any sense of failure or inadequacy in his surroundings made him uncomfortable. The mere phrase ‘artificial manure’ told the whole story.
However, when it became clear that Eleanor did not much like him, I found myself, I hardly knew why, assuring her that Widmerpool, at school and in France, had always been quite an amiable eccentric; though I could not explain, then or now, why I felt his defence a duty; still less why I should have arbitrarily attributed to him what was, after all, an almost wholly imaginary personality, in fact one in many respects far from accurate. At that time I still had very little idea of Widmerpool’s true character: neither its qualities nor defects.
‘They had a small house on the Pembringham estate while experimenting with the manure,’ said Eleanor. ‘Aunt Constance is frightfully kind, when she isn’t feeling too ill, you know, and used to ask them over quite often. That was where I first met him. Now his mother has taken a cottage near us at Hinton. Barbara doesn’t mind Mr. Widmerpool. Of course, she has often met him. I don’t really care for him very much. We were absolutely at our wits’ end for a man tonight, so he had to come. Have you ever seen his mother?’
I did not hear Eleanor’s views on Mrs. Widmerpool, because at that moment the music ceased; and, after clapping had died down and couples round us dispersed, the subject of Widmerpool and his family was quickly forgotten.
The ball took its course: dance-tune following dance-tune: partner following partner. From time to time, throughout the course of the evening, I saw Widmerpool ploughing his way round the room, as if rowing a dinghy in rough water, while he talked energetically to girls more often than not unknown to me; though chosen, no doubt, with the care devoted by him to any principle in which he
was interested. He did not, as it happened, appear to be dancing much with any member of the Walpole-Wilson dinner-party, perhaps regarding them, when considered as individuals, as unlikely to lead to much that he could personally turn to profit. Later on in the evening, while sitting out with Miss Manasch, I was suddenly made aware of him again when he stumbled over her foot on his way upstairs.
‘I know who he is!’ she said, when he had apologised and disappeared from sight with his partner. ‘He is the Frog Footman. He ought to be in livery. Has he danced with Anne yet?’
‘Anne Stepney?’
‘They would be so funny together.’
‘Is she a friend of yours?’
‘We were at the same finishing school in Paris.’
‘They didn’t do much finishing on her, surely?’
‘She is so determined to take a different line from that very glamorous sister of hers.’
‘Is Peggy Stepney glamorous?’
‘You must have seen pictures of her.’
‘A friend of mine called Charles Stringham used to talk about her.’
‘Oh, yes—Charles Stringham,’ said Miss Manasch. ‘That has been over a long time. I think he is rather a fast young man, isn’t he? I seem to have heard.’
She laughed, and rolled her beady little eyes, straightening her frock over plump, well-shaped little legs. She looked quite out of place in this setting; intended by nature to dance veiled, or, perhaps, unveiled, before the throne of some Oriental potentate—possibly one of those exacting rulers to whom Sir Gavin’s well-mannered diplomatists of the past might have appealed—or occupying herself behind the scenes in all the appetising labyrinth of harem intrigue. There existed the faintest suspicion of blue hairs upon her upper lip, giving her the look of a beauty of the Byronic era.
‘Anne Stepney said he was pompous. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen him for ages.’
‘Anne thinks Charles Stringham pompous, does she?’ said Miss Manasch, laughing again quietly to herself.
‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t know him. At least only by reputation. I have met his mother, who is, of course, too wonderful. They say she is getting rather tired of Commander Foxe and thinking of having another divorce. Charles was more or less engaged to Anne’s sister, Peggy, at one stage, as I suppose you know. That’s off now, as I said. I hear about Peggy occasionally from a cousin of mine, Jimmy Klein, who has a great passion for her.’
‘Is Charles about to marry anyone at the moment?’
‘I don’t think so.’
I had the impression that she knew more about Stringham than she was prepared to divulge, because her face assumed an expression that made her features appear more Oriental than ever. It was evident that she possessed affiliations with circles additional to—perhaps widely different from—those to be associated with Walpole-Wilsons, Gorings, or Huntercombes. Only superficially invested with the characteristics of girls moving within that world, she was at once coarser in texture and at the same time more subtle. Up to that moment she had been full of animation, but now all at once she became melancholy and silent.
‘I think I shall leave.’
‘Have you had enough?’
‘Going home seems the only alternative to sitting among the coats,’ she said.
‘Whatever for?’
‘I comb my hair there.’
‘But does it need combing?’
‘And while I tug at it, I cry.’
‘Surely not necessary tonight?’
‘Perhaps not,’ she said.
She began to laugh softly to herself once more; and, a minute or two later, went off with some partner who appeared satisfied that the moment had come to claim her. I set about looking for Barbara, with whom at the beginning of the evening I had danced only once. She was in one of the rooms downstairs, talking excitedly to a couple of young men, but she seemed not unwilling to leave their company.
‘Let’s sit this one out,’ she said.
We made our way outside and to the garden of the square. Guests like Archie Gilbert, who had been asked to both dances, and no doubt also a few who had not enjoyed that privilege—were passing backwards and forwards from one party to another. The reception at the Spanish Embassy, mentioned by Tompsitt, was still in full swing, so far as could be seen. Now and then a breath of air lightened the heavy night, once even causing the shrubs to sway in what was almost a breeze. The windows of both ballrooms stood open, music from the rival bands playing sometimes in conflict, sometimes appearing to belong to a system of massed orchestras designed to perform in unison.
