Anthony Powell - Temporary Kings

Just what happened at this stage is not at all clear; nor at what moment were spoken the words to put in some sort of perspective subsequent events. Gwinnett, of course, himself appeared. He dealt as well as he could with Bagshaw’s stepdaughters, while Pamela dressed and slipped away. Probably she retired on Gwinnett’s arrival, leaving him to cope. She was not present by the time Bagshaw, made aware by the noise that something exceptional was taking place, joined the party. Mrs Bagshaw, like her father-in-law, assuming some comparatively minor domestic contingency in progress, still suffering from migraine, did not leave her bed. Avril, incurious or occupied with her own problems, also remained in her room. Bagshaw said that, insofar as it were possible to behave with dignity throughout the whole affair, Gwinnett contrived to do so.

‘He didn’t say much. Just offered some apologies. Of course, it was obviously Pamela Widmerpool’s fault, not his. He didn’t attempt to excuse himself on that account.’

The night’s disturbances appear to have died down in a fairly banal family quarrel, nothing to do with Pamela or Gwinnett. In fact, the following day, Bagshaw — so far as I know, May Bagshaw too — was prepared for all to be forgiven and forgotten. On this point Bagshaw’s father and stepdaughters do not seem to have been consulted. Gwinnett himself was firm that he must leave. He moved to an hotel (another of Trapnel’s haunts) the same afternoon. Bagshaw said he was uncertain what he felt after Gwinnett had gone.

‘I was sorry to lose him. At the same time I saw, from his own point of view, it would be difficult to stay on. The whole thing might happen again, if that woman knew he was still living with us. Of course, I thought they were having an affair, that she had come to the house to sleep with him. If so, I couldn’t see why either of them needed to make all that to-do. Couldn’t he have done whatever her other lovers do? That was how it looked at the moment.’

By the time Bagshaw told the story himself, a good deal had happened to give opportunity for improving its framework, accentuating highspots of the narrative. One could not be quite sure he had not seen things differently during the embroilment. For example, he spoke of words, possibly apocryphal, murmured by Pamela, as she withdrew (however that had happened) from the house. Bagshaw put this scarcely coherent sentence forward as key to what took place later, explanation, too, of the night’s doings, or lack of them; for that matter, general relationship with Gwinnett.

Bagshaw could not swear to the exact phrase. It had something to do with ‘dead woman’ or ‘death wish’. He also asserted that Gwinnett, while staying in the house, had spoken more than once of Pamela’s conjunction with Ferrand-Sénéschal, bearing out Dr Brightman’s theory that Gwinnett himself was more than a little taken up with mortality. Bagshaw gave other instances. At the time, naturally, emphasis immediately afterwards was laid on the question why Pamela had been wandering about without any clothes. Reflecting on similar instances in my own experience, there was the time (actually not witnessed) when the parlourmaid, Billson, had walked naked into the drawing-room at Stonehurst; more tangibly, when the front door of her flat had been opened to myself by Jean Duport in the same condition. Unlike Candaules’s queen, these two had deliberately chosen to appear in that state, not, as the Queen — anyway vis-à-vis Gyges — involuntarily nude. Perhaps the Tiepolo picture had done something to disturb the balance of Pamela’s mind, in the light of her reported behaviour at the Bragadin dinner party. The situation — just what had really caused the doings at the Bagshaws’ — remained, at the end of that year, still obscure. Most people who took any interest in the matter simply assumed Pamela and Gwinnett had been ‘having an affair’, some row taken place, notable only for Pamela’s incalculable manner of handling things.

About January or February, Gwinnett himself sent a line saying he would like to meet. He wished the Commonplace Book returned to him, unless I particularly needed to keep it longer. We arranged to lunch together on a day I was coming to London. Gwinnett had not remained unaffected by the months spent in England. Whether the change was due to odd experiences undergone, or simply because he felt a sense of release in making a start on his book, was impossible to say. The transformation itself was not easy to define. Not exactly loosened up, he gave at the same time an impression of being on better terms with himself. Here in London he looked more ‘American’ than in Venice. He still wore his light blue lenses, only just observably tinted against the sun. It was not the effect of these. The spectacles, thin filament of moustache, secretive manner, implied quite other origins. One thought, for some reason, of the Near East, though he was not in the least oriental. Perhaps his air was Mexican. The Americanism had something to do with the intense whiteness of his shirt, cut low in the neck, the light shade of the heavily welted rubber-soled shoes, almost yellow in colour. The shoes were the first thing you noticed about him. Ignorant still of just what had happened at the Bagshaws’, I had no way of rationalizing to myself the slight, but apparent alteration. The Commonplace Book was handed over. Gwinnett mentioned that he had stayed with the Bagshaws, then decided he would work more easily in another of Trapnel’s hotels.

‘How much of the book have you done?’

‘I might have roughed out the first quarter.’

He spoke of some of his discoveries. From various sources, he had unearthed material about Trapnel’s early life in Egypt. Perhaps concentrating on Egypt had given Gwinnett the Near East look. He could list, among other things, racehorses Trapnel’s father had ridden, and their owners. There were striking facts about the schools Trapnel had attended, which were many and various. Gwinnett had worked hard.

‘Have you traced any of the girls?’

‘I have.’

Tessa, who had immediately preceded Pamela as object of Trapnel’s love, was doing extremely well. She was secretary, evidently a high-powered one, to the chairman of a noted firm of merchant bankers. Tessa had been helpful to Gwinnett in a straightforward way, giving him a clear, unvarnished account of Trapnel’s daily life, its interior economy, seen from the point of view of an intelligent, capable mistress, who wanted her lover to become a success as a writer. Although retaining affectionate memories of Trapnel, she decided in due course, she said, that he lacked the necessary stamina. That was an interesting first-hand view. Gwinnett had appreciated its good points.

‘Then there was Pat.’

Pat, now married to a don, Professor of Social Science, had been less willing to have her past dredged up. She had replied with a tactful letter saying she preferred not to see Gwinnett.

Sally was dead. That was all he had been able to find out about her.

‘I’d have liked to know more — how and why she died.’

Jacqueline had married a journalist, and was living abroad, where her husband was foreign correspondent to a daily paper. Linda could not be traced.

‘Did you know Pauline?’

‘I never met her. I’ve heard Trapnel speak of her. He thought her depraved. Those were his words. They remained on good terms after parting.

‘I ran Pauline to earth.’

‘What’s she doing?’

‘She’s become a call-girl.’

‘Trapnel said that was where Pauline would end.’

‘Well, not much short of that, I’d say.’

Gwinnett seemed uncertain whether or not to qualify the description. He thought for a moment, then decided against amendment.