Hearing Secret Harmonies

4

IN DAYS WHEN UNCLE GILES had been (to borrow the expressive idiom of Dr Trelawney) a restless soul wandering the vast surfaces of the Earth, it had seemed extraordinary that a man of his age — by no means what I now considered venerable — should apparently regard his life as full of incident, take his own doings with such desperate seriousness. These arbitrarily accepted conjectures of one’s earlier years — to the effect that nothing of the slightest interest happens to people, who, for reasons best known to themselves, have chosen to grow old — were not wholly borne out by observation of one’s contemporaries, nor even to some degree by personal experience. Widmerpool was certainly a case in point. The backwash of the Magnus Donners dinner tended, naturally enough, to emphasize the action of the Quiggin twins, rather than Widmerpool’s own performance that night, but, after all, Amanda and Belinda would never have had opportunity to break up the party, if Widmerpool had not negotiated the invitation.

Widmerpool himself had explained in the clearest terms, at the time, his reasons for taking the course he had, including the wish to be accompanied by the Quiggin twins, but not everyone was able to comprehend his latest standpoint. There were even found those to echo the conclusion of Lenore Members that he had become ‘mentally disturbed.’

Then the answer dawned on me. Widmerpool was Orlando. The parallel with Ariosto’s story might not be exact at every point, its analogy even partake of parody, but here was Widmerpool, for years leading what he certainly regarded himself as the Heroic Life, deserted by his Angelica, not for one but a thousand (in Widmerpool’s eyes) nonentities. If Pamela lacked some of Angelica’s qualities, Angelica, too, had sometimes drunk at enchanted fountains that excited violent passions. It was the consequence of this situation that seemed so apposite; the signs Widmerpool was showing, at least morally speaking, of stripping himself naked like Orlando, taking to the woods, in the same manner dropping out. It remained to be seen whether Widmerpool would find an Astolpho.

Later that spring there was another small reminder of Ariosto, this time in connexion with the Mage beginning to fly; in short, Scorpio Murtlock — perhaps annually incarnate at this season as a vernal demigod — whose name appeared in a newspaper paragraph. It reported some sort of a row that had taken place in the neighbourhood of the megalithic site to which the caravan had been travelling just about a year before. Whether the same party, or other members of the cult, had been in that area all the time was not clear. Only Murtlock was mentioned by name. I did not know whether Fiona still belonged to his community, enquiries about her doings from her parents being a delicate matter. The local inhabitants seemed to have objected to ceremonies, performed in and about the neolithic site, by Murtlock and his followers. The police were reported as undertaking investigations. Murtlock himself was represented as making vigorous protest against alleged persecution of the group for their beliefs. That was the sole reference to the incident at the time, anyway the only one I saw.

In a writer’s life, as time shortens, work tends to predominate, among other things resulting in a reduction of attendance at large conjunctions of people. In relation to work itself there are arguments against this change of rhythm. An affair like the Magnus Donners dinner might be exceptional in what it had provided, but even assemblages of a calmer nature staved off that reclusion which seems to offer increasing attractions, keeping one in some sort of circulation, in a position to hear the latest news. Such jaunts prevented a repletion of ideas, mulled over constantly in the mind, wholly taking the place of experience. Thinking — as General Conyers used to insist — damages feeling. No doubt he had got the idea from a book. That did not make it less valid. Something can get lost, especially in the arts, by thinking too much, which sometimes confuses the instinct for what ought to go down on paper.

These professional reflexions, at best subjective, at worst intolerably tedious, are pretext for inclusion of yet another public dinner; though my life was far from consisting in a succession of such functions. When an invitation arrived for the Royal Academy banquet the phrase conjured up a tempting vision of former days: forgotten Victorian RAs, their names once a household word; vast canvases in vaster gilt frames; ‘society’ portraits of famous beauties and eminent statesmen; enigmatic Problem Pictures: fashionable crowds; a whole aesthetic and social cosmos with a myth of its own. The institution that had welcomed Isbister, excluded Mr Deacon, had now undergone a deathbed conversion to Modernism. Yet was the Academy on its deathbed? The reality of the occasion — as opposed to such reveries — had by no means discarded all vestige of the old tradition. If the pictures hanging on the now whitewashed walls might be called temperately avant-garde in treatment, a reassuring suspicion remained that techniques, long sunk in oblivion, were to be found tucked away in obscure corners. The company, too, was no less traditional, minor royalty likely to be present, not to mention a member of the Cabinet — possibly the Prime Minister himself — making, at this relatively free and easy party, a speech that could touch on some grave matter of policy.

