Civil to Strangers and Other Writings

by Barbara Pym

  ‘I have had a great shock,’ she said. ‘I think you might realize that.’

  ‘But he’ll soon be back and in the meantime it won’t do you any good to go without your supper.’

  ‘No, he won’t come back,’ said Miss Gay, as if she had made up her mind, and really preferred it to be so.

  After supper Mr Gay found that he was still unable to settle to his reading, so he went for a walk. After a while he found that he had arrived at Mrs Gower’s house. Quite soon he was sitting in her drawing room.

  ‘Come to the fire,’ she said. ‘I always like one in the evenings. Just because it’s June it doesn’t mean it can’t be chilly.’

  Mr Gay gave her a grateful look. What an excellent woman she was! They never had a fire in the summer in his house. The fireplace was ruthlessly filled up on the first of May, wet or fine, with a large and hideous Victorian firescreen.

  He drew his chair nearer the fire. Mrs Gower did not seem to think it at all strange that he should be calling on her at half past nine in the evening. It seemed quite natural that they should be sitting there together. Lucky Professor Gower to have had such a wife! What matter if she had been bored by Epipsychidion, and known nothing of Middle English? Good sense and kindliness, a little money if possible – for Mr Gay was now growing more modest in his demands – surely that was all one wanted in a wife? The idea of spending the rest of his life with Mrs Gower was suddenly the nicest thing he could think of. With all the disturbing happenings of the day, Cassandra going off with Mr Tilos, Angela burning the pullover in the kitchen fire and refusing to eat macaroni cheese of which she was usually so fond, Mrs Gower seemed to be the only stable thing left in a changing world. ‘What a sensible woman you are,’ he said aloud. It was, perhaps, a curious thing to say, but Mrs Gower did not appear to think so.

  ‘Well, I try to be,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s really the best thing to be at our age.’

  ‘But chiefly let her humour close with thine,’ thought Mr Gay. How well suited they were to each other! ‘I think you and I agree on all subjects,’ he said tentatively, for after all it would not do to take too much for granted. Just because Mrs Gower had given away the stuffed parrot it didn’t necessarily mean that she was willing to take a second husband.

  ‘Yes, we do,’ said Mrs Gower. ‘I have noticed it more and more lately.’

  ‘Then I believe we could be happy together. Laura, will you marry me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  This, thought Mr Gay, must be the most sensible and satisfactory proposal in the history of the world. No insincere raptures, no coy refusals not meant to be taken seriously, just the necessary question and the answer, a simple affirmative.

  ‘I am happy to know that you feel as I do,’ said Mr Gay. ‘You must have seen that I am very fond of you.’

  ‘Yes. Mr Gay, Philip, we cannot expect to be passionately in love at our time of life, but I think we shall make each other very comfortable.’

  ‘Very comfortable.’ How nice that sounded. Wasn’t it, after all, what everyone wanted to be? Especially when they were nearing what the rector called ‘the autumn of life’. It made Mr Gay think of a pleasant drawing room, with a fire on the chilly evenings, well-tended aspidistras, tea and toast in the winter … ‘Shall we be married soon?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, quite soon, don’t you think? After all, we mustn’t forget that we each have one foot in the grave and may not have many more years left to us.’

  Mr Gay laughed. This time having one foot in the grave was a pleasant joke, but it reminded him of Angela, and a shadow crossed his face at the thought of her.

  Mrs Gower must have known what he was thinking, for she took his hand in hers, and said with a positiveness that was completely reassuring, ‘Now, Philip, you are not to worry about Angela. We will find her a husband.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ‘From look to look, contagious through the crowd

  The panic runs, and into wondrous shapes

  The appearance throws … ’

  ‘Well, so you’re a lonely man,’ said the rector heartily, as he met Adam Marsh-Gibbon in the town one afternoon.

  It was the day after Cassandra’s departure, and the news that she had gone to Budapest with Mr Tilos was already being eagerly discussed. Even the rector had heard it, but he thought it best to make some reference to Cassandra’s absence, if only a joking one. It might seem pointed to avoid the subject altogether.

