Temporary Kings (26 page)

Just
what happened at this stage is not at all clear; nor at what moment were spoken
the words to put in some sort of perspective subsequent events. Gwinnett, of
course, himself appeared. He dealt as well as he could with Bagshaw’s
stepdaughters, while Pamela dressed and slipped away. Probably she retired on
Gwinnett’s arrival, leaving him to cope. She was not present by the time
Bagshaw, made aware by the noise that something exceptional was taking place,
joined the party. Mrs Bagshaw, like her father-in-law, assuming some
comparatively minor domestic contingency in progress, still suffering from
migraine, did not leave her bed. Avril, incurious or occupied with her own
problems, also remained in her room. Bagshaw said that, insofar as it were
possible to behave with dignity throughout the whole affair, Gwinnett contrived
to do so.

‘He
didn’t say much. Just offered some apologies. Of course, it was obviously
Pamela Widmerpool’s fault, not his. He didn’t attempt to excuse himself on that
account.’

The
night’s disturbances appear to have died down in a fairly banal family quarrel,
nothing to do with Pamela or Gwinnett. In fact, the following day, Bagshaw – so
far as I know, May Bagshaw too – was prepared for all to be forgiven and forgotten.
On this point Bagshaw’s father and stepdaughters do not seem to have been
consulted. Gwinnett himself was firm that he must leave. He moved to an hotel
(another of Trapnel’s haunts) the same afternoon. Bagshaw said he was uncertain
what he felt after Gwinnett had gone.

‘I
was sorry to lose him. At the same time I saw, from his own point of view, it
would be difficult to stay on. The whole thing might happen again, if that
woman knew he was still living with us. Of course, I thought they were having an
affair, that she had come to the house to sleep with him. If so, I couldn’t see
why either of them needed to make all that to-do. Couldn’t he have done
whatever her other lovers do? That was how it looked at the moment.’

By
the time Bagshaw told the story himself, a good deal had happened to give
opportunity for improving its framework, accentuating highspots of the
narrative. One could not be quite sure he had not seen things differently
during the embroilment. For example, he spoke of words, possibly apocryphal,
murmured by Pamela, as she withdrew (however that had happened) from the house.
Bagshaw put this scarcely coherent sentence forward as key to what took place
later, explanation, too, of the night’s doings, or lack of them; for that
matter, general relationship with Gwinnett.

Bagshaw
could not swear to the exact phrase. It had something to do with ‘dead woman’
or ‘death wish’. He also asserted that Gwinnett, while staying in the house,
had spoken more than once of Pamela’s conjunction with Ferrand-Sénéschal,
bearing out Dr Brightman’s theory that Gwinnett himself was more than a little
taken up with mortality. Bagshaw gave other instances. At the time, naturally,
emphasis immediately afterwards was laid on the question why Pamela had been
wandering about without any clothes. Reflecting on similar instances in my own
experience, there was the time (actually not witnessed) when the parlourmaid,
Billson, had walked naked into the drawing-room at Stonehurst; more tangibly,
when the front door of her flat had been opened to myself by Jean Duport in the
same condition. Unlike Candaules’s queen, these two had deliberately chosen to
appear in that state, not, as the Queen – anyway vis-à-vis Gyges – involuntarily
nude. Perhaps the Tiepolo picture had done something to disturb the balance of
Pamela’s mind, in the light of her reported behaviour at the Bragadin dinner
party. The situation – just what had really caused the doings at the Bagshaws’
– remained, at the end of that year, still obscure. Most people who took any
interest in the matter simply assumed Pamela and Gwinnett had been ‘having an
affair’, some row taken place, notable only for Pamela’s incalculable manner of
handling things.