The suggestion thus given of a kind of carnival, devoted to the theme of Past and Present, was heightened by the contrasted attire of the guests. White ties and black tailcoats, orders and decorations, mingled with dinner-jackets, the intermittent everyday suit. The last were rare. Those who despised evening-dress usually adopted an out-and-out knock-about-the-studio garb, accompanied by beard and flowing hair. The odd thing was that the appearance of these rebels against convention — alienated against a background of stiff white shirts, coloured ribands, sparkling stars and crosses — made the rebels themselves seem as much survivors from an early nineteenth-century romantic bohemianism, as swallow-tailed coats and medals recalled the glittering receptions of the same era.

The seating plan showed my own place between an actor and a clergyman, both professions to strike the right archetypal note for an evening of that sort. The actor (who had performed a rather notable Shallow the previous year) was now playing in an Ibsen revival, of which Polly Duport was the star. The clergyman’s name — the Revd Canon Paul Fenneau — familiar, was not immediately placeable. A likely guess would be that he was incumbent of a London parish, a parson known for active work in some charitable sphere, possibly even the preservation of ancient buildings. Celebrity in such fields could have brought him to the dinner that night. The last possibility might also explain the faintly scholarly associations, not necessarily theological, that the name set in motion.

A crowd of guests was already collected by the bar in the gallery beyond the circular central hall. Members was there, talking to Smethyck (recently retired from the directorship of his gallery), both of them, Members especially, giving the impression that they intended to make a mildly uproarious evening of it. The flushed cheeks of Members enclosed by fluffy white hair and thick whiskers, contrasted with Smethyck’s longer thinner whiskers, and elegantly shaped grey corkscrew curls, increased the prevailing atmosphere of Victorian jollification. Both were wearing white ties, an order round the neck. I had not seen Members since the Magnus Donners dinner, nor should we meet in future in that connexion, the panel of judges having been reconstituted. He was still taking immense pleasure in the scenes there enacted.

‘I’ve been telling Michael about the Quiggin twins. Do you know he had never heard of them? What do you think of that for an Ivory Tower?’

Smethyck smoothed his curls and smiled, gratified at the implications of existing in gloriously rarefied atmosphere.

‘True, I live entirely out of the world these days, Mark. How should I know of such things as stinkbombs?’

‘I may have done some indiscreet things in my time,’ said Members. ‘I’ve never fathered any children. That’s notwithstanding a few false alarms. Poor old JG. The great apostle of revolt in the days of our youth. Do you remember Sillers calling him our young Marat? Marat never had to bring up twins. What a couple.

Dids’t thou give all to thy daughters?

And art thou come to this?

It won’t be long before JG’s out on Hampstead Heath asking that of passers-by.’

Smethyck pedantically demurred, thereby somewhat impugning his claim to know nothing of contemporary life.

‘In Lear’s case it was the father seeking an alternative society. The girls supported the Establishment. They’re my favourite heroines in literature, as a matter of fact.’

Members accepted correction.

‘Lindsay Bagshaw told me the other day that he regarded himself as a satisfied Lear. Since his wife died, he divides his time between his daughters’ households, and says their food is not at all bad.’

‘Your friend Bagshaw must be temperamentally equipped to accept the compromises that Lear rejected,’ said Smethyck. ‘I do not know him — ’

He had evidently heard as much as he wanted about the Magnus Donners dinner, and moved away to speak with a well-known cartoonist. Members continued to brood on the Quiggin twins and their activities.

‘Do you think Widmerpool arranged it all, to get his own back on Gwinnett?’

‘Widmerpool was as surprised as anyone when the bang went off.’

‘That’s what’s being generally said. I wondered whether it was true. He’s here tonight.’

‘Widmerpool?’

‘Looking even scruffier than at the Magnus Donners. What does it all mean dressing like that? Do you think he will make another speech off the cuff?’

