There was also the point to be remembered that Baby Wentworth, as Truscott had earlier reminded Stringham, “did not like” these visits to the dungeons. I recalled some of Barnby’s speculations regarding the supposed relationship between her and Sir Magnus. While scarcely to be supposed that, in truth, he physically incarcerated Mrs. Wentworth, or his other favourites, in the manner contemplated, frequent repetition of the words no doubt drew attention to sides of his nature that a girl often seen in his company might reasonably prefer to remain unemphasised. Sir Magnus’s eyes had, in fact, paused for a second on Rosie Manasch when he had spoken that sentence. Now they ranged quickly over the faces of Lady Huntercombe, Miss Janet Walpole-Wilson, and Eleanor: coming to rest on the ingenuous profile of a little fair girl whose name I did not know. Then, moistening his lips slightly, he beckoned us on. The party began to descend the stairs, Sir Magnus leading the way.
It so happened that at that moment my shoe-lace came unfastened. There was an oak bench by the side of the staircase, and, resting my foot on this, I stooped to retie the lace, which immediately, as is the way, re-knotted itself tightly, delaying progress for a minute or more. The heels of the women echoed on the stones as the people clattered down the stairs, and then the sound of voices grew fainter, until hum of chatter and shuffle of feet became dim, ceasing at last in the distance. As soon as the shoe-lace was tied once more, I started off quickly down the steps, beside which an iron rail had been fixed as a banister. The way was dark, and the steps cut deep, so that I had slowed up by the time I came, only a short way below, to a kind of landing. Beyond this space the stairs continued again. I had passed this stage, and had just begun on the second flight, when a voice — proceeding apparently from out of the walls of the castle — suddenly spoke my name, the sound of which echoed round me, as the footsteps of the party ahead had echoed a short time before.
“Jenkins?”
I have to admit that I was at that moment quite startled by the sound. The tone was thick and interrogative. It seemed to emerge from the surrounding ether, a voice from out of the twilight of the stair, isolated from human agency, for near approach of any speaker, up or down the steps, Would have been audible to me before he could have come as close as the sound suggested. A second later I became aware of its place of origin, but instead of relief at the simple explanation of what had at first seemed a mysterious, even terrifying, phenomenon, a yet more nameless apprehension was occasioned by the sight revealed. Just level with my head — as I returned a step or more up the stair — was a narrow barred window, or squint, through the iron grill of which, his face barely distinguishable in the shadows, peered Widmerpool.
“Where is the Chief?” he asked, in a hoarse voice.
Once in a way, for a brief instant of time, the subconscious fantasies of the mind seem to overflow, so that we make, in our waking moments, assumptions as outrageous and incredible as those thoughts and acts which provide the commonplace of dreams. Perhaps Sir Magnus’s allusion to the appropriate treatment of “girls who don’t behave,” presumably intended by him at least in a relatively jocular manner, as he had pronounced the sentence, although, it was true, his voice had sounded unnaturally serious, had, for some unaccountable reason, resulted in the conjuration of this spectre, as the image seemed to be, that took form at that moment before my eyes. It was a vision of Widmerpool, imprisoned, to all outward appearance, in an underground cell, from which only a small grating gave access to the outer world: even those wider horizons represented only by the gloom of the spiral staircase. I felt a chill at my heart in the fate that must be his, thus immured, while I racked my brain, for the same brief instant of almost unbearable anxiety, to conjecture what crime, or dereliction of duty, he must have committed to suffer such treatment at the hands of his tyrant.
I record this absurd aberration on my own part only because it had some relation to what followed, for, so soon as anything like rational thought could be brought to bear on the matter, it was clear to me that Widmerpool was merely speaking from an outer passage of the castle, constructed on a lower level than the floor from which, a short time earlier, we had approached the head of the spiral stair. He had, in fact, evidently arrived from the back entrance, or, familiar with the ground plan of the building, had come by some short cut straight to this window.
“Why are you staring like that?” he asked, irritably.
I explained as well as I could the circumstances that caused me to be found in this manner wandering about the castle alone.
“I gathered from one of the servants that a tour was in progress,” said Widmerpool. “I came over with the draft speech for the Incorporated Metals dinner. I am spending the week-end with my mother, and knew the Chief would like to see the wording as soon as possible — so that I could make a revision when one or two points had been settled. Truscott agreed when I rang up.”
“Truscott is showing the party round.”
“Of course.”
All this demonstrated clearly that arrangements initiated by Truscott at Mrs. Andriadis’s party had matured in such a manner as to graft Widmerpool firmly on to the Donners-Brebner organisation, upon the spreading branches of which he seemed to be already positively blossoming. Before I could make further inquiries, on the tip of my tongue, regarding such matters as the precise nature of his job, or the closeness of touch maintained by him with his chief in tasks like the writing of speeches, Widmerpool continued to speak in a lower and more agitated tone, pressing his face between the iron bars, as if attempting to worm his way through their narrow interstices. Now that my eyes had become accustomed to the oddness of his physical position, some of the earlier illusion of forcible confinement dissolved; and, at this later stage, he seemed merely one of those invariably power-conscious beings — a role for which his temperament certainly well suited him — who preside over guichets from which tickets are dispensed for trains or theatres.
“I am glad to have an opportunity for speaking to you alone for a moment,” he said. “I have been worried to death lately.”
This statement sent my thoughts back to his confession about Barbara on the night of the Huntercombes’ dance, and I supposed that he had been suddenly visited with one of those spasms of frustrated passion that sometimes, like an uncured disease, break out with renewed virulence at a date when treatment seemed no longer necessary. After all, it was only in a fit of anger, however justifiable, that he had sworn he would not see her again. No one can choose, or determine, the duration of such changes of heart. Indeed, the circumstances of his decision to break with her after the sugar incident made such a renewal far from improbable.
“Barbara?”
He tried to shake his head, apparently in vehement negation, but was prevented by the bars from making this movement at all adequately to convey the force of his feelings.
“I was induced to do an almost insanely indiscreet thing about the girl you introduced me to.”
The idea of introducing Widmerpool to any girl was so far from an undertaking I was conscious ever of having contemplated, certainly a girl in relation to whom serious indiscretion on his part was at all probable, that I began to wonder whether success in securing the Donners-Brebner job had been too much for his brain, already obsessed with self-advancement, and that he was, in fact, raving. It then occurred to me that I might have brought him into touch with someone or other at the Huntercombes’, although no memory of any introduction remained in my mind. In any case, I could not imagine how such a meeting might have led to a climax so ominous as that suggested by his tone.