Temporary Kings (15 page)

He
stopped, overwhelmed by his troubles. I did not know why I was being told all
this. Widmerpool’s jaws worked up and down. He gave the impression of
hesitation in asking some question. I enquired if he were in Venice on
business, since he did not care for the city in other respects.

‘Yes
– no – not really. A slight rest. Pamela wanted a short rest. To be quiet, out
of things, just for a little. You may be able to help me, as a matter of fact,
in something I want to know. Your Conference has been going on for a day or
two?’

‘Yes.’

‘You
meet and mix with the other members – the foreign ones, I mean?’

‘Some
of them.’

‘I
was hoping to kill two birds with one stone. Pamela was given an open
invitation to stay in this imposing residence. The owner – Bragadin – is one of
the smart international set, I understand, what the papers call café society, I’m
told. All that sort of thing is a mystery to me. Distasteful too, in the
highest degree. At the same time, it was convenient for Pamela to take a rest,
even if in a style I myself cannot approve. But to get back to the Conference,
am I right in supposing all these people round about are its members? I am.
There chances to be one of them I am particularly anxious to meet, if here. It
is a most lucky opportunity the two things coincided.’

‘The
Conference, and your visit?’

‘Yes,
yes. That is what I mean. Have you run across Dr Belkin? He is familiar to me
only by name, through certain cultural societies to which I belong. By an
unhappy mischance, we have never set eyes on each other, though we have
corresponded – on cultural matters, of course. He was, incidentally, a mutual
friend of poor Ferrand-Sénéschal. How sad that too. I am, of course, not sure
that Dr Belkin will have been able to put in an appearance. He could have
become too much occupied in the cultural affairs of his own country, in which
he plays a central part. They may not have been able to spare him at the last
moment. He is a busy man. Belkin? Dr Belkin? Have you heard anything of him, or
seen him?’

I
was about to answer that the name was unknown to me, when Pamela, overhearing
Widmerpool’s strained, eager tone, got her word in first. She turned from where
she stood with Gwinnett, looked straight at her husband, and laughed outright.
It was not a friendly laugh.

‘You
won’t find your friend Belkin here.’

She
spoke under her breath, almost in a hiss, still laughing. Widmerpool’s face
altered. He swallowed uneasily. When he replied he was quite calm.

‘What
do you mean?’

‘What
I say.’

‘You
only know about Belkin because you’ve heard me refer to him.’

‘That’s
sufficient.’

‘What
information have you got regarding him then?’

‘Just
what you’ve told me. And a few small items I’ve picked up elsewhere.’

‘But
I haven’t told you anything – I – that was what I wanted to talk to you about.’

‘You
don’t have to.’

‘Why
should you think he won’t be here? You don’t know him personally any more than
I do. Nothing I’ve said gave you any reason to draw that conclusion. Only quite
a recent development makes me want to meet him rather urgently.’

‘It
wasn’t what
you
said. It was what Léon-Joseph said.’

Considering
the circumstances, Widmerpool took that comment stoically, though he was
showing signs of strain.

He
seemed to want most to get to the bottom of Pamela’s insinuation.

‘He
told you this before he …’

Widmerpool
put the question composedly, as if what had happened to Ferrand-Sénéschal did
not matter much, only out of respect he did not name it.

‘No,’
said Pamela, also speaking quietly. ‘He told me after he’d died, of course – Leon-Joseph
appeared to me as a ghost last night, and gave the information. He was gliding
down the Grand Canal, walking on the water like Jesus, except that he was
carrying his head under his arm like Mary Queen of Scots. I recognized the head
by those blubber lips and rimless spectacles. The blubber lips spoke the words:
“A cause de ses sentiments stalinistes, Belkin est foutu.”’

Widmerpool
appeared more disconcerted by the implications of Pamela’s words than resentful
of their ironic intonation. She said no more for the moment, returning to
Gwinnett, who had politely moved a little to one side, when she broke off to
take part in this last interchange. He must by then know for certain she was
engaged with her husband. Opportunity was now more available than earlier to
estimate Pamela’s potentialities. This readiness of Gwinnett’s to withdraw into
the background showed comprehension. Widmerpool again thought things over for a
moment. Then he made a step in his wife’s direction. Once more Gwinnett moved
away. Widmerpool was fairly angry now. Anger and fright seemed to make up his
combined emotions.