Members, speaking as one in a position to deplore slovenliness of dress, fingered the cross at his throat. A life peeress, also connected with the world of culture, passed at that moment, and he buttonholed her. A moment later Widmerpool came into sight at the far end of the gallery. He was prowling about by himself, speaking to no one. Members had called him scruffy, but his disarray, such as it was, did not greatly differ from that of the Magnus Donners evening. He was still wearing the old suit and red polo jumper, though closer contact might have revealed the last as unwashed since the earlier occasion. Widmerpool’s appearance afforded an example of the curiously absorbent nature of the RA party. At almost any other public dinner the getup would have looked out of place. Here, clothes and all, he was unified with fellow guests. “Those who did not know him already might easily have supposed they saw before them a professional painter, old and seedy — Widmerpool looked decidedly more than his later sixties — who had emerged momentarily, from some dilapidated artists’ colony, to make an annual appearance at a function to which countless years as an obscure contributor had earned him the prescriptive right of invitation. In this semi-disguise, seen at long range, he could be pictured pottering about with an easel, in front of a row of tumbledown whimsically painted shacks lying along the seashore. Widmerpool moved out of sight. I did not see him again until we went into dinner, when he reappeared sitting a short way up the table on the other side from my own.

The clergyman, Canon Fenneau, was already engaged in conversation with the Regius Professor on his left, when I sat down. The actor and I talked. I had not seen the Ibsen production in which he was playing, but I told him that I had met Polly Duport, and knew Norman Chandler, who had directed a play in which my neighbour had acted not long before. Talk about the Theatre took us through the first course. The actor spoke of Molnar, a dramatist known to me from reading, on the whole, rather than seeing on a stage.

‘Molnar must be about due for a revival.’

The actor agreed.

‘Somebody was saying that the other day. Who was it? I know. It was after the performance last week. Polly Duport’s friend with the French name. He’s a writer of some sort, I believe. He thought Molnar an undervalued playwright in this country. What is he called? I’ve met him once or twice, when he’s come to pick her up.’

‘I wouldn’t know. I don’t know her at all well.’

‘A French name. De-la-something. Delavacquerie? Could it be that?’

‘There’s a poet called Gibson Delavacquerie.’

‘That’s the chap. I remember Polly calling him Gibson. Small and dark. They’re two of the nicest people.’

I heard no more about this revelation — it graded as a revelation — because someone on the far side of the table distracted the actor’s attention by saying how much he had enjoyed the Ibsen. Almost simultaneously a voice from my other flank, soft, carefully articulated, almost wheedling, spoke gently.

‘We met a long time ago. You will not remember me. I’m Paul Fenneau.’

Smooth, plump, grey curls (rather like Smethyck’s, in neat waves), pink cheeks, Canon Fenneau stretched out a hand below the level of the table. It seemed rather unnecessary to shake hands at this late juncture, but I took it. The palm surprised by its firm even rough surface, electric vibrations. I had to admit he was right about my not remembering him.

‘At a tea-party of Sillery’s. I should place it in the year 1924. I may be in error about the date. I am bad at dates. They are so meaningless.’

For some reason Canon Fenneau made me feel a little uneasy. His voice might be soft, it was also coercive. He had small eyes, a large loose mouth, the lips thick, a somewhat receding chin. The eyes were the main feature. They were unusual eyes, not only almost unnaturally small, but vague, moist, dreamy, the eyes of a medium. His cherubic side, increased by a long slightly uptilted nose, was a little too good to be true, with eyes like that. In the manner in which he gave you all his attention there was a taste for mastery.

‘In those days I was a frightened freshman from an obscure college. I can’t tell you how impressed I was by the august company gathered in Sillery’s room — if I rightly remember the afternoon we met. I didn’t dare open my mouth. There was Mark Members, for instance, whom I noticed you talking with before dinner. I’d never seen a large-as-life poet in the flesh before. How I envied Mark for the fuss Sillers made of him. I remember Sillers pinched his neck. I’d have given the world in those days to have my neck pinched by Sillers. Then there was the famous Bill Truscott. Truscott, already working London, so tall, so distinguished, a figure entirely beyond my purview in the undergraduate world I frequented.’

Fenneau sighed, and smiled. It was hard to believe he had ever been frightened of anybody. I still had no recollection of meeting him, even while he recalled that particular tea-party of Sillery’s; which, for various reasons, had made a strong impression on myself too. Fenneau could easily have been one of several undergraduates present, who were — and remained — unknown to me; though no doubt introduced at the time, Sillery being keen on introductions. Subsequent silence about Fenneau on Sillery’s part would indicate not so much Fenneau’s own pretensions to obscurity — Sillery rather liked to glory in the obscurity of some of his favourites — as cause given that afternoon, or at a later period, for Sillerian disapproval. Fenneau was probably one of the young men passed briskly through the Sillery machine, and found wanting; tried out once, never reprocessed. So far as being speechless went, Sillery did not necessarily mind that. The occasional speechless guest could be a useful foil. Some of his own pupils in that genre were quite often at the tea-parties. They set off more ebullient personalities. I hoped Fenneau would not produce embarrassing reminiscences of my own undergraduate behaviour at Sillery’s, or elsewhere in the University.

