Anthony Powell - Hearing Secret Harmonies

Members accepted correction.

‘Lindsay Bagshaw told me the other day that he regarded himself as a satisfied Lear. Since his wife died, he divides his time between his daughters’ households, and says their food is not at all bad.’

‘Your friend Bagshaw must be temperamentally equipped to accept the compromises that Lear rejected,’ said Smethyck. ‘I do not know him — ’

He had evidently heard as much as he wanted about the Magnus Donners dinner, and moved away to speak with a well-known cartoonist. Members continued to brood on the Quiggin twins and their activities.

‘Do you think Widmerpool arranged it all, to get his own back on Gwinnett?’

‘Widmerpool was as surprised as anyone when the bang went off.’

‘That’s what’s being generally said. I wondered whether it was true. He’s here tonight.’

‘Widmerpool?’

‘Looking even scruffier than at the Magnus Donners. What does it all mean dressing like that? Do you think he will make another speech off the cuff?’

Members, speaking as one in a position to deplore slovenliness of dress, fingered the cross at his throat. A life peeress, also connected with the world of culture, passed at that moment, and he buttonholed her. A moment later Widmerpool came into sight at the far end of the gallery. He was prowling about by himself, speaking to no one. Members had called him scruffy, but his disarray, such as it was, did not greatly differ from that of the Magnus Donners evening. He was still wearing the old suit and red polo jumper, though closer contact might have revealed the last as unwashed since the earlier occasion. Widmerpool’s appearance afforded an example of the curiously absorbent nature of the RA party. At almost any other public dinner the getup would have looked out of place. Here, clothes and all, he was unified with fellow guests. “Those who did not know him already might easily have supposed they saw before them a professional painter, old and seedy — Widmerpool looked decidedly more than his later sixties — who had emerged momentarily, from some dilapidated artists’ colony, to make an annual appearance at a function to which countless years as an obscure contributor had earned him the prescriptive right of invitation. In this semi-disguise, seen at long range, he could be pictured pottering about with an easel, in front of a row of tumbledown whimsically painted shacks lying along the seashore. Widmerpool moved out of sight. I did not see him again until we went into dinner, when he reappeared sitting a short way up the table on the other side from my own.

The clergyman, Canon Fenneau, was already engaged in conversation with the Regius Professor on his left, when I sat down. The actor and I talked. I had not seen the Ibsen production in which he was playing, but I told him that I had met Polly Duport, and knew Norman Chandler, who had directed a play in which my neighbour had acted not long before. Talk about the Theatre took us through the first course. The actor spoke of Molnar, a dramatist known to me from reading, on the whole, rather than seeing on a stage.

‘Molnar must be about due for a revival.’

The actor agreed.

‘Somebody was saying that the other day. Who was it? I know. It was after the performance last week. Polly Duport’s friend with the French name. He’s a writer of some sort, I believe. He thought Molnar an undervalued playwright in this country. What is he called? I’ve met him once or twice, when he’s come to pick her up.’

‘I wouldn’t know. I don’t know her at all well.’

‘A French name. De-la-something. Delavacquerie? Could it be that?’

‘There’s a poet called Gibson Delavacquerie.’

‘That’s the chap. I remember Polly calling him Gibson. Small and dark. They’re two of the nicest people.’

I heard no more about this revelation — it graded as a revelation — because someone on the far side of the table distracted the actor’s attention by saying how much he had enjoyed the Ibsen. Almost simultaneously a voice from my other flank, soft, carefully articulated, almost wheedling, spoke gently.

‘We met a long time ago. You will not remember me. I’m Paul Fenneau.’

Smooth, plump, grey curls (rather like Smethyck’s, in neat waves), pink cheeks, Canon Fenneau stretched out a hand below the level of the table. It seemed rather unnecessary to shake hands at this late juncture, but I took it. The palm surprised by its firm even rough surface, electric vibrations. I had to admit he was right about my not remembering him.

‘At a tea-party of Sillery’s. I should place it in the year 1924. I may be in error about the date. I am bad at dates. They are so meaningless.’

For some reason Canon Fenneau made me feel a little uneasy. His voice might be soft, it was also coercive. He had small eyes, a large loose mouth, the lips thick, a somewhat receding chin. The eyes were the main feature. They were unusual eyes, not only almost unnaturally small, but vague, moist, dreamy, the eyes of a medium. His cherubic side, increased by a long slightly uptilted nose, was a little too good to be true, with eyes like that. In the manner in which he gave you all his attention there was a taste for mastery.

‘In those days I was a frightened freshman from an obscure college. I can’t tell you how impressed I was by the august company gathered in Sillery’s room — if I rightly remember the afternoon we met. I didn’t dare open my mouth. There was Mark Members, for instance, whom I noticed you talking with before dinner. I’d never seen a large-as-life poet in the flesh before. How I envied Mark for the fuss Sillers made of him. I remember Sillers pinched his neck. I’d have given the world in those days to have my neck pinched by Sillers. Then there was the famous Bill Truscott. Truscott, already working London, so tall, so distinguished, a figure entirely beyond my purview in the undergraduate world I frequented.’

Fenneau sighed, and smiled. It was hard to believe he had ever been frightened of anybody. I still had no recollection of meeting him, even while he recalled that particular tea-party of Sillery’s; which, for various reasons, had made a strong impression on myself too. Fenneau could easily have been one of several undergraduates present, who were — and remained — unknown to me; though no doubt introduced at the time, Sillery being keen on introductions. Subsequent silence about Fenneau on Sillery’s part would indicate not so much Fenneau’s own pretensions to obscurity — Sillery rather liked to glory in the obscurity of some of his favourites — as cause given that afternoon, or at a later period, for Sillerian disapproval. Fenneau was probably one of the young men passed briskly through the Sillery machine, and found wanting; tried out once, never reprocessed. So far as being speechless went, Sillery did not necessarily mind that. The occasional speechless guest could be a useful foil. Some of his own pupils in that genre were quite often at the tea-parties. They set off more ebullient personalities. I hoped Fenneau would not produce embarrassing reminiscences of my own undergraduate behaviour at Sillery’s, or elsewhere in the University.

‘Did you often go to Sillery’s?’

‘Very few times after the first visit. I was not encouraged to pay too frequent calls. Just the necessary tribute from time to time. Rendering unto Sillers the things which were Sillers’. My claims could not have been less high, even for pennies that bore, so to speak, Sillery’s own image and superscription.’

He smiled again, making, with a morsel of bread, a gesture indicative of extreme humility.

‘Claims on Sillers?’

‘Rather his claims on myself. My late father was an English chaplain on the Riviera. For a number of reasons Sillers found useful a South of France contact of that kind. Besides, my father was a personal friend of the Bishop of Gibraltar, a prelacy to attract the regard of Sillers, owing to the farflung nature of the diocese.’