Anthony Powell - Hearing Secret Harmonies

‘No love potions lying about.’

‘You never know when you’re not going to drink one by mistake, but in this case I had not done so.’

‘May I ask a question?’

‘Questions might clarify my own position. I welcome them. All I wish to curtail, for the moment, is competing narrative, until I’ve finished my own.’

‘How was this feeling of interest in Fiona related to your other more permanent commitment?’

‘To Polly? But, of course. That is just what I meant. How shall I put it? If, as I said, the case had been other, the possibility of a temporary run around might not have been altogether ruled out. You understand what I mean?’

‘Keeping it quiet from Polly?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Would Fiona herself have been prepared for a temporary run around — I mean had the situation, as you put it, been quite other?’

‘Who can say? You never know till you try. Besides, if things had been different, they would have been totally different. That is something that perhaps only those — like ourselves — engaged in the arrangement of words fully understand. The smallest alteration in a poem, or a novel, can change its whole emphasis, whole meaning. The same is true of any given situation in life too, though few are aware of that. It was because things were as they were, that the amitié was formed. Perhaps that amitié would never have been established had we met somewhere quite fortuitously.’

‘I see what you mean.’

‘Then — as I told you — Etienne’s thing with Fiona blew over. She went off with Murtlock, whether immediately, I’m not sure, but she went off. Passed entirely out of Etienne’s life, and, naturally, out of mine too. I was rather glad. For one thing I preferred what existed already to remain altogether undisturbed. It suited me. It suited my work. I forgot about Fiona. Even the interest — interest, as opposed to love — proved to have been of the most transient order.’

I wholly accepted Delavacquerie’s picture. Everything in connexion with it carried conviction — several different varieties of conviction. I could not at all guess where his story was going to lead. Inwardly, I flattered myself that my own narration, when I was allowed to unfold it, would cap anything he could produce.

‘I told you, before I went away, that Gwinnett was going to see Widmerpool. That visit took place.’

‘I know. You haven’t heard my story yet. I’ve seen Gwinnett since he told you that.’

‘I myself have not seen Gwinnett, but keep your story just a moment longer. Gwinnett, in fact, seems to have disappeared, perhaps left London. Murtlock, on the other hand, has been in touch with me.’

‘Did he appear in person, wearing his robes?’

‘He sent a message through Fiona.’

‘I see.’

‘Fiona arrived on my doorstep one evening. She knew the flat from her Etienne days.’

Delavacquerie lived in the Islington part of the world, not far from where Trapnel had occasionally camped out in one form or another. I had never seen Delavacquerie on his own ground.

‘This without warning?’

‘No, she called me up first, saying she had something to tell me. I asked her in for a drink. I had forgotten that none of them drink, owing to the rules of the cult, but she came at drinks time of day.’

I thought — as it turned out quite mistakenly — that I saw how things were shaping.

‘May I interpolate another question?’

‘Permission is given.’

‘You remain still living single in your flat?’

Delavacquerie laughed.

‘You mean did the combined trip to the Antilles have any concrete result? Well, purely administratively, it was decided that Polly and I would remain in our separate establishments, anyway for a short time longer, on account of various not at all interesting pressures in our professional lives. Does that answer the substance of your enquiry?’

‘Yes. That was what I wanted to know. A further query. Had Fiona more or less invented an excuse for coming to see you again?’

Delavacquerie smiled at that idea. It seemed to please him, but he shook his head. On the face of it, the suggestion was reasonable enough. If Delavacquerie had taken what he called an interest in Fiona, when she had frequented the house, she herself was likely to be at least aware of something of the sort in the air, an amitié , to use his own term. She could have decided later, if only as a caprice, that she might experiment with his feelings, see how far things would go. Delavacquerie stuck to his uncompromising denial.

‘No, she was sent by Murtlock all right. I’m satisfied as to that. Murtlock’s motive for wanting to get into communication with me was an odd one. Not a particularly pleasant one.’

‘He is not a particularly pleasant young man.’

‘Nevertheless people are attracted to him.’

‘Certainly.’

‘They come under his influence. They may not even like him when they do so. They may not even be in love with him — naturally they could be in love with him without liking him. My first thought was that Fiona was in love with Murtlock. I’m not sure now that’s correct. On the other hand, she’s certainly under Murtlock’s influence.’

It sounded a little as if Delavacquerie was explaining all this to himself, rather than to me, establishing confidence by an opportunity of speaking his hopes aloud. He had, after all, more or less suggested that as his aim, when he broached all this.

‘Does Murtlock hope to rope you into his cult? Surely not? That would be too much.’

‘It wasn’t me he was after. It was Gwinnett.’

‘They met, I suppose, when Gwinnett went down to see Widmerpool.’

‘That hadn’t happened, when Fiona came to see me.’

‘Murtlock knew about Gwinnett already.’

‘It appears that Gwinnett has won quite a name for himself in occult circles — if that is what they should be called — by having allegedly taken part in an act of great magical significance — in modern times almost making magical history.’

‘You mean — ’

‘By release of sexual energy in literally necromantic circumstances — if we are to accept Gwinnett did that — in short, direct contact with the dead. In performing a negative expression of sex, carried to its logical conclusions, Gwinnett took part in the most inspired rite of Murtlock’s cult.’

‘I knew that, according to Murtlock doctrine, pleasure was excluded. There is no reason to suppose Gwinnett himself believed that.’

‘You are right. Such an attitude seems even to have shocked Gwinnett. At the same time he felt that, as a scholar, he should study this available form of the gothic image of mortality. I do not think Gwinnett exactly expected that the theme would be, so to speak, played back to himself by Murtlock when he paid his visit to Widmerpool. I understand that the reason for Murtlock’s interest in him was never put — the metaphor is appropriate — in cold blood. How much Gwinnett himself guessed, I do not know.’

‘You learnt all this from Fiona?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it time to tell my story yet?’

Delavacquerie laughed. He looked at me rather hard.

‘You knew some of this already — I mean in connexion with Fiona?’

‘As it happens, yes.’

He hesitated, perhaps more tormented than he would admit to himself.

‘Let me say one thing more. What I have been talking about is not quite so simple as the way I’ve told it. There is another side too. You imply that you know for a fact that Fiona was involved — physically involved — in some of these highly distasteful goings-on. Do you know more, Nicholas, than that she has been for quite a long time a member of the cult, therefore they would inevitably come her way?’