‘Did you often go to Sillery’s?’

‘Very few times after the first visit. I was not encouraged to pay too frequent calls. Just the necessary tribute from time to time. Rendering unto Sillers the things which were Sillers’. My claims could not have been less high, even for pennies that bore, so to speak, Sillery’s own image and superscription.’

He smiled again, making, with a morsel of bread, a gesture indicative of extreme humility.

‘Claims on Sillers?’

‘Rather his claims on myself. My late father was an English chaplain on the Riviera. For a number of reasons Sillers found useful a South of France contact of that kind. Besides, my father was a personal friend of the Bishop of Gibraltar, a prelacy to attract the regard of Sillers, owing to the farflung nature of the diocese.’

‘I can see that.’

‘But my manner of talking about Sillers sounds most ungenerous. I would not speak a word against him. He did me, as a poor student, kindnesses on more than one occasion, although he could never reconcile himself to some of my interests.’

‘You mean Sillery did not like you going into the Church?’

Fenneau smiled discreetly.

‘Sillery had no objection to the Church — no objection to any Church — as such. He liked to have friends of all sorts, even clergymen. He did not at all mind my living in an undergraduate underworld, the bas fond of the University. The underworld, too, had its uses for Sillers — witness J. G. Quiggin, who attended that same historic tea-party.’

‘You know Quiggin?’

‘I do not often see JG these days. For a time — after meeting at Sillery’s — we became quite close friends.’

Canon Fenneau made a sound that was not much short of a giggle, then continued.

‘Like Sillers, JG found some of my interests ill advised. Socially unacceptable to Sillers, they were politically decadent to JG. Hopelessly unprogressive. JG wanted everyone he knew to be interested in politics in those days. He was a keen Marxist you may remember. I have never liked politics.’

‘May I ask what are these interests of yours that arouse so much antipathy?’

Fenneau smiled, this time gravely. He did not speak for a moment. His small watery eyes gazed at me. There was a touch of melodrama in the look.

‘Alchemy.’

‘The Philosopher’s Stone? Turning base metal into gold?’

‘I prefer to say more in the sense of turning Man from earthly impurity to heavenly perfection. It is a conception that has always gripped me — naturally in a manner not to run counter to my cloth. Some knowledge of such matters can indeed stand a priest in good stead.’

He spoke the last sentence a little archly. The reason for his name’s familiarity was now revealed. Fenneau’s signature would appear from time to time under reviews of books about Hermetic Philosophy, the Rosicrucians, Witchcraft, works that dealt with what might be called the scholarly end of Magic. His own outward physical characteristics — not in themselves exceptional ones in priests of any creed — were, more than in most ecclesiastics, those to be associated with the practice of occultism; fleshiness of body allied to a misty look in the eye. Dr Trelawney and Mrs Erdleigh, hierophants of other mysteries, were both exemplars of that same physical type, in spite of what was no doubt a minor matter, difference of sex. These preoccupations of Fenneau’s would explain the faintly uncomfortable sensations his proximity generated. He seemed to convey, especially when he fixed his stare, that he hoped, without making too much fuss about it, to hypnotize his interlocutor; at the very least to read what was in his mind. That, too, was a trait not unknown among conventional priests of all denominations. Canon Fenneau, clearly not at all conventional, possessed the characteristic in a marked degree.

‘Do you still see Mark Members? *

‘Not for a long time until this evening. We have never entirely lost touch, although Mark — unlike JG — considered me less than the dust beneath his chariot wheels, when we were undergraduates. Years ago I was able to help him. He carelessly wrote somewhere that Goethe mentions Paracelsus in Faust, a slip confusing Paracelsus with Nostradamus. Mark was attacked on that account by a rather unpleasant personage, of whom you will certainly have heard, who called himself Dr Trelawney.’

‘I’ve even met him.’

‘I assisted Mark in rebutting these aggressions by pointing out that Trelawney’s long and abstruse letter on the subject darkened counsel. I added that, even if Paracelsus supposed every substance to be made up of mercury, sulphur, and salt, mercury was only one of the elements. Trelawney recognized the warning.’

‘What was the warning?’

‘Mercury is conceived in alchemy as hermaphroditic. Trelawney was at that time engaged in certain practices to which he did not wish attention to be drawn. He sheered off.’

