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‘Of course.’
‘But lest I should seem to pontificate upon my own subject, to be over-occupied with the sordid details of commerce, let me tell you, Nicholas, that I have been allowing myself certain relaxations.’
‘You have?’
‘As you know, my mother has always urged me to spend more time seeking amusement. She thinks I work too hard.’
‘I remember your telling me.’
I did not know what he was aiming at. There was no doubt he was pleased about something. He seemed uncertain whether or not to reveal the reason for that. Then, suddenly, his gratification was explained.
‘I have been moving in rather exalted circles lately,’ he said, giving a very satisfied smile.
‘Indeed?’
‘Not exactly royal – that is hardly the word yet… You understand me…?’
‘I think so.’
‘It was an interesting experience.’
‘Have you actually met…’
Widmerpool bowed his head, suggesting by this movement the knowledge of enviable secrets. At the same time he would allow no admission that might be thought compromising either to himself or those in high places whose reputation must rightly be shielded. I tried to extort more from him without any success.
‘When did this happen?’
‘Please do not press me for details.’
He was now on his dignity. There was a moment of silence. Widmerpool took a deep breath, as if drawing into his lungs all the health-giving breezes of the open sea of an elevated social life.
‘I think we are going to see some great changes, Nicholas,’ he said, ‘and welcome ones. There is much – as I have often said before – to be swept away. I feel sure the things I speak of will be swept away. A new broom will soon get to work. I venture to hope that I may even myself participate in this healthier society to which we may look forward.’
‘And you think we shall avoid war?’
‘Certainly, I do. But I was speaking for once of society in its narrower sense – the fashionable world. There is much in the prospect before us that attracts me.’
I wondered if he were again pla
‘I expect you remember that the last time you were lunching with me I was pla
‘How is your mother?’
‘As usual, she is positively growing younger,’ said Widmerpool, pleased by this enquiry. ‘And together with her always keen appreciation of youth, she tries, as I have said, to persuade me to venture more often into a social world. She is right. I know she is right. I made an effort to follow her advice – with the satisfactory consequence that I have more than half imparted to you.’
It was no good hoping to hear any more. Like Moreland dropping hints about his love affairs, Widmerpool hoped only to whet my curiosity. He seemed anxious to convince me that, although his own engagement had been broken off in embarrassing circumstances, he had been left without any feeling of bitterness.
‘I hear Mildred Haycock has returned to the South of France,’ he said. ‘Really the best place for her. I won’t repeat to you a story I was told about her the other day. For my own part, I see no reason to hurry into marriage. Perhaps, after all, forty is the age at which to find a mate. I believe Leon Blum says so in his book. He is a shrewd man, Monsieur Blum.’
3
PEOPLE TALKED as if it were a kind of phenomenon that Matilda should ever have given birth to a child at all: the unwillingness of the world to believe that anyone – especially a girl who has lived fairly adventurously – might exist for a time in one ma
We used to see a good deal of the Morelands in those days dining together sometimes at Foppa’s, sometimes at the Strasbourg, afterwards going to a film, or, as Moreland really preferred, sitting in a pub and talking. He would develop a passion for one particular drinking place – never the Mortimer after marriage – then tire of it, inclination turning to active aversion. Isobel and Matilda got on well together. They were about the same age; they had the nursing home in common. Matilda had recovered quickly, after an unpromising start. She found apparent relief in describing the discomfort she had suffered, although speaking always in a ma
‘Matilda’s father was a chemist,’ Moreland once remarked, when we were alone together, ‘but he is dead now – so one ca
‘And her mother?’
‘Married again. They were never on very good terms. Matty left home very young. I think everyone was rather glad when she struck out on her own.’
Two of my sisters-in-law, as it happened, had come across Matilda in pre-Moreland days. These were Veronica, George Tolland’s wife, and Norah, who shared a flat with Eleanor Walpole-Wilson. Veronica, whose father was an auctioneer in a country town not far from Stourwater Castle, was one of the few people to know something of Matilda’s early life. They had, indeed, been at school together.
‘I was much older, of course,’ Veronica said. ‘I just remember her right down at the bottom of the junior school, a little girl you couldn’t help noticing. She was called Betty Updike then.’
‘How did you ever discover Matilda was the same girl?’
‘When I was living at home and divorcing Fred, I met a local girl in the High Street who’d got a job on the Daily Mail. She began to talk about Sir Magnus Do
There was nothing particularly surprising about Matilda having taken a new name for the stage. Many people did that. It was something to be expected. The ma