‘If
this is true – Léon-Joseph really told you something of the kind before he died
– why on earth didn’t you pass it on?’

‘Why
should I?’

‘
Why
should you
?’

‘Yes?’

Widmerpool,
almost shaking now, was just able to control himself.

‘You
know its importance – if true … which I doubt… the whole point of making this
contact… the consequences … you know perfectly well what I mean …’

It
looked as if the consequences, whatever they were likely to be, remained too
awesome to put into words. Pamela turned her head away, and upward. Resting lightly
the tips of her fingers on her hips, she leant slowly back on her heels,
revealing to advantage the slimness of her still immensely graceful neck. She
tipped her head slightly to one side, apparently lost once more in fascination
by the legend of
Candaules and Gyges
. Widmerpool could stand this treatment no
longer. He burst out.

‘What
are you looking at? Answer my question. This is a serious matter, I tell you.’

Pamela
did not reply at once. When she did so, she spoke in the absent strain of
someone who has just made an absorbing discovery.

‘There’s
a picture up there of a man exhibiting his naked wife to a friend. Have you
inspected it yet?’

Widmerpool
did not reply this time. His face was yellow. The look he gave her suggested
that, of all things living, she was the most abhorrent to him. Pamela continued
her soft, almost cooing commentary, a voice in complete contrast with her
earlier sullenness.

‘I
know you can’t tell one picture from another, haven’t the slightest idea what
those square, flat, brightly coloured surfaces are, which people put in frames,
and hang on their walls, or why they hang them there. You probably think they
conceal safes with money in them, or compromising documents, possibly dirty
books and postcards. The favourite things you think it better to keep hidden
away. All the same, the subject of this particular picture might catch your
attention – for instance remind you of those photographs shut up in the secret
drawer of that desk you sometimes forget to lock. I didn’t know about them till
the other day. I didn’t even know you’d taken them. Wasn’t that innocent of me?
How Leon-Joseph laughed, when I told him. You were careless to forget about
turning the key.’

Widmerpool
had gone a pasty yellowish colour when his wife quoted Ferrand-Sénéschal’s
alleged conjecture about Dr Belkin’s reasons for absenting himself from the
Conference. Now the blood came back into his face, turning it brick red. He was
furious. Even so, he must have grasped that whatever had to be said must wait
for privacy. He made a powerful effort at self-control, which could not be
concealed. Then he spoke quite soberly.

‘You
don’t know how things stand, why it was necessary for me to come here. When you
do, you will see you are being rather silly. There have been unfortunate
developments certainly, absurd ones. Even if Belkin does not turn up, there
will be a way out, but, if he is here, that will be easier. We’ll have a talk
later about the best way of handling matters. This may concern you as much as
me, so please do not be frivolous about it.’

Pamela
was uninterested.

‘I
haven’t the least idea what matters need handling. Oh, yes – the picture on the
ceiling? You mean that? You want more explanation? Well, the wife there, whose
husband arranged for his chum to have a peep at her in that charming manner,
handled things by getting the chum who’d enjoyed the eyeful to do the husband
in.’

She
looked about for Gwinnett again. He was on the other side of the room, in front
of a highly coloured piece of Venetian eighteenth-century sculpture, torso of a
Turk. Gwinnett was examining the elaborate folds of the marble turban. Pamela
went to join him. There could be no doubt she was interested in Gwinnett. What
had taken place between the Widmerpools had attracted no attention from
surrounding members of the Conference, nor Bragadin guests. Gwinnett himself
could hardly have failed to notice its earlier pungency, but may not have
caught the drift. Pamela might well be on her way to give him an account of
that. Perhaps his Trapnel studies had prepared him for something of the sort;
perhaps he supposed this the manner English married couples normally behaved.
Considering the things said, both Widmerpools could have appeared outwardly
unruffled, the colour of Widmerpool’s face reasonably attributable to the heat
of the day, and texture of his clothes. He still seemed uncertain whether or
not his wife had spoken with authority on the subject of Belkin. He looked at
her questioningly for a second. When he turned to me again, his thoughts were
far away.

‘I
wonder what’s the best course to take about Belkin. The first thing to do is to
make sure whether or not he’s here. How can I find that out?’

‘Ask
one of the Executive Committee. Dr Brightman, over there, would know whom to
tackle. She’s talking to our host.’