Fenneau’s features had taken on a menacing expression. Dr Trelawney had evidently found an adversary worthy of crossing swords; perhaps, more appropriately, crossing divining rods. I retailed some of my own Trelawney contacts, beginning with the Doctor and his disciples running past the Stonehurst gate.

‘That too? How very interesting. May I say that you bear out a deeply held conviction of mine as to the repetitive contacts of certain individual souls in the earthly lives of other individual souls.’

Fenneau again fixed his eyes on me. He gave the impression of a scientist who has found a useful specimen, if not a noticeably rare one. His stare was preferably not to be endured for too long. He may have been aware of that himself, because he immediately dropped this disturbing inspection. Perhaps he had settled to his own satisfaction whatever was in his mind. I took the initiative.

‘Nietzsche thought individual experiences were recurrent, though he put it rather differently. But what did you mean by saying “that too”?’

‘I was astonished to hear that as a child you should have known Trelawney.’

‘Only by sight. I did not meet him till years later. It is true that, as a child, he haunted my imagination — at times rather more than I liked. Haunting the imagination was the closest we came to acquaintance at that early period.’

‘Haunters of the imagination have already come close to the imagination’s owner. From that early intimacy would you give any credence to the claim of Scorpio Murtlock that in him — Scorpio — Trelawney has returned in the flesh? Some proclaim that as well as Scorpio himself.’

The question was asked this time very quietly, put forward in this unemphatic manner, I think, deliberately to startle. In fact there can be little doubt that Canon Fenneau had such a motive in view. I took the enquiry as matter-of-factly as possible, while accepting its unexpectedness as an impressive conversational broadside. It would have been bad manners to admit less.

‘You know Murtlock too?’

‘Since he was quite a little boy.’

Fenneau spoke reflectively, almost sentimentally.

‘What was he like as a child?’

‘A beautiful little boy. Quite exceptionally so. And very intelligent. He was called Leslie then.’

Fenneau smiled at the contrast between Murtlock’s nomenclature, past and present.

‘You still see him?’

‘From time to time. I have been seeing something of him recently. That was why I was aware he would be known to you. You may have read about certain antagonisms Scorpio was encountering. I believe a good deal never got into the papers. In consequence of this rumpus there was some talk of a television programme about the cult — one of the series After Strange Gods, in which Lindsay Bagshaw recently made a comeback, but perhaps you don’t watch television — and I was approached as a possible compère. I had to say that I had long been a friend of Scorpio’s, but could not publicly associate myself, even as a commentator, with his system, if it can be so called. Mr Bagshaw himself came to see me. It transpired, in the course of conversation, that Scorpio had visited you in the country.’

‘That was produced as a reference?

‘Mr Bagshaw seemed to think it a good one.’

I did not often see Bagshaw these days, but made a mental note to take the matter up with him, if we ran across each other.

‘Murtiock was one of your flock in his young days?’

That was an effort to set the helm, so far as Fenneau was concerned, in a more professionally clerical direction; not exactly a call to order, so much as a plea for better defined premises for discussion of Murtlock’s goings-on. If I were to be brought in by Bagshaw as a sort of reference for Murtlock’s respectability — on the strength of allowing the caravan to be put up for one night — I had a right to be told more about Murtlock. That he had been a pretty little boy might be a straightforward explanation for extending patronage to him, but, anyway as a clergyman, it seemed up to Fenneau to provide a less sensuous basis for their early association together. After further biographical background was given, enquiries could proceed as to whether Fenneau himself had set Murtlock on the path to become a mage. Fenneau was in no way unwilling to elaborate the picture.

‘Scorpio once sang in my choir. That was when I was in south London. His parents kept a newspaper shop. As ever in these cases, there was an interesting heredity. Both mother and father belonged to a small fanatical religious sect, but I won’t go into that now. It was with great difficulty that I secured their son for the choir. I should never have done so, had Leslie himself not insisted on joining. His will was stronger than theirs.’

‘Did you yourself introduce him to what might, in general terms, be called alchemy?’

‘On the contrary, Scorpio — Leslie as he was then — already possessed remarkable gifts of a kinetic kind. As you certainly know, there has been of late years a great revival of interest in what can only be called, in many cases, the Black Arts, I fear. It was quite by chance that Scorpio’s natural leanings fell within a province with which I had long concerned myself. Mystical studies — my Bishop agrees — can be unexpectedly valuable in combating the undesirable in that field.’