  ‘Yes. My wife has left me,’ said Adam simply.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said the rector, trying to infuse a mixture of flippancy and concern into his tone, as he never knew whether to take Adam seriously or not.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Adam. ‘I am going to Oxford to read in the Bodleian, but she has chosen Budapest, which is the City of Love, according to our friend Tilos. Perhaps she has chosen the better part. I really think she has,’ he said thoughtfully.

  ‘Well, she will have nice weather,’ said the rector hastily, changing the subject. His voice was now rather stern. What right had Tilos to talk to a respectable married woman about things like Cities of Love? And was it not frivolous and unbecoming of her husband to mention it as if it were a thing of no importance? Or perhaps, thought the rector glancing quickly at Adam, he did not consider it important. Adam’s face told him nothing. He was looking as he generally did, handsome and pleased with himself. Well, there was no knowing what these modern writers thought, decided the rector, sliding out of the difficulty easily; it was not for him to make any comment. It was much better to leave well alone sometimes. Everyone was saying that Cassandra Marsh-Gibbon had gone off with Tilos, but judging from her husband’s manner it couldn’t be true.

  ‘Where is Tilos these days?’ asked Adam calmly. ‘He hasn’t been near us for weeks.’

  The rector gaped. ‘He’s gone away,’ he said hurriedly.

  ‘Oh, really? It hasn’t taken him long to get tired of us. Where’s he gone?’

  ‘Europe, I believe,’ said the rector feebly, but somehow he could not bring himself to say Budapest straight out.

  Adam laughed. ‘I expect he’s gone to Budapest. He’ll be able to take Cassandra about,’ he declared calmly. ‘She can’t speak a word of anything but English and she always misses the things she ought to see if she hasn’t got a reliable person with her.’

  ‘I’m sure that Mr Tilos would be an excellent guide,’ said the rector dubiously, but one could hardly describe him as a reliable person, he thought.

  Adam walked slowly back to The Grotto. So Tilos had gone to Budapest as well. He must have been on the same train as Cassandra, although it was funny that they hadn’t seen him. Nor had Cassandra mentioned him on her postcard, which Adam had received that morning. She said that she had had a pleasant journey, quite uneventful. She had ended, ‘Take care of yourself, darling. All my love, Cassandra.’

  Cassandra had spent a long time writing her simple postcard. She had had Mr Tilos’s company from Milton Amble to Paddington, and he had behaved just like a nice maiden aunt all the time, except that he was much more efficient at dealing with taxis and luggage. He had seen her to her hotel, where she was to stop overnight, and then left her. They would meet next morning, when he would come in a taxi to take her to Victoria. When she came to write to Adam, Cassandra found herself in the difficult position of not knowing what to say about Mr Tilos, or even whether to mention him at all. She felt that he needed explaining, and yet there was no room on a postcard to tell Adam, at such length as would convince him, that she was still his faithful and loving wife. Eventually, as there was little time and she did not feel up to writing a letter, she made no mention of Mr Tilos. After all, it was improbable that anyone knew that he was going to Budapest as well, she thought hopefully, and she didn’t want to start any rumours that might be misinterpreted.

  As Adam walked about Up Callow he noticed that people seemed awkward in their manner to him, even sympathetic so that with all
this and the postcard, Adam began wondering whether Cassandra had left him after all and he was the only person who didn’t know it. But Cassandra was sensible and business-like. If she had intended to go off with Mr Tilos she would certainly have told him, or at least have informed him on a postcard or left a letter behind. But Cassandra had left no letter on her dressing table, or on her pillow, or in any place where an eloping wife might be expected to leave such a thing.

  Adam glanced distastefully at the papers spread about his desk. They were all muddled. The novel about the gardener and the beginnings of a Hungarian romance had somehow got mixed up together, and the epic poem was nowhere to be found. He took up his pen and wrote down a good phrase that had occurred to him, but apart from that he was uninspired. He smoked a cigarette and then went to look for something to eat.

  In the dining room Lily was laying the table.

  ‘Dinner will be ready in a quarter of an hour, sir. Or I could give you a snack now, but it would only spoil your dinner.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it would,’ said Adam meekly and went away to brood over his crossword until Lily called him.