About
January or February, Gwinnett himself sent a line saying he would like to meet.
He wished the
Commonplace Book
returned to him, unless I particularly needed to keep it longer. We arranged to
lunch together on a day I was coming to London. Gwinnett had not remained
unaffected by the months spent in England. Whether the change was due to odd
experiences undergone, or simply because he felt a sense of release in making a
start on his book, was impossible to say. The transformation itself was not
easy to define. Not exactly loosened up, he gave at the same time an impression
of being on better terms with himself. Here in London he looked more ‘American’
than in Venice. He still wore his light blue lenses, only just observably
tinted against the sun. It was not the effect of these. The spectacles, thin
filament of moustache, secretive manner, implied quite other origins. One
thought, for some reason, of the Near East, though he was not in the least
oriental. Perhaps his air was Mexican. The Americanism had something to do with
the intense whiteness of his shirt, cut low in the neck, the light shade of the
heavily welted rubber-soled shoes, almost yellow in colour. The shoes were the
first thing you noticed about him. Ignorant still of just what had happened at
the Bagshaws’, I had no way of rationalizing to myself the slight, but apparent
alteration. The
Commonplace Book
was handed over. Gwinnett mentioned that he had stayed with the Bagshaws, then
decided he would work more easily in another of Trapnel’s hotels.

‘How
much of the book have you done?’

‘I
might have roughed out the first quarter.’

He
spoke of some of his discoveries. From various sources, he had unearthed
material about Trapnel’s early life in Egypt. Perhaps concentrating on Egypt
had given Gwinnett the Near East look. He could list, among other things,
racehorses Trapnel’s father had ridden, and their owners. There were striking
facts about the schools Trapnel had attended, which were many and various.
Gwinnett had worked hard.

‘Have
you traced any of the girls?’

‘I
have.’

Tessa,
who had immediately preceded Pamela as object of Trapnel’s love, was doing
extremely well. She was secretary, evidently a high-powered one, to the
chairman of a noted firm of merchant bankers. Tessa had been helpful to
Gwinnett in a straightforward way, giving him a clear, unvarnished account of
Trapnel’s daily life, its interior economy, seen from the point of view of an
intelligent, capable mistress, who wanted her lover to become a success as a
writer. Although retaining affectionate memories of Trapnel, she decided in due
course, she said, that he lacked the necessary stamina. That was an interesting
first-hand view. Gwinnett had appreciated its good points.

‘Then
there was Pat.’

Pat,
now married to a don, Professor of Social Science, had been less willing to
have her past dredged up. She had replied with a tactful letter saying she
preferred not to see Gwinnett.

Sally
was dead. That was all he had been able to find out about her.

‘I’d
have liked to know more – how and why she died.’

Jacqueline
had married a journalist, and was living abroad, where her husband was foreign
correspondent to a daily paper. Linda could not be traced.

‘Did
you know Pauline?’

‘I
never met her. I’ve heard Trapnel speak of her. He thought her depraved. Those
were his words. They remained on good terms after parting.

‘I
ran Pauline to earth.’

‘What’s
she doing?’

‘She’s
become a call-girl.’

‘Trapnel
said that was where Pauline would end.’

‘Well,
not much short of that, I’d say.’

Gwinnett
seemed uncertain whether or not to qualify the description. He thought for a
moment, then decided against amendment.

‘I
went to see her. She told me some facts.’

‘Such
as?’

‘What
some of her clients like.’

‘Anything
out of the usual run?’

‘Not
much, I guess.’

‘I’d
have thought Trapnel pretty normal.’

‘She
said he was.’

Gwinnett
changed the subject. I thought he had abandoned it. I was wrong. He was
choosing another conversational angle, one of his habits, at times effected in
a manner a little disconcerting.

‘Did
Lindsay Bagshaw say there’d been some trouble at his place?’

‘I
haven’t seen him, but I heard something of the sort. I knew you’d left.’

‘You
heard Lady Widmerpool kicked up a racket there?’

‘Her
name was mentioned.’

‘As
raising hell?’

‘Well,
yes.’

‘If
you run across Lady Widmerpool, do you mind not telling her my address?’

‘OK.’

‘You
heard about Lord Widmerpool being denounced on the radio as a British agent?
Lindsay Bagshaw talked his head off about it. I’m not that interested in
politics, though I couldn’t but be interested in such a thing happening. Just
because of all the Trapnel tie-up with her. What do you think?’

‘He
might be in deep water. Hard to say, at this stage.’

Gwinnett
hesitated, seeming, as he sometimes did, uncertain of the exact ground he
wanted to occupy.

‘Lady
Widmerpool – Pamela – I wouldn’t be in her husband’s shoes, if she’s left to
decide his fate.’