Fenneau’s mouth went a little tight again at mention of his Bishop, the eyes taking on a harder, less misty surface. It was permissible to feel that the Bishop himself — elements of exorcism perhaps out of easy reach at that moment — could have agreed, not least from trepidation at prospect of being transformed into a toad, or confined for a thousand years within a hollow oak.

‘What happened to Murtlock after he left your choir?’

‘A success story, even if a strange one. After singing so delightfully — I wish you could have heard his solo:

Now we are come to the sun’s hour of rest,

The lights of evening round us shine.

— Leslie won a scholarship at a choir-school. He was doing splendidly there. Then a most unfortunate thing happened. It was quite out of the ordinary. He developed a most unhappy influence over the choirmaster. Influence is a weak word in the circumstances.’

‘You mean — ’

Fenneau smiled primly this time.

‘That is certainly what one might expect. There had been trouble of that sort earlier. Leslie was quite a little boy then, hardly old enough to understand. The man was not convicted — I think rightly — as there was a possibility that Leslie had — well — invented the whole thing, but, as people said at the time, no smoke without fire. That unhappy possibility did not arise with the choirmaster. I knew him personally, a man of blameless life. There are, of course, men of blameless life, who yield to sudden temptation — lead us not into Thames Station, as the choirboys are said to have prayed — and there is no question but Leslie was an unusually handsome boy. No one could fail to notice that. Not that he wasn’t a boy with remarkable qualities other than physical ones. At the same time I am satisfied that not a hint of improper conduct took place on the part of the choirmaster.’

The thought extended the smile of Fenneau’s long mouth into ogreish proportions. He moved quickly from the prim to the blunt.

‘Not even pawing. Leslie assured me himself.’

‘Murtlock gave the impression of being tough when I met him. I should have thought he would be as tough about sex, as about anything else.’

‘You are right. Let me speak plainly. Leslie — Scorpio by now — is tough. That does not mean he is necessarily badly behaved in matters of sex. I have always thought him not primarily interested in sex. What he seeks is moral authority.’

‘Mightn’t he use sex to gain moral authority?’

Fenneau gave me an odd look.

‘That is another matter. Possibly he might. I can only say that all who had anything to do with the choirmaster affair agreed that sex — in any commonplace use of the word — did not come into it. At the same time, having known Leslie from his earliest years, I was not altogether surprised at what happened. I felt sure something of the sort would take place sooner or later. I knew it would grieve me.’

‘Had he ever tried to impose his moral authority in your own case?’

I thought Fenneau deserved the question. He showed no disposition to resent or sidestep it. When he spoke he gazed into the distance beyond me.

‘Fortunately I knew how to handle the gifts Leslie had been granted.’

‘How did the choir-school story end?’

‘Most tragically. The choirmaster was going to be a difficult man to replace. Good men are always at a premium, let alone good schoolmasters. Leslie — or should I already call him Scorpio? — was leaving at the end of the following term to take up another scholarship. He had done nothing against the rules. Every effort was made to persuade the choirmaster to exert his own will sufficiently to contend with the few months that remained. It was no good. His will had altogether gone. He was in too demoralized a state to stay on. He wished to be relieved of his appointment without delay.’

‘The choirmaster left, Murtlock remained?’

‘That was so. The unfortunate man took a job at another school, in quite a different part of the country. He was thought to be doing well there. Alas, just before the opening of the summer term, the poor fellow was found drowned in the swimming-pool.’

Fenneau sighed.

‘What’s Murtlock’s present position, over and above people objecting to what he does at prehistoric monuments? How far does he model himself on Trelawney? When he stayed with us he appeared to have indulged in nothing worse than burning laurel leaves, and scenting a bucket with camphor.’

‘Camphor? I am glad to hear of that. Camphor traditionally preserves chastity. With regard to Trelawney, I hope Scorpio has purged away the more unpleasant side. Harmony is the watchword. Harmony, as such, is not to be disapproved. I fear things are not always allowed to rest there. An element of Gnosticism emphasizes the duality of austerity and licence, abasement as a source of power, also elements akin to the worship of Mithras, where the initiate climbed through seven gates, or up seven ascending steps, imagery of the soul’s ascent through the spheres of the Planets — as Eugenius Philalethes says — hearing secret harmonies.’

‘I remember Trelawney’s friend, Mrs Erdleigh, quoting that. Did you know her?’

‘Myra Erdleigh was ubiquitous.’

