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were moderate, there would be excitement in preparation and advance publicity,
whetting the appetite of the public. When, in due course, Short and I left the
rooms – Sillery admitted he went to bed now earlier than formerly – it was only
after solemn assurances we would call again. Outside, the night was mild for
the time of year.
    ‘I’m staying in college,’ said
Short. ‘Sillers is always talking of my becoming an Honorary Fellow, I don’t
know how serious he is. I’ll walk with you as far as the gate. Sillers is
wonderful, isn’t he? What did you make of that young woman? I didn’t much care
for her style. Too florid. Still, Sillers must need a secretary if he has all
that diary material to weld into order. Rather inconsiderate of her to give up
work for him, as she seems to be doing. Interesting your knowing Widmerpool. I
wouldn’t have thought you’d much in common. I believe myself he’s got a future.
You must lunch with me one day at the Athenaeum, Nicholas. I’m rather full of
work at the moment, but I’ll tell my secretary to make a note.’
    ‘Is she as pretty as Miss
Leintwardine?’
    Short accepted that pleasantry
in good part, leaving the question in
the air.
    ‘Brightman calls Sillers the
last of the Barons. Pity there’ll be no heir to that ancient line, he says.
Brightman’s wit, as Sillers remarked, can be a shade cruel. Nice to have met in
these peaceful surroundings again.’
    Traversing obscure byways on
the way back to my own college, I had to admit the evening had been enjoyable,
although there was a kind of relief in escaping from the company of Sillery and
Short, into the silent night. One had to concur, too, in judging Sillery ‘wonderful’;
wonderful anyway in categorical refusal to allow neither age nor anything else
to deflect him from the path along which he had chosen to approach life. That
was impressive, to be honoured: at least something the world honoured, capacity
for sticking to your point, whatever it might be, through thick and thin.
    ‘There have never been any real
salons in England,’ Moreland once said. ‘Everyone here thinks a salon is a
place for a free meal. A true salon is conversation – nothing to eat and less
to drink.’
    Sillery bore out the definition
pretty well. The following day I was to knock off Burton, and go back to
London. That was a cheering thought. When I reached my own college there was a
telegram at the porter’s lodge. It was from Isobel. Erridge, her eldest
brother, had died suddenly.
    This was a contingency
altogether unexpected, not only dispersing from the mind further speculation
about Sillery and his salon, but necessitating reconsideration of all immediate
plans.
    Erridge, a subject for Burton
if ever there was one, had often complained of his health, in this never taken
very seriously by the rest of his family. Lately, little or nothing had been
heard of him. He lived in complete seclusion. The inter-service organization, a
secret one, which had occupied Thrubworth during the earlier years of the war
had been later moved, or disbanded, the place remaining requisitioned, but
converted into a camp for German prisoners-of-war. Administrative staff and
stores occupied most of the rooms, except the small wing at the back of the
building that Erridge, on succeeding his father, had adapted for his own use;
quarters where his sister Blanche had later joined him to keep house. This
suited Blanche well enough, because she preferred a quiet life. She undertook,
when feasible, the many local duties unwelcome to Erridge himself whose
dedication to working for the public good never mitigated an unwillingness to
burden himself with humdrum obligations. This disinclination to play a part in
local affairs owed something to his innate uneasiness in dealing with people,
together with an aversion from personal argument and opposition, unless such
contentiousness was ‘on paper’. What Erridge