Books Do Furnish a Room (11 page)

This was the first time I had
seen her, so to speak, in attack. Hitherto she had always exhibited herself,
resisting, at best tolerating, sorties of greater or lesser violence against
her own disdain. Now she was to be observed in assault, making the going,
preparing the ground for further devastations. The sudden coming into being of
this baroque sculptural group, which was what the trio resembled, caused a
second’s pause in conversation, in any case rather halting and forced in
measure, the reverential atmosphere that to some extent had prevailed now
utterly subverted. Susan, glancing across at her husband clasped lightly round
the middle by Pamela, turned a little pink. Quiggin may have noticed that and
judged it a good moment for reintroduction – when they first met he had shown
signs of fancying Susan – because he brought our conversation to a close before
moving over to speak to her.

‘I’ll have a further word with
Bagshaw,’ he said. ‘Then he or I will get in touch with you.’

Siegfried entered with a large
teapot. He set it on one of the tables, made a sign to Frederica, and, without
waiting for further instructions, began to organize those present into some
sort of a queue. Frederica, now given opportunity to form a more coherent
impression of Widmerpool’s wife and her temperament, addressed herself with
cold firmness to the three of them.

‘Won’t you have some tea ?’

That broke it up. Siegfried remarshalled
the party. Hugo took on Pamela. Widmerpool and Roddy Cutts, left once more
together, returned to the principles of hire-purchase. Alfred Tolland,
wandering about in the background, seemed unhappy again. I handed him a cup of
tea. He embarked once more on one of his new unwonted bursts of talkativeness.

‘I’m glad about Mrs Widmerpool…
glad she found her way … the foreign manservant here … whoever he is, I mean to
say … they’re lucky to have a … footman … these days… hall-boy, perhaps …
anyhow he looked after Mrs Widmerpool properly, I was relieved to find… Confess
I like that quiet sort of girl. Do hope she’s better. I’m a bit worried about
the train though. We’ll have to be pushing off soon.’

‘You’ll have time for a cup of
tea.’

‘Please, this way,’ said
Siegfried.’ Please, this way now.’

He managed to break up most of
the existing conversations.

‘Just like Erry to find that
goon,’ said Hugo. ‘He’s worse than Smith, the butler who drank so much, and
raised such hell at Aunt Molly’s.’

In Siegfried’s reorganization
of the company, Gypsy was placed next to me, the first opportunity to speak
with her. All things considered, she might have been more friendly in manner,
though her old directness remained.

‘Is this the first time you’ve
been here?’

‘No.’

That was at any rate evidence
of a sort that she had visited Erridge on his home ground at least once;
whether with or without Craggs, or similar escort, was not revealed.

‘Who’s that Mrs Widmerpool?’

To describe Pamela to Gypsy was
no lesser problem than the definition of Gypsy to Pamela. Again no answer was
required, Gypsy supplying that herself.

‘A first-class little bitch,’
she said.

Craggs joined his wife.

‘JG and I have completed what
arrangements can be made at present. We may as well be going, unless you want
another cup of tea, Gypsy?’

The way he spoke was
respectful, almost timorous.

‘The sooner I get out, the
better I’ll be pleased.’

‘Ought to thank for the cupper,
I suppose.’

Craggs looked round the room.
Frederica, as it turned out, had gone to fetch some testamentary document for
Widmerpool’s inspection. While they had been speaking Roddy Cutts took the
opportunity of slipping away and standing by Pamela, who was listening to a
story Hugo was telling about his antique shop. She ignored Roddy, who, seeing
his wife’s eye on him, drifted away again. Widmerpool drummed his fingers
against the window frame while he waited. Until Roddy’s arrival in her
neighbourhood, Pamela had given the appearance of being fairly amenable to Hugo’s
line of talk. Now she put her hand to her forehead and turned away from him.
She went quickly over to Widmerpool and spoke. The words, like his answer, were
not audible, but she raised her voice angrily at whatever he had said.

‘I tell you I’m feeling faint
again.’

‘All right. We’ll go the minute
I get this paper – what is that, my dear Tolland? – yes, of course we’re taking
you in the taxi. I was just saying to my wife that we’re leaving the moment I’ve
taken charge of a document Lady Frederica’s finding for me.’