Toasts and speeches began to take place. When these were over, lighting a cigar, Fenneau began to speak of Gnosticism, and the Mithraic mysteries. I was relating how Kipling’s Song to Mithras had so much puzzled my former Company Commander, Rowland Gwatkin (whose obituary, recently printed in the Regimental Magazine, said he had taken an active interest in Territorial and ex-Service organizations to the end), when, several seats opposite having been vacated by guests rising to relieve themselves, or stroll round the pictures, Widmerpool moved down to one of these empty chairs. I had forgotten all about him, even the possibility put forward by Members that another unscheduled speech of Widmerpool’s might take place. Close up, he looked even more like a down-at-heel artist than at a distance. The scarlet sweater was torn and dirty. Nodding to me, he addressed himself to Fenneau.

‘Canon Fenneau, I think?’

‘Your servant.’

Fenneau said that like a djinn rising vaporously from an unsealed bottle.

‘May I introduce myself? My name is Widmerpool — Ken Widmerpool. I am called by some Lord Widmerpool. Don’t bother about the Lord. It is irrelevant. We have never met, Canon. I am no churchgoer nowadays, though once I served my turn as a churchman.’

Hoping to disengage myself from whatever business Widmerpool had with Fenneau — impossible to imagine what that could be — I was about to make off, having myself planned to do a lightning tour of the pictures, in search of interesting specimens from the past. Widmerpool delayed this.

‘Nick Jenkins here will vouch for my credentials. We’ve known each other more years than I like to think. Canon Fenneau, I have a request to make.’

Fenneau watched Widmerpool with the eye of a croupier, fixed on the spinning roulette wheel, ready to deal with any number that might turn up, in this case none endowed with power to break the bank, whatever sum put on, at whatever odds.

‘Let me say at once, Lord Widmerpool, that it is supererogatory to tell me about yourself. You are, if I may say so, too famous for that to be necessary.’

Widmerpool accepted this definition without demur.

‘All the same don’t keep on Lord-Widmerpooling me, Canon. Ken will do.’

Fenneau smiled deprecatingly, making no reciprocal request that he should be called Paul. Widmerpool seemed a little uncertain how to proceed. He drummed on the tablecloth with his knuckles.

‘I could not help hearing snatches of your conversation during dinner. You were speaking of someone in whom I am interested. I had, in fact, made enquiries, and learnt already that this personage was known to you, Canon.’

Fenneau raised his almost non-existent eyebrows, and set his hands together as if in prayer. Widmerpool had perhaps hoped to be helped out in what he wanted to say. If so, he was disappointed.

‘This young man Scorp Murtlock.’

‘Ah, yes?’

‘I am interested in him.’

‘Scorpio is an interesting young man.’

Widmerpool, seeing he was to get no assistance, became somewhat more hectoring in manner.

‘I am not — to speak plainly — attracted by mumbo-jumbo. What concern me, on the contrary, are the social aspects of Murtlock’s community, if so to be called. Its importance as a vehicle of dissent. I read about his persecution by the police. That set me to making enquiries. I found — from certain young people with whom I am already in touch — that there was a clear case of injustice that ought to be taken up in law.’

‘If you listened to our conversation, Lord Widmerpool, you will by now be aware that I have already confessed myself, at this very table, as something of an amateur of mumbo-jumbo. Believe me, Lord Widmerpool, mumbo-jumbo has its place in this world of ours. Make no mistake about that.’

Fenneau spoke mildly. Widmerpool recognized the underlying firmness. He modified his tone.

‘You may be right, Canon. I was not thinking along quite those lines. What I mean is that mumbo-jumbo has never played any part in my own life. I am — even now with my greatly changed views — a man of affairs, somebody who wants to get things done, and, since I want to get things done, let us move to more concrete matters. Young Murtlock, living much of his time in a caravan, is not an altogether easy person to contact. My informant — who had himself had some truck with him — said that he, Murtlock, sometimes visited you. I thought that perhaps a meeting, or at least the forwarding of a letter, could be arranged through your good self. What struck me about Scorp Murtlock — as I understand he is usually called — was his vigorous sense of rebellion. He is a genuinely rebellious personality. They are rarer than you might think, even today. He seems to have been treated scandalously, indeed ultra vires. His way of life, in certain details, may not be my own, but I am in sympathy with his determination to revolt. Would you be with me, Canon?’

Fenneau was not committed so easily.

‘If you meet Scorpio, Lord Widmerpool, you will find he holds no less strong views on laws that he himself regards as binding, than is his desire to break the bonds that he feels fetter those laws.’

‘That is just what I mean. He seems the prototype of what has become a positive obsession with me, that is to say the necessity to uproot bourgeois values, more especially bourgeois values in connexion with legality. On top of that I am told that young Scorp has a most attractive personality.’

