Civil to Strangers and Other Writings

by Barbara Pym

  The object of all this was to make Cassandra jealous. News travelled quickly in a small town, he believed, especially news about people and their love affairs. He did not realize that by calling so often he hardly gave Miss Gay a chance to impart the news of her good fortune to Cassandra. As yet Miss Gay had not found any suitable opportunity. She had met her once in the fishmonger’s, but their conversation there had been about fish. It was rather a big jump from filleted plaice to Mr Tilos, and Miss Gay did not feel equal to making it. After all, she was top-dog now, and could afford to be kind to poor Cassandra.

  Cassandra was annoyed with Mr Tilos for dropping her so completely. She knew that everyone in the town thought it funny, but nobody had dared say anything about it, with the exception of Mrs Gower. She had taken the opportunity of saying that she thought it a good thing that Mr Tilos had given up calling at The Grotto so much.

  ‘Yes, he has quite forsaken us,’ said Cassandra laughing. ‘I hear he is courting Miss Gay.’

  ‘Well, I hardly think he is courting her, although he goes to see her a great deal, and may have put some silly ideas into her head.’ She paused and went on in a more serious tone. ‘I think his coming here has not been a good thing on the whole. He has been made too much of a fuss of. Still, we soon get tired of these little novelties,’ she added, as if Mr Tilos were a mechanical toy. ‘I think we shall be better when we have settled down for the winter,’ she said in a firm tone of voice.

  Cassandra liked the definiteness of this last remark. She imagined the evenings drawing in, fires in the morning, and autumn leaves falling untidily over the garden, Mr Tilos back in Budapest, and the events of this disturbed summer behind them. Then she saw that the lupins were out and that it was only June. There was a great deal to be got through before October. She sighed and Mrs Gower sighed too, perhaps out of sympathy or for some reason of her own. Cassandra suddenly felt glad of the stability of things, of the pattern of her life in Up Callow, and the nice solid people who knew and respected her.

  Cassandra was annoyed at Mr Tilos’s behaviour mainly because he had been an important part of her plan. Although Adam had not shown any signs of being jealous of him, there was always the hope that he might be.

  As the days went by Cassandra’s thoughts became very confused and she could see no clear solution to her problem, nor even a problem at all, when she thought about it a little longer. Only one idea stood out in her mind. She must go away, abroad, and by herself. She would tackle Adam about it. She chose one evening when, as far as she could tell, he seemed to be in a fairly good temper.

  She put her plan into action.

  ‘Poor Adam,’ she added, ‘you look so tired. I think you need a nice holiday.’

  His face lit up at this suggestion. ‘Yes, Cassandra, I really do believe I need a holiday. I haven’t been at all well this spring. I was beginning to wonder whether there was something really wrong with me,’ he went on more happily, ‘but perhaps it’s only because I need a change.’

  Cassandra encouraged him to talk of holidays but did not make any mention of her own plan, except to make him admit that a change was good for everyone.

  ‘I think I shall go to Oxford,’ said Adam.

  ‘But won’t it be very hot? Oxford’s a terribly enervating place.’

  ‘Yes, terribly enervating,’ agreed Adam, almost with pleasure. ‘In the mornings I shall work in the Bodleian. I might even edit some manuscript. I used to be quite a good palaeographer.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re awfully good,’ said Cassandra fondly, trying to remember what palaeography was. ‘I don’t think I shall come to Oxford with you. I should only be bored when you were working, and I’ve seen all the colleges,’ she added simply. ‘I think I shall go abroad, for a fortnight,’ she said firmly.

  ‘But, my dear child, you couldn’t go abroad by yourself. I imagined you’d be staying here.’

  ‘Surely you’re not going to leave me alone in Up Callow with Mr Tilos?’ said Cassandra pathetically.

  Adam evidently hadn’t thought of that. Cassandra was pleased to see that he looked rather worried.

  ‘Oh well, then we may as well go somewhere together,’ he said.

  ‘Just as you like,’ said Cassandra tactfully, ‘but I thought your idea of going to Oxford was such a good one. It must be so restful working in the Bodleian, and rest is what you need. But I want to see Budapest. I’ve heard so much about it. Mr Tilos said it was the City of Love, so perhaps we ought to see it together,’ she added, whether hopefully or not she was not sure.

