Books Do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell [6]
‘His wife, Sillers?’
Short employed a level requisitive tone, suggesting he had indeed some faint notion of what was behind the enquiry, but it was one scarcely worthy of answer. There could be little doubt that, in so treating the matter, Short was playing for time.
‘You can’t close your ears to gossip in this University, however much you try,’ said Sillery. ‘It’s rampant, I regret to say. Even at High Table in this very college. Besides, it’s always wise to know what’s being bruited abroad, even if untrue.’
He rubbed his hands over and over again, almost doubling up with laughter.
‘I haven’t the pleasure of knowing Mrs Widmerpool so well as her husband,’ said Short severely. ‘We sometimes see each other where we both live, in the hall or in the lift. I understand the Widmerpools are to move from there soon.’
‘Comely,’ said Sillery. ‘That’s what I’ve been told – comely.’
He was more convulsed than ever.
‘Certainly, certainly,’ allowed Short. ‘She is generally agreed to be good looking. I should myself describe her as a little —’
Short’s power to define feminine beauty abandoned him at this point. He simply made a gesture with his hand. Unmarried himself, he spoke as if prepared to concede that good looks in a wife, anyway the wife of a public man, might reasonably be regarded as a cause for worry.
‘I expect she’ll make a good canvasser, an admirable canvasser.’
Sillery rocked.
‘Sillers, what are you getting at?’
Short spoke quite irritably. I laughed.
‘I see Nick knows what I mean,’ said Sillery.
‘What does Nick know?’
‘I met her during the war, when she was called Pamela Flitton. She was an ATS driver.’
‘What’s your story, Sillers? I see you must have a story.’
Short spoke in a tone intended to put a stop to frivolous treatment of what had been until then a serious subject, Widmerpool’s career. Being in the last resort rather afraid of Sillery, he was clearly not too sure of his ground. No doubt even Short had heard rumours, however muffled, of Pamela’s goings-on. Sillery decided to play with him a little longer.
‘My information about Mrs Widmerpool brought in a few picturesque details, Leonard. Just a few picturesque details – I say no more than that. I call her young Mrs Widmerpool because I understand she is appreciably junior to her spouse.’
‘Yes, she’s younger.’
‘The name of a certain MP on the Opposition benches has been mentioned as a frequent escort of hers.’
‘By whom?’
‘I happen to have a friend who knows Mrs W quite well.’
Sillery sniggered. Short pursed his lips.
‘A man?’
The question seemed just worth asking.
‘No, Nick, not a man. A young lady. You didn’t think an old fogey like me knew any young ladies, did you? You were quite wrong. This little friend of mine happens also to be a friend of Mrs Widmerpool – so you see I am in a strong position to hear about her doings.’
Sillery’s own sexual tastes had, of course, been endlessly debated by generations of undergraduates and dons. It was generally agreed that their physical expression was never further implemented than by a fair amount of arm-pinching and hair-rumpling of the young men with whom he was brought in contact; not necessarily even the better-looking ones, if others had more substantial assets to offer in the power world. More ardent indiscretions charged against him had either no basis, or were long forgotten in the mists of the past. Certainly he was held never to have taken the smallest physical interest in a woman, although at the same time in no way setting his face against all truck with the opposite sex. Sillery’s attitude might in this respect be compared with the late St John Clarke’s, both equally appreciative of invitations from ladies of more or less renowned social status and usually mature age; ‘hostesses’, in short, now an extinct species, though destined to rise again like Venus from a sea of logistic impediment. Accordingly, Sillery was right to suppose his boast would cause surprise. The scandal-mongering female friend would probably turn out to be a young married woman, I thought, the wife of a don. Before Sillery had time further to develop his theme, from which he showed signs of deriving a lot of pleasure in the form of teasing Short, a knock sounded on the door.