Hearing Secret Harmonies - Anthony Powell [43]
‘I’m afraid I haven’t read any of your books. I believe you write books, don’t you? I hope you won’t mind that.’
I was in process of picking out one of the several routine replies designed to bridge this not at all uncommon conversational opening – a phrase that at once generously accepts the speaker’s candour in confessing the omission, while emphasizing the infinite unimportance of any such solicitude on that particular point – when need to make any reply at all was averted by a matter of much greater interest to both of us. This was entry into the room of Widmerpool and the Quiggin twins. My neighbour’s attention was caught simultaneously with my own, though no doubt for different reasons. Widmerpool led the party of three, Amanda and Belinda following a short distance behind. As they came up the room most of the talk at the tables died down, while people stopped eating to stare.
‘Do tell me about that man and the two girls. I’m sure I ought to know who they are. Isn’t it a famous author, and his two daughters? He’s probably a close friend of yours, and you will laugh at my ignorance.’
In the circumstances the supposition of the director’s lady was not altogether unreasonable. If you thought of authors as a grubby lot, a tenable standpoint, Widmerpool certainly filled the bill; while the age of his companions in relation to his own might well have been that even of grandfather and granddaughters. Since I had known him as a schoolboy, Widmerpool had been not much less than famous for looking ineptly dressed, a trait that remained with him throughout life, including his army uniforms. At the same time – whether too big, too small, oddly cut, strangely patterned – his garments had hitherto always represented, even at his most revolutionary period, the essence of stolid conventionality as their aim. They had never been chosen, in the first instance, with the object of calling attention to himself. Now all was altered. There had been a complete change of policy. He wore the same old dark grey suit – one felt sure it was the same one – but underneath was a scarlet high-necked sweater.
‘As a matter of fact he’s not an author, though I believe he’s writing a book. He’s called Lord Widmerpool.’
‘Not the Lord Widmerpool?’
‘There’s only one, so far as I know.’
‘But I’ve seen him on television. He didn’t look like that.’
‘Perhaps he was well made-up. In any case he’s said to have changed a good deal lately. I haven’t seen him for a long time myself. He’s certainly changed since I last saw him.’
Her bewilderment was understandable.
‘Are the girls his daughters?’
‘No – he’s never had any children.’
‘Who are they then? They look rather sweet. Are they twins? I love their wearing dirty old jeans at this party.’
‘They’re the twin daughters of J. G. Quiggin, the publisher, and his novelist wife, Ada Leintwardine. Their parents are sitting over there at the table opposite. J. G. Quiggin’s the bald man, helping himself to vegetables, his wife the lady with her hair piled up rather high.’
‘I believe I’ve read something by Ada Leintwardine – The Bitch – The Bitches – something like that. I know bitches came into the title.’
‘The Bitch Pack meets on Wednesday.’
‘That’s it. I don’t remember much about it. Are the girls with Lord Widmerpool, or are they just joining their parents?’
‘They’re with him.’
‘Are they his girlfriends?’
The party was evidently coming up to expectations.
‘He’s chancellor of their university. They threw paint over him last summer. I don’t know how close the relationship is apart from that.’
‘Those two little things threw paint over him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Didn’t he mind?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘And now they’re all friends?’
‘That’s what it looks like.’
‘What do you think about the Permissive Society?’
Widmerpool had entered the dining-room with the air of Stonewall Jackson riding into Frederick, that is to say glaring round, as if on the alert for flags representing the Wrong Side. Amanda and Belinda, apart from looking as ready for a square meal as the rebel horde itself seemed otherwise less sure of their ground, sullen, even rather hangdog. Their getup, admired by my neighbour, was identical. As companions for Widmerpool they belonged, broadly speaking, to the tradition of Gypsy Jones, so far as physical appearance was concerned. (A couple of lines had announced, not long before, the death of