‘What’s Gypsy got to do with it?’
‘As Craggs’s wife.’
‘Gypsy married to Craggs?’
‘Has been for a year or two. Quiggin’s an interesting case. He’s always had Communist leanings, but afraid to commit himself. JG doesn’t like too many risks. He feels he might get into more trouble as a Party Member than outside. He hasn’t got Craggs’s staying power.’
‘But Erry wasn’t a Communist at all. In many ways he disapproved, I believe, though he never came out in the open about it.’
‘No, but he got on all right with JG and Howard Craggs. There was even a suggestion he did more than get on well with Gypsy at one time. He was going to back the publishing firm too, though they are to be run quite separately.’
‘What’s the magazine to be called?’
‘Fission. That was thought to strike the right note for the Atomic Age. Something to catch the young writers coming out of the services — Trapnel, for example. That was why I mentioned him. The firm would, of course, be of a somewhat Leftward tendency, given its personnel, but general publishing, not like Boggis & Stone. The magazine was to be Warminster’s toy to do more or less what he liked with. I hope his demise is not going to wreck things. It was he who wanted me to edit it There were one or two others after the job. Gypsy wasn’t all that keen for me to get it, in spite of old ties. I know a bit too much.’
Bagshaw’s lack of orthodoxy, while at the same time soaked in Left-Wing lore, was something to make immediate appeal to Erridge, once considered. Then another idea occurred to me. It was worth firing a shot at random.
‘You’ve been seeing Miss Ada Leintwardine about all this?’
Bagshaw was not in the least taken aback. He stroked his moustache, an utterly unsuitable appendage to his smooth round somewhat priest-like face, and smiled.
‘You know Ada? I thought she was my secret. Where did you run across her?’
He listened to an account of what had taken place in Sillery’s rooms; then nodded, as if understanding all.
‘Sillery’s an interesting case too. I’ve heard it suggested he’s been in the Party himself for years. Myself I think not, though there’s no doubt he’s given quite a bit of support from time to time in his day. I’d be interested to know where he really stands. So the little witch has ensnared this venerable scholar?’
‘She’s kept that to herself so far as you were concerned?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Is she a Party Member too?’
Bagshaw laughed heartily.
‘Ada’s ambitions are primarily literary. Within that area she’ll take any help she can get, but I doubt if she’d get much from the Party. What did you think of her?’
‘All right.’
‘She’s got a will of her own. Quiggin & Craggs did right to sign her up. JG was much taken.’
‘You produced her?’
‘We met during the war — all too briefly — but have remained friends. She’s to be on the publishing side, not Fission. I’d like you to meet Trapnel. I really do think there’s promise there. I’ll call you up, and we’ll have a drink together. I won’t be able to arrange anything next week, as I’m getting married on Tuesday — thanks very much, my dear fellow, thanks very much… yes, of course… nice of you to put it that way… I just didn’t want to be a bore about a lot of personal matters …’
2
RATHER UNEXPECTEDLY, ERRIDGE WAS FOUND to have paid quite recent attention to his will. He had replaced George Tolland (former executor with Frederica) by their youngest, now only surviving brother, Hugo. Accordingly, by the time I reached London, Hugo and Frederica had already gone down to Thrubworth. Accommodation in Erridge’s wing of the house was limited. The rest of the family, as at George’s funeral, had to make up their minds whether to attend as a day’s expedition, or stay at The Tolland Arms, a hostelry considerably developed from former times, since the establishment in the neighbourhood of an RAF station. Norah, Susan and her husband Roddy Cutts, with Isobel and myself, chose The Tolland Arms. As it happened Dicky Umfraville had just arrived on leave from Germany, where he was serving as lieutenant-colonel on the staff of the Military Government (a job to which he was well disposed), but he flatly refused to accompany Frederica.
‘I never met your brother,’ he said. ‘Therefore it would be an impertinence on my part to attend his funeral. Besides — in more than one respect the converse of another occasion — there’s room at the inn, but none at the stable. Nobody would mind one of the Thrubworth loose-boxes less than myself, but we should be separated, my love, so near and yet so far, something I could not bear. In addition — far more important — I don’t like funerals. They remind me of death, a subject I always try to avoid. You will have to represent me, Frederica, angel that you are, and return to London as soon as possible to make my leave a heaven upon earth.’
Veronica, George Tolland’s widow, was not present either. She was likely to give birth any day now.
‘Pray God it will be a boy,’ Hugo said. ‘I used to think I’d like to take it all on, but no longer — even though I’d hardly make a scruffier earl than poor old Erry.’
His general demeanour quietened by the war, Hugo’s comments tended to become grimmer. He had remained throughout his service bombardier in an Anti-Aircraft battery, not leaving England, but experiencing a reasonably lively time, for example, one night the only man on the gun not knocked out. Now he had returned to selling antiques, a trade at which he became increasingly proficient, recently opening a shop of his own with a former army friend called Sam — he seemed to possess no surname — not a great talker, but good-natured, of powerful physique, and said to be quick off the mark when a good piece came up at auction.
Like Hugo — although naturally in terms of his own very different temperament and approach to life — Roddy Cutts had also quietened. There was sufficient reason for that. The wartime romance at HQ Persia/Iraq Force, with the cipherine he had at one moment planned to marry, had collapsed not long after disclosure of the situation in a letter to his wife. While on leave in Teheran the cipherine had suddenly decided to abscond with a rich Persian, abandoning Roddy to his own resources. Susan, who had behaved impeccably during this unhappy interlude, now took over. When Roddy came back to England for the 1945 election, she worked exceptionally hard. He retained his seat by a few hundred votes. As a consequence, Susan’s ascendancy was now complete, Roddy utterly under her control. She made him toil like a slave. That was no doubt right, what he wanted himself. All the same, these factors were calculated to reduce high spirits, even in one so generally appreciative of his own good qualities as Roddy Cutts. His handsome, rather too large features were now marked with signs of stress, everything about him a shade less strident, even the sandy hair. At the same time he retained the forceful manner, half hectoring, half subservient, common to representatives of all political parties, together with the politician’s endemic hallmark of getting hold of the wrong end of the stick. He was almost pathetically thankful to be back in the House of Commons.
When George Tolland had been buried a few months before, Erridge had not been present at the funeral. He had, in fact retired to bed with an attack of gastritis — then very prevalent — but from the start this absence had been assumed almost as a matter of course by his sisters. That was not because any of them accepted too seriously Erridge’s own complaint about chronic ailments, but on the general principle that for an eldest son, no matter how progressive his views, it was reasonable to avoid a ceremony where a younger brother must inevitably occupy the limelight; in this case additionally so in the eyes of those — however much Erridge himself might deplore such sentiments — who felt an end such as George’s traditionally commendable; as Stringham had commented, ‘awfully smart to be killed’. This last factor was likely to be emphasized by the religious service, in itself distasteful to Erridge. There was therefore more than one reason to keep him away, as of late years he had become all but incapable of doing anything he disliked. It was agreed that, even without illness, he would never have attended.