‘Of course I know they are dreadfully badly behaved,’ she said. ‘But what am I to do?’
She had that intense, voluble manner of speaking, often characteristic of those who are perhaps a little mad: a flow of words so violent as to give an impression of lack of balance.
‘How old are they?’
‘Fourteen and fifteen.’
Widmerpool, who at that moment looked in no state to shoulder such responsibilities as a couple of adolescent stepsons habitually expelled from school, leant across the table to address Mrs. Haycock.
‘I think I’ll retire for a minute or two,’ he said, ‘and see what taking a couple of those pills will do.’
‘All right, my own, off you go.’
Widmerpool scrambled out from where he sat in the corner next to the wall, and made for the door.
‘Isn’t he priceless?’ said Mrs. Haycock, almost with pride. ‘Do you know his mother?’
‘I’ve met her.’
‘Do you know that she suggested that she should live with us after we were married?’
Again she spoke in that strange, flat voice, looking hard at me, so that I did not know how to reply; whether to express horror or indulge in laughter. However, she herself seemed to expect no answer to her question. Whatever her feelings about Widmerpool’s mother, they lay too deep for words. Instead of continuing to discuss her personal affairs, she pointed to Jeavons.
‘Your friend seems to be going to sleep,’ she said. ‘You know I have always heard so much about him, and, although I’ve known Molly for years, I only met him for the first time the other night.’
Her observation about Jeavons’s state was true. Templer and his girl had risen to dance, and Jeavons had fallen into a coma similar to those in which General Conyers would sometimes sink. Jeavons seemed to have lost all his earlier enthusiasm to dance with Mrs. Haycock, a change of heart due probably to the amount of beer he had drunk earlier in the evening, before we met. I roused him, and he moved to the other side of the table, into the seat next to Mrs. Haycock.
‘How is Molly?’ she asked him.
‘Molly is all right.’
He did not sound too bright. However, he must have understood that something was exacted of him, and made an effort.
‘Where are you staying?’ he asked.
‘Jules’s.’
‘In Jermyn Street?’
‘I always have a suite there when I come over.’
Jeavons suddenly straightened himself.
‘Come and dance,’ he said.
This surprised me. I had supposed him to be speaking without much serious intention, even when he had first said he wanted to dance with her. After he had all but gone to sleep at the table, I thought he had probably found sufficient entertainment in his own reflections. On the contrary, he had now thrown off his drowsiness. Mrs. Haycock rose without the smallest hesitauon, and they took the floor together. I was sure she had not recognised Jeavons; equally certain that she was aware, as women are, that some disturbing element was abroad, involving herself in some inexplicable manner. She danced well, steering him this way and that, while Jeavons jogged up and down like a marionette, clutching her to him as he attempted the syncopated steps of some long-forgotten measure. I remembered that he himself never danced when the carpet was rolled back and the gramophone played at the Jeavonses’ house. I was still watching them circle the floor when Widmerpool returned from his absence in the inner recesses of the club. He looked worse than ever. There could be no doubt that he ought to go home to bed. He sat down beside me and groaned.
‘I think I shall have to go home,’ he said.
‘Didn’t the pills work?’
‘Quite useless. I am feeling most unwell. Why on earth have you come here with that fellow Jeavons?’
‘I ran across him earlier in the evening, and he brought me along. I’ve met Umfraville before, who runs this place.’
I felt, I did not know why, that it was reasonable for him to make this enquiry in an irritable tone; that some apology was indeed required for my appearance there at all. It was clear that the sooner Widmerpool left, the better for his state of health. He looked ghastly. I was going to suggest that he should make some sign to recall Mrs. Haycock to the table, so that they might leave immediately, when he began to speak in a lower voice, as if he had something on his mind.
‘You know what we were talking about when we last met?’
‘Yes — your engagement, you mean?’
‘I–I haven’t had an opportunity yet.’
‘You haven’t?’
I felt unwilling to reopen all that matter now, especially in his present state.
‘But we’ve been asked to stay at Dogdene.’
‘Yes?’
In spite of his malaise, Widmerpool could not keep from his voice a note of justifiable satisfaction.
‘You know the house, of course.’
‘I’ve never stayed there.’
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I mean you know about it. The Sleafords’ place.’
‘Yes, I know all that.’
‘Do you think it would be — would be the moment?’
‘It might be a very good one.’
‘Of course it would make a splendid background. After all, if any house in the country has had a romantic history, it is Dogdene,’ he said.
The reflection seemed to give him strength. I thought of Pepys, and the ‘great black maid’; and immediately Widmerpool’s resemblance to the existing portraits of the diarist became apparent. He had the same obdurate, put-upon, bad-tempered expression. Only a full-bottomed wig was required to complete the picture. True, Widmerpool shared none of Pepys’s sensibility where the arts were concerned; in the aesthetic field he was a void. But they had a common preoccupation with money and professional advancement; also a kind of dogged honesty. Was it possible to imagine Widmerpool playing a similar role with the maid? There I felt doubtful. Was that, indeed, his inherent problem? Could it be that his love affairs had always fallen short of physical attack? How would he deal with Mrs. Haycock should that be so? I wondered whether their relationship was really so incongruous as it appeared from the exterior. So often one thinks that individuals and situations cannot be so extraordinary as they seem from outside: only to find that the truth is a thousand times odder.
While Widmerpool sat in silence, and I pondered these matters, there came suddenly a shrill burst of sound from the dance floor. 1 saw Mrs. Haycock break away violently from Jeavons. She clasped her hands together and gave peal after peal of laughter. Jeavons, too, was smiling, in his quiet, rather embarrassed manner. Mrs. Haycock caught his hand, and led him through the other dancing couples, back to the table. She was in a great state of excitement.