by Barbara Pym
‘Oh, that doesn’t matter. I’ll just eat what there is.’
So they went hand-in-hand into the dining room to eat Adam’s nasty dinner. It was really even worse than Cassandra had hoped, but it made no difference to Adam, who just ate everything without looking at it.
Cassandra began to think that she was a wicked wife. And yet Adam wasn’t always as nice as this, she told herself stubbornly. Lately he hadn’t been at all nice, but cold, neglectful, argumentative, sarcastic – all these things.
‘Cassandra, why are you so serious? Aren’t you glad to have me back, or do you prefer to be without me? Or have you perhaps fallen in love with somebody else?’ he persisted.
Cassandra gave him a startled look, suddenly alarmed at the prospect of being able to fall in and out of love in as short a time as two days. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Why, have you?’
‘My darling, you know quite well I would rather have a wife than anything else,’ said Adam complacently. ‘Doesn’t that please you?’
Cassandra realized that it was no use arguing that ‘a wife’ didn’t necessarily mean her. So she said that yes, it pleased her very much, and she was not sorry to spend the evening being a devoted wife to a devoted husband.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Held in the magic chain of words, and forms,
And definitions void … ’
The rector was pleased with the sermon he preached that Sunday. He had managed to work everything in rather well, and the central idea was most original. He began by talking about the Parable of the Talents, going on from there to the question, the challenge, almost, ‘Do we make the most of our lives and opportunities?’
‘Last week,’ he said, ‘I had tea with an old lady.’
There was, of course, nothing extraordinary in this. Rectors and vicars all over the country were having tea with old ladies every day. Especially, perhaps, in small country towns where old ladies are predominant.
‘When I came upon her,’ continued the rector, ‘she was engaged in doing some very beautiful embroidery. Jacobean embroidery, I believe it is called, although I am not very well qualified to speak of such things,’ he added deprecatingly, almost with a smile, or the nearest to a smile that was allowable in the pulpit.
‘I remarked how beautiful her work was, how much more beautiful than any I had ever seen before.’
Who was this old lady? wondered some of the female members of the congregation, for they did embroidery, and the rector had not had tea with any of them last week. And yet whose work could be more beautiful than theirs? It was each one’s private opinion that her work was much too good for the Parish Sale. One only did it because of the Good Cause and the dear rector. Mrs Wilmot sat quite complacently, thinking what a clever preacher dear Rockingham was. Who would have thought of bringing the everyday things of life into a sermon as skilfully as he did? The embroidery reference did not trouble her at all, as the only needlework she ever had time for was mending her husband’s socks and the children’s combinations.
The rector continued. ‘She told me what she considered the secret of good work. I wonder if I can give you her exact words; I thought she expressed it so well. “Some people don’t put in enough stitches,” she said, “so that the rich effect is lost, and it looks rather thin. I like to put in as much as I can, so that everything looks really well filled.”’
Cassandra started from her pleasant day-dreams and realized that she was the old lady. There was something pleasing about the idea of being really old – say between seventy and eighty, but not infirm or a nuisance to anybody. To have money and leisure to sit in a lovely garden, enjoying the sunshine and doing Jacobean embroidery; to be a comfortable widow, not recently bereaved, but one whose husband had been ten to twenty years in his grave and whose passing was no longer deeply mourned, would not this be a delightful existence? Cassandra asked herself. She imagined herself visiting her husband’s grave under the yew trees and putting seasonable flowers on it. She glanced guiltily at Adam, sitting so meekly beside her. One would not have thought to look at him that he had been dragged to church only after much argument and unwillingness. She sighed as she realized how very far she was from being a comfortable old widow. Forty years and more, she thought. But it was nice of the rector to have suggested to her what peace and comfort the far distant future might hold.
