The military philosophers (24 page)

‘At the end of last year the Americans sank a Jap transport on the way from Singapore. They rescued some British prisoners on board. They had been in the same camp. One of them got in touch with Stringham’s mother when repatriated. It was only just in time, because Mrs Foxe herself died soon after that, as you probably saw.’

‘I hadn’t.’

He seemed to want to make some further confession.

‘As I expect you know, Mrs Foxe was a very extravagant woman. At the end, she found it not only impossible to live in anything like the way she used, but was even quite short of money.’

‘Stringham himself said something about that when I last saw him.’

‘The irony of the situation is that his mother’s South African money was tied up on Stringham,’ said Widmerpool. ‘Owing to bad management, she never got much out of those securities herself, but a lot of South African stock has recently made a very good recovery.’

‘I suppose Flavia will benefit.’

‘No, she doesn’t, as it turns out,’ said Widmerpool. ‘Rather an odd thing happened. Stringham left a will bequeathing all he had to Pam. He’d always been fond of her as a child. He obviously thought it would be just a few personal odds and ends. As it turns out, there could be a good deal more than that. With the right attention, Stringham’s estate in due course might be nursed into something quite respectable.’

He looked rather guilty, not without reason. We abandoned the subject of Stringham.

‘I don’t pretend Pamela’s an easy girl,’ he said. ‘We fairly often have rows – in fact are not on speaking terms for twenty-four hours or more. Never mind. Rows often clear the air. We shall see it through, whatever my position when I leave the army.’

‘You’ll go back to the City, I suppose?’

‘I’m not so sure.’

‘Other plans?’

‘I have come to the conclusion that I enjoy power,’ said Widmerpool. ‘That is something the war has taught me. In this connexion, it has more than once occurred to me that I might like governing…’

He brought his lips together, then parted them. This contortion formed a phrase, but, the words inaudible, its sense escaped me.

‘Governing whom?’

Leaning forward and smiling, Widmerpool repeated the movement of his lips. This time, although he spoke only in a whisper, the two words were intelligible.

‘Black men …’

‘Abroad?’

‘Naturally.’

‘That’s feasible?’

‘My reputation among those who matter could scarcely be higher.’

‘You mean you could easily get an appointment of that sort?’

‘Nothing in life is ever easy, my boy. Not in the sense you use the term. It is one of the mistakes you always make. The point is, we are going to see great changes. As you know, my leanings have always been leftwards. From what I see round me, I have no reason to suppose such sympathies were mistaken. Men like myself will be needed.’

‘If they are to be found.’

He clapped me on the back.

‘No flattery,’ he said. ‘No flattery, but I sometimes wonder whether you’re not right.’

He looked at his watch and sighed.

‘Being engaged accustoms one to unpunctuality,’ he went on in rather another tone, a less exuberant one. ‘I think I’ll have a word with that old stalwart, Lord Perkins, whom I see over there.’

‘I didn’t know till a moment ago that Perkins was married to Peter Templer’s sister.’

‘Oh, yes. So I believe. I don’t see them as having much in common as brothers-in-law, but one never knows. Unfortunate Templer getting killed like that. He was too old for that sort of business, of course. Stringham, too. I fear the war has taken a sad toll of our friends. I notice Donners over there talking to the Portuguese Ambassador. I must say a word to him too.’