  Adam looked puzzled. Cassandra had been harping so much on love during the last few weeks. It was surely unnecessary in a woman who had been happily married for five years, he thought. But then Cassandra was like that, very much apt to clutter up her mind with trivialities. And if she wanted to go abroad by herself, why shouldn’t she.

  ‘You would certainly be very bored here without me,’ he declared simply.

  ‘I should have Mr Tilos,’ she reminded him, ‘but I would rather go away.’

  ‘Very well, darling, you shall go away. I daresay the City of Love would be more congenial to you than the Bodleian,’ said Adam.

  ‘I suppose it would be,’ Cassandra agreed, but she did not sound as certain as she had been. She had won her victory so easily that she felt rather flat. Adam had been so nice about it. Perhaps there wasn’t any need to go, after all.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ‘… the sudden starting tear

  The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air,

  The softened feature, and the beating heart,

  Pierced deep with many a virtuous pang … ’

  As the days went by and the arrangements were made, Cassandra began to feel more excited about her holiday. She was really going to Budapest. She almost wished she could tell poor Mr Tilos of her plans so that he could advise her, but she had more faith in her respectable travel agency. She certainly did not want Mr Tilos to know where she was going. Perhaps at the back of her mind was the picture of him leaping on to the end of the train as it moved out of Up Callow station. She knew that this was ridiculous, especially as he had taken no notice of her for three weeks now, but she decided that it was safer to say too little than too much.

  Adam fussed around her while she was packing. ‘You’d better take your fur coat,’ he said. ‘It’s sure to be cold on the train. I expect you’ll be terribly sea-sick. Take some Mothersill and drink plenty of mineral water … ’

  So with her ears ringing with Adam’s well-meant advice, Cassandra was taken to the station. At the last moment Adam began to wonder if he ought to come to Budapest with her. Cassandra rejoiced to hear his voice so full of concern, and to see his forehead so wrinkled with anxiety, even if most of it was on his own account.

  ‘Do take care of yourself, Cassandra. I shall be nothing without you, absolutely nothing,’ said Adam gloomily. ‘And what about my food? Have you told them about my food?’

  She might have been leaving a pet dog behind her instead of an able-bodied husband, but she kindly reassured him that she had made every arrangement for his comfort. ‘I shall only be away for a fortnight,’ she reminded him, ‘and, besides, you’re going to Oxford, and you’ll have a lovely time.’ She kissed Adam rather tearfully. Now that the moment had come she would rather have been doing anything else in the world than going away.

  When the train had pulled out she sat in her corner trying to read, but she could not concentrate because she felt tears pricking at her eyes. To distract her mind she looked out of the window. In the distance she could see Milton Amble church. She looked for it again, but she could no longer see it, as a man passed in the corridor and blocked her view. He looked into the carriage, and the next minute he was inside, exclaiming in a voice that sounded genuinely surprised, ‘Oh, Mrs Marsh-Gibbon! This is very nice. You are going away? But of course, selbstverständlich.’ He looked up at her suitcases and read the labels. ‘Köln, München, Salzburg, Wien,’ he recited,
and then with a cry of delight he pronounced the final name, ‘Budapest!’

  Cassandra wondered why his way of saying Budapest made it sound such a sinister place. She was glad that he was keeping up a flow of conversation, for she found herself quite incapable of saying anything.

  ‘Why, this is delightful, is it not?’ he said, with an anxious little glance at her. ‘I too am returning to Budapest. My business requires that I shall go there,’ he added, as if Cassandra had doubted the honesty of his intentions.

  But Cassandra was past feeling anything so subtle. Seeing Mr Tilos at this moment was altogether too much for her. She tried to pull herself together and make suitable conversation but it was no use. ‘Your business?’ she said faintly, and then burst into tears.

  Mr Tilos moved across and sat down beside her, full of concern.

  ‘What is the matter?’ he enquired.

  ‘It sounds ridiculous,’ said Cassandra, trying to collect herself, ‘but I think I must be home-sick already!’