‘Some people don’t put in enough stitches,’ repeated the rector, in a slow emphatic voice. ‘Isn’t that true of many of us?’ He leaned forward. ‘Aren’t our lives pieces of embroidery that we have to fill in ourselves? Can we truthfully say that we always put in enough stitches? Are there not in all our lives some patches that look thin and not properly filled? Think of the richness of some beautiful piece of embroidery – the design, the colours, the fine stitchery that has been put into it, the labour that has gone to make it what it is. “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever”, the poet Keats tells us, “its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.”’
There was quite a stir in the congregation, as the rector had never before been known to quote so much as a line of poetry in a sermon. Adam thought that as it was the first time such a thing had happened, Wilmot might at least have quoted from the local poet, Marsh-Gibbon, and began to rack his brains for something suitable from his own works.
The rector waved his arm in the direction of the altar frontal and the various banners which stood near the altar, so that some of the church workers who had been feeling disgruntled about the unknown old lady regained their good temper as they recognized a reference to their own work. ‘Do we not all wish our lives to be like that?’ said the rector. ‘Rich and finely coloured, each corner well filled and bearing witness to the labour and effort we have expended upon living? I think,’ said the rector more seriously, ‘that if we look upon our lives as we would upon a piece of embroidery, we shall find many bare spaces, or spaces that might have been more beautifully filled. We shall discover places where we should have used a different stitch or a different colour … ’
Janie was whiling away the time by staring at Mr Paladin. He was the only person she could see, except for her father and the choir. I wonder if he really will go far, she thought anxiously. She had heard that some clergymen remained curates all their lives. He wasn’t really plain-looking, and if he wore horn-rimmed spectacles instead of those ones with gold pieces at the sides he would be quite distinguished. At that moment she saw that Mr Paladin was returning her stare. She blushed and looked away, only to catch the eye of Mrs Gower’s gardener, who sang bass in the choir.
The rector is repeating himself, thought Mr Paladin; trying to gain time and overworking the idea. Not really a bad idea, he thought condescendingly. The old lady with her embroidery had been a godsend to a man with the rector’s limited intelligence; an idea for a sermon given free, with tea thrown in. Mr Paladin’s thoughts were always bolder than his conversation. He generally agreed with everything the rector said, even when, rather surprisingly Mr Paladin thought, he had suggested that he would be better off with a wife. ‘Some good woman’, the rector had said, by which Mr Paladin had understood ‘not Miss Gay’, because somehow, nobody seemed to think of her as being a good woman. Who then? His eyes roved round the unpromising congregation. His glance met Janie Wilmot’s, and she looked away with becoming modesty. She was hardly old enough to be called a good woman, thought Mr Paladin, but she was quiet and sensible and didn’t run after him or say silly things. Also, she was pretty.
Mr Tilos, who had not taken his eyes off Cassandra for a moment of the service, was thinking how agreeable it must be to have a wife. Not a Hungarian wife, although his fiancée Ilonka was a pretty, lively little thing, but an English wife. Someone tall and fair and dignified, who looked charming in the oldest clothes and yet would attract glances of admiration if one walked with her down the Andrássy-utca. A nymph, a goddess, in short, Cassandra Marsh-Gibbon.
Surely English women were pre-eminently intended to be delightful wives?
Why had nobody ever told him this, and why hadn’t he met anyone else like Cassandra? If she were typically English, why weren’t there dozens of unmarried Cassandras from whom he could take his choice? He supposed it must be because such charming creatures were all married. Mr Tilos realized that it was unfortunate that he should have chosen to fall in love with the respectable and respected wife of the most important man in the town. But he was not easily put off by trifles. Such an amiable trifle too. Mr Tilos would really have been more at his ease had Adam Marsh-Gibbon been less amiable. He smiled at the recollection of them all sitting in the drawing room, sipping Tokay and peach brandy. Perhaps it was a characteristic of English husbands that they were amiable to their wives’ suitors. Or perhaps the husband didn’t regard him as a suitor, for Mr Tilos realized sadly that he hadn’t done very much to show that he was one, beyond kissing Cassandra’s hand and bringing her gifts.
