Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [34]
‘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