  ‘You are sick? Oh I am so sorry!’ Mr Tilos dived into his pocket and brought out an assortment of things – a bottle of aspirin, some sea-sick tablets and a small bottle of smelling salts.

  Cassandra began to laugh uncertainly. ‘It isn’t that kind of sick,’ she managed to say.

  Finally, she recovered herself, after Mr Tilos waved the bottle of smelling salts vaguely under her nose and took a large green silk handkerchief from his pocket to dry her tears.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Cassandra, hardly knowing where to look in her embarrassment.

  ‘I did not know that the English were so emotional,’ said Mr Tilos, in a pleasant conversational tone.

  Cassandra was glad of his casual manner. It gave her back some of her self-assurance. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’m really terribly ashamed of myself.’

  ‘Do not trouble yourself. I think you would like some tea? Yes?’

  ‘Tea? I’d love some,’ said Cassandra. ‘But there isn’t a restaurant car on the train until we get to Birmingham.’

  ‘But I have tea. Wait a minute, please.’ Mr Tilos produced a little basket with handles, just the sort of basket a sensible aunt might have, and inside were two thermos flasks, two cups and some packets wrapped in greaseproof paper.

  Cassandra was deeply touched at this.

  Mr Tilos handed her a jam sandwich. ‘It is plain food,’ he said, ‘but healthy I think.’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ said Cassandra warmly, ‘and I’m sure it must be healthy. It’s making me feel so much better.’

  What an excellent and useful man Mr Tilos was, she thought, and what a pity he spoilt things by embarrassing her with his protestations of affection.

  And then she wondered, did anyone in Up Callow know that Mr Tilos had got on to this train. If they did, then there would no longer be any doubt about it. To all intents and purposes, she had gone off with Mr Tilos.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘’Twas friendship heightened by the mutual wish’

  ‘I wonder where Mr Tilos can be going?’ said Mrs Gower, looking over her garden wall on the day when Cassandra left for Budapest. ‘He seems to be going away somewhere. He’s wearing a hat and carrying an overcoat; he has a suitcase too, and a basket, but there doesn’t seem to be any more luggage in the back of his car. Can you see him, Mr Gay?’

  ‘No, I can’t see him, and I’m much too comfortable here to get up and look. But you’ve given me such a good picture of him that I feel I’ve missed nothing,’ said Mr Gay, smiling. He often smiled nowadays, and even laughed sometimes. On this sunny morning he was sitting in a deckchair in Mrs Gower’s garden. He was finding that her garden and her company were much pleasanter than his own garden and his niece’s company.

  ‘I daresay he is going to Birmingham,’ said Mrs Gower, still on the subject of Mr Tilos.

  ‘Yes, perhaps he is,’ said Mr Gay lazily. ‘Let us be thankful that we are not going there.’

  ‘And yet I don’t see why he should be taking a heavy overcoat to Birmingham in June.’

  ‘You never know what these foreigners will do,’ said Mr Gay, giving the fact of Mr Tilos taking his overcoat to Birmingham in June a deep, almost sinister significance.

  ‘Well, I suppose he must be going to Birmingham,’ said Mrs Gower reluctantly and was just about to leave the matter when Mr Tilos saw her and came over to the wall.

  ‘I go to Budapest,’ he said. ‘My business requires that I shall go there.’

  ‘Your business?’ said Mrs Gower uncertainly.

  ‘Yes, my business,’ repeated Mr Tilos firmly. ‘I go only for a few weeks,’ he said reassuringly. But Mrs Gower was not reassured.

  ‘Well,’ she said when Mr Tilos had gone, ‘we now know that he is going to Budapest. On business.’

  ‘I never knew that he had any business,’ said Mr Gay.

  ‘Wasn’t Cassandra Marsh-Gibbon going to Budapest today?’ said Mrs Gower, trying to make her voice sound light and casual.

  ‘Was she?’ Mr Gay looked doubtful. ‘Perhaps it was some place that sounded like it. Belfast,’ he said uncertainly. ‘Or Bucharest. That would be more likely.’

