Anthony Powell - Books Do Furnish a Room

‘What about her?’

Trapnel did not speak at once. He looked as if he could not believe he had heard the words correctly. I asked again. He smiled and shook his head.

‘That’s whom I’m in love with.’

No comment seemed anywhere near adequate. This was beyond all limits. Burton well expressed man’s subjection to passion. To recall his words gave some support now. ‘The scorching beams under the Æquinoctial , or extremity of cold within the circle of the Arctick , where the very Seas are frozen, cold or torrid zone cannot avoid, or expel this beat, fury and rage of mortal men.’ No doubt that was just how Trapnel felt. His face showed that he saw this climax as the moment of truth, one of those high-spots in the old silent films that he liked to recall, some terrific consummation emphasized by several seconds of monotonous music rising louder and louder, until, almost deafening, the notes suddenly jar out of tune in a frightful discord: the train is derailed: the canoe swept over the rapids: the knife plunged into the naked flesh. All is over. The action is cut: calm music again, perhaps no music at all.

‘Of course I know I’m mad. I don’t stand a chance. That’s one of the reasons why the situation’s nothing like Tessa — or any other girl I’ve ever been mixed up with. I admit it’s not sane. I admit that from the start.’

If things had gone so far that Trapnel could not even pronounce the name of the woman he loved, had to write it down on a review slip, the situation must indeed be acute. I laughed. There seemed nothing else to do. That reaction was taken badly by Trapnel. He had some right to be offended after putting on such an act. That could not be helped. He looked half-furious, half-upset. As he was inclined to talk about his girls only after they had left, there was no measure for judging the norm of his feelings when they were first sighted. Possibly he was always as worked up as at that moment, merely that I had never been the confidant. That seemed unlikely. Even if he showed the same initial excitement, the incongruity of making Pamela his aim was something apart.

‘You didn’t much take to her at the Fission party.’

‘Of course I didn’t. I thought her the most awful girl I’d ever met.’

‘What brought about the change?’

‘I was in Ada’s room looking through my press-cuttings. Mrs Widmerpool suddenly came in. She’s an old friend of Ada’s. I hadn’t known that. She didn’t bother to be announced from the downstairs office, just came straight up to Ada’s room. She wanted to telephone right away. I was standing there talking to Ada about the cuttings. Mrs Widmerpool didn’t take any notice of me. I might just as well not have been there, far less chatted with her at a party. Ada told her my name again, but she absolutely cut me. She went to the telephone, at once began cursing the girl at the switchboard for her slowness. When she got the number, it was to bawl out some man who’d sent her a jar of pickled peaches as a present. She said they were absolutely foul. She’d thrown them down the lavatory. She fairly gave him hell.’

‘That stole your heart away?’

‘Something did. Nick, I’m not joking. I’m mad about her. I’d do anything to see her again.’

‘Did you converse after the telephoning?’

‘That’s what I’m coming to. We did talk. Ada asked her if she’d read the Camel . My God, she had — and liked it. She was — I don’t know — almost as if she were shy all at once. Utterly different from what she’d been at the party, or even a moment before in the room. She behaved as if she quite liked me, but felt it would be wrong to show it. That was the moment when the thing hit me. I didn’t know what to do. I felt quite ill with excitement. I mean both randy, and sentimentally in love with her too. I was wondering whether I’d ask both her and Ada to have a drink with me before lunch — perhaps borrow ten bob from Ada and pay her back later in the afternoon, because I was absolutely cleaned out at the moment of speaking — then Mrs Widmerpool suddenly remembered she was lunching with some lucky devil, and had told him to be at the restaurant at twelve-thirty, it being then a good bit after one o’clock- She went away, but quite unhurried. She knew he’d wait. What can I do? I’m crazy about her.’

Trapnel paused. The story still remained beyond comment. However, it was apparently not at an end. Something else too was on Trapnel’s mind. Now he looked a shade embarrassed, a rare condition for him.

‘You remember I talked to her husband at that party? We got on rather well. I can never think of him as her husband, but all the same he is, and something happened which I wish had never taken place.’

‘If you mean you borrowed a quid off him, I know — he told me.*

‘He did? In that case I feel better about it. The taxi absorbed my last sixpence. I had to get back to West Kilburn that night by hook or crook. I won’t go into the reason why, but it was the case. I’d walked there once from Piccadilly, and preferred not to do it again. That was why I did a thing I don’t often do, and got a loan from a complete stranger. The fact was it struck me as I was leaving the party that Mr Widmerpool had been so kind in listening to me — expressed such humane views on housing and such things — that he wouldn’t mind helping me over a temporary difficulty. I was embarrassed at having to do so. I think Mr Widmerpool was a bit embarrassed too. He didn’t know what I meant at first.’

Trapnel laughed rather apologetically. It was possible to recognize a conflict of feelings. As a writer, he could perfectly appreciate the funny side of taking a pound off Widmerpool; the whole operation looked like a little exercise in the art, introducing himself, making a good impression, bringing off the ‘touch’. He had probably waited to leave the party until he saw Widmerpool going down the stairs, instinct guiding him as to the dole that would not be considered too excessive to withhold. At the same time, as a borrower, Trapnel had to keep up a serious attitude towards borrowing. He could not admit the whole affair had been a prepared scheme from the start. Finally, as a lover, he had put himself in a rather absurd relation to the husband of the object of his affections. To confess that showed how far Trapnel’s defences were down. He returned to the subject of Pamela.

‘Ada says they don’t get on too well together. She told me that when I dropped in again on the office the following day. A man who looks like that couldn’t appreciate such a marvellous creature.’

‘Did you tell Ada how you felt?’

‘Not on your life. There’s a lot of argument going on about the new novel, as I mentioned, quite apart from notices still coming in for Bin Ends . It was perfectly natural for me to look in again. As a matter of fact Ada began to speak of Mrs Widmerpool herself as soon as I arrived. I just sat and listened.’

‘Ada’s pretty smart at guessing.’

‘She doesn’t guess how I feel. I know she doesn’t. She couldn’t have said some of the things she did, if she had. I was very careful not to give anything away — you won’t either, Nick, will you? I don’t want anyone else to know. But how on earth am I to see her again.’

‘Go and pay Widmerpool back his quid, I suppose.’

This frivolous, possibly even heartless comment was made as a mild call to order, a suggestion so unlikely to be followed that it would emphasize the absurdity of Trapnel’s situation. That was not at all the way he took it. On the contrary, the proposal immediately struck him not only as seriously put forward, but a scheme of daring originality. No doubt the proposal was indeed original in the sense that repayment of a loan had never occurred to Trapnel as a measure to be considered.