A Buyer's Market by Anthony Powell Page B

happened to-night.”
    “It was silly of Barbara.”
    “It was more than silly,” said Widmerpool, speaking with unusual intensity, his voice rising in tone. “It was a cruel thing to do. I shall stop seeing her.”
    “I shouldn’t take it all too seriously.”
    “I shall certainly take it seriously. You are probably not aware of the situation.”
    “What situation?”
    “As I think I told you before dinner, Barbara and I used to live near each other in the country. She knows well what my feelings are for her, even though I may not have expressed them in so many words. Of course I see now that it was wrong to take hold of her as I did.”
    This disclosure was more than a little embarrassing, both for its unexpectedness and also in the light of my own sentiments, or at least former sentiments, on the subject of Barbara. At that stage of life all sorts of things were going on round about that only later took on any meaning or pattern. Thus some people enjoyed distinctly public love affairs, often quickly forgotten, while others fell in love without anyone, perhaps even including the object of their love, knowing or caring anything about these covert affections. Only years later, if at all, could the consequences of such bottled-up emotions sometimes be estimated: more often, of course, they remained entirely unknown. In Widmerpool’s case, for example, I had no idea, and could, I suppose, have had no idea, that he had been in love with Barbara all the time that I myself had adored her. Moreover, in those days, as I have already indicated, I used to think that people who looked and behaved like Widmerpool had really no right to fall in love at all, far less have any success with girls—least of all a girl like Barbara—a point of view that in due course had, generally speaking, to be revised: sometimes in mortifying circumstances. This failure to recognise Widmerpool’s passion had, of course, restricted any understanding of his conduct, when at the supper table he had appeared so irritable from the mere consequence of the loss of a dance. I could now guess that, while we sat there, he had been burning in the fires of hell.
    “Of course I appreciate that the Gorings are a family of a certain distinction,” said Widmerpool. “But without the Gwatkin money they would never be able to keep up Pembringham Woodhouse as they do.”
    “What was the Gwatkin money?”
    “Gwatkin was Lord Aberavon’s family name. The peerage was one of the last created by Queen Victoria. As a matter of fact the Gwatkins were perfectly respectable landed stock, I believe. And, of course, the Gorings have not produced a statesman of the first rank since their eighteenth-century ancestor—and he is entirely forgotten. As you probably know, they have no connection whatever with the baronets of the same name.”
    He produced these expository facts as if the history of the Gorings and the Gwatkins offered in some manner a key to his problem.
    “What about Barbara’s father?”
    “As a young man he was thought to show promise of a future in the House of Lords,” said Widmerpool. “But promise in that Chamber has become of late years increasingly difficult to develop to any satisfactory end. He performed, I have been told, a lot of useful work in committee, but he never held office, and sank into political obscurity. As I heard Sir Horrocks Rusby, K.C., remark at dinner the other night: ‘It’s no good being useful if you don’t achieve recognition.’ Sir Horrocks added that this maxim was a natural corollary of the appearance of sin being as bad as sin itself. On the other hand the farming at Pembringham is some of the most up-to-date in the country, and that is well known.”
    “Were you going to propose to Barbara?”
    “You don’t suppose I have the money to marry, do you?” he said violently. “That is why I am telling you all this.”
    He spoke as if everyone ought already to be familiar with his emotional predicament;