Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [42]
Udall was shot by the SS, on recapture, after a mass escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany. The marriage – in the estimation of those always prepared to appraise explicitly other people’s intimate relationships – was judged to have been only moderately happy. There were no children. There was also, even the most inquisitorial conceded, no gossip about infidelities on either side, although Udall was always reported to be ‘difficult’. Quite soon after her husband’s death, Rosie married a Pole called Andreszlwsiski, a second-lieutenant, though not at all young. I never came across him at the Titian during my period of liaison duty, but his appointment there, Polish GHQ in London, sounded fairly inconsiderable even within terms of the rank. Andreszlwsiski, as it turned out, was suffering from an incurable disease. He died only a few months after the wedding. Rosie resumed her maiden name.
‘I’ve just been talking to your wife. We’d never met before, though I knew her sister Susan Tolland before she married. I hear you didn’t guess that I was the mysterious lady in the background of Fission.’
‘Was this arranged by Widmerpool?’
‘The Frog Footman? Yes, indirectly. He used to do business when he was at Donners-Brebner with my cousin James Klein. Talking of Donners-Brebner, did you go to the Donners picture sale? I can’t think why Lady Donners did not keep more of them herself. There must be quite a lot of money left in spite of death duties – though one never knows how a man like Sir Magnus Donners may have left everything.’
‘If I’d been Matilda, I’d have kept the Toulouse-Lautrec.’
‘Of course you must have known Matilda Donners when she was married to Hugh Moreland. Matilda and I don’t much like each other, though we pretend to. Do you realize that a relation of mine – Isadore Manasch – was painted by Lautrec? Isn’t that smart? A café scene, in the gallery at Albi. Isadore’s slumped on a chair in the background. The Lautrec picture’s the only thing that keeps his slim volume of Symbolist verse from complete oblivion. Isadore’s branch of the family are still embarrassed if you talk about him. He was very disreputable.’
To emphasize the awful depths of Isadore’s habits, Rosie stood on tiptoe, clasping together plump little hands that seemed subtly moulded out of pink icing sugar, then tightly caught in by invisible bands at the wrist. At forty or so, she herself was not unthinkable in terms of Lautrec’s brush, more alluring certainly than the ladies awaiting custom on the banquettes of the Rue de Moulins, though with something of their resignation. A hint of the seraglio, and its secrets, that attached to her suggested oriental costume in one of the masked ball scenes.
‘Do you ever see Hugh Moreland now? Matilda told me he’s still living with that strange woman called Maclintick. They’ve never married. Matilda says Mrs Maclintick makes him work hard.’
‘I don’t even know his address.’
That was one of the many disruptions caused by the war. Rosie returned to Fission.
‘What do you think of the Frog Footman’s beautiful wife? Did you hear what she said to that horrid girl Peggy Klein – who’s a sort of connexion, as she was once married to Charles Stringham? James had adored Peggy for years when he married her – I’ll tell you some other time. There’s the Frog Footman himself making towards us.’
Widmerpool gave Rosie a slight bow, his manner suggesting the connexion with Fission put her in a category of business colleagues to be treated circumspectly.
‘I’ve been having an interesting talk with the military attaché of one of the new Governments in Eastern Europe,’ he said. ‘He’s just arrived in London. As a matter of fact I myself have rather a special relationship with his country, as a member – indeed a founder member – of no less than two societies to cement British relations with the new regime. You remember that ineffective princeling Theodoric, I daresay.’
‘I thought him rather attractive years ago,’ said Rosie. ‘It was at Sir Magnus Donners’ castle of all places. Was the military attaché equally nice?’
‘A sturdy little fellow. Not much to say for himself, but made a good impression. I told him of my close connexions with his country. These representatives of single-party government are inclined to form a very natural distrust for the West. I flatter myself I got through to him successfully. I expect you