Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [48]
‘I wonder what’s the best course to take about Belkin. The first thing to do is to make sure whether or not he’s here. How can I find that out?’
‘Ask one of the Executive Committee. Dr Brightman, over there, would know whom to tackle. She’s talking to our host.’
Jacky Bragadin, not paying much attention to whatever Dr Brightman was saying to him, was casting anxious glances round the room. A few members of the Conference had begun to drift into the next gallery, by far the larger majority continuing to contemplate the Tiepolo. Jacky Bragadin seemed to fear the story of Candaules and Gyges had hypnotized them, caused an aesthetic catalepsy to descend. Their state threatened to turn his home into a sort of Sleeping Beauty’s Palace, rows of inert vertical figures of intellectuals, for ever straining sightless eyes upward towards the ceiling, impossible to eject from where they stood. He waved his hands.
‘This way,’ he cried. ‘This way.’
He may have been merely regretful that his guests should exhaust so much appreciation on this single aspect, even if a highly prized one, of his treasures, anxious that should not be done to detriment of other splendid items. Most likely of all, he wanted to get us out of the place, hoped our sightseeing would be undertaken with all possible dispatch, leaving him and his guests in peace; or whatever passed for peace in such a house-party. One wondered how he could ever have been foolhardy enough to have presented Pamela with an open invitation to stay any time she liked. The cause, in his case, would not have been love. Possibly he had never done so. She had forced herself on him. It was waste of time to speculate how the Widmerpools had managed to install themselves in the Palazzo. Jacky Bragadin, like most rich people, was well able to attend to his own interests. He must have had his reasons.
‘This way,’ he repeated. ‘This way.’
He tried to encourage the more obdurate loiterers with smiles and beckonings. They would not be persuaded. He gave it up for a moment Dr Brightman pinned him down again. Glober reappeared beside Widmerpool and myself.
‘Mr Jenkins, I want you and Signora Clarini to meet. Signora Clarini is stopping in the Palazzo too. Her husband’s name you’ll know, the celebrated Italian director.’
I explained Baby and I had already met, though contacts had been slight, ages before. In those days, soon after her own association with Sir Magnus Donners, the Italian husband had then been spoken of as satisfactory to herself, even if of dubious occupation. Now he was no longer dubious, he must also have become less satisfactory, because Baby seemed displeased at his name being dragged in. Glober, on hearing she and I had met, struck an amused pose, as always personal to himself, if to some extent drawn from that deep fund of American schematized humour, of which, in a more sparing and austere technique, Colonel Cobb had been something of a master. Glober was not at all displeased to find earlier knowledge of Baby would unequivocally demonstrate the sort of woman prepared to run after him; an undertaking on which she certainly seemed engaged.
‘Baby, I believe you’ve met every man in the Eastern Hemisphere, and quite a few in the Western too.’
Possibly a small touch of malice was voiced. Baby may have thought that She looked sulky. I remembered Barnby’s passion for her, his comment how Sir Magnus never minded his girls having other commitments. That was hardly a subject to bridge our once slender acquaintance. Her manner, not outstandingly friendly, minimally accepted former meetings had taken place.
‘Aren’t you fed up with this heat?’ she said. ‘Everybody’s dripping. Look at Louis. Isn’t he a disgusting sight?’
Glober murmured consciously good-natured protests. ‘Am I, Baby? But not everyone. Look at Lord Widmerpool, he