He shook his head. Widmerpool came back to the room at that moment. He was fidgeting with the collar of his battle-dress, always a sign he was put out. It looked as if the interview with A. & Q. had not gone too well. Seeing Farebrother sitting there was not welcome to him either.
“Oh, hallo, Sunny,” he said, without much warmth.
“I came along to bid you farewell, Kenneth, and now I hear from Nicholas you’re on the move like myself.”
Widmerpool showed a touch of surprise at Farebrother using my first name, then remembered we had formerly known each other.
“I forgot you’d both met,” he said. “Yes, I’m going. Did Nicholas tell you where?”
“Scarcely revealed anything,” said Farebrother.
Not for the first time, I noted his caution, and was grateful for it, though Widmerpool seemed to want his destination known.
“The Cabinet Offices.”
Widmerpool could not conceal his own satisfaction.
“I say, old boy.”
The comparative enthusiasm Farebrother managed to infuse into this comment was something of a masterpiece in the exercise of dissimulation.
“It will mean work, morning, noon and night,” said Widmerpool. “But there’ll undoubtedly be interesting contacts.”
“There will, old boy, I bet there will — and promotion.”
“Possibly.”
“Quite soon.”
“Oh, you never know in the bloody army,” said Widmerpool, thought of his new job inducing a better humour, marked as usual by the assumption of his hearty military manner, “but what’s happening to you, Sunny, if you say you’re going too?”
“One of these secret shows.”
“Baker Street?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Promotion too?”
Farebrother nodded modestly.
“That’s the only reason I’m taking it. Need the pay. Much rather do something straightforward, if I had the choice.”
Widmerpool could not have been pleased to hear that Farebrother was about to become a lieutenant-colonel, while he himself, however briefly, remained a major. Indeed, it probably irritated him that Farebrother should be promoted at all. At the same time, a display of self-control rare with him, he contrived to show no concern, his manner being even reasonably congratulatory. This was no doubt partly on account of the satisfactory nature of his own promised change of employment, but, as he revealed on a later occasion, also because of the low esteem in which he held the organisation which Farebrother was about to join.
“A lot of scallywags, in my opinion,” he said later.
Farebrother was certainly acute enough to survey their respective future situations from much the same point of view, that is to say appreciating the fact that, although he might himself be now ahead, Widmerpool’s potentialities for satisfying ambition must be agreed to enjoy a wider scope. Indeed, in a word or two, he openly expressed some such conclusion. Farebrother could afford this generosity, because, as it turned out, he had another trick up his sleeve. He brought this trump card out only after they had talked for a minute or two about their new jobs. Farebrother opened his attack by abruptly swinging the subject away from their own personal affairs.
“You’ve been notified Ivo Deanery’s going to get the Recce Unit?” he asked suddenly.
Widmerpool was taken aback by this question. He began to look angry again.
“Never heard of him,” he said.
The answer sounded as if it were intended chiefly to gain time.
“Recently adjutant to my Yeomen,” said Farebrother. “As lively a customer as you would meet in a day’s march. Got an M.C. in Palestine just before the war.”
Widmerpool was silent. He did not show any interest at all in Ivo Deanery’s juvenile feats of daring, whatever they might have been. I supposed he did not want to admit to Farebrother that he himself had been running a candidate for the Recce Unit’s Commanding Officer; and that candidate, from what had been said, must have been unsuccessful.
“Knew you were interested in the Recce Regiment command,” said Farebrother, speaking very casually.
“Naturally.”
“I mean specially interested.”
“There was nothing special about it,” said Widmerpool.
“Oh, I understand there was,” said Farebrother, assuming at once a puzzled expression, as if greatly worried at Widmerpool’s denial of special interest. “In fact that was the chief reason I came round to see you.”
“Look here,” said Widmerpool, “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Sunny. How could you be D.A.A.G. of a formation and not take a keen interest in who’s appointed to command its units?”
He was gradually losing his temper.
“The M.G.A. thinks you were a bit too interested,” said Farebrother, speaking now with exaggerated sadness. “Old boy, there’s going to be the hell of a row. You’ve put your foot in it.”
“What do you mean?”
Widmerpool was thoroughly disturbed now, frightened enough to control his anger. Farebrother looked interrogatively at me, then his eyes travelled back to Widmerpool. He raised his eyebrows. Widmerpool shook his head vigorously.
“Say anything you like in front of him,” he said. “He knows I had a name in mind for the Recce Unit command. Nothing wrong with that. Naturally I regret my chap hasn’t got it. That’s all there is to it. What’s the M.G.A. beefing about?”
Farebrother too shook his head, but slowly and more lugubriously than ever.
“I understand from the M.G.A. that you were in touch with him personally not long ago about certain matters with which I myself was concerned.”
Widmerpool went very red.
“I think I know what you mean,” he said, “but they were just as much my concern as yours.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better form, old boy, to have mentioned to me you were going to see him?”
“I saw no cause to do so,”
Widmerpool was not at all at ease.
“Anyway,” said Farebrother mildly, “the M.G.A., rightly or wrongly, feels you misled him about various scraps of unofficial information you tendered, especially as he had no idea at the time that you were pressing in other quarters for a certain officer to be appointed to a command then still vacant.”
“How did he find that out?”
“I told him,” said Farebrother, simply.
“But look here …” said Widmerpool.
He was too furious to finish the sentence.
“The long and the short of it was the M.G.A. said he was going to get in touch with your General about the whole matter.”
“But I behaved in no way incorrectly,” said WidmerpooL “There is not the smallest reason to suggest…”
“Believe me, Kenneth, I’m absolutely confident you did nothing to which official exception could possibly be taken,” said Farebrother. “On my heart. That’s why I thought it best to put my own cards on the table. The M.G.A. is sometimes hasty. As you know well, amateur soldiers like you and me tend to go about our business in rather a different way from the routine a Regular gets accustomed to. We like to get things done expeditiously. I just thought it was a pity myself you went and told the M.G.A. all those things about me. That was why I decided he ought to know more about you and your own activities. I’m sure everything will be all right in the end, but I believed it right to warn you — as I was coming to say good-bye anyway — simply that my General might be getting in touch with your General about all this.”
Farebrother’s quiet, reassuring tone did not at all soothe Widmerpool, who now looked more disturbed than ever. Farebrother rose to his feet. He squared his shoulders and smiled kindly, pleased, as well he might be, with the devastation his few minutes’ conversation had brought about in the promotion of Widmerpool’s plans. In his own way, as I learnt later, Farebrother was an efficient operator when he wanted something done; very efficient indeed. Widmerpool had made a mistake in trying to double-cross him in whatever matter the visit to the M.G.A. had concerned. He should have guessed that Farebrother, sooner or later, would find out. Perhaps he had disregarded that possibility, ruling out the risk of Farebrother turning to a formidable weapon at hand. However, with characteristic realism, Widmerpool grasped that something must be done quickly, if trouble, by now probably inevitable, was to be reduced in magnitude. He was not going to waste time in recrimination.