Anthony Powell - Hearing Secret Harmonies

‘Yes. I do know more.’

‘Involved without love — even in the many heteroclite forms of that unhappy verb.’

‘Yes.’

‘My first thought — when Fiona came to me with Murtlock’s message that he wanted to know Gwinnett’s whereabouts — was to have nothing to do with the whole business. That was more on grounds of taste than morals. As Emily Brightman is always pointing out, they are so often hopelessly confused by unintelligent people.’

‘Murtlock knew Gwinnett was in England?’

‘He’d already found that out somehow.’

‘He finds out a lot. I’m surprised, having got so far, he hadn’t traced Gwinnett’s whereabouts.’

‘He may, in any case, have preferred a more tortuous approach. I felt it an imposition on the part of this young visionary — whatever his claims as a magician — to force his abracadabras on an American scholar, engaged over here on research of a serious kind, however idiosyncratic Gwinnett’s own sexual tastes may be. Would you agree?’

‘Besides, as you’ve said, so far as we know, Gwinnett pursues these for pleasure, rather than magical advancement.’

‘Exactly. Love and Literature should rank before Sorcery and Power. There was, however, an additional aspect. That was why I was not speaking with absolute truth when I denied that Fiona was in some degree playing her own game, when she came to see me. On the other hand, that possibility did not possess quite the flattering slant you implied.’

‘She told you in so many words why Murtlock wanted to meet Gwinnett?’

‘Certainly. No embarrassments at all about that. More so regarding the ulterior motive for her visit. That emerged while we were talking. The fact was that Fiona was getting tired — more than that, absolutely desperate — about the life she has been living for a long time now.’

‘That’s good news.’

‘Of course.’

Delavacquerie paused again. He did not sound quite so enthusiastic about Fiona cutting adrift from Murtlockism as might have been expected. The chronological sequence of when these things happened — Fiona come to Delavacquerie, Gwinnett gone to visit Murtlock and Widmerpool, the period between — was not very clear to me. I was also uncertain as to Delavacquerie’s present feelings about Fiona. Whatever she had said to him did not appear to have affected her doings at The Devil’s Fingers. I fully believed what Delavacquerie had described as his attitude towards Fiona as his son’s girlfriend; I believed, more or less, that he later put her from his mind; but this new Fiona incarnation remained undefined. It was quite another matter. Also there was Polly Duport in the background. More must be explained. When he spoke again it was in an altogether detached tone.

‘Fiona more or less broke down while we were talking. Even then she was unwilling to say she would give up the whole thing. This was at our first meeting.’

‘There were subsequent ones?’

‘Several. Murtlock wouldn’t accept no for an answer, so far as Gwinnett’s whereabouts were concerned.’

‘You had refused to reveal them?’

‘Yes.’

‘That showed firmness.’

‘Firmness, in any sphere, is ultimately the only thing anyone respects. Murtlock seems to have foreseen a refusal at first. Either that, or he enjoyed linking Fiona and myself in a kind of game.’

‘He would be capable of both.’

‘His instincts told him that he could force Gwinnett’s address out of me, sooner or later, through Fiona herself. Murtlock, as you know by now, is exceedingly cunning in getting what he wants. He was well aware that Fiona felt that he, Scorpio Murtlock, must in some manner release her, personally, from his domination — give her leave to go, before she herself, of her own volition, could escape the net.’

‘All she had to do, in plain fact, was to walk out.’

‘That is just what Fiona could not bring herself to do. Murtlock knew that perfectly. He knew she must have some sort of legal dismissal from his service, one afforded by himself.’

‘An honourable discharge?’

‘Even a dishonourable one, I think — since all abandoning of himself and the cult must be wrong — but it had to come from Murtlock. It was no good arguing with her. That was how she felt. We talked it over exhaustively — and exhaustingly — during various meetings.’

Delavacquerie seemed to have established a more effective relationship with Fiona than any up-to-date achieved by her own family.

‘So what happened?’

‘In the end I revealed Gwinnett’s sleazy hotel. The price of that was that Fiona should be free to leave. Even then Murtlock would not allow her to go immediately. He said she could only go when she had taken part in a ceremony that included the presence of Gwinnett.’

‘So it was through you, in a sense, that Gwinnett went to see Widmerpool. He said it was because he wanted to observe gothic doings done in a gothic way.’

‘That was true too. It was a bit of luck for Murtlock — unless he bewitched Gwinnett too, put the idea into his head. I prefer to think it luck. No doubt he always has luck. Those people do. Once I had told Murtlock where to find Gwinnett, Gwinnett himself decided there was a good reason to fall in with what Murtlock wanted all along the line.’

‘Where’s Fiona now? Has she got away from Murtlock yet?’

Delavacquerie looked for a moment a little discomposed.

‘As a matter of fact Fiona’s living in the flat — not living with me, I mean — but it was somewhere to go. In fact it seemed the only way out. She didn’t want to have to live with her parents — obviously she could, for a time anyway, if she felt like doing that — and, if she set up on her own, there was danger that Murtlock might begin to pester her again. A spell of being absolutely free from Murtlock would give a chance to build up some resistance, as against a disease. There’s no one in Etienne’s room. It was her own suggestion. As you can imagine, she’s rather off sex for the moment.’

‘I see.’

That was untrue. I did not in the least see; so far as seeing might be held to imply some sort of understanding of what was really taking place. A complicated situation appeared merely to be accumulating additional complicated factors. Delavacquerie himself evidently accepted the inadequacy of this acknowledgment in relation to problems involved. He seemed to expect no more.

‘When I say we talked things over, that isn’t exactly true either. Fiona doesn’t talk things over. She’s incapable of doing that. That’s partly her trouble. One of the reasons why it was better for her to be in the flat was that it offered some hope of finding out what she was really thinking.’

He abruptly stopped speaking of Fiona.

‘Now tell me your story.’

To describe what had happened at The Devil’s Fingers, now that Fiona was living under Delavacquerie’s roof, was an altogether different affair from doing so in the manner that the story had first rehearsed itself to my mind. Then, planning its telling, there had been no reason to suppose her more than, at best, a sentimental memory; if — which might be quite mistaken — I had been right in suspecting him a little taken with her, when, in connexion with his son, Delavacquerie had first spoken Fiona’s name. Nevertheless, there was no glossing over the incident at The Devil’s Fingers. It had, in any case, been narrated by Gwinnett with his accustomed reticences, and, after all, Delavacquerie knew from Fiona herself more or less what had been happening. That was only a specific instance, though, for various reasons, an exceptional one. If he felt additional dismay on hearing of that night’s doings, he showed nothing. His chief interest was directed to the fact that Gwinnett had been present in person at the rites. This specific intervention of Gwinnett had been unknown to him. He had also supposed anything of the sort to have been, more or less as a matter of course, enacted at whatever premises Widmerpool provided.