An Unsuitable Attachment

by Barbara Pym

  'Sophia will be waiting for us at the vicarage,' said Mrs Grandison. 'I expect you would like to go upstairs to tidy yourself before the opening.'

  'Tidy myself?' Lady Selvedge raised a hand to her elaborate hat. 'Oh, I doubt if that will be necessary. Ah, my dear,' she said, seeing Sophia at the front door, 'here we are, you see, safe and sound.'

  'How nice to see you. I take it you've had lunch?' It would be disastrous if they had not, Sophia thought.

  'Yes, thank you, an excellent meal and only three and ninepence.'

  Where could they have lunched? Sophia wondered. 'Perhaps you'd like to sit down and rest for a while?' she suggested.

  'Rest? Oh no, thank you.'

  Then what were they to do? Sophia wondered.

  'I should like to go upstairs,' said her mother plaintively and left them.

  'Do you know, I thought I saw yams on one of the vegetable stalls as we were coming along,' said Lady Selvedge. 'It reminded me of our time in Nigeria. Humphrey was there, you know.'

  When Mrs Grandison had rejoined them it was still not quite half-past two, but Mark came in to say that as everybody was already waiting in the hall and it would be difficult to restrain them from buying things much longer, the bazaar might as well be opened immediately.

  Lady Selvedge allowed herself to be led on to the platform and was introduced in a short speech by Mark, who found himself unable to think of very much to say about her, confused as he was by the talk of 'higher principles', cocktail parties, and her former husband's misdeeds which he remembered having with Sophia and Penelope. It was obviously good of her to have given up an afternoon — perhaps a precious afternoon in these days when all time was precious — 'to come from afar to open the bazaar'. Here Mark stopped, dismayed at finding himself breaking into rhyme. There was some laughter and he took the opportunity to sit down. Lady Selvedge then rose and made her little speech — the one she always made on these occasions, for the 'cause', whether Church, Conservative Party or District Nursing Association, was always a good one and it was safe to urge her hearers to spend just a little more than they thought they could afford, however relative the amount might be. Penelope had taken note of the two quite personable-looking men who had just come into the hall and were standing looking about them with some bewilderment, as if uncertain what they ought to do. Then, to her surprise and annoyance, she saw that they were greeting Ianthe Broome with every appearance of being old friends.

  'Why, Mervyn, and Mr Challow, too,' said Ianthe, who had experienced a shock of dismay mingled with pleasure on seeing them, 'how did you know about St Basil's bazaar?'

  'Oh, you let slip a word about it,' said Mervyn, 'something about making two dozen sausage rolls, so we thought we'd come along.'

  'Shall we buy something off your stall, Ianthe?' John asked.

  'Yes, of course you must,' she said quickly, a little taken aback by his use of her Christian name. 'I'm not sure that there are many things suitable for men, though,' she added, looking helplessly at the aprons, bed jackets and hand-knitted babies' woollens.

  'I'll have this mauve bed jacket for Mother,' said Mervyn. 'It'll be just the job.'

  'This blue one's pretty. It would suit you,' John said, lowering his voice and looking at Ianthe intently. 'That's swansdown round the neck, isn't it, that soft fluffy stuff.'

  Ianthe turned away, slightly embarrassed, and began wrapping up the purchase. Sister Dew, who was also helping at the stall, said gushingly, 'Well, Miss Broome, you are a good saleswoman — another bedjacket gone already! Now who wants a nice apron or a baby's romper suit? Haven't you got a little nephew or niece?' she asked, thrusting a small knitted garment at Mervyn. But at that moment Lady Selvedge and Mrs Grandison were seen approaching the stall and Sister Dew quickly switched her attention to them. Both bought a gratifyingly large number of things before passing on to the next stall, where Miss Pettigrew sat behind pyramids of tinned food, most of which, on closer inspection, proved to be for cats.

  'We hoped we might get a peep at your house,' said Mervyn to Ianthe.

  'Oh yes, of course,' said Ianthe. 'It will be a good chance for you to see it later on — a cup of tea or a glass of sherry — I should be so pleased.'

  'I'm dying to see where you live,' said John.