He spoke absently, his mind
evidently on business matters. Pamela made further protests. Widmerpool turned
to Siegfried, who was arranging the cups, most of them odd ones, in order of
size at the back of the table.

‘Fritz, mein Mann, sagen Sie
bitte der Frau Gräfin, dass Wir jetzt abfahren.’

‘Sofort, Herr Oberst.’

Pamela was prepared to submit
to no such delays. ‘I’m going at once – I must. I’m feeling ghastly again.’

‘All right, dearest. You go on.
I’ll follow – the rest of us will. I can’t leave without obtaining that paper.’

Widmerpool looked about him
desperately. Marriage had greatly reduced his self-assurance. Then a plan
suggested itself.

‘Nick, do very kindly escort
Pam to the door. She’s not feeling quite herself, a slight recurrence of what
she went through earlier. Those passages are rather complicated, as I remember
from arriving. Your sister-in-law’s looking for a document I need. I must stay
for that, and to thank her for her hospitality.’

Pamela had certainly gone very
white again. She looked as if she might be going to faint. Her withdrawal from
church, in the light of previous behaviour likely to be prompted by sheer
perversity, now took on a more excusable aspect. That she was genuinely feeling
ill was confirmed by the way she agreed without argument to the suggested
compromise. We at once set off down the stairs together, Pamela bidding no one
goodbye.

‘Is the taxi outside?’

‘Parked in the yard.’

‘Your coat?’

‘Lying on some of that junk by
the door.’

We hurried along. About halfway
to the goal of the outside door, amongst the thickest of the bric-a-brac that
littered the passage, she stopped.

‘I’m feeling sick.’

This was a crisis indeed. If we
returned to Erridge’s quarters, again negotiating the stairs and passing
through the sitting-room, resources existed – in the Erridge manner,
unelaborate enough – for accommodating sudden indisposition of this sort, but
the sanctuary, such as it was, could not be called near. I lightly sketched in
the facilities available, their means of approach. She looked at me without
answering. She was a greenish colour by now.

‘Shall we go back?’

‘Back where?’

‘To the bathroom – ’

Pamela seemed to consider the
suggestion for a second. She glanced round about, her eyes coming to rest on
the two tall oriental vessels, which Lord Huntercombe had disparaged as
nineteenth-century copies. Standing about five foot high, patterned in blue,
boats sailed across their surface on calm sheets of water, out of which rose
houses on stilts, in the distance a range of jagged mountain peaks. It was a
peaceful scene, very different from the emergency in the passage. Pamela came
to a decision. Moving rapidly forward, she stepped lightly on one of the
plinths where a huge jar rested, in doing so showing a grace I could not help
admiring in spite of the circumstances. She turned away and leant forward. All
was over in a matter of seconds. On such occasions there is no way in which an
onlooker can help. Inasmuch as it were possible to do what Pamela had done with
a minimum of fuss or disagreeable concomitant, she achieved that difficult
feat. The way she brought it off was remarkable, almost sublime. She stepped
down from the plinth with an air of utter unconcern. Colour, never high in her
cheeks, slightly returned. I made some altogether inadequate gestures of
assistance, which she unsmilingly brushed aside. Now she was totally herself
again.

‘Give me your handkerchief.’

She put it in her bag, and
shook her hair.

‘Come on.’

‘You wouldn’t like to go back
just for a moment?’

‘Of course not.’

Her firmness was granite. Just
as we were proceeding on towards the outside door, the rest of the party,
Widmerpool, Alfred Tolland, Quiggin, Craggs, Gypsy, appeared at the far end of
the corridor. Hugo was seeing them out. Widmerpool was at the head, explaining
some apparently complicated matter to Hugo, so that he did not notice Pamela
and myself until a yard or two away.

‘Ah, there you are, dear. I
thought you’d have reached the car by now. I expect you are better, and
Nicholas has been pointing out the
objets d’art
to
you. It’s the kind of thing he knows about. Rather fine some of the pieces look
to me.’

He paused and pointed.

‘What are those great vases,
for example? Chinese? Japanese? I am woefully ignorant of such matters. I
intend to visit Japan when opportunity occurs, see what sort of a job the
Americans are doing there. I doubted the wisdom of retaining the Emperor.
Feudalism must go whenever and wherever it survives. We must also keep an eye
on Uncle Sam’s mailed fist – but I am running away with myself. Pam, you must
go carefully on the journey home. Rest is what you need.’

