Free At Lady Molly's by Anthony Powell Page B

Jeavonses’ borrowed butler.’
    Widmerpool, still pondering, ignored this facetiousness, regarding me with unseeing eyes.
    ‘“Mr. and the Honourable Mrs. Smith?” You might feel that more in keeping with your future wife’s rank and station. That, in any case, would strike a certain note of originality in the circumstances.’
    At this suggestion, Widmerpool laughed outright. The pleasantry undoubtedly pleased him. It reminded him of the facts of his engagement, showing that I had not missed the point that, whatever her shortcomings, Mildred was the daughter of a peer. His face lighted up again.
    ‘I suppose it should really be quite simple,’ he said. ‘After all, the booking clerk at an hotel does not actually ask every couple if they are married.’
    ‘In any case, you are both going to get married.’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ he said.
    ‘So there does not seem much to worry about.’
    ‘No, I suppose not. All the same, I do not like doing irregular things. But this time, I think I should be behaving rightly in allowing a lapse of this kind. It is expected of me.’
    Gloom again descended upon him. There could be no doubt that the thought of the projected week-end worried him a great deal. I could see that he regarded its achievement, perhaps righdy, as a crisis in his life.
    ‘And then, where to go?’ he remarked peevishly.
    ‘Had you thought at all?’
    ‘Of course it must be a place where neither of us is recognised—I don’t want any—’
    His words died away.
    ‘Any what?’
    ‘Any jokes,’ he said irritably.
    ‘Of course not.’
    ‘The seaside, do you think?’
    ‘Do you play any games still? Golf? You used to play golf, didn’t you? Some golfing resort?’
    ‘I gave up golf. No time.’
    Again he looked despairing. He had devoted so much energy to achieving his present position in the world that even golf had been discarded. There was something impressive in this admission. We sat for a time in silence. The fat man was now enjoying the first taste of some apple-pie liberally covered with cream and brown sugar. The yellow-faced couple were still occupied with the situation in Central Europe.
    ‘La position de Dollfuss envers le parti national-socialiste autrichien serait insoutenable s’il comptait sur une gouvernement soi-disant parlemcntaire: il faut bien l’avouer.’
    ‘Heureusement le chancelier autrichien n’est pas accablé d’un tel handicap administratif.’
    Widmerpool may have caught some of their words. In any case, he must have decided that the question of his own immediate problems had been sufficiently ventilated. He, too, began to speak of international politics; and with less pessimism than might have been expected.
    ‘As you probably know,’ he said, ‘my opinions have moved steadily to the left of late years. I quite see that there are aspects of Hitler’s programme to which objection may most legitimately be taken. For example, I myself possess a number of Jewish friends, some of them very able men—Jimmy Klein, for example—and I should therefore much prefer that item of the National Socialist policy to be dropped. I am, in fact, not at all sure that it will not be dropped when matters get straightened out a bit. After all, it is sometimes forgotten that the National Socialists are not only “national”, they are also “socialist”. So far as that goes, I am with them. They believe in planning. Everyone will agree that there was a great deal of the old Germany that it was right to sweep away—the Kaisers and Krupps, Hindenburgs and mediatised princes, stuff of that sort—we want to hear no more about them. Certainly not. People talk of rearming. I am glad to say the Labour Party is against it to a man—and the more enlightened Tories, too. There is far too much disregard, as it is, of the equilibrium to be maintained between the rate of production and consumption in the aggregate, without the additional interference of a crushing armaments programme. We