The sermon finished, and the last hymn and prayer were got through quickly. As they walked out, Mr Tilos found himself by Miss Gay. He was afraid that he had neglected the Parisian lady since meeting the nymph of The Grotto. Being naturally a polite man and a braver one than Mr Paladin, he therefore stopped to talk to her, and even accompanied her as far as her front gate. The congregation thus had the satisfaction of seeing Mr and Mrs Marsh-Gibbon walking home to their Sunday roast beef like any respectable English husband and wife. There was no dangerous foreigner lurking near.
The rector was glad of this, and when he saw Mr Tilos and Miss Gay together, he told himself that this was how it should be. For although he was not one to listen to gossip, it did seem as if this Hungarian had been hanging round The Grotto rather too much.
‘Your admirer has forsaken you for another,’ said Adam to his wife as they walked home.
‘No such luck,’ said Cassandra complacently. ‘He’s sure to be round this evening bringing – well, I really don’t know what there is left for him to bring.’
‘I’m sorry you’re tired of him so soon,’ said Adam.
‘Oh, but I’m not,’ said Cassandra, remembering that it would be better policy to pretend some interest in Mr Tilos, ‘only I wish he was a little more secret about his love.’
‘All right, I’ll go for a long walk whenever he seems likely to call,’ said Adam. ‘Will that suit you?’
‘I daresay we could arrange something more convenient than that, especially as you hate going for walks,’ said Cassandra vaguely, feeling unequal to finishing what she had started. It was going to be difficult to pretend to be more interested in poor Mr Tilos than she really was, but something was certainly needed to make Adam realize what a real treasure his wife was.
He had done no work for several days since his return from Oxford. He said he was assimilating the knowledge he had acquired about Wordsworth, with a view to considering his novel about the gardener.
‘Why can’t you write about something of more universal interest?’ suggested Cassandra.
Adam wrinkled his nose in distaste.
‘Why not write about a husband and wife? Everyone is interested in husbands and wives.’
Adam had to admit the truth of this. ‘But what would I write about them?’ he asked.
‘You could draw on your own experience,’ said Cassandra boldly.
‘My dear, you must admit I could hardly write a novel about us. It would be so dull.’
‘It is never dull to record the vicissitudes of love,’ declared Cassandra.
‘“By many deeds of shame
We learn that love grows cold.”
A hymn, you know.’
Adam looked at his wife in surprise. ‘But our love hasn’t grown cold, or at least, not as far as I know. Surely,’ he repeated, ‘I should have had some idea if our love had grown cold, shouldn’t I, my dear?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Cassandra vaguely. ‘I didn’t mean cold exactly, perhaps lukewarm is a better word. Like the church at Laodicea.’
‘But, Cassandra, you know quite well that, as Johnson so aptly puts it, “the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth.” Isn’t it nice to think of us reposing on the stability of truth?’
‘Yes, dear, very nice,’ said Cassandra. ‘I don’t know if I meant that exactly, though. I’m so bad at explaining myself.’
She supposed that Adam and Johnson must have the last word. There was really nothing more to be said on the subject.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘… while heard from dale to dale
Waking the breeze, resounds the blended voice
Of happy labour, love, and social glee.’
During her walk home from church with Mr Tilos, Miss Gay discovered that he played bridge.
‘Often in Budapest have I played bridge,’ he declared.
‘Are you quite sure you don’t mean whist?’ said Miss Gay doubtfully, for it seemed impossible that one could play the same game in Budapest and in Up Callow.
‘Please? I do not know that word. What a charming dress you are wearing!’ He flashed a brilliant smile at her.
Just at that moment they were passing the Marsh-Gibbons. One in the eye for Cassandra, thought Miss Gay with schoolgirlish glee, for Mr Tilos’s voice was loud.
By the time they arrived at the gate of Alameda it was decided that Mr Tilos really did play bridge, and Miss Gay was already planning a bridge party. This time she meant to invite only young or fairly young people. ‘You know you’re not really keen on bridge,’ she said to her uncle. ‘It would do you good to go to bed early for a change. When you’re getting on, you must take things more easily, you know.’
