Sillery paused. He seemed to feel he had allowed himself to rattle on rather too disconnectedly, at the same time could not remember what exactly had been the subject in hand. Like a conjuror whose patter for a specific trick has become misplaced, he had to go back to the beginning again.
‘We were talking of Bill Truscott and his verse. I expect Bill has abandoned the Muse now, though you never know. It’s a hard habit to break. Would you believe it, I produced a slim volume myself when a young man? Did you know that, either of you? Suggested the influence of Coventry Patmore, so the pundits averred. I suppose most of us think of ourselves as poets at that age. No harm done. Well, that shouldn’t be such a bad job at the Coal Board for Bill, if things are constituted as you prophesy, Leonard. Once Bill’s been well and truly inducted there, he should be safe for a lifetime.’
Again Short allowed polite agreement to be inferred, without prejudice to official discretion, or additional evidence that might be subsequently revealed.
‘ But what mysterious mission brings you to our academic altars, Nick? We don’t even know what you are doing these days. Back writing those novels of yours? I expect so. I used to hear something of your activities when you were a gallant soldier looking after those foreign folk. You know what an interest I take in old friends. Leonard and I were just speaking of poor Prince Theodoric, who was once going to perform all sorts of benefits for us here, endow scholarships and whatnot. Donners-Brebner was to co-operate, Sir Magnus Donners having interests in those parts. Now, alas, the good Prince is in exile, Sir Magnus gathered to his fathers. The University will never see any of those lovely scholarships. But we must march with the times. There’s a new spirit abroad in Prince Thedoric’s country, and, whatever people may say, there’s no doubt about Marshal Stalin’s sincerity in desire for a good-neighbour policy, if the West allows it. What I wrote to The Times. Those Tolland relations of yours, Nick? That unsatisfactory boy Hugo, how is he?’
I dealt with these personal matters as expeditiously as possible, explaining my purpose in staying at the University.
‘Ah, Burton?’ said Sillery. ‘An interesting old gentleman, I’ve no doubt. Many years since I looked into the Anatomy.’
That was undoubtedly true. Sillery was not a great reader. He was also wholly uncurious about the byways of writing, indeed not very approving of writing at all, unless books likely to make a splash beyond mere literary consideration, of which there was no hope here. He abandoned the subject, satisfied apparently that the motive alleged was not designed to conceal some less pedestrian, more controversially viable activity, and the unexciting truth had been told. A pause in his talk, never an opportunity to be missed, offered a chance, the first one, of congratulating him on the peerage conferred in the most recent Honours List. Sillery yelled with laughter at such felicitations.
‘Ain’t it absurd?’ he shouted. ‘As you’ll have guessed, my dear Nick, I didn’t want the dratted thing at all. Not in the least. But it looked unmannerly to refuse. Doesn’t do to look unmannerly. Literal case of noblesse oblige. So there it is. A Peer of the Realm. Who’d have prophesied that for crude young Sillers, that happy-go-lucky little fellow, in the days of yore? It certainly gave some people here furiously to think. Ah, the envies and inhumanities of the human heart. You wouldn’t believe. I keep on telling the college servants to go easy with all that my-lording. Makes me feel as if I was acting in Shakespeare. They will have it, good chaps that they are. Fact is they seem positively to enjoy addressing their old friend in that majestic way, revel in it even. Strange but true. Genuinely glad to see old Sillers a lord. Ah, when you’re my age, dear men, you’ll know what an empty thing is worldly success and human ambition — but we mustn’t say that to an important person like Leonard, must we, Nick? And of course I don’t want to seem ungrateful to the staunch movement that ennobled me, of which I remain the most loyal of supporters. Indeed, we’ve just been talking of some of Labour’s young lions, for Leonard has forgone his former Liberal allegiances in favour of Mr Attlee and his merry men.’
‘Of course, as a civil servant, I’m strictly speaking neutral,’ said Short primly. ‘I was merely talking with Sillers of my present Minister’s PPS, who happens to live in the same block of flats as myself — one Kenneth Widmerpool. You may have come across him.’
‘I have — and saw he got in at a by-election some months ago.’
‘This arose from speaking of Bill Truscott and his troubles,’ said Sillery. ‘I was telling Leonard how I always marvelled at the quietly dextrous way Mr Widmerpool had poor Bill sacked from Donners-Brebner, just at the moment Bill thought himself set for big things. Between you and me, I would myself have doubted whether Bill offered serious rivalry by that time, but, extinct volcano or not, Widmerpool accepted him as a rival, and got rid of him. It was done in the neatest manner imaginable. That was where the rot set in so far as Bill was concerned. Put him on the downward path. He never recovered his status as a coming man. All this arose because I happened to mention to Leonard that Mr Widmerpool had written to me about joining a society — in fact two societies, one political, one cultural — to cement friendship with the People’s Republic where Theodoric’s family once held sway.’
‘I ran across Widmerpool when I was on loan to the Cabinet Office from my own Ministry,’ said Short. ‘We first met when I was staying in the country one weekend with a person of some import. I won’t mention names, but say no more than that the visit was one of work rather than play. Widmerpool came down on Sunday about an official matter, bringing some highly secret papers with him. We played a game of croquet in the afternoon as a short relaxation. I always remember how Widmerpool kept his briefcase under his arm — he was in uniform, of course — throughout the game. He nearly won it, in spite of that. Our host joked with him about his high regard for security, but Widmerpool would not risk losing his papers, even when he made his stroke.’
Sillery rocked himself backwards and forwards in silent enjoyment.
‘A very capable administrator,’ said Short. ‘Of course one can’t foretell what prospects such a man can have on the floor of the House. He may not necessarily be articulate in those very special surroundings. I’ve heard it suggested Widmerpool is better in committee. His speeches are inclined to alienate sympathy. Nevertheless, I am disposed to predict success.’
Neither of them would listen to assurances that I had known Widmerpool for years, which had indeed no particular relevance to his election to the House of Commons some little time before this. The event had taken place while I was myself still submerged in the country, getting through my army gratuity. At the time, Widmerpool’s arrival in Parliament seemed just another of the many odd things taking place roundabout, no concern of mine after reading of it in the paper. Back in London, occupied with sorting out the debris, physical and moral, with which one had to contend, Widmerpool’s political fortunes — like his unexpected marriage to Pamela Flitton — had been forgotten in attempts to warm up, as it were, charred fragments left over from the pre-war larder.
‘He’d probably have become a brigadier had hostilities continued,’ said Short. ‘I’m not at all surprised by the course he’s taken. At one moment, so he told me, he had ambitions towards a colonial governorship — was interested in those particular problems — but Westminster opens wider fields. The question was getting a seat.’
Sillery dismissed such a doubt as laughable for a man of ability.
‘Elderly trade unionists die, or reap the reward of years of toil by elevation to the Upper House — better merited, I add in all humility, than others I could name. The miners can spare a seat from their largesse, those hardy crofters of Scotland show a canny instinct for the right candidate.’