In the seven years or so that had passed since I had last seen him, Sir Magnus Donners had grown not so much older in appearance, as less like a human being. He now resembled an animated tailor’s dummy, one designed to recommend second-hand, though immensely discreet, clothes (if the suit he was wearing could be regarded as a sample) adapted to the taste of distinguished men no longer young. Jerky movements, like those of a marionette – perhaps indicating all was not absolutely well with his physical system – added to the impression of an outsize puppet that had somehow escaped from its box and begun to mix with real people, who were momentarily taken in by the extraordinary conviction of its mechanism. The set of Sir Magnus’s mouth, always a trifle uncomfortable to contemplate, had become very slightly less under control, increasing the vaguely warning note the rest of his appearance implied. On the whole he had lost that former air of desperately seeking to seem more ordinary than everyone else round him; or, if he still hoped for that, its consolations had certainly escaped him. A lifetime of weighty negotiation in the worlds of politics and business had left their mark. One would now guess at once he was an unusual person, who, even within his own terms of reference, had lived an unusual life. He looked less parsonic than in the days when he had suggested a clerical headmaster. Perhaps that was because he had not, so to speak, inwardly progressed to the archiepiscopal level in that calling; at least his face had not developed the fleshy, theatrical accentuations so often attendant on the features of the higher grades of the clergy. At some moment, conscious or not, he had probably branched off from this interior priestly strain in his make-up. That would be the logical explanation. Matilda, looking decidedly smart in a dress of blue and black stripes, was standing beside her husband, talking with the Portuguese Ambassador. I had not seen her since their marriage. She caught sight of me and waved, then separated herself from the others and made her way through the ever thickening crowd.

‘Nick.’

‘How are you, Matty?’

‘Don’t you admire my frock? An unsolicited gift from New York.’

‘Too smart for words. I couldn’t imagine where it had come from.’

To be rather older suited her; that or being married to a member of the Cabinet. She had dyed her hair a reddish tint that suited her, too, set off the large green eyes, which were always her most striking feature.

‘Do you ever see anything of Hugh the Drover?’

She used sometimes to call Moreland that while they had been married, usually when not best pleased with him. I told her we had not met since the night of the bomb on the Café de Madrid: that, so far as I knew, Moreland was still touring the country, putting on musical performances of one sort or another, under more or less official control; whatever happened in the war to make mounting such entertainments possible.

‘What’s his health been like?’

‘I don’t know at all.’

‘Extraordinary about Audrey Maclintick. Are they married?’

‘I don’t know that either.’

‘Does she look after him all right?’

‘I think she does.’

Obviously Matilda still took quite a keen interest in Moreland and his condition. That was natural enough. All the same, one felt instinctively that she had entirely given up Moreland’s world, everything to do with it. She had taken on Sir Magnus, lock, stock and barrel. The metaphor made one think of his alleged sexual oddities. Presumably she had taken them on too, though as a former mistress they would be relatively familiar. Perhaps she guessed the train of thought, because she smiled.

‘Donners has to be looked after too,’ she said. ‘I’m rather worried about him at the moment as a matter of fact.’

‘His job must be a great strain.’

Matilda brushed such a banal comment aside.

‘Will you come and see me?’ she said. ‘We’re going to Washington next week – but when we’re back.’

‘My Release Group comes up reasonably soon. We’ll probably go away for a bit when I get out of the army.’

‘Later then. Is Isobel here?’

‘Last seen on her way to the harem upstairs.’

Sir Magnus had now begun to make signs indicating that he wanted Matilda to return to him and be introduced to someone. She left me, repeating that we must meet when they came back from America. I had always liked Matilda and felt glad to see her again and hear that her life seemed endurable. Widmerpool reappeared at my side. He seemed agitated.

‘I wish Pamela would turn up,’ he said. ‘I shall be late if she doesn’t arrive soon. I can’t very well leave until she comes – ah, thank God, there she is.’

Pamela Flitton came towards us. Unlike the night at
The Bartered Bride,
she had this evening taken no trouble whatever about her clothes. Perhaps that was untrue, and she had gone out of her way to find the oldest, most filthy garments she possessed. She was almost in rags. By this time the party had advanced too far for it to be obvious to a newcomer whom to greet as host. She had in any case obviously not bothered about any such formalities.

‘Hullo, my dear,’ said Widmerpool. ‘I didn’t guess you’d be so late.’

He spoke in a conciliatory voice, making as if to kiss her.

She allowed the merest peck.

‘I’ll just introduce you to His Excellency,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll have to fly.’

Pamela, who was looking very pretty in spite of her disarray, was having none of that.

‘I don’t want to be introduced,’ she said. ‘I just came to have a look round.’

She gave me a nod. I made some conventional remark about their engagement. She listened to this rather more graciously than usual.