Mr Gay, who did not fancy the idea of bed at eight o’clock on a light summer evening, bristled with indignation, but he merely said quietly, ‘Yes, my dear, it will be nice for you to ask some of your friends in. As it happens, I have an engagement for the evening you mention. I have arranged to take Mrs Gower to the cinema.’
Miss Gay devoted her mind to thoughts of a new dress for the party. Cassandra Marsh-Gibbon was sure to have something new.
As it happened, Cassandra had decided, for various reasons, that she would appear as a sober matron and chose to wear a navy crêpe-de-Chine patterned with little pink daisies, which was in its second season as a bridge-party dress. She realized her wisdom when she saw that Miss Gay was dressed in a brand new creation of plum-coloured cloqué, with a spray of artificial gardenias at the neck.
‘Cassandra, how charming you look.’ Miss Gay blinked her eyelashes, which were so stiff with mascara that Cassandra stared at them, fascinated. ‘I’ve always liked that dress so much,’ said Miss Gay brightly.
‘Isn’t Tilos coming?’ asked Adam, as they were arranging themselves at the bridge tables.
‘Oh, he’s always late,’ said Mrs Wilmot. ‘I don’t believe he can read the time by English clocks,’ she added obscurely.
‘I expect it is because he knows he’s going to be the centre of attention and likes to keep people waiting,’ said Adam.
Poor Adam, thought Cassandra affectionately. He hadn’t put on his velvet coat this evening, and looked just like an ordinary English husband.
‘Well, you four can start without him. I don’t think he’ll be long,’ said Miss Gay confidently.
So the four, which consisted of Cassandra, Janie, Mr Paladin and Mr Broome, a young man who worked in the bank, started to play and Miss Gay, Adam and Mrs Wilmot made desultory conversation.
When Mr Tilos arrived, there seemed to be a great deal of laughter at everything he said, whether it was funny or not. Mr Tilos, although he had some idea of the game of bridge, had his own individual way of calling and playing. He enjoyed himself immensely, doubling whenever he could, and laughing like a child when he and his partner were badly down. As his partner was Miss Gay it didn’t really matter, but Mrs Wilmot wondered whether, as the oldest person present, she ought not to do something to restrain him.
She looked anxiously towards the other tabl
e where Janie was playing, partnered by Mr Paladin. It would be splendid, thought Mrs Wilmot, if Janie and Mr Paladin were to take an interest in each other. An interest would be quite enough to begin with, as they were both so young. He looked quite handsome tonight. That young man would go far, in Mrs Wilmot’s opinion, for she was inclined to rate a First in Theology higher than her husband did. Besides, he had influential connections.
Everyone knew that Mr Tilos was always going to The Grotto and taking presents for Cassandra, but this evening he was taking no notice of her at all. The town was beginning to be full of interesting and complicated relationships, thought Mrs Wilmot; and she thought it again when, just before eleven o’clock, Mr Gay came in with Mrs Gower and announced that they had been to the cinema together.
‘I do hope we haven’t disturbed your bridge,’ said Mrs Gower, beaming at everyone, ‘but the picture finished rather early and Mr Gay said there might be refreshments here.’ She laughed.
There were certainly refreshments and, as Mr Tilos seemed to have presented Miss Gay with a case of Hungarian wine, they were all very merry.
‘You like this wine, yes?’ said Mr Tilos raising his glass. ‘Then you will like Budapest. There you must visit the wine cellars at Budafok. Budapest, Queen of the Danube, is flowing with wine. And all so cheap for the English. You will get there many pengö for your pound.’
There was a silence after this speech. Mr Tilos said such unexpected things.
This is really most unusual, thought Mrs Wilmot. But what delicious wine it was; it was making her feel quite sleepy.
Janie, whom the wine had made a little bolder than usual, asked in her clear voice, ‘What are pengö?’
‘Pengö is the root of all evil and the secret of happiness,’ said Mr Tilos solemnly.