by Barbara Pym
‘Yes, we jog along quite happily together. Neither of us knows much about cooking and we’re both untidy people but it doesn’t seem to matter.’
‘I suppose common interests are the main thing,’ said Mrs. Foresight doubtfully, thankful that she did not have to live with Esther Clovis or Gertrude Lydgate, for she was fond of her food and liked to have ‘nice things’ around her. ‘How do you manage about cooking?’
‘We live out of tins and on frozen stuff, don’t we, Gertrude,’ said Miss Clovis, who had now joined them. ‘ And we always choose the kind of meat you can fry—chops and things like that.’
‘Braised meat can be delicious, and it isn’t difficult to cook,’ Mrs. Foresight began, but she was interrupted by Father Gemini, who came almost running up to Miss Lydgate, his beard dipping into his sherry glass, waving a sandwich in his hand.
‘Oh, Miss Lydgate, I must apologize for that vocabulary I sent you,’ he wailed. ‘It was immensely unfortunate, but the language is spoken by only five persons now, and the only informant I could find was a very old man, so old that he had no teeth.’
‘I appreciate your difficulty,’ said Miss Lydgate gruffly.
‘Yes, and at the time he was drunk, also. It was most difficult.’
‘I was interested in what appeared to be something quite new,’ said Miss Lydgate, drawing Father Gemini almost by his beard into a more secluded part of the room. ‘Was it this?’ A very curious sound, which it is impossible to reproduce here, then came from her. Had she been in the company of ordinary people, it might have been supposed that something had gone down the wrong way and that she was choking, but here nobody took any particular notice of her or of Father Gemini when he cried excitedly, ‘No, no, it is thisV and proceeded to emit a sound which would have appeared to the uninitiated exactly the same as Miss Lydgate’s choking noise.
‘Now they’ll be happy for hours,’ said Miss Clovis indulgently. ‘I sometimes think what a pity it is that Gertrude and Father Gemini can’t marry.’
‘Oh?’ said Mrs. Foresight. ‘Is it so impossible?’
‘Well, he is a Roman Catholic priest, and it is not usual for them to marry, is it?’
‘No, of course, they are forbidden to,’ Mrs. Foresight agreed. ‘Still, Miss Lydgate is much taller than he is,’ she added irrelevandy.
‘That hardly seems to matter in the academic world,’ said Miss Clovis. ‘ It is, of course, the marriage of true minds that counts.’
‘But that beard is so untidy,’ said Mrs. Foresight distastefully. ‘A wife would make him trim it-I always think Professor Mainwaring’s is so becoming, a silver imperial, I suppose you’d call his.’
‘Yes, Felix is a fine-looking man; he seems to dominate every gathering, and not only because of his height.’
He stood now in the centre of the room, sipping his sherry, and thinking as he did so that if it was not quite the best sherry it was certainly good enough for the occasion. Esther had been wise not to spend the Foresight money on the very best, he decided ; the women would not have appreciated it and his colleagues would have been unworthy of it. Many of them, as he put it to himself, were ‘not quite out of the top drawer’, an old-fashioned expression but one that conveyed his meaning perfectly. He was wise enough not to use it indiscriminately in these enlightened days, however, and his manner to the up-and-coming young men who still gathered round him was gracious and often kindly. After all, it was not his fault that his father had been able to educate him at Eton and Balliol, or that his youth had been passed in the spacious days of the Edwardian era. Indeed, in his own way he had shown courage in defying the wishes of his parents, who had intended him for the Diplomatic Service, to take up a profession that nobody had ever heard of and that involved going to the remotest parts of the Empire not to govern, which would have been natural and proper, but to study the ways of the primitive peoples living there.
‘There really is something rather splendid about him,’ said Melanie Pirbright. ‘ I can imagine he’d have a strong appeal in the States to some of the women’s clubs, you know. I wonder if he’s ever thought of doing a lecture tour? Doesn’t it seem odd that he’s never married?*
‘Yes, there seems to be no reason for it,’ said her husband. ‘One wonders whether there might be something between him and Minnie Foresight. Perhaps he feels the burden of his middle name, though. It might be tough to be called Byron- it would certainly take some living up to,’
‘You think so?’ said Jean-Pierre le Rossignol with his demure smile.
‘Perhaps not so difficult for a Frenchman,’ said Melanie seriously.
‘The name really makes no difference—a man can have many love affairs whatever he is called.’
Did you ever hear that Professor Mainwaring had had many?’ Melanie asked, in the tone of one seeking scientific information. ‘These things might get around.’
Jean-Pierre shrugged his shoulders and the corners of his mouth turned down in a grimace that suggested a wealth of secret knowledge. But he said nothing.
‘On the whole it seems to be English women who don’t marry,’ Melanie went on. ‘It would be interesting to know just why that is.’