‘Scorpio’s personality can be very attractive.’

Fenneau showed a few teeth when he said that.

‘As you may know, I hold a certain academic appointment. A number of the young people with whom I am brought in contact have made my house something of a centre. I might almost use the word commune. Do you think that Scorp Murtlock would pay me a visit?’

‘That is something on which I cannot pronounce with certainty, Lord Widmerpool.’

Fenneau placed his fingers together again, this time the hands a little apart, in a conventionally parsonic position. He repeated his statement.

‘No. I cannot be sure of that. For one thing I am myself uncertain of Scorpio’s precise whereabouts at the moment.’

‘They could no doubt be ascertained.’

‘I could make enquiries.’

‘I am sure you could run him to earth.’

‘Do you really wish me to do so? I should issue a warning. Charming as Scorpio can be in certain moods, he has what can only be called a darker side too. I cannot advise contact with him to anyone not well versed in the mysteries in which he traffics — not always then.’

Fenneau spoke the words with profound gravity. Widmerpool showed no sign whatever of noticing this change of tone. He did not laugh, because he rarely laughed, but he made little or no attempt to hide the fact that he found this warning absurd. For some reason he was absolutely set on getting Murtlock into his clutches.

‘I think I can assert, by this time, that I am something of an expert on the ways of young people at least as tricky to handle as Master Murtlock. As I said earlier, I should like to add him and his followers — if only temporarily — to our own community, anyway persuade him to come and see us. There is something about him that I have greatly taken to. It may be his refusal to compromise. The question is only whether or not you yourself will be able to bring us together.’

‘Was there any particular aspect, in the difficulties Scorpio was having with the local people, that you found of interest — ones that I could tell him about, if we were to meet in the near future?’

Widmerpool hesitated.

‘I understand there was some rather absurd complaint about nudity, which Murtlock sensibly answered by pointing out that, in the past, stripping to the skin was accepted as a sign of humility and poverty.’

‘That worship should take place unclothed — in the manner of Adam — was a familiar heresy in the Middle Ages. If Scorpio practised such rites, they are ones which I cannot approve.’

Fenneau spoke severely. Widmerpool must have felt that he had got on to the wrong tack. He quickly abandoned what seemed to have become a delicate subject.

‘That was just one of the points, Canon, just one of the points. It may even have been untrue. May I assume then that, if I send a letter through your good self, young Murtlock will get it sooner or later?’

‘If you really wish that, Lord Widmerpool, but I advise against.’

‘In spite of your advice.’

‘Then I will do my best.’

Widmerpool made a gesture of thanks. He withdrew. He rightly saw that further conversation might harm rather than forward his aims. Fenneau asked one of the waiters whether it would be possible to have another cigar. He sat back in his chair.

‘That was interesting.’

‘You dealt with Widmerpool almost as if you were prepared for his approach.’

‘To those familiar with the rhythm of living there are few surprises in this world. Not only is Lord Widmerpool anxious to meet Scorpio, Scorpio has already spoken of his intention to make himself known to Lord Widmerpool.’

‘You kept that dark.’

‘For a number of reasons I judged it best. I am by no means satisfied that their conjunction is desirable. At the same time, what happened tonight convinces me that no purpose is served by refusal to collaborate in transmission of a message. Other more powerful forces are on the march. Che sarà sarà.

‘Why should Murtlock wish to meet Widmerpool?’

‘Scorpio’s plans are not often crystal clear.’

‘He can hardly hope to bring Widmerpool into his cult.’

‘There may be more material considerations. Scorpio is not unpractical in worldly matters. You have probably noticed that.’

‘You mean Widmerpool’s place might provide a convenient temporary base?’

‘That is possible.’

‘Which would make putting up with Widmerpool himself worth while?’

‘To gain mastery is also one of Scorpio’s aims.’

‘Power?’

‘The goal of the Alchemists.’

‘Perhaps a mutual attraction in those terms?’

‘We live in a world in which much remains — and must remain — unrevealed.’

Fenneau looked at his watch.

‘I think I shall have to be wending my way homeward. We have had a most pleasant talk. Ah, yes. Something else. I expect that, in your profession, a lot of books pass through your hands for which you have little or no use, review copies and the like. Books of all kinds flow into a writer’s daily life. Do please remember some of them for my Christmas bazaar. I will send you a reminder nearer the season. Let me have your address. Write it down here. Goodnight, goodnight.’