  'Perhaps we should pass on to the home-made cakes,' said Mervyn. 'I should like to buy a sponge before they all go.'

  Whoever can they be? Sophia wondered. They did not seem quite the sort of men one imagined Ianthe knowing as friends, though she had certainly greeted them cordially enough. Perhaps they were former choirmen or servers from her father's old parish — that might be the answer. Sophia could imagine them in cassocks, doing something with candles or incense. Having, as she thought, placed them, she turned her attention to her own stall. Mark was approaching with an elderly clergyman, Father Anstruther, a former vicar, who had on his retirement bought a house just on the boundary of the parish, rather tactlessly, some thought, but as he was a celibate there was no wife to poke her nose into parish affairs which was something to be thankful for.

  'Ah, Mrs Ainger, you see before you the dog returning to his vomit,' he said cheerfully, greeting Sophia.

  Not the happiest of phrases, she thought, though one could see what he meant.

  'You know we're always glad to see you,' she said, not quite insincerely for he was a source of amusement in many ways and quite willing to take Sunday duties when Mark was on holiday.

  'We always had a big crowd here in the old days,' said Father Anstruther, glancing round the hall, which certainly might have been fuller. 'People came from miles around.' He shook his head, then took a plate and wandered off to choose cakes for his tea. 'Fairies,' he murmured, 'who was it now who used to make such deliciously light fairies?'

  'Why, Father, it was Mother,' said Sister Dew oddly. 'You always did say that her fairies were the lightest you ever tasted.'

  Mark and Sophia drew away together, feeling themselves to be excluded. 'Old times and fairy cakes,' Sophia whispered, 'we can't compete.'

  'A bond of fairies,' said Mark. 'Obviously a title for something. And people came from miles around, did they — well, things aren't quite what they were thirty years ago.'

  'No, darling, but Mother and Lady Selvedge have come quite a long way — miles, really — and those two young men talking to Ianthe are strangers, and I dare say Mr Stonebird will look in,' said Sophia comfortingly. 'Penelope will be so disappointed if he doesn't.'

  'Why, does she like him particularly?'

  Sophia sighed but did not answer, for on such an occasion as this there wasn't really time to go into whether Penelope particularly liked Rupert Stonebird or not or to embark on the sort of explanation that a man couldn't be expected to understand.

  ***

  If I were to go in now, thought Rupert, I should attract far more attention than if I'd gone earlier. The whole thing must be nearly over — hardly anything on the stalls — nothing to eat — people looking surreptitiously at their watches wondering if they were at all justified in slipping away home. Perhaps, though, he might stroll out in the direction of the church hall, to see if people were coming out, then he would feel that he had made some kind of effort. If he met anyone he could say, with perfect truthfulness, that he had been absorbed in correcting students' essays and had not realized the time until it was after five o'clock. It was disquieting, though, the way he seemed to have to make these excuses to himself, as if his conscience which he had, so he thought at the age of sixteen, successfully buried, had suddenly reawakened to plague him, not about the fundamentals of belief and morality but about such comparative trivialities as whether or not one should attend the church bazaar. Was it to be like this from now onwards? he wondered apprehensively.

  He opened his front door, walked out and crossed the road. He had nearly reached the church when he saw a group of people approaching him. Miss Broome — Ianthe — the vicar's sister-in-law — Prudence, Jenny, was it? — or one of thos
e fashionable names that often seemed so unsuitable for their bearers — and two men whom he had not seen before. It must obviously be too late to go to the bazaar now, he thought with relief as he came face to face with the group, but he found himself trotting out the excuse about correcting papers and not noticing the time before anyone had had the chance to comment on his non-attendance.

  'We did rather wonder what had happened to you,' said Ianthe.

  Only somebody as naive and unworldly as Ianthe could have come out with such a disconcertingly honest statement, thought Penelope, who had of course wondered even more.

  'Ianthe has invited us in to have a glass of sherry,' she said, hoping that Ianthe would invite Rupert too.

  'Yes — would you like to join us? It isn't worth your while going to the hall now. They were packing up the stalls when we left,' said Ianthe. 'Oh, I'm sorry, you don't know Mervyn Cantrell and John Challow, do you. We all work together.'

  'Well, I'm only a sort of stooge,' said John. 'Mervyn and Ianthe are the clever ones.'

  They turned towards Ianthe's gate and went into the house. It was pleasantly warm in the little hall, Rupert thought, noticing the red glow of a paraffin heater, almost like a sanctuary lamp or the lamp that was said to have burnt clear in Tullia's tomb, for close on fifteen hundred years. He must set about getting something like that himself. There was a coal fire in the sitting room and when Ianthe had drawn the curtains to shut out the November evening everybody agreed with John when he exclaimed how 'cosy' it was. Really there was no other word for it, though only he or Mervyn could have said it.

  'And there's that lovely Pembroke table,' said Mervyn, bending down to examine it.

  John and Rupert sat down rather stiffly, not quite liking to roam about the room appraising the furniture and objects, as Mervyn was doing.

  Ianthe and Penelope went upstairs to take off their coats. Penelope was interested to see Ianthe's bedroom, which was at the back of the house, looking over the garden. Here as in the rest of the house, the furniture was good and well cared for. The hangings were rather chintzy and old-fashioned. The dressing table held only a silver-backed brush, comb and mirror and two trinket boxes, with an old-fashioned flowered china tree for holding rings placed in one corner. No cosmetics of any kind were visible. The bed looked neat, smooth and austere, and the books on the table beside it had dark sober covers and were obviously devotional books and anthologies of poetry. It was a typical English gentlewoman's bedroom, Penelope thought, in boringly good taste. There was something chilling and virginal about it.

  'Oh, you've got a little statue or something in your garden,' she said, going over to the window. 'It's too dark now to see exactly what it is but it looks rather sweet.'

  'Yes, it's a kind of cherub. It was here when I came,' said Ianthe.

  'Perhaps it's significant or prophetic,' said Penelope.

  'Yes, perhaps. I hope it means that I'm going to settle down happily in this house.'

  Penelope hadn't exactly meant that. She had been thinking of the three men downstairs, though perhaps one could hardly count John as being in the running. Perhaps one could hardly count Mervyn either, which left only Rupert. And that, of course, was unthinkable. Yet they did live near to each other, so there might be danger.

  'Your sister and brother-in-law have been so kind to me,' Ianthe went on. 'I really feel at home in the parish.'

  'I know Sophia is glad to have you here,' said Penelope. 'She meets so few people of her own sort. If only Mark had taken St Ermin's when it was offered to him.'

  'Would she have been happier, do you think? I mean, if her husband had taken the living only for her sake?' Ianthe asked.

  'No, of course you're right. I suppose a wife should consider her husband's work before her own happiness,' Penelope agreed, for like many modern young women she had the right old-fashioned ideas about men and their work.

  'Well, we must be getting downstairs or those poor men will think they're never going to get that glass of sherry,' said Ianthe more lightly.

  She really is perfect in this setting, Rupert thought, as she came into the room. Surely Landor's lines about Ianthe ought to have come into his head if he could have remembered them.

  'Let me do that for you,' he said, for it did not seem fitting for her to be pouring out drinks.

  'I'm afraid sherry is all I have,' she apologized. 'I hope everybody likes it.'

  John, who had hoped there might be some gin, jumped up and began to hand round glasses. 'What shall we drink to?' he asked, when everybody had been served.

  There was a moment's silence — perhaps of embarrassment, as if too much of an 'occasion' were being made of it.

  A rather strange collection of men and women, thought Rupert with an anthropologist's detachment, none of whom really know each other but between whom waves and currents of feeling are already beginning to pass. What, indeed, could they drink to?

  Then Mervyn came to the rescue. 'Why, to the success of St Basil's bazaar,' he said. 'That's surely the obvious toast.'

  6

  As Christmas approached and the weather became colder, Faustina assumed her pear-shaped winter body and spent the evenings curled up in her basket by the boiler in the kitchen, while Sophia stirred various mixtures stiff with fruit and nuts and laced with brandy.

  A week before Christmas she was icing the cake one evening when Mark came in with a letter in his hand.

