Anthony Powell - The Kindly Ones

‘Give me that fly-whisk,’ said Templer.

At the height of the act, amid much laughter from the audience, I suddenly heard next to me a muffled howl. It was the noise a dog makes when accidentally trodden on. I turned to see what had happened. The sound came from Betty Templer. Tears were coursing down her cheeks. Up to that moment she had been sitting silent on one of the dining-room chairs, watching the show, apparently fairly happy now that her own turn was passed. I thought she was even finding these antics a little amusing. Now, as I looked at her, she jumped up and rushed from the room. The door slammed. Templer and Anne Umfraville, both by then more or less recumbent on the cushions littering the table, in a dramatic and convincing representation of impotent desire, now separated one from the other. Templer slid to his feet. Sir Magnus looked up from the camera.

‘Oh, dear,’ he said mildly, ‘I’m afraid Betty is not feeling well again. Perhaps she should not have sat up so late.’

For some reason my mind was carried back at that moment to Stonehurst and the Billson incident. This was all the same kind of thing. Betty wanted Templer’s love, just as Billson wanted Albert’s; Albert’s marriage had precipitated a breakdown in just the same way as Templer’s extravagances with Anne Umfraville. Here, unfortunately, was no General Conyers to take charge of the situation, to quieten Betty Templer. Certainly her husband showed no immediate sign of wanting to accept that job. However, before an extreme moral discomfort could further immerse all of us, a diversion took pace. The door of the dining-room, so recently slammed, opened again. A man stood on the threshold. He was in uniform. He appeared to be standing at attention, a sinister, threatening figure, calling the world to arms. It was Widmerpool.

‘Good evening,’ he said.

Sir Magnus, who had been fiddling with the camera, smiling quietly to himself, as if he had not entirely failed to extract a passing thrill of pleasure from Betty Templer’s crise, looked up. Then he advanced across the room, his hand outstretched.

‘Kenneth,’ he said, ‘I did not expect to see you at this late hour. I thought you must have decided to drive straight to London. We have been taking some photographs.’

By that date, when the country had lived for some time under the threat of war, the traditional, the almost complete professional anonymity of the army in England had been already abrogated. Orders enacting that officers were never to be seen in London wearing uniform — certainly on no social occasion, nor, as a rule, even when there on duty — being to some extent relaxed, it was now not unknown for a Territorial, for example, to appear in khaki in unmilitary surroundings because he was on his way to or from a brief period of training. Something of the sort must have caused Widmerpool’s form of dress. His arrival at this hour was, in any case, surprising enough. The sight of him in uniform struck a chill through my bones. Nothing, up to that date, had so much brought home to me the imminence, the certitude, of war. That was not because Widmerpool himself looked innately military. On the contrary, he had almost the air of being about to perform a music-hall turn, sing a patriotic song or burlesque, with ‘patter’, an army officer. Perhaps that was only because the rest of the party were more or less in fancy dress. Even so, uniform, for some reason, brings out character, physique, class, even sex, in a curious manner. I had never before thought of Widmerpool as possessing physical characteristics at all feminine in disposition, but now his bulky, awkward shape, buttoned up and held together by a Sam Browne belt, recalled Heather Hopkins got up as an admiral in some act at the Merry Thought. Widmerpool was evidently at a loss, hopelessly at a loss, to know what was happening. He put his cap, leather gloves and a swagger stick bound in leather on the sideboard, having for some reason brought all these with him, instead of leaving them in the hall; possibly to make a more dramatic appearance. Sir Magnus introduced the Morelands. Widmerpool began to assert himself.

‘I have heard my medical man, Brandreth, speak of you, Mr Moreland,’ he said. ‘Don’t you play the piano? I think so. Now I recall, I believe, that we met in a nursing home where I was confined for a time with those vexatious boils. I found you in the passage one day, talking to Nicholas here. I believe you are one of Brandreth’s patients, too. He is an able fellow, Brandreth, if something of a gossip.’

‘I say, Kenneth, old boy,’ said Templer, who, in surprise at seeing Widmerpool at this moment in such an outfit, seemed to have forgotten, at least dismissed from his mind, his wife’s hysterical outburst, ‘are you going to make us all form fours?’

‘You are not very up to date, Peter,’ said Widmerpool, smiling at such a pitiful error. ‘The army no longer forms fours. You should surely know that. We have not done so for several years now. I cannot name the precise date of the Army Council Regulation. It is certainly by no means recent.’

‘Sorry,’ said Templer. ‘You must give us some squad drill later.’

‘You are very fortunate not to be faced with squad drill in any case,’ said Widmerpool severely, ‘it was touch and go. You may count yourself lucky that the recent formula was reached.’

Templer brought his heels together with a click. Widmerpool ignored this facetiousness. He turned to me.

‘Well, Nicholas,’ he said, ‘I did not know you were a Stourwater visitor. Can you explain to me why everyone is clad — or unclad — in this extraordinary manner?’

Sir Magnus took charge of him.

‘I am glad you were able to look in, Kenneth,’ he said. ‘We were taking a few photographs after dinner. Just the Seven Deadly Sins, you know. Like yourself, I am a believer in relaxation in these troublous times. It is absolutely necessary. You look very military, my dear fellow.’

‘I have been staying at my mother’s cottage,’ said Widmerpool, evidently gratified by Sir Magnus’s conciliatory tone. ‘I spent most of the afternoon with one of the other units in my Territorial division. I was doing a rather special job for our CO. There seemed no point in changing back into mufti. I find, too, that uniform makes a good impression these days. A sign of the times. However, I merely looked in to tell you, Magnus, that arrangements about the Swiss company are all but completed. There were no complications.’

‘This is old Bob’s affair, is it?’ said Templer. ‘I saw him last week. He was complaining about the markets. God knows, they’re awful.’

Templer, at that moment, was sitting on the edge of the dining-room table, with the opera-hat tipped to the back of his head. Having removed most of his clothes, he had wrapped a heavy rug around him, so that he might have been wearing some garment like an Inverness cape. He looked like a contemporary picture of a Victorian businessman on a journey.

‘Steel made a modest recovery,’ said Widmerpool, apparently mesmerised by this semi-professional garb of Templer’s into talking general business. ‘Then Copper has been receiving a fair amount of support. Also the Zinc-Lead group, with certain specific Tin shares. Still, it’s a sorry state of affairs. I’m keeping an eye on this calling-in of funds by non-clearing lenders.’

Even Sir Magnus himself was unable to resist this sudden switch to money-matters at Widmerpool’s entrance.

‘The discount houses are getting sixty-nine per cent of their applications for bills dated any day next week except Saturday at a price equal to a discount rate of practically twenty-five thirty-seconds per cent,’ he said.

‘What do you think about the rumours of Roosevelt devaluing the dollar, Magnus?’ asked Templer. ‘You don’t mind if I put a few more clothes on, here and now? It’s getting a shade chilly.’