  ‘I don’t think it was either of those places,’ said Mrs Gower. ‘They aren’t really the sort of places one does go to, are they? I’m sure Cassandra said something about going to Budapest. We’ve heard so much about it lately, of course. But fancy Mr Tilos going there too, on the same day and on the same train. That seems rather funny, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t suppose there’s anything in it,’ said Mr Gay. ‘Do you?’

  ‘No, certainly not,’ said Mrs Gower emphatically, but as her eye caught Mr Gay’s she knew that he was thinking the same as she was.

  ‘I suppose it must have been them in Milton Amble that afternoon we went out for a drive,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Gower. ‘They were arm-in-arm, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Gay, ‘they were arm-in-arm.’ He was equally definite.

  ‘What a pity,’ said Mrs Gower, almost as if walking arm-inarm in Milton Amble were worse than going off and leaving one’s husband. ‘Cassandra’s so nice too. And we’ve always thought her such a model wife, so devoted to her husband.’

  ‘Yes, they always seemed to be so happy. I wonder what Marsh-Gibbon will do now? Of course he will be a broken man.’

  ‘I suppose he will.’ Mrs Gower nodded gloomily.

  It seemed as if there was nothing more to be said about it. It did not occur to either of them to doubt that Cassandra had gone off with Mr Tilos.

  ‘I thought Mr Tilos had been to your house a great deal lately,’ said Mrs Gower tentatively.

  ‘Yes, I don’t know what Angela will say about all this,’ said Mr Gay. His face clouded over at the thought of facing his niece when he got home.

  ‘I can’t believe that it can be true,’ said Mrs Gower. ‘Dear Cassandra, she was always such a nice girl.’ Already she was being spoken of in the past tense, with sad shakings of the head.

  Mr Gay went home, wrapped in gloomy thoughts. He dreaded going into the house. Angela was in the drawing room, sitting on a hard chair by the window, doing nothing. She did not look up or say anything when her uncle came into the room, but this was not unusual. It was not their custom to greet each other more than was necessary. Still, Mr Gay felt that there was a certain delicacy about the subject. He could not bring himself to say, ‘Have you heard that Cassandra Marsh-Gibbon has gone off to Budapest with Mr Tilos?’ because they were not absolutely sure that she had. And yet there seemed no doubt about it. He tried to think of something else. There was a funny smell, like something burning, but as it was summer there was no fire in the room, or, indeed, in any of the rooms except the kitchen.

  ‘Angela,’ he said, ‘do you smell a peculiar smell?’

  ‘No more than usual,’ she replied curtly.

  ‘I think there must be something burning.’ Mr Gay got up and went into the kitchen. ‘Amy,’ h
e said to the maid, ‘do you smell something burning?’

  ‘Oh, it must be that knitting of Miss Angela’s,’ said Amy, quite unperturbed.

  ‘Knitting? Where?’

  Amy pointed towards the fire and Mr Gay saw a green woolly mass smouldering among the coals. Some of it had burnt away, but there was no need for him to ask what it was. He recognized it as a pullover that Angela had been knitting for Mr Tilos. So she did know, after all. And she had burnt what was more or less a perfectly good pullover, for it had been nearly finished. He stood for a while looking pensively into the fire.

  ‘I didn’t put it there, sir,’ said Amy, in an aggrieved tone of voice.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you didn’t,’ said Mr Gay hastily, and went out of the kitchen. He crept quietly up to his bedroom, and sat there filing his nails until half past seven, when he came down to the dining room. Supper was a gloomy meal. Angela must have decided that although she was, to all intents and purposes, a woman scorned, she would not show it in the orthodox way. If she had felt fury surging within her, she had evidently worked it off by throwing the pullover into the fire. By supper-time she seemed to have become Patience on a monument, smiling at grief, so that Mr Gay was profoundly irritated. She was a woman of thirty, he told himself, and she was making herself ridiculous. ‘Come, Angela,’ he said shortly, ‘surely you’re going to eat more than that bit of dry toast? This macaroni cheese is excellent.’

  ‘No, thank you. I can’t take food.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I can’t think why you’re making such a fuss. Mr Tilos has gone to Budapest on business. He told us so himself; he said he was coming back in a week or two. And anyway, it isn’t as if you’d been engaged to the fellow.’