Anthony Powell - The Acceptance World

Quiggin made a despairing gesture at such frivolity of manner.

‘I can’t believe no one present knows the quotation, “Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one,”’ he said. ‘You will be telling me next you never heard the words, “The Workers have no country.”’

‘I believe Karl Marx has been “through” before,’ said Stripling, slowly and with great solemnity. ‘Wasn’t he a revolutionary writer?’

‘He was,’ said Quiggin, with heavy irony. ‘He was a revolutionary writer.’

‘Do let’s try again,’ said Mona.

This time the writing changed to a small, niggling hand, rather like that of Uncle Giles.

‘He is sick.’

‘Who is sick?’

‘You know well.’

‘Where is he?’

‘In his room.’

‘Where is his room?’

‘The House of Books.’

The writing was getting smaller and smaller. I felt as if I were taking part in one of those scenes from Alice in Wonderland in which the characters change their size.

‘What can it mean now?’ asked Mona.

‘You have a duty.’

Quiggin’s temper seemed to have moved from annoyance, mixed with contempt, to a kind of general uneasiness.

‘I suppose it isn’t talking about St. John Clarke,’ I suggested.

Quiggin’s reaction to this remark was unexpectedly violent. His sallow skin went white, and, instead of speaking with his usual asperity, he said in a quiet, worried voice: ‘I was beginning to wonder just the same thing. I don’t know that I really ought to have left him. Look here, can I ring up the flat — just to make sure that everything is all right?’

‘Of course,’ said Templer.

‘This way?’

We tried again. Before Quiggin had reached the door, the board had moved and stopped. This time the result was disappointing. Planchette had written a single word, monosyllabic and indecent. Mona blushed.

‘That sometimes happens,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh, calmly.

She spoke as if it were as commonplace to see such things written on blue ruled accounting paper as on the door or wall of an alley. Neatly detaching that half of the sheet, she tore it into small pieces and threw them into the waste-paper basket.

‘Only too often,’ said Stripling with a sigh.

He had evidently accepted the fact that his enjoyment for that afternoon was at an end. Mona giggled.

‘We will stop now,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh, speaking with the voice of authority. ‘It is really no use continuing when a Bad Influence once breaks through.’

‘I’m surprised he knew such a word,’ said Templer.

We sat for a time in silence. Quiggin’s action in going to the telephone possessed the force of one of those utterly unexpected conversions, upon which a notorious drunkard swears never again to touch alcohol, or a declared pacifist enlists in the army. It was scarcely credible that Planchette should have sent him bustling out of the room to enquire after St. John Clarke’s health, even allowing for the importance to himself of the novelist as a livelihood.

‘We shall have to be departing soon, mon cher’, said Mrs. Erdleigh, showing Stripling the face of her watch.

‘Have some tea,’ said Templer. ‘It will be appearing at any moment.’

‘No, we shall certainly have to be getting along, Pete,’ said Stripling, as if conscious that, having been indulged over Planchette, he must now behave himself specially well. ‘It has been a wonderful afternoon. Quite like the old days. Wish old Sunny could have been here. Most interesting too.’

He had evidently not taken in Quiggin’s reason for hurrying to the telephone, nor had any idea of the surprising effect that Planchette’s last few sentences had had on such a professional sceptic. Perhaps he would have been pleased to know that Quiggin had acquired at least enough belief to be thrown into a nervous state by those cryptic remarks. More probably, he would not have been greatly interested. For Stripling, this had been a perfectly normal manner of passing his spare time. He would never be able to conceive how far removed were such activities from Quiggin’s daily life and manner of approaching the world. In Stripling, profound belief had taken the place of any sort of halting imagination he might once have claimed.

Quiggin now reappeared. He was even more disturbed than before.

‘I am afraid I must go home immediately,’ he said, in some agitation. ‘Do you know when there is a train? And can I be taken to the station? It is really rather urgent.’

‘Is he dying?’ asked Mona, in an agonised voice.

She was breathless with excitement at the apparent confirmation of a message from what Mrs. Erdleigh called ‘the Other Side’. She took Quiggin’s arm, as if to soothe him. He did not answer at once, apparently undecided at what should be made public. Then he addressed himself to me.

‘The telephone was answered by Mark,’ he said, through his teeth.

For Quiggin to discover Members reinstated in St. John Clarke’s flat within a few hours of his own departure was naturally a serious matter.

‘And is St. John Clarke worse?’

‘I couldn’t find out for certain,’ said Quiggin, almost wretchedly, ‘but I think he must be for Mark to be allowed back. I suppose St. J. wanted something done in a hurry, and told the maid to ring up Mark as I wasn’t there. I must go at once.’

He turned towards the Templers.

‘I am afraid there is no train for an hour,’ Templer said, ‘but Jimmy is on his way to London, aren’t you, Jimmy? He will give you a lift.’

‘Of course, old chap, of course.’

‘Of course he can. So you can go with dear old Jimmy and arrive in London in no time. He drives like hell.’

‘No longer,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh, with a smile. ‘He drives with care.’

I am sure that the last thing Quiggin wanted at that moment was to be handed over to Stripling and Mrs. Erdleigh, but there was no alternative if he wanted to get to London with the least possible delay. A curious feature of the afternoon had been the manner in which all direct contact between himself and Mrs. Erdleigh had somehow been avoided. Each no doubt realised to the full that the other possessed nothing to offer: that any exchange of energy would have been waste of time.

In Quiggin’s mind, the question of St. John Clarke’s worsened state of health, as such, had now plainly given place to the more immediate threat of Members re-entering the novelist’s household on a permanent footing. His fear that the two developments might be simultaneous was, I feel sure, not necessarily based upon entirely cynical premises. In a weakened state, St. John Clarke might easily begin to regret his earlier suspension of Members as a secretary. Sick persons often vacillate. Quiggin’s anxiety was understandable. No doubt he regarded himself, politically and morally, as a more suitable secretary than Members. It was, therefore, reasonable that he should wish to return as soon as possible to the field of operations.

Recognising at once that he must inevitably accompany the two of them, Quiggin accepted Stripling’s offer of conveyance. He did this with a bad grace, but at the same time insistently, to show there must be no delay now the matter had been decided. This sudden disintegration of the party was displeasing to Mona, who probably felt now that she had wasted her opportunity of having Quiggin in the house; just as on the previous day she had wasted her meeting with him in the Ritz. She seemed, at any rate, overwhelmed with vague, haunting regrets for the manner in which things had turned out; all that unreasoning bitterness and mortification to which women are so subject. For a time she begged them to stay, but it was no good.

‘But promise you will ring up.’