man. It hasn’t been in the papers yet, has it?’
She spoke casually. Mrs. Conyers was well prepared for the question, because she answered without hesitation, allowing no suggestion to appear of the doubts she had revealed to me only a short time earlier.
‘The engagement is supposed to be a secret,’ she said, ‘but, as everybody will hear about it quite soon, there is really no reason to deny the rumour.’
‘Then it is true?’
‘It certainly looks as if Mildred is going to marry again.’
No one, however determined to make a good story, could have derived much additional information on the subject from the manner in which Mrs. Conyers spoke, except in so far that she could not be said to show any obvious delight at the prospect of her sister taking a third husband. That was the farthest implication offered. There was not a hint of disapproval or regret; on the contrary, complete acceptance of the situation was manifest, even mild satisfaction not openly disavowed. It was impossible to withhold admiration from this façade, so effortlessly presented.
‘And he—?’
‘Nicholas, here, was at school with him,’ said Mrs. Conyers, tranquilly.
She spoke as if most people must, as a matter of course, be already aware of that circumstance; for it now seemed that, in spite of her husband’s doubts, she had finally accepted the fact that I was within a few years of Widmerpool’s age. The remark only stimulated Frederica’s curiosity.
‘Oh, do tell me what he is like,’ she said. ‘Mildred was just that amount older than me to make her rather a thrilling figure at the time when I first came “out”. She was at the Huntercombes’ once when I stayed there not long after the war. She was rather a dashing war widow and wore huge jade ear-rings, and smoked all the time and said the most hair-raising things. What is her new name to be, first of all?’
‘Widmerpool,’ I said, since the question was addressed to me.
‘Where do they come from?’ asked Mrs. Conyers, anxious to profit herself from Frederica’s interrogation.
‘Nottinghamshire, I believe.’
This reply was at worst innocuous, and might be taken, in general, to imply a worthy family background. It was also—as I understood from Widmerpool himself—in no way a departure from the truth. Fearing that I might, if pressed, be compelled ultimately to admit some hard things about Widmerpool, I felt that the least I could do for an old acquaintance in these circumstances was to suggest, however indirectly, a soothing picture of generations of Widmerpools in a rural setting; an ancient, if dilapidated, manor house: Widmerpool tombs in the churchyard: tankards of ale at The Widmerpool Arms.
‘You haven’t said what his Christian name is,’ said Frederica, apparently accepting, anyway at this stage, the regional superscription.
‘Kenneth.’
‘Brothers or sisters?’
‘No.’
I admired the thoroughness with which Frederica set to work on an enquiry of this kind, as much as I had admired Mrs. Conyers’s earlier refusal to give anything away.
‘And he is in the City?’
‘He is supposed to be rather good at making money,’ interpolated Mrs. Conyers.
She had begun to smile indulgently at Frederica’s unconcealed curiosity. Now she employed a respectful yet at the same time deprecatory tone, as if this trait of Widmerpool’s—his supposed facility for ‘making money’—was, extraordinary as this might appear, a propensity not wholly unpleasant when you became accustomed to it. At the same time she abandoned her former position of apparent neutrality, openly joining in the search. Indeed, she put the next question herself.
‘His father is dead, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘Nottinghamshire, did you say?’
‘Or Derbyshire. I don’t remember for certain.’
Widmerpool had once confided the fact that his grandfather, a business man from the Scotch Lowlands, had on marriage changed his name from ‘Geddes’; but such an
She spoke casually. Mrs. Conyers was well prepared for the question, because she answered without hesitation, allowing no suggestion to appear of the doubts she had revealed to me only a short time earlier.
‘The engagement is supposed to be a secret,’ she said, ‘but, as everybody will hear about it quite soon, there is really no reason to deny the rumour.’
‘Then it is true?’
‘It certainly looks as if Mildred is going to marry again.’
No one, however determined to make a good story, could have derived much additional information on the subject from the manner in which Mrs. Conyers spoke, except in so far that she could not be said to show any obvious delight at the prospect of her sister taking a third husband. That was the farthest implication offered. There was not a hint of disapproval or regret; on the contrary, complete acceptance of the situation was manifest, even mild satisfaction not openly disavowed. It was impossible to withhold admiration from this façade, so effortlessly presented.
‘And he—?’
‘Nicholas, here, was at school with him,’ said Mrs. Conyers, tranquilly.
She spoke as if most people must, as a matter of course, be already aware of that circumstance; for it now seemed that, in spite of her husband’s doubts, she had finally accepted the fact that I was within a few years of Widmerpool’s age. The remark only stimulated Frederica’s curiosity.
‘Oh, do tell me what he is like,’ she said. ‘Mildred was just that amount older than me to make her rather a thrilling figure at the time when I first came “out”. She was at the Huntercombes’ once when I stayed there not long after the war. She was rather a dashing war widow and wore huge jade ear-rings, and smoked all the time and said the most hair-raising things. What is her new name to be, first of all?’
‘Widmerpool,’ I said, since the question was addressed to me.
‘Where do they come from?’ asked Mrs. Conyers, anxious to profit herself from Frederica’s interrogation.
‘Nottinghamshire, I believe.’
This reply was at worst innocuous, and might be taken, in general, to imply a worthy family background. It was also—as I understood from Widmerpool himself—in no way a departure from the truth. Fearing that I might, if pressed, be compelled ultimately to admit some hard things about Widmerpool, I felt that the least I could do for an old acquaintance in these circumstances was to suggest, however indirectly, a soothing picture of generations of Widmerpools in a rural setting; an ancient, if dilapidated, manor house: Widmerpool tombs in the churchyard: tankards of ale at The Widmerpool Arms.
‘You haven’t said what his Christian name is,’ said Frederica, apparently accepting, anyway at this stage, the regional superscription.
‘Kenneth.’
‘Brothers or sisters?’
‘No.’
I admired the thoroughness with which Frederica set to work on an enquiry of this kind, as much as I had admired Mrs. Conyers’s earlier refusal to give anything away.
‘And he is in the City?’
‘He is supposed to be rather good at making money,’ interpolated Mrs. Conyers.
She had begun to smile indulgently at Frederica’s unconcealed curiosity. Now she employed a respectful yet at the same time deprecatory tone, as if this trait of Widmerpool’s—his supposed facility for ‘making money’—was, extraordinary as this might appear, a propensity not wholly unpleasant when you became accustomed to it. At the same time she abandoned her former position of apparent neutrality, openly joining in the search. Indeed, she put the next question herself.
‘His father is dead, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘Nottinghamshire, did you say?’
‘Or Derbyshire. I don’t remember for certain.’
Widmerpool had once confided the fact that his grandfather, a business man from the Scotch Lowlands, had on marriage changed his name from ‘Geddes’; but such an
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