  During dinner he sat with his elbows on the table and his spectacles on, and stared down at his plate. He ate everything that was put before him, doggedly but gloomily.

  After dinner he felt bored and depressed with nobody to talk to. He opened a book but it did not interest him. At last he decided to go out and call on somebody. Perhaps there were other people similarly depressed. They might all cheer each other up, he thought hopefully.

  Adam had no really close friends in Up Callow, or, indeed, anywhere. He had his writing, his local fame and a charming and loving wife. As long as he was admired he was quite content. But this evening he found himself wishing that he had some intimate friend to whom he could go and in whom he could confide his troubles.

  He walked until he came to the church. It looked very picturesque in the half-light, with its setting of yew trees and tombstones. Adam contemplated the scene for some time and began to feel the charm of philosophic melancholy. He climbed over the low wall. Perhaps he would find comfort and inspiration here. The eighteenth-century poets certainly seemed to have found both in churchyards, he reflected. How Blair must have enjoyed writing his poem ‘The Grave’. ‘Midst skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms’, thought Adam, deciding that in future he would spend more time here. He might even write an epic poem, on Judgement Day. He could not remember that many had been written lately, and it was the kind of subject, he thought mistakenly, that would be greatly appreciated in Up Callow.

  ‘Why, Mr Marsh-Gibbon. All alone in the churchyard!’

  He turned and saw the dim shape of Angela Gay standing beside him. His pleasant eighteenth-century-graveyard mood vanished.

  ‘And what are you doing here?’ he asked her rather rudely.

  ‘Oh, I might as well be here as anywhere else. There is nothing left for me now.’ She smiled her Patience on a monument smile, but it was dark and he did not see it. He merely thought that she sounded rather strange. It occurred to him that he was feeling rather cold.

  ‘I see there is a light in your drawing room,’ he said. ‘I think that I might enjoy a cup of tea.’

  Miss Gay was looking at him with something that might almost have been compassion, but he did not see that either. He quickened his step and was glad to be in the lighted drawing room of Alameda. Here a happy domesticated scene met his eyes. Mr Gay and Mrs Gower, or Philip and Laura as they now were to each other, were sitting side by side on the sofa, Mr Gay holding on his hands a skein of wool which Mrs Gower was winding. It was just like the happy evenings he used to spend with Cassandra, thought Adam sentimentally, ignoring the fact that he had never held wool for her to wind. Cassandra knew better than to expect it.

  ‘We are going to have some tea,’ said Mr Gay. ‘I hope you will join us. Or would you rather have some whisky?’

  ‘I’m sure he’d prefer tea,’ said Miss Gay rather scornfully, piqued that Adam had not turned to her as a fellow sufferer.

  ‘Yes, thank you, I would,’ said Adam. But as he made desultory conversation he thought that there was nothing for him here. The old lovers were happier by themselves and he certainly didn’t want to be comforted by Miss Gay. Tomorrow he would go to Oxford. There he could be tolerably happy. A writer and a scholar, working in the Bodleian.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ‘The choice perplexes. Wherefore should we choose?’

  As soon as they were comfortably settled in the train at Ostend, Mr Tilos stopped behaving like a maiden aunt. Cassandra had been wondering when it would happen and had hoped that he would not drop this comfortable attitude until they were on Hungarian soil, or even in Budapest itself, when she could more easily escape.

  During the crossing from Dover to Ostend she had tried to find out, as tactfully as possible, whether anyone in Up Callow had known that Mr Tilos was travelling on this train and going to the same place as she was.

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said, ‘only the old woman who lives across the road, Mrs Gower. I told her that I go to Budapest and her friend Mr Gay who was with her in the garden.’

  Cassandra was doubtful if Mrs Gower and Mr Gay would be able to keep this fascinating piece of news to themselves, and since Mrs Gower knew that she was going to Budapest she could hardly be blamed for putting two and two together and making quite the wrong number.