‘Do you need to ask?’ said Jean-Pierre, glancing round the room. ‘ To begin with, there are too many.’
‘Yes, that is a problem. There is a good deal to be said in favour of polygamy, I always think.’
‘But some women one would hardly want, even as secondary wives,’ said Brandon.
‘Aren’t you using the term “secondary wife”, in the wrong sense, dear?’ said Melanie. ‘It can have a rather specialized meaning, you know.’
‘Listen to her,’ said Digby, turning aside to whisper to his friend Mark. “Can’t she ever relax? I was just wondering if we ought to say a word to Prof. Mainwaring.’
‘Say a word to him? What could we talk about? I should have thought that no three people could have had less in common than we have.’
‘Oh, I just meant social talk—making ourselves known and that kind of thing. After all we’ve got to get money from somewhere to do our field-work.’
‘How sensible you are—let’s go then.’
‘You say something,’ said Digby, giving Mark a sharp push forward.
‘Good evening, Professor,’ said Mark. ‘We just wanted to tell you how much we enjoyed that last paper of yours at the Learned Society,’
‘Most stimulating it was,’ mumbled Digby.
‘Let me see now, which paper was that—” Anthropology- what now?” Or was it “Anthropology-what-ho!”,’ chuckled the professor. ‘One gets confused, you know. I don’t remember noticing you in the audience.’
‘We were sitting at the back,’ said Mark quickly.
‘Ah, yes, so that you could slip out easily. Those chairs by the door are always very much in demand. I hope you slipped out quietly? I cannot recollect that there was any disturbance. I often wonder why it is that people do slip out as much as they do. With women it is understandable, I think-a casserole to be seen to or some such thing; perhaps men have trains to catch, or young ladies to meet.’
‘We have essays and seminar papers to prepare,’ said Digby stolidly.
‘And you hope to go out to the field?’ said Felix, fixing them with a shrewd glance.
‘Well, yes, we do,’ said Mark.
‘It is difficult…’ Digby began, but he was interrupted by the arrival of Professor Fairfax who pushed his way into the group crying, ‘Now, my dear Felix, I hope you haven’t forgotten that you are lunching with me at my club tomorrow?’
‘Gervase, my dear boy, certainly I have not forgotten. I am actively looking forward to it.’
‘Good evening, Professor Fairfax,’ said Mark and Digby, almost in unison.
‘Ah, Mr. Fox and Mr. Penfold, how-do-you-do,’ said Professor Fairfax in a perfunctory tone.
Even Mark and Digby, inexperienced as they were in the subtler gradations of social meaning, were perceptive enough to realize that Professor Fairfax was not i
n the least desirous of knowing how they did, so they edged away and back into their corner.
‘Dear boy! My dear Felix, my dear Gervase,’ said Mark scornfully. ‘All this bandying about of Christian names disgusts me.’
‘We haven’t yet acquired the status of being known by ours,’ said Digby more mildly. ‘ It’s an interesting study, when you come to consider it. The lower you are in status, the more formal the type of address used, unless you’re a servant, perhaps.’
‘Still, Fairfax does know our names, which is something.’
‘But does he know which of us is which?’ asked Digby anxiously.
‘We can see that he does later. To get the names into their heads—that’s the main thing at the moment.’
‘Not the most brilliant of your ideas, picking on that paper of his,’ said Digby. ‘You might at least have chosen some occasion when we really had been present and he might have seen us.’
The young men began bickering among themselves until one of them picked up a decanter of sherry and boldly refilled their glasses. This encouraged them still further and they began to devour plates of sandwiches and little savouries.
They certainly know how to make themselves at home, thought Deirdre Swan, curling her hand round her empty glass and wishing that she had the courage to go home. At nineteen she was still young and sensitive enough to be conscious that she was standing alone and had nothing to drink and to mind about it. Everybody except her seemed to be talking to somebody. She knew Miss Clovis slightly and had spoken to Mark and Digby once or twice, but they were in their third year at the University and she was only in her first. Soon they would be going out to Africa or some other suitable place and then even they, ordinary as they were, would acquire the glamour of those who had been ‘in the field.
Deirdre looked round the room at the little groups of people and the realization came to her that although she was rather too tall and too thin and her clothes were not particularly smart, she was undoubtedly the best-looking woman in the room and certainly the youngest. This comforted her a little and almost gave her the courage to approach one of the groups, until she noticed that it contained Miss Lydgate, whom she wished to avoid. For Miss Lydgate’s brother Alaric had recently come to live next door to the Swans in their London suburb and they had not yet made his acquaintance, in spite of the efforts of Deirdre’s mother and aunt. Alaric Lydgate was apparently a retired Colonial administrator, and Deirdre, who had met him in the road once or twice, thought she had detected that ‘look’which being in Africa seemed to give to some people, a wild Ancient Mariner gleam in the eye which was usually a sign of some particularly persistent bee buzzing in the bonnet. She did not at all want him to engage her in conversation about Africa and she was afraid that if she made contact with Miss Lydgate it might lead to an introduction to her brother. So she had to go on standing there with her empty glass, praying that one of the young men might take pity on her.