‘She’s
got it in for him?’

‘That’s
how it looks.’

‘You’re
avoiding her for the time being?’

That
was a reasonable question in the circumstances. Gwinnett did not answer it. At
the same time he accepted its inferences.

‘Just
to duck back to Pauline for a spell – she had dealings with Lord Widmerpool.’

‘Professional
ones, you mean?’

‘Sure.’

‘He
picked her up somewhere? Answered an ad?’

‘When
his wife was living with Trapnel, Widmerpool had her shadowed. As a former girl
friend of Trapnel’s, whom he saw once in a while, Pauline’s name was given to
Widmerpool.’

‘And
he went to see her?’

‘They
met somehow.’

‘Continued
to meet?’

‘It
seems arrangements were made satisfactory to both sides. Pauline later figured
at several parties attended by Widmerpool – and the Frenchman, too, who died
all that sudden, when Pamela was around.’

‘Pauline
told you that?’

Gwinnett
nodded. He had a way with him when he sought information. At least information
was what he acquired.

‘Was
Pamela herself included in these Pauline jaunts?’

‘I
don’t know for certain. I don’t believe so.’

Thought
of Pamela seemed to depress Gwinnett He fell into one of his glooms. Their
relationship was an enigma. Perhaps he was in love with her, in spite of
everything. We parted on good terms, the best. Gwinnett spoke as if we were
likely to talk together again as a matter of course, do that quite soon. At the
same time he parried any suggestion of coming to see us; even arranging another
meeting in London. This determination that initiative should remain in his
hands was a reminder of Trapnel methods. Possibly it was one of the ways in
which Gwinnett was growing to resemble Trapnel.

During
the next month or so, Gwinnett’s problems receded in my mind as a matter of immediate
interest, Widmerpool’s too. Fresh information about the second of those came
from two rather unexpected sources. These followed each other in quick
succession, although quite unconnected.

For
several years after the war, I had attended reunion dinners of one of the
branches of the army in which I had served, usually deciding to do so at the
last moment, even then never quite knowing what brought me there. Friends made
in a military connexion were, on the whole, to be seen more conveniently,
infinitely more agreeably, in settings of a less deliberate character, where
former brother officers, now restored to civilian life in multitudinous shapes,
had often passed into spheres with which it was hard to make conversational
contact. Intermittent transaction in the past of forgotten military business
provided only a frail link. All the same, when something momentous like a war
has taken place, all existence turned upside down, personal life discarded,
every relationship reorganized, there is a temptation, after all is over, to
return to what remains of the machine, examine such paraphernalia as came one’s
way, pick about among the bent and rusting composite parts, assess merits and
defects. Reunion dinners, to the point of morbidity, gave the chance of indulging
in such reminiscent scrutinies. Not far from a vice, like most vices they began
sooner or later to pall. Even the first revealed the gap, instantaneously come
into being on demobilization, between what was; what, only a moment before, had
been. On each subsequent occasion that hiatus widened perceptibly, moving in
the direction of an all but impassable abyss.

There
were, of course, windfalls. One evening, at such an assemblage, my former
Divisional Commander, General Liddament (by then promoted to the Army Council)
turned up as guest of honour, making a lively speech about the country’s
military commitments ‘round the map’, ending with a recommendation that
everyone present should read Trollope. That was an exceptional piece of luck.
In the same way, an old colleague would sometimes appear; Hewetson, who had
looked after the Belgians, now senior partner in a firm of solicitors: Slade,
Pennistone’s second-string with the Poles, headmaster of a school in the
Midlands: Dempster, retired from selling timber, settled in Norway, still
telling his aunt’s anecdotes about Ibsen. Finn, Commanding Officer of the
Section, was dead. At the end of the war he had gone back briefly to his
cosmetic business in Paris, soon after left, to end his days in contemplation
of his past life and his VC, near Perpignan. Pennistone (married to a French
girl, said to have taken an energetic part in the Resistance) had stepped into
Finn’s place in the firm. His letters reported good sales. He rarely came to
England, spare time from the office taken up with writing a book on the
philosophical ideas of Cyrano de Bergerac.