Jacky
Bragadin, not paying much attention to whatever Dr Brightman was saying to him,
was casting anxious glances round the room. A few members of the Conference had
begun to drift into the next gallery, by far the larger majority continuing to
contemplate the Tiepolo. Jacky Bragadin seemed to fear the story of
Candaules and Gyges
had hypnotized them, caused an aesthetic catalepsy to descend. Their
state threatened to turn his home into a sort of Sleeping Beauty’s Palace, rows
of inert vertical figures of intellectuals, for ever straining sightless eyes
upward towards the ceiling, impossible to eject from where they stood. He waved
his hands.

‘This
way,’ he cried. ‘This way.’

He
may have been merely regretful that his guests should exhaust so much
appreciation on this single aspect, even if a highly prized one, of his
treasures, anxious that should not be done to detriment of other splendid
items. Most likely of all, he wanted to get us out of the place, hoped our
sightseeing would be undertaken with all possible dispatch, leaving him and his
guests in peace; or whatever passed for peace in such a house-party. One
wondered how he could ever have been foolhardy enough to have presented Pamela
with an open invitation to stay any time she liked. The cause, in his case,
would not have been love. Possibly he had never done so. She had forced herself
on him. It was waste of time to speculate how the Widmerpools had managed to
install themselves in the Palazzo. Jacky Bragadin, like most rich people, was
well able to attend to his own interests. He must have had his reasons.

‘This
way,’ he repeated. ‘This way.’

He
tried to encourage the more obdurate loiterers with smiles and beckonings. They
would not be persuaded. He gave it up for a moment Dr Brightman pinned him down
again. Glober reappeared beside Widmerpool and myself.

‘Mr
Jenkins, I want you and Signora Clarini to meet. Signora Clarini is stopping in
the Palazzo too. Her husband’s name you’ll know, the celebrated Italian
director.’

I
explained Baby and I had already met, though contacts had been slight, ages
before. In those days, soon after her own association with Sir Magnus Donners,
the Italian husband had then been spoken of as satisfactory to herself, even if
of dubious occupation. Now he was no longer dubious, he must also have become
less satisfactory, because Baby seemed displeased at his name being dragged in.
Glober, on hearing she and I had met, struck an amused pose, as always personal
to himself, if to some extent drawn from that deep fund of American schematized
humour, of which, in a more sparing and austere technique, Colonel Cobb had
been something of a master. Glober was not at all displeased to find earlier
knowledge of Baby would unequivocally demonstrate the sort of woman prepared to
run after him; an undertaking on which she certainly seemed engaged.

‘Baby,
I believe you’ve met every man in the Eastern Hemisphere, and quite a few in
the Western too.’

Possibly
a small touch of malice was voiced. Baby may have thought that She looked
sulky. I remembered Barnby’s passion for her, his comment how Sir Magnus never
minded his girls having other commitments. That was hardly a subject to bridge
our once slender acquaintance. Her manner,
not outstandingly friendly, minimally accepted former meetings had taken place.

‘Aren’t
you fed up with this heat?’ she said. ‘Everybody’s dripping. Look at Louis. Isn’t
he a disgusting sight?’

Glober
murmured consciously good-natured protests. ‘Am I, Baby? But not everyone. Look
at Lord Widmerpool, he’s fresh as a daisy. I believe he’s right to take that
Milan route. I’ll do the same myself next time.’

Drawing
attention in this manner to Widmerpool’s appearance was indication that Glober
made no pretence of liking him. Baby did not even smile. Her demeanour wafted
through the Tiepolo room a breath of the Nineteen-Twenties. Like one who hands
on the torch of a past era of folk culture, she had somehow preserved intact,
from ballroom and plage, golf course and hunting field, a social technique
fashionable then, even considered alluring. This rather unblissful breeze
blowing across the years recalled a little Widmerpool’s former fiancée, Mrs
Haycock (Baby’s distant cousin), though Baby herself had always been far the
better-looking. She stopped a long way short of displaying the stigmata a
lifetime of late parties and casual love affairs had bestowed on Mrs Haycock.
Nevertheless, she had developed some of the same masculine hardening of the
features, voice rising to a bark, elements veering in the direction of
sex-change, threatened by too constant adjustment of husbands and lovers;
comparable with the feminine characteristics acquired from too pertinacious
womanizing.