At last Jean-Pierre le Rossignol moved away from his companions and came over to her.
“This is an interesting occasion, I think,’ he declared in his precise voice. ‘I have not been to such a party before,’
‘It isn’t like any other kind of party,’ said Deirdre rather desperately. ‘I suppose it is interesting if you can be detached about it,’
‘Oh, but one must be detached about so many things! Otherwise how could a Frenchman endure the English Sunday?*
‘It must be difficult. There’s very little to do on Sunday, really, unless you go to church.’
‘Exactly! And what a variety of churches to go to. There is so much choice -I am quite bewildered.’
‘Yes, I suppose there are a lot to choose from if you live right in London. Where I live there are only two.’
‘Last week I was at a Methodist Chapel—exquisite!’ Jean-Pierre cast his eyes up to heaven. ‘The week before at the Friends’ House. Next Sunday I have been recommended to try Mattins and Sermon at a fashionable church in Mayfair.’
Deirdre felt a little out of her depth. Churchgoing was a serious matter in her family, one either went to church or one didn’t; there was none of this light-hearted experimenting that Jean-Pierre seemed to indulge in.
‘I suppose,’ he went on, ‘you would say I was a Thomist.’He shrugged his shoulders and then fell to examining his nails, so much more exquisitely manicured than Deirdre’s were.
‘People seem to be going,’ she mumbled, thrown off her balance by not knowing what a Thomist was and not liking to ask.
‘I believe it is not correct to stay till the end,’ said Jean-Pierre, ‘ so I must be going. I like to do the correct thing where possible.’
People now began to leave as rapidly as they had arrived, and to pair off in a rather odd way. It was of course to be expected that Professor Mainwaring should escort Mrs. Foresight to her car and then drive away with her, but the man from the Colonial Office found himself walking down into the street with Father Gemini and being invited to ‘take pot-luck’ with Miss Clovis and Miss Lydgate. He protested feebly but it was in vain.
‘You can easily get a train to Dulwich-they are very frequent,’ said Miss Clovis firmly.
‘But it is North Dulwich I want to get to,’ he said weakly.
‘Oh, there isn’t such a place!’ said Miss Lydgate with rough good humour, leading him and Father Gemini away.
Deirdre found herself alone with Mark and Digby.
‘Time gemlemen, please!’ said Digby, lurching slightly against a table.
‘Did you enjoy the party?’ asked Deirdre politely.
‘Yes, it improved considerably towards the end,’ said Mark. ‘We found ourselves near the drink and took the liberty of helping ourselves to it.’
‘We are not used to drinking much,’ said Digby. ‘Do you think we seem the worse for it?’
‘I don’t know how you usually are,’ said Deirdre, disconcerted by their odd, stilted way of walking. Perhaps they were the worse for drink.
‘We are usually rather dim and hard-working,’ said Mark. ‘ You know,’ he added, turning to Digby, ‘I do feel we should have said a word to Dashwood.’
‘Dashwood? Oh, that man from the Colonial Office. Yes, I suppose we ought to keep in with him.’
‘Well, good-bye,’ said Deirdre shyly. ‘My bus goes from here.’
‘I suppose we could have taken her to have a meal somewhere,’ said Digby, looking after the moving bus.
‘Whatever for?’
‘It would have been a nice gesture.’
‘We might have taken Prof. Mainwaring out—that would have been even nicer. Anyway, I expect her mother would have supper waiting for her at home.’
‘Yes, probably. She seems quite a nice girl, but hardly …’
‘Not very interesting really.’
‘No.’
The two young men had stopped outside a cinema and were gazing at a poster which showed a young woman, with more obvious charms than Deirdre’s, reclining seductively in a transparent négligée across what seemed to be Niagara Falls.
‘I have that seminar paper to prepare,’ said Mark reluctantly. ‘Yes, of course,’ said Digby meekly. So they crossed the road and waited for the bus which would take them to their lodgings in Camden Town. But even on the bus they felt reluctant to return to work.
‘I know,’ said Digby, ‘let’s go and see Catherine. She’ll probably have some news of Tom.’
‘And she may be cooking something,’ said Mark practically. ‘It’s so depressing cooking for one person, or so one hears. Let’s go and make it worth her while to prepare a good meal.’
CHAPTER TWO
Catherine was still speculating about Professor Fairfax and Dr. Vere on her way home. She lived on the shabby side of Regent’s Park in a flat over a newsagent’s shop which she had taken cheaply at the end of the war. She sometimes felt, