“How badly used he really to behave?”
He moistened his lips, though scarcely perceptibly. I thought his mixture of secretiveness and curiosity quite intolerable.
“He had a woman before he left.”
If Widmerpool had been upset by the news that Stringham had played the Braddock alias Thorne trick on Le Bas, and more personally embarrassed by reference to the Akworth scandal, this piece of information, regarding Templer’s crowning exploit, threw him almost entirely off his balance. He made a strange sound, half-way between a low laugh and a clearing of the throat, simultaneously swallowing hard. He also went, if possible, redder than ever. Took off his spectacles and began to polish them, as he usually did when his nerves were on edge. I did not feel entirely at ease with the subject myself. To help out the situation, I added: “I have just been staying with the Templers as a matter of fact.”
Widmerpool clearly welcomed this shift of interest in our conversation, enquiring almost eagerly about the Templers’ house, and the manner in which they lived. We talked about the Templers for a time, and I found to my surprise that Widmerpool knew Sunny Farebrother by name, though they had never met. He said: “A very sharp fellow, they tell me.”
“I liked him.”
“Naturally you did,” said Widmerpool. “He can make himself very agreeable.”
I found Widmerpool’s remarks in this vein so tiresome that I was almost inclined to try and shock him further by describing in detail the various incidents that had taken place while I was staying at the Templers’. In the end I decided that those happenings needed too much explanation before they could be appreciated, anyway by Widmerpool, that there was nothing to be gained by trying to impress him, or attempting to modify his point of view. I told him that Peter was going straight into business, without spending any time at the university. Rather unexpectedly, Widmerpool approved this decision, almost in Sunny Farebrother’s own phrase.
“Much better get down to work right away,” he said. “There was not much money when my father died, so 1 talked things over with my mother — she has a wonderful grasp of business matters — and we decided we would do the same thing, and cut out Oxford or Cambridge.”
By using the first person plural, he made the words sound as if there had been some question of his mother going up to the university with him. He said: “This effort to polish up my French is merely in the nature of a holiday.”
“A holiday from what?”
“I am articled to a firm of solicitors.”
“Oh, yes.”
“I do not necessarily propose to remain a solicitor all my life,” said Widmerpool. “I look to wider horizons.”
“What sort?”
“Business, Politics.”
This all seemed to me such rubbish that I changed the subject, asking where he lived. He replied, rather stiffly, that his mother had a flat in Victoria. It was convenient, he said; but without explaining the advantages. I enquired what life was like in London.
“That depends what you do,” said Widmerpool, guardedly.
“So I suppose.”
“What profession are you going to follow?”
“I don’t know.”
It seemed almost impossible to make any remark without in one manner or another disturbing Widmerpool’s equanimity. He was almost as shocked at hearing that I had no ready-made plans for a career as he had been scandalised a few minutes earlier at the information regarding the precocious dissipation of Templer’s life.
“But surely you have some bent?” he said. “An ambition to do well at something?”
This ideal conception — that one should have an aim in life — had, indeed, only too often occurred to me as an unsolved problem; but I was still far from deciding what form my endeavours should ultimately take. Being at that moment unprepared for an a priori discussion as to what the future should hold, I made several rather lame remarks to the effect that I wanted one day “to write:” an assertion that had not even the merit of being true, as it was an idea that had scarcely crossed my mind until that moment.
“To write?” said Widmerpool. “But that is hardly a profession. Unless you mean you want to be a journalist — like Lundquist.”
“I suppose I might do that.”
“It is precarious,” said Widmerpool. “And — although we laugh, of course, at Örn for saying so, right out — there is certainly not much social position attached: unless, for example, you become editor of The Times, or something of that sort. I should think it over very carefully before you commit yourself.”
“I am not absolutely determined to become a journalist.”
“You are wise. What are your other interests?”
Feeling that the conversation had taken a turn that delivered me over to a kind of cross-examination, I admitted that I liked reading.
“You can’t earn your living by reading,” said Widmerpool, severely.
“I never said you could.”
“It doesn’t do to read too much,” Widmerpool said. “You get to look at life with a false perspective. By all means have some familiarity with the standard authors. I should never raise any objection to that. But it is no good clogging your mind with a lot of trash from modern novels.”
“That was what Le Bas used to say.”
“And he was quite right. I disagreed in many ways with Le Bas. In that one, I see eye to eye with him.”
There was not much for me to say in reply. I had a novel — If Winter Comes, which I had now nearly finished — under my arm, and it was impossible to deny that I had been reading this book. Widmerpool must have noticed this, because he continued in a more kindly tone: “You must meet my mother. She is one of those rare middle-aged women who have retained their youthful interest in matters of the mind. If you like books — and you tell me you do — you would thoroughly enjoy a chat with her about them.”
“That would be nice.”
“I shall arrange it,” said Widmerpool. “Et maintenant, il faut se coucher, parce-que je compte de me reveiller de bonne heure le matin.”
In the course of subsequent conversations between us he talked a good deal about his mother. On the subject of his father he was more reticent. Sometimes I had even the impression that Widmerpool père had earned a living in some manner of which his son — an only child — preferred not to speak: though, one evening, in a burst of confidence, he mentioned that his paternal grandfather had been a Scotch business man called Geddes, who had taken the name of Widmerpool after marrying a wife of that name, who was — so Widmerpool indicated in his characteristic manner — of rather higher standing than himself. There seemed to have been some kind of financial crisis when Widmerpool’s father had died, either on account of debts, or because the family’s income had been thereby much reduced. Life with his mother appeared to be very quiet and to consist of working all day and studying law after dinner most nights; though Widmerpool took care to explain to me that he deliberately took part in a certain amount of what he called “social life.” He said, with one of his rare smiles: “Brains and hard work are of very little avail, Jenkins, unless you know the right people.”
I told him that I had an uncle who was fond of saying the same thing; and I asked what form his relaxations generally took.
“I go to dances,” said Widmerpool; adding, rather grandly: “in the Season, that is.”
“Do you get a lot of invitations?” I asked, divided between feeling rather impressed by this attitude towards the subject in hand and, at the same time, finding difficulty in believing that he could be overwhelmed by persons wishing to share his company.
Widmerpool was evasive on this point, and muttered something about invitations being “just a question of getting on a list.” As he seemed unwilling to amplify this statement, I did not press him further, having myself a somewhat indistinct comprehension of what he meant: and appreciating that the relative extent of his invitations, as for anyone, might be, perhaps, a delicate matter.