‘I didn’t want to disturb you, Sillers. I didn’t really, but I’m almost sure you gave me the wrong notebook yesterday. There were two years missing at least.’
Her manner, self-possessed, was also forthcoming. She smiled round at all of us, not at all displeased at finding unexpected company in Sillery’s rooms. It looked as if some twist of post-war academic administration had committed Sillery to aspects of tutoring that included the women’s colleges. In the old days that would have been much against all his known principles, but changed conditions, possibly in the line of post-graduate courses, might have brought about some such revolutionary situation in the University as now constituted.
‘Two years missing?’ said Sillery. ‘That will never do, Ada, that will never do, but I must introduce you to two old friends of mine. Mr Short, one of our most cultivated and humane of bureaucrats, and Mr Jenkins who is — you just explained to me, Nick, but I can’t recall for the minute — no, no, don’t tell me, I’ll remember in a second — come here to do some research of a very scholarly kind, something he is planning to write — Burton, yes, Burton, melancholy and all that. This is Miss Leintwardine, my — well — my secretary. That’s what you are, Ada, ain’t you? Sounds rather fast. All sorts of jokes about us, I’m sure. Sit ’ee down, Ada, sit ’ee down. I’ll look into your complaints forthwith.’
Miss Leintwardine took a chair. Clearly well used to Sillery’s ways and diction, she accepted this presentation of herself as all part of the game. In the role of secretary she was a little more explicable, though why on earth Sillery should require a secretary was by no means apparent. Perhaps a secretary went with being made a peer. Whatever it was, he now retired to a corner of the room, where, lowering himself on to the floor, he squatted on the worn carpet, while he began to rummage about amongst a lot of stuff stored away in the bottom of a cupboard. All the time he kept up a stream of comment.
‘What a way to preserve sacred memories. Isn’t that just like me? Might be a lot of old boots for all the trouble I’ve taken. Nineteen-eight… nineteen-four … here we are, I think, here we are.’
Miss Leintwardine, who had sat down as requested, showed willingness to make herself agreeable by a laudatory reference to a novel I had written before the war. She was about to expand her views on this subject, but, whatever other modifications had taken place in Sillery’s approach, tolerance of his guests’ books being discussed in front of him was not among them. Sillery’s enemies were inclined to imply that aversion to other people writing was the fruit of pure envy, but it was much more probable that talk about ‘writing’ simply bored him, unless arousing a sense of conflict. He began a loud confused monologue to put a stop to all other conversation, then suddenly found what he sought, closed the cupboard and rose without effort, holding two or three tattered exercise books. He cast these on the table.
‘Here they are. I don’t know what I can have been thinking about, Ada. Was it the nineteen-twelve volume I gave you? Let me have a look. Ah, no, I think I understand now. This is supplementary. Ada’s helping me get my old diaries in order. Not only typing them, but giving me her valuable — I should say invaluable — advice. I’m pleading as a suppliant before the inexorable tribunal of Youth. That’s what it comes to. Don’t know what I’d do without her. I’d be lost, wouldn’t I, Ada?’
‘You certainly would, Sillers.’
‘Diaries?’ said Short. ‘I didn’t know you kept a diary, Sillers?’
Sillery, laughing heartily, lowered himself again into a vast collapsed armchair in which he lay crouched.
‘Nobody did, nobody did. Strict secret. Of course it’s possible nothing will appear until old Sillers is dead and gone. That’s no reason why the diaries shouldn’t be put in proper order. Then perhaps a few selections might be published. Who can tell until Ada has done her work — and who should help make the decision better than Ada?’
‘But, Sillers, they’ll be absolutely …’
Short was again without words. Only an ingrained professional habit of avoiding superlatives, so he implied, prevented him from giving more noisy expression to welcome a Journal kept by Sillery.
‘You’ve met everybody, Sillers. They’ll be read as the most notable chronicle of our time.’
Sillery made no attempt to deny that judgment. He screwed up his eyes, laughed a great deal, blew out his moustache. Miss Leintwardine took up the exercise books from the table. She glanced through them with cold professional competence.
‘That’s better, Sillers. These are the ones. I’d better bear them away with me.’
She rose from the chair, smiling, friendly, about to leave. Sillery held up his right hand, as if to swear a solemn oath.
‘Stay, Ada. Stay and talk with us a while. You must meet people younger than myself sometimes, eligible bachelors like Mr Short. By the way, these gentlemen are contemporaries of another friend of ours, Mark Members, whom you talked of when he was up the other day lecturing on whatever it was. He’s left the Ministry of Information now.’
‘Kleist, Marx, Sartre, the Existentialist Equilibrium.’
‘Of course,’ said Sillery. ‘One of Vernon Gainsborough’s jeux d’esprit. I can’t remember, Leonard, whether you’ve met our latest Fellow. He’s a German — or rather was — a “good” German, of course, called Werner Guggenbühl, but Gainsborough’s better, we all agree. Of patrician background, but turned early to the Left.’
‘You’re interested in German literature, Miss Leintwardine?’ asked Short.
He must have hoped to gloss over Sillery’s rather malicious reference to ‘eligible bachelors’, but notably failed in this attempt to guide conversation into intellectual channels.
‘We were talking of old friends like Mark,’ said Sillery. ‘J. G. Quiggin, Bill Truscott, all names with which you are familiar from my reminiscing, Ada. Conversation led from them to that interesting couple the Widmerpools, about whom you were speaking when we last met. How goes that union? Well, I hope.’
These last sentences put an end to doubt, explaining Sillery’s momentary uncertainty at Ada Leintwardine’s arrival. He was well satisfied at the surprise she caused, the confirmation by her presence that he numbered ‘young ladies’ amongst his acquaintance, but at the same time he had been faced with the decision whether or not to reveal her as his source of Widmerpool information. It was in the Sillery tradition to brag of a great spy network, while keeping secret the names of individual agents. At the same time, with an audience like Short and myself, fullest advantage might be derived from Miss Leintwardine by admitting her as fount of that information, now she was on the spot. That at any rate was what happened. Sillery had decided the veil of mystery was not worth sustaining, especially as Miss Leintwardine herself might at any moment give the show away. However, it turned out she was well aware that contacts with the Widmerpool ménage were too profitable to be squandered in casual enquiry. She was giving nothing away that evening. This attitude was probably due also to other matters connected with her relationship with Sillery which only came to light some minutes later.
‘They’re both all right so far as I know, Sillers.’
‘Leonard here lives in the same block of flats.’
‘Oh, do you?’
She spoke politely, no more.
‘You were saying Mrs W finds the place rather poky,’ persisted Sillery.
Miss Leintwardine did not choose to answer that one. Instead, she addressed herself to me.
‘I think you know Pam and Kenneth, Mr Jenkins. They spoke of you. Like so many people, Pam’s been having rather a painful reaction now the war’s over. Tired, I mean, and listless. Always ill. We’ve been friends since we were in the ATS together.’