‘I think you ought to meet the Ambassador, dearest.’

‘Stuff the Ambassador.’

The phrase recalled Duport. Widmerpool laughed nervously.

‘You really oughtn’t to say things like that, darling,’ he said. ‘Not when you’re at a party like this. Nicholas and I think it very amusing, but someone else might overhear and not understand. If you really don’t feel like being introduced at the moment, I shall have to leave you. Nicholas or someone can do the honours, if you decide you want to meet your host later. Personally, I think you should. If you do, make my apologies. I shall have to go now. I am late already.’

‘Late for what?’

‘I told you – I’m dining with the Minister.’

‘You’re giving me dinner.’

‘I only wish I was. Much as I’d love to, I can’t. I did explain all this before. You said you’d like to come to the party, even though we couldn’t have dinner together after. Besides, I’m sure you told me you were dining with Lady McReith.’

‘I’m going to dine with you.’

I was about to move away and leave them to it, feeling an engaged couple should settle such matters so far as possible in private, but Widmerpool, either believing himself safer with a witness, or because he foresaw some method of disposing of Pamela in which I might play a part, took me by the arm, while he continued to speak persuasively to her.

‘Be reasonable, darling,’ he said. ‘I can’t cut a dinner I’ve gone out of my way to arrange – least of all with the Minister.’

‘Stand him up. I couldn’t care less. That’s what you’d do if you really wanted to dine with me.’

She was in a sudden rage. Her usually dead white face now had some colour in it. Widmerpool must have thought that a change of subject would cool her down, also give him a chance of escape.

‘I’m going to leave you with Nicholas,’ he said. ‘Let me tell you first, what you probably don’t know, that Nicholas used to be a friend of your uncle, Charles Stringham, whom you were so fond of.’

If he hoped that information would calm her, Widmerpool made a big mistake. She went absolutely rigid.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and Charles isn’t the only one he knew. He knew Peter Templer too – the man you murdered.’

Widmerpool, not surprisingly, was apparently stupefied by this onslaught; myself scarcely less so. She spoke the words in a quiet voice. We were in a corner of the room behind some pillars, a little away from the rest of the party. Even so, plenty of people were close enough. It was no place to allow a scene to develop. Pamela turned to me.

‘Do you know what happened?’

‘About what?’

‘About Peter Templer. This man persuaded them to leave Peter to die. The nicest man I ever knew. He just had him killed.’

Tears appeared in her eyes. She was in a state of near hysteria. It was clearly an occasion when rational argument was going to do no good. The only thing would be to get her away quietly on any terms. Widmerpool did not grasp that. He could perhaps not be blamed for being unable to consider matters coolly. He had now recovered sufficiently from his earlier astonishment to rebut the charges made against him and was even showing signs of himself losing his temper.

‘How could you utter such rubbish?’ he said. ‘I see now that I ought never to have mentioned to you I had any hand at all in that affair, even at long range. It was a breach of security for which I deserve to be punished. Please stop talking in such an absurd way.’

Pamela was not in the least calmed by this remonstrance. Quite the contrary. She did not raise her voice, but spoke if possible with more intensity. Now it was me she addressed.

‘He put up a paper. That was the word he used – put up a paper. He wanted them to stop supporting the people Peter was with. We didn’t send them any more arms. We didn’t even bother to get Peter out. Why should we? We didn’t want his side to win any more.’

Widmerpool was himself pretty angry by now.

‘Because my duties happen to include the promulgation of matters appropriate for general consideration by our committee – perhaps ultimately by the Chiefs of Staff, perhaps even the Cabinet – because, as I say, this happens to be my function, that does not mean the decisions are mine, nor, for that matter, even the recommendations. Matters are discussed as fully as possible at every level. The paper is finalized. The decision is made. I may tell you this particular decision was taken at the highest level. As for not getting Templer out, as you call it, how could I possibly have anything to do with the action, right or wrong, for which the Operational people on the spot are responsible? These are just the sort of disgraceful stories that get disseminated, probably at the direct instance of the enemy.’

‘You were in favour of withdrawing support You said so. You told me.’