Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [106]
‘It was so bloody dark, and I was worrying all the time about getting Hugh home, before he had another fit, or whatever it was.’
The Stevens garage was in a mews behind the house. When Stevens drove the car back towards his own front door, he noticed figures talking together a few yards up the terrace. He did not identify them, merely supposing they were guests having a final musical dispute before parting on their separate ways. Moreland, Audrey Maclintick, several others, were by then chatting with Rosie in the hall, Moreland having become so restless lying on the sofa that it seemed best to come downstairs to wait for the car. There they found Mrs Erdleigh, Stripling, Glober, Polly Duport, all about to leave. Moreland at once recognized the potentialities of Mrs Erdleigh, whom he had not met earlier that evening. Within a matter of minutes – as he himself admitted – they were discussing together the magical writings of Cornelius Agrippa. Moreland and Mrs Erdleigh had already reached the book of Abramelin the Mage, spells for surrounding an enemy with a vision of trellis-work, others for causing the Pope to fall in love with you, when Stevens came up the steps. Meanwhile Glober and Stripling had returned to vintage cars.
‘Now we’ll take a look at the Bentley, Mr Stripling. My automobile’s parked at the end of the block.’
Stripling must already have obtained permission from Mrs Erdleigh to inspect the Bentley before restoring her to whatever witch’s lair she inhabited, but there is some uncertainty as to how exactly the outgoing party came on the Widmerpools and Short, still hanging about in the terrace, waiting for their car. It seems possible that Moreland refused to enter the Stevens car before he had finished his occult conversation with Mrs Erdleigh. Alternatively, his interest by now aroused in vintage cars, he too could have wanted to inspect Glober’s vehicle. Moreland seems to have been strolling with Mrs Erdleigh; Stevens and Audrey Maclintick behind; Stripling, Glober, Polly Duport, a short way ahead. The talk of cars may have been carried to the ears of Short, who (having made contact with Glober at supper on the subject of the French political situation vis-à-vis Algeria) now repeated a request for a ‘lift’. Polly Duport was alleged to have thrown back a comment to the effect that the ’31 Bentley was the ‘size of a bus’, thereby raising Short’s hopes. Another possibility is that Pamela had intended that something of this sort should happen. She had been waiting for a chance that had not arisen at the party. She could hardly have foreseen the lateness of the hired car, but might have grasped that Glober, still in the Stevens house, was bound sooner or later to pass that way. Short, having no reason to connect Glober with the Widmerpools, stepped forward, and made a little speech.
‘If your car is really so commodious, Mr Glober, I wonder whether you could include in it a party of three – for our own hired vehicle does not seem to have turned up. It would be too kind were you able to manage that good office. We all live in the Westminster direction, if you happened to be going that way. It ill becomes a native of this country to seek transport from a transatlantic visitor, guest to our shores, but, not for the first time in recent years, we must needs throw ourselves upon the goodwill of American resources.’
Uncertainty prevails whether or not, at this stage, Glober immediately grasped that the other applicants for help were the Widmerpools. On the whole, it seems likely he did not. In the dark, there was no reason why he should recognize them. At the same time, Glober, out of sheer love of living dangerously, may have accepted this as a challenge. Moreland was ignorant of Glober