  Mechanically she made pleasant conversation on general subjects, looking out of the window of the train and remarking on the flatness of the Belgian countryside, the clemency of the weather and the likelihood of its being hot in Budapest, but as she talked she was wondering how she could escape without creating a scene that might draw attention to them. She wished desperately that there was some other person in their railway carriage, especially when Mr Tilos seized her hand and cried, ‘Why do you not look at me? Do you not care for me at all? Why, then, do you go to Budapest?’

  ‘I certainly do not,’ said Cassandra firmly, ‘and I am going to Budapest for a holiday. I had no idea that you were going too.’

  Such forthrightness was, she decided, the best way to deal with the situation. Mr Tilos became silent and, releasing her hand, sat hunched in his corner looking out of the window. Cassandra glanced at him and saw that he was likely to go on sulking for some time and thought that this was a good opportunity to escape into the corridor and find more congenial travelling companions.

  All the third-class carriages seemed to be full. Many of the occupants were eating, playing cards, and even singing. There seemed to be a party of students on the train, and Cassandra came across groups of them in the corridors, smoking and talking in loud excited voices. They all looked kind and friendly, but Cassandra was making for another party she remembered seeing on the boat at Ostend, a group of middle-aged, respectable-looking people, with a tall clergyman who seemed to be their leader. She was beginning to think that they must have stayed behind in Ostend, when she heard a voice calling. It was a fluty, cultured voice, the voice of an English spinster of uncertain age, Cassandra decided, just the sort of voice she wanted to hear. The sound of it was music in her ears after Mr Tilos’s gentle but sinister foreign accents.

  ‘Canon Coffin! Canon Coffin!’ called the voice.

  Cassandra, who had been standing looking out of the window, turned to her right and saw a grey-haired woman hurrying down the corridor. She was small and efficient-looking, and wore pince-nez. In her hand she had a pencil, and a piece of paper that looked as if it might be a list. From a carriage just beyond where Cassandra was standing there emerged the figure of a tall clergyman. This must be Canon Coffin, thought Cassandra. In spite of his depressing name he had a kindly face, beaming with smiles. Cassandra recognized him as the man she had seen on the boat.

  ‘Oh, Canon Coffin, here’s the list,’ said the woman. They stood talking in the corridor, so that Cassandra was able to hear all their conversation.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Edge,’ said the clergym
an. ‘All those on the list will be taking dinner when we get to Brussels, I presume?’

  ‘Yes. Miss Lomax and Miss Fye are dining with friends. And Mrs Dewbury won’t be with us at the Pension Flora tonight. She has a nephew at the Embassy, and is staying the night with him and his wife.’ This information was given in a slightly scornful tone, which was at the same time a little aggrieved. It was as if Miss Edge had heard too much about the nephew at the Embassy, and had hoped for an invitation to meet him which had not been forthcoming.

  Cassandra’s heart warmed towards these people. She felt that she would be at home among them. She hoped that they would like her too. She did not think they could disapprove of her, for although she was more smartly dressed than in Up Callow, in a blue suit with silver fox furs, her face was made up quite discreetly, and she had natural-coloured polish on her nails.

  She walked along a little way, hoping that Miss Edge might speak to her when she had finished her business with Canon Coffin. She was not disappointed. In a few minutes she heard the fluty voice saying, ‘Excuse me, but are you with us?’

  How comforting that us sounded, thought Cassandra. She turned round and smiled. ‘No, I’m not,’ she said, ‘but I’d very much like to be. I’m all by myself,’ she lied, ‘and I’m longing for someone to talk to.’

  ‘Oh, you must join us,’ said Miss Edge enthusiastically. ‘We’re quite a lively party.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ Cassandra smiled.

  ‘That was Canon Coffin I was speaking to just now. He’s our leader. His wife is with us too, but she doesn’t travel well, if you know what I mean, so I’m doing all the secretarial work on the journey, but of course I really enjoy it. I run the St Monica’s Guild at home.’

  She chatted on until Cassandra felt that she knew a great deal about the party and its members. There were seventeen of them, three clergymen and their wives, three widows and eight spinsters, all inhabitants of a West Country cathedral town. They were making a fortnight’s tour of South Germany and the Austrian Tyrol.