I did not see Delavacquerie again until the early autumn. I wanted to hear his opinion about Gwinnett’s inclusion in the rites at The Devil’s Fingers. As someone belonging to a younger generation than my own, coming from a different hemisphere, a poet with practical knowledge of the business world, who possessed personal acquaintance with several of the individuals concerned in an episode that took a fairly high place for horror, as well as extravagance, Delavacquerie’s objective comment would be of interest. For one reason or another — I, too, was away for a month or more — we did not meet; nor did I hear anything further of Gwinnett himself, or his associates of that night.
When a meeting with Delavacquerie took place he announced at once that he was feeling depressed. That was not uncommon. It was usually the result of being put out about his own business routine, or simply from lack of time to ‘write’. He did not look well, poor states of health always darkening his complexion. I thought it more than possible that the trip with Polly Duport had not been a success; projected marriage decided against, or shelved. On the principle of not playing out aces at the start of the game, I did not immediately attack the subject of The Devil’s Fingers. Then Delavacquerie himself launched into an altogether unforeseen aspect of the same sequence of circumstances.
‘Look, I’m in rather a mess at the moment. Not a mess so much as a tangle. I’d like to speak about it. Do you mind? That’s more to clear my own head than to ask advice. You may be able to advise too. Can you stand my talking a lot about my own affairs?’
‘Easily.’
‘I’ll start from the beginning. That is always best. My own situation. The fact that I like it over here, but England isn’t my country. I haven’t got a country. I’m rootless. I’m not grumbling about being rootless, especially these days. It even has advantages. At the same time certain problems are raised too.’
‘You’ve spoken of all this on earlier occasions. Did going home bring it back in an acute form?’
Delavacquerie dismissed that notion with a violent gesture.
‘I know I’ve talked of all this before. It’s quite true. Perhaps I am over-obsessed by it. I am just repeating the fact as a foundation to what I am going to say, a reminder to myself that I’m never sure how much I understand people over here. Their reactions often seem to me different from my own, and from those of the people I was brought up with. Quite different. I’ve written poems about all this.’
‘I’ve read them.’
Delavacquerie stopped for a moment. He seemed to be deciding the form in which some complicated statement should be made. He began again.
‘I spoke to you once, I remember, of my son, Etienne.’
‘You said he’d had some sort of thing for our niece, Fiona, which had been broken off, probably on account of that young man, Murtlock. I’m in a position to tell you more about all that — ’
‘Hold it for the moment.’
‘My additions to the story are of a fantastic and outrageous kind.’
‘Never mind. I don’t doubt what you say. I just want to put my own case first. That is best. We’ll come to what you know later — and I’m sure it will help me to hear it, even if I’ve heard some of it already. But I was speaking of Etienne. He has been doing well. He got a scholarship, which has taken him to America. By then he had found a new girl. She’s a nice girl. It seems fairly serious. They keep up a regular correspondence.’
‘How does he like the States?’
‘All right.’
Whether or not Etienne liked the US did not seem to be the point. Delavacquerie paused again. He laughed rather uncomfortably.
‘When Fiona was about the place, with Etienne, I noticed that I was getting interested in the girl myself. It wasn’t more than that. I wasn’t in love. Not in the slightest. Just interested. You will have had sufficient experience of such things to know what I am talking about — appreciate the differentiation I draw.’
‘Of course.’
‘I examined myself carefully in that connexion at the time. I found it possible to issue an absolutely clean bill of health, temperature, pulse, blood pressure, above all heart, all quite normal. I didn’t even particularly want to sleep with her, though I might have tried to do so, had the situation been other than it was. The point I want to make is that the situation was not in the least like that of The Humorous Lieutenant, the King trying to seduce his son’s girlfriend, as soon as the son himself was out of the way.’
‘No love potions lying about.’
‘You never know when you’re not going to drink one by mistake, but in this case I had not done so.’
‘May I ask a question?’
‘Questions might clarify my own position. I welcome them. All I wish to curtail, for the moment, is competing narrative, until I’ve finished my own.’
‘How was this feeling of interest in Fiona related to your other more permanent commitment?’
‘To Polly? But, of course. That is just what I meant. How shall I put it? If, as I said, the case had been other, the possibility of a temporary run around might not have been altogether ruled out. You understand what I mean?’
‘Keeping it quiet from Polly?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Would Fiona herself have been prepared for a temporary run around — I mean had the situation, as you put it, been quite other?’
‘Who can say? You never know till you try. Besides, if things had been different, they would have been totally different. That is something that perhaps only those — like ourselves — engaged in the arrangement of words fully understand. The smallest alteration in a poem, or a novel, can change its whole emphasis, whole meaning. The same is true of any given situation in life too, though few are aware of that. It was because things were as they were, that the amitié was formed. Perhaps that amitié would never have been established had we met somewhere quite fortuitously.’
‘I see what you mean.’
‘Then — as I told you — Etienne’s thing with Fiona blew over. She went off with Murtlock, whether immediately, I’m not sure, but she went off. Passed entirely out of Etienne’s life, and, naturally, out of mine too. I was rather glad. For one thing I preferred what existed already to remain altogether undisturbed. It suited me. It suited my work. I forgot about Fiona. Even the interest — interest, as opposed to love — proved to have been of the most transient order.’
I wholly accepted Delavacquerie’s picture. Everything in connexion with it carried conviction — several different varieties of conviction. I could not at all guess where his story was going to lead. Inwardly, I flattered myself that my own narration, when I was allowed to unfold it, would cap anything he could produce.
‘I told you, before I went away, that Gwinnett was going to see Widmerpool. That visit took place.’
‘I know. You haven’t heard my story yet. I’ve seen Gwinnett since he told you that.’
‘I myself have not seen Gwinnett, but keep your story just a moment longer. Gwinnett, in fact, seems to have disappeared, perhaps left London. Murtlock, on the other hand, has been in touch with me.’
‘Did he appear in person, wearing his robes?’
‘He sent a message through Fiona.’
‘I see.’
‘Fiona arrived on my doorstep one evening. She knew the flat from her Etienne days.’
Delavacquerie lived in the Islington part of the world, not far from where Trapnel had occasionally camped out in one form or another. I had never seen Delavacquerie on his own ground.