‘We’ll have a—Blue Room a——
New room for—two room——
Where we will raise a family . . .
Not like a—ballroom a——
Small room a—hall room . . .’
An equally insistent murmur came from the other side of the square:
‘In the mountain greenery——
Where God makes the scenery . . .
Ta-rum . . . Ta-roo . . .’
‘Why are you so glum?’ said Barbara, picking up some pebbles and throwing them into the bushes. ‘I must tell you what happened at Ranelagh last week.’
In the face of recent good resolutions, I tried to take her hand. She snatched it away, laughing, and as usual in such circumstances said: ‘Oh, don’t get sentimental.’
This tremendous escape, quite undeserved, sobered me. We walked round the lawns. Barbara talked of Scotland, where she was going to stay later in the summer.
‘Why not come up there?’ she said. ‘Surely you can find someone to put you up?’
‘Got to work.’
‘Of course they don’t need you all the time at the office.’
‘They do.’
‘Have you ever danced reels? Johnny Pardoe is going to be there. He says he’ll teach me.’
She began to execute capers on the lawn. Stopping at last she examined her arm, holding it out, and saying: ‘How blue my hand looks in the moonlight.’
I found myself wondering whether, so far from loving her, I did not actually hate her. Another tune began and we strolled back through the garden. At the gate Tompsitt came up from somewhere among the shadows.
‘This is ours, I think.’
In his manner of speaking, so it seemed to me, he contrived to be at once uncivil and pedantic. Barbara began to jump about on the path as if leaping over imaginary puddles, while almost at the top of her small, though shrill, voice she said: ‘I can’t, really I can’t. I must have made a muddle. I am dancing with Mr. Widmerpool. I have put him off till now, and I really must.’
‘Cut him,’ said Tompsitt.
He sounded as if taking Barbara away from her rightful partner would give him even more pleasure than that to be derived from dancing with her himself. I wondered if she had called Widmerpool ‘Mister’ because her acquaintance with him had never been brought to a closer degree of intimacy, or if she spoke facetiously. From what Eleanor had said, the latter seemed more probable. It suddenly struck me that after all these years of knowing him I still had no idea of Widmerpool’s Christian name.
‘Shall I?’ said Barbara. ‘He would be terribly angry.’
Suddenly she took each of us by the hand, and began to charge along the pavement. In this unusual manner we reached the door of the Huntercombes’ house. By the time we had ceased running even Tompsitt seemed, in the last resort, rather taken aback; the combined movement of the three of us—rather like that of horses in a troika—being probably as unexpected for him as for myself. Barbara, for her part, was delighted with her own violent display of high spirits. She broke free and rushed up the steps in front of us.
In the hall, although the hour was not yet late, a few people were already making preparations to leave. As it happened, Widmerpool was standing by the staircase, looking, I thought, a little uneasy, and fingering a tattered pair of white gloves. I had seen him with just that expression on his face, waiting for the start of
one of the races for which he used so unaccountably to enter: finishing, almost without exception, last or last but one. When he saw Barbara, he brightened a little, and moved towards us.
‘The Merry Widow Waltz,’ he said. ‘I always like that, don’t you? I wish I had known Vienna in the old days before the war.’
Barbara once more seized Tompsitt and myself by whichever arm was nearest to her. She said to Widmerpool: ‘My dear, I have made a muddle again. I have told all sorts of people that I will dance this one with them, but—as I can’t possibly dance with all three of you—let’s all go and have some supper instead.’
‘But I’ve already had supper——’ began Widmerpool.
‘So have I,’ said Barbara. ‘Of course we have all had supper. We will have some more.’
‘I haven’t had supper,’ said Tompsitt.
Widmerpool did not look at all pleased at Barbara’s proposal; nor, for that matter, did Tompsitt, who must have realised now that instead of carrying Barbara gloriously away from a dashing rival—he had probably failed to catch Widmerpool’s name at the dinner-party—he was himself to be involved in some little game played by Barbara for her own amusement. Perhaps for that reason he had felt it more dignified to deny a previous supper; for I was fairly sure that I had seen him leaving the supper-room earlier that night. I could not help feeling pleased that Barbara had insisted on my joining them, although I was at the same time aware that even this pleasure was a sign that I was by now myself less seriously concerned with her; for a few weeks before I should have endured all kind of vexation at this situation. Widmerpool, on the other hand, was by no means prepared to give in at once, though his struggles to keep Barbara to himself were feeble enough, and quite ineffectual.
‘But look here,’ he said. ‘You promised——’
‘Not another word.’
‘But——’
‘Come along—all of you.’
Almost dragging Widmerpool with her, she turned, and set off towards the door of the supper-room; bumped heavily into two dowagers on their way out, and said: ‘Oh, sorry’, but did not pause. As I passed these ladies, I caught the words ‘Constance Goring’s girl,’ spoken by the dowager who had suffered least from the impact. She was evidently attempting to explain, if not excuse, this impetuosity on some hereditary ground connected with Barbara’s grandfather. Her more elderly and bedraggled companion, who seemed to have been badly shaken, did not appear to find much solace in this historical, or quasi-scientific, approach to Barbara’s indifferent manners. They went off together up the stairs, the elder one still muttering angrily, while Tompsitt and I followed Barbara and Widmerpool to one of many tables decorated with blue hydrangeas in gilt baskets.