Anthony Powell - At Lady Molly's

This description sounded a fairly exact definition of the meals Widmerpool enjoyed.

‘I have been making him take me to some decent restaurants — such as there are in this country — and showed him how good food can be. I suppose some of it must have disagreed with him. He is back having his own way now, dining off a sardine and a glass of Malvern water.’

Widmerpool himself smiled feebly at all this, as if making no attempt to deny the truth of the picture presented by her of his medical condition. All the time she was speaking, I could think of nothing but the story Jeavons had told me of his former adventure with her. Conversation became general, only Widmerpool continuing to sit in bleak silence. Templer’s girl had large, liquid eyes, and a drawl reminiscent of Mona’s. She was evidently very taken with Templer, gazing at him all the time, as if she could not believe her luck. I asked her what she thought of the Pilgrim-Hopkins turn.

‘Oh, they were good, weren’t they?’ she said. ‘Didn’t you think so, Peter?’

‘A frightfully old-fashioned couple,’ said Templer. ‘The only reason they are here is because their act was a flop at the Café de Madrid. Still, I’m glad you liked them, darling. It shows what a sweet nature you have. But I don’t want you to wear clothes like Miss Hopkins. You won’t do that, will you?’

She found this dissent from her own opinion delicious, darting excited, apprehensive glances at him from under her eyelashes. I saw that it was no good attempting, even conversationally, to compete. Mrs. Haycock would make easier going. I asked whether she and Widmerpool had decided where they were going to live after they were married.

‘That’s rather a big question,’ she said. ‘Kenneth’s business keeps him most of the time in London. I like the idea of making our headquarters in Paris. We could have a small flat over there quite cheaply — in some dingy neighbourhood, if necessary. But I’ve lived too long in France to want to live anywhere else now. Anyway, for most of the year. Then there are the boys. That’s another problem.’

I thought for a second that she must refer to a personal obligation she owed to some male group living probably on the Riviera, to be generically thus classified. Seeing that she had not made herself clear, she added:

‘My two sons, you know.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘They are always cropping up.’

‘Are they at school?’

‘Yes, of course they are,’ she said, as if that were a foolish question to ask. ‘That is, when they haven’t been expelled.’

She stared at me fixedly after saying this, still seeming to imply that I should already know about her sons, especially the fact that they were continually being expelled from school. Uncertain whether or not she intended to strike a jaunty or sombre note, I did not know whether to laugh or commiserate. In fact, so peculiar was her tone that I wondered now whether she were entirely sane. Although in most respects impossible to imagine anyone less like Mrs. Conyers, a change of expression, or tone of voice, would suddenly recall her sister. For example, when she spoke of her children, I was reminded of Mrs. Conyers invoking the General. There was, however, one marked difference between them. Mrs. Conyers bestowed about her a sense of absolute certainty that she belonged — could only belong to the class from which she came, the world in which she lived. Mrs. Haycock, on the other hand, had by then largely jettisoned any crude certainties of origin. She may even have decided deliberately to rid herself of too embarrassing an inheritance of traditional thought and behaviour. If so, she had been on the whole successful. Only from time to time, and faintly, she offered a clue to correct speculation about herself: just as Jeavons would once in a way display the unmistakable action of his marriage on his point of view. On the whole, Mrs. Haycock’s bluff manner suggested long association with people who were rich, but rich without much concern about other aspects of life.

‘Of course I know they are dreadfully badly behaved,’ she said. ‘But what am I to do?’

She had that intense, voluble manner of speaking, often characteristic of those who are perhaps a little mad: a flow of words so violent as to give an impression of lack of balance.

‘How old are they?’

‘Fourteen and fifteen.’

Widmerpool, who at that moment looked in no state to shoulder such responsibilities as a couple of adolescent stepsons habitually expelled from school, leant across the table to address Mrs. Haycock.

‘I think I’ll retire for a minute or two,’ he said, ‘and see what taking a couple of those pills will do.’

‘All right, my own, off you go.’

Widmerpool scrambled out from where he sat in the corner next to the wall, and made for the door.

‘Isn’t he priceless?’ said Mrs. Haycock, almost with pride. ‘Do you know his mother?’

‘I’ve met her.’

‘Do you know that she suggested that she should live with us after we were married?’

Again she spoke in that strange, flat voice, looking hard at me, so that I did not know how to reply; whether to express horror or indulge in laughter. However, she herself seemed to expect no answer to her question. Whatever her feelings about Widmerpool’s mother, they lay too deep for words. Instead of continuing to discuss her personal affairs, she pointed to Jeavons.

‘Your friend seems to be going to sleep,’ she said. ‘You know I have always heard so much about him, and, although I’ve known Molly for years, I only met him for the first time the other night.’

Her observation about Jeavons’s state was true. Templer and his girl had risen to dance, and Jeavons had fallen into a coma similar to those in which General Conyers would sometimes sink. Jeavons seemed to have lost all his earlier enthusiasm to dance with Mrs. Haycock, a change of heart due probably to the amount of beer he had drunk earlier in the evening, before we met. I roused him, and he moved to the other side of the table, into the seat next to Mrs. Haycock.

‘How is Molly?’ she asked him.

‘Molly is all right.’

He did not sound too bright. However, he must have understood that something was exacted of him, and made an effort.

‘Where are you staying?’ he asked.

‘Jules’s.’

‘In Jermyn Street?’

‘I always have a suite there when I come over.’

Jeavons suddenly straightened himself.

‘Come and dance,’ he said.

This surprised me. I had supposed him to be speaking without much serious intention, even when he had first said he wanted to dance with her. After he had all but gone to sleep at the table, I thought he had probably found sufficient entertainment in his own reflections. On the contrary, he had now thrown off his drowsiness. Mrs. Haycock rose without the smallest hesitauon, and they took the floor together. I was sure she had not recognised Jeavons; equally certain that she was aware, as women are, that some disturbing element was abroad, involving herself in some inexplicable manner. She danced well, steering him this way and that, while Jeavons jogged up and down like a marionette, clutching her to him as he attempted the syncopated steps of some long-forgotten measure. I remembered that he himself never danced when the carpet was rolled back and the gramophone played at the Jeavonses’ house. I was still watching them circle the floor when Widmerpool returned from his absence in the inner recesses of the club. He looked worse than ever. There could be no doubt that he ought to go home to bed. He sat down beside me and groaned.

‘I think I shall have to go home,’ he said.

‘Didn’t the pills work?’

‘Quite useless. I am feeling most unwell. Why on earth have you come here with that fellow Jeavons?’