Anthony Powell - Books Do Furnish a Room

‘I tell you I’m feeling faint again.’

‘All right. We’ll go the minute I get this paper — what is that, my dear Tolland? — yes, of course we’re taking you in the taxi. I was just saying to my wife that we’re leaving the moment I’ve taken charge of a document Lady Frederica’s finding for me.’

He spoke absently, his mind evidently on business matters. Pamela made further protests. Widmerpool turned to Siegfried, who was arranging the cups, most of them odd ones, in order of size at the back of the table.

‘Fritz, mein Mann, sagen Sie bitte der Frau Gräfin, dass Wir jetzt abfahren.’

‘Sofort, Herr Oberst.’

Pamela was prepared to submit to no such delays. ‘I’m going at once — I must. I’m feeling ghastly again.’

‘All right, dearest. You go on. I’ll follow — the rest of us will. I can’t leave without obtaining that paper.’

Widmerpool looked about him desperately. Marriage had greatly reduced his self-assurance. Then a plan suggested itself.

‘Nick, do very kindly escort Pam to the door. She’s not feeling quite herself, a slight recurrence of what she went through earlier. Those passages are rather complicated, as I remember from arriving. Your sister-in-law’s looking for a document I need. I must stay for that, and to thank her for her hospitality.’

Pamela had certainly gone very white again. She looked as if she might be going to faint. Her withdrawal from church, in the light of previous behaviour likely to be prompted by sheer perversity, now took on a more excusable aspect. That she was genuinely feeling ill was confirmed by the way she agreed without argument to the suggested compromise. We at once set off down the stairs together, Pamela bidding no one goodbye.

‘Is the taxi outside?’

‘Parked in the yard.’

‘Your coat?’

‘Lying on some of that junk by the door.’

We hurried along. About halfway to the goal of the outside door, amongst the thickest of the bric-a-brac that littered the passage, she stopped.

‘I’m feeling sick.’

This was a crisis indeed. If we returned to Erridge’s quarters, again negotiating the stairs and passing through the sitting-room, resources existed — in the Erridge manner, unelaborate enough — for accommodating sudden indisposition of this sort, but the sanctuary, such as it was, could not be called near. I lightly sketched in the facilities available, their means of approach. She looked at me without answering. She was a greenish colour by now.

‘Shall we go back?’

‘Back where?’

‘To the bathroom — ’

Pamela seemed to consider the suggestion for a second. She glanced round about, her eyes coming to rest on the two tall oriental vessels, which Lord Huntercombe had disparaged as nineteenth-century copies. Standing about five foot high, patterned in blue, boats sailed across their surface on calm sheets of water, out of which rose houses on stilts, in the distance a range of jagged mountain peaks. It was a peaceful scene, very different from the emergency in the passage. Pamela came to a decision. Moving rapidly forward, she stepped lightly on one of the plinths where a huge jar rested, in doing so showing a grace I could not help admiring in spite of the circumstances. She turned away and leant forward. All was over in a matter of seconds. On such occasions there is no way in which an onlooker can help. Inasmuch as it were possible to do what Pamela had done with a minimum of fuss or disagreeable concomitant, she achieved that difficult feat. The way she brought it off was remarkable, almost sublime. She stepped down from the plinth with an air of utter unconcern. Colour, never high in her cheeks, slightly returned. I made some altogether inadequate gestures of assistance, which she unsmilingly brushed aside. Now she was totally herself again.

‘Give me your handkerchief.’

She put it in her bag, and shook her hair.

‘Come on.’

‘You wouldn’t like to go back just for a moment?’

‘Of course not.’

Her firmness was granite. Just as we were proceeding on towards the outside door, the rest of the party, Widmerpool, Alfred Tolland, Quiggin, Craggs, Gypsy, appeared at the far end of the corridor. Hugo was seeing them out. Widmerpool was at the head, explaining some apparently complicated matter to Hugo, so that he did not notice Pamela and myself until a yard or two away.

‘Ah, there you are, dear. I thought you’d have reached the car by now. I expect you are better, and Nicholas has been pointing out the objets d’art to you. It’s the kind of thing he knows about. Rather fine some of the pieces look to me.’

He paused and pointed.

‘What are those great vases, for example? Chinese? Japanese? I am woefully ignorant of such matters. I intend to visit Japan when opportunity occurs, see what sort of a job the Americans are doing there. I doubted the wisdom of retaining the Emperor. Feudalism must go whenever and wherever it survives. We must also keep an eye on Uncle Sam’s mailed fist — but I am running away with myself. Pam, you must go carefully on the journey home. Rest is what you need.’

She did not utter a word but, turning from them, walked quickly towards the door. Morally speaking, some sort of warning seemed required that all had not been well, yet any such announcement was hard to phrase. Before anything could be said — if, indeed, there were anything apposite to say — Hugo had gently encouraged the group to move on.

‘I think a revised seating arrangement might be advisable on the way back to the station,’ said Widmerpool.

‘I’m going in front,’ said Pamela.

The rest were contained somehow at the back. Alfred Tolland looked like a man being put to the torture for conscience sake, but determined to bear the torment with fortitude. Pamela lay back beside the driver with closed eyes. The taxi moved away slowly towards the arch, hooted, disappeared from sight. No one waved or looked back. Hugo and I re-entered the house. I told him what had happened in the passage.

‘In one of the big Chinese pots?’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t mean literally?’

‘Quite literally.’

‘Couldn’t you stop her?’

‘Where was there better?’

‘You mean otherwise it would have been the floor?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Does that mean she’s going to have a baby?’

‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘It’s the only excuse.’

‘I think it was just rage.’

‘Nothing whatever was said?’

‘Not a word.’

‘You just looked on?’

‘What was there to say? It wasn’t my business, if she didn’t want the others to sympathize with her.’

Hugo laughed. He thought for a moment.

‘I believe if I were given to falling for women, I’d fall for her.’

‘Meanwhile, how is the immediate problem to be dealt with?’

‘We’ll consult Blanche.’

The news of Pamela’s conduct was received at the beginning with incredulity, the first reaction, that Hugo and I were projecting a bad-taste joke. When the crude truth was grasped, Roddy Cutts was shocked, Frederica furious, Norah sent into fits of hysterical laughter. Jeavons only shook his head.

‘Knew she was a wrong ’un from the start,’ he said. ‘Look at the way she behaved to that poor devil Templer. You know I often think of that chap. I liked having him in the house, and listening to all those stories about girls. Kept your mind off the blitz. Turned out we’d met before in that night-club of Umfraville’s, though I couldn’t remember a word about it.’

Complications worse than at first envisaged were contingent on what had happened. The Chinese vase had to be sluiced out. Blanche, although totally accepting responsibility for putting right this misadventure, like the burden of every other disagreeable responsibility where keeping house was concerned, voiced these problems first.