  'I've been thinking,' he said, 'we ought to ask Ianthe Broome's uncle to preach some time. I'd thought of a course of Lenten addresses.'

  'A course?' said Sophia. 'Isn't that rather rash? We don't know what he's like yet — wouldn't it be better to ask him for an odd Sunday first before we let ourselves in for a course of sermons?'

  'I should imagine he must be all right,' said Mark.

  'You mean because he's Ianthe's uncle?' said Sophia. 'And because he's a canon's brother-in-law? How far can the influence of a canon be expected to extend?'

  'Well, I've written the letter now,' said Mark. 'And if he isn't much good it will be better for us. I never see why people should expect interesting preachers in Lent.'

  'No, of course — humble fare with no meat and sermons of the same kind,' said Sophia.

  'Ought Faustina to be licking out that bowl?' asked Mark.

  'Yes, there's a bit of almond paste in it and she likes that. I'm just going to give her some milk.'

  'Is this all you're putting on the Christmas cake this year?' asked Mark, picking up a rather battered-looking plaster Father Christmas.

  'Yes, I forgot to buy new decorations.'

  'People have robins and holly and Yule logs,' said Mark. 'I'm sure Sister Dew does.'

  'No doubt — and we have our solitary Father Christmas left over from several years ago.' Sophia placed him in the middle of the cake which was covered with white icing forked up into ridges.

  'He looks like King Lear in the snow, deserted by his daughters,' said Mark. 'But many old people are lonely and neglected at Christmas, so our cake decoration won't be so inappropriate after all. It should put us in mind of the old people in our own parish.'

  'Daisy Pettigrew is doing her usual food parcel scheme for the old age pensioners,' Sophia reminded him.

  'Yes, and their cats will be looked after too — one only hopes Daisy won't put in more food for them than for the humans.'

  Faustina looked up from her saucer, her dark face made all the more reproachful by its beard of milk.

  ***

  In the library where Ianthe worked the approach of Christmas had made itself felt, though it would be too much to say that any particularly Christmas spirit or noticeable increase of goodwill could be discerned, even though Shirley had hung up a few coloured paper chains.

  On the last day before the holiday Mervyn seemed more irritable than usual.

  'Mother is a Spiritualist, you know,' he said to Ianthe, 'and somehow that doesn't seem to make our Christmas a particularly jolly one.'

  'I suppo
se preoccupation with those who have — er — died isn't quite in accordance with the spirit of Christmas,' said Ianthe tentatively.

  'No — and our relations and friends who have passed over seem to be a particularly dreary bunch. Perhaps it's the fault of the medium — she's a Miss Stylish and lives in Balham, not very promising, you'll agree,' said Mervyn sourly.

  Ianthe never knew how to talk to him when he was in this sort of mood. She felt she could have done better than she did with her next remark.

  'Balham,' she said, thoughtful yet desperate, 'that's on the Northern Line, isn't it.'

  'Yes, my dear. It's black on the Underground map, so very suitable, I always think. Picture us arriving there on Boxing Day in time for tea by public transport, of course.'

  Then, before Ianthe could comment further, he switched in his usual way to another subject.

  'Now here's something wrong again,' he said, taking up a card. 'London colon — not semi-colon and not comma. I should have thought it wasn't too difficult for other people to get the details right occasionally. That doesn't seem too much to ask, does it? I can't see to everything myself.'

  Ianthe and John were silent, feeling that no adequate answer could be made. In any case it was Shirley who had typed the card and she was in a higher or lower world that cared nothing for such trivia.

  Just before five o'clock Mervyn came up to Ianthe carrying a wrapped bottle with a Christmas label tied round the neck. She produced from her shopping bag a box of crystallized fruits she had bought for him, and a mutual exchange took place.

  'This is Madeira,' said Mervyn. 'It seems a suitable present for a respectable unmarried lady who might be visited by the clergy.'

  Ianthe murmured her thanks.

  'I don't think of Ianthe like that,' said John. '"A respectable unmarried lady" — that makes her sound old and dull.'

  'Well, I am that,' said Ianthe, with the uncomfortable feeling that she was being a little coy.

  'You're old compared with John,' said Mervyn a little too sharply.