She did not utter a word but,
turning from them, walked quickly towards the door. Morally speaking, some sort
of warning seemed required that all had not been well, yet any such
announcement was hard to phrase. Before anything could be said – if, indeed,
there were anything apposite to say – Hugo had gently encouraged the group to
move on.

‘I think a revised seating
arrangement might be advisable on the way back to the station,’ said Widmerpool.

‘I’m going in front,’ said
Pamela.

The rest were contained somehow
at the back. Alfred Tolland looked like a man being put to the torture for
conscience sake, but determined to bear the torment with fortitude. Pamela lay
back beside the driver with closed eyes. The taxi moved away slowly towards the
arch, hooted, disappeared from sight. No one waved or looked back. Hugo and I
re-entered the house. I told him what had happened in the passage.

‘In one of the big Chinese pots?’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t mean literally?’

‘Quite literally.’

‘Couldn’t you stop her?’

‘Where was there better?’

‘You mean otherwise it would
have been the floor?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Does that mean she’s going to
have a baby?’

‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘It’s the only excuse.’

‘I think it was just rage.’

‘Nothing whatever was said?’

‘Not a word.’

‘You just looked on?’

‘What was there to say? It wasn’t
my business, if she didn’t want the others to sympathize with her.’

Hugo laughed. He thought for a
moment.

‘I believe if I were given to
falling for women, I’d fall for her.’

‘Meanwhile, how is the
immediate problem to be dealt with?’

‘We’ll consult Blanche.’

The news of Pamela’s conduct
was received at the beginning with incredulity, the first reaction, that Hugo
and I were projecting a bad-taste joke. When the crude truth was grasped, Roddy
Cutts was shocked, Frederica furious, Norah sent into fits of hysterical
laughter. Jeavons only shook his head.

‘Knew she was a wrong ’un from
the start,’ he said. ‘Look at the way she behaved to that poor devil Templer.
You know I often think of that chap. I liked having him in the house, and
listening to all those stories about girls. Kept your mind off the blitz.
Turned out we’d met before in that night-club of Umfraville’s, though I couldn’t
remember a word about it.’

Complications worse than at
first envisaged were contingent on what had happened. The Chinese vase had to
be sluiced out. Blanche, although totally accepting responsibility for putting
right this misadventure, like the burden of every other disagreeable
responsibility where keeping house was concerned, voiced these problems first.

‘I don’t think we can very well
ask Mrs Skerrett to clean things up.’

‘Quite out of the question,’
said Frederica.

There was unanimous agreement
that it was no job for Mrs Skerrett in the circumstances.

‘Why not tell that Jerry to
empty it,’ said Roddy Cutts. ‘He’s doubtless done worse things in his time. His
whole demeanour suggests the Extermination Squad.’

‘Oh, God, no,’ said Hugo. ‘Can
you imagine explaining to Siegfried what has happened? He would either think it
funny in that awful gross German way, or priggishly disapprove in an equally
German manner. I don’t know which would be worse. One would die of
embarrassment.’

‘No, you couldn’t possibly ask
a German to do the cleaning up,’ said Norah. ‘That would be going a bit far – and
a POW at that.’

‘I can’t see why not,’ said
Roddy Cutts. ‘Rather good for him, to my way of thinking. Besides, the Germans
are always desperately keen on vomiting. In their cafés or restaurants they
have special places in the Gents for doing so after drinking a lot of beer.’

‘It’s not him,’ said Norah. ‘It’s
us.’

‘Norah’s quite right,’ said
Frederica.

For Frederica to support a
proposition of Norah’s was sufficiently rare to tip the scale.

‘Well, who’s going to do it?’
asked Blanche. ‘The jar’s too big for me to manage alone.’

In the end, Jeavons, Hugo and
I, with shrewd advice from Roddy Cutts, bore the enormous vessel up the stairs
to Erridge’s bathroom. It passed through the door with comparative ease, but,
once inside, every kind of difficulty was encountered. Apart from size and
weight, the opening at the top of the pot was not designed for the use to which
it had been put; not, in short, adapted for cleansing processes. The job took
quite a long time. More than once the vase was nearly broken. We returned to
the sitting-room with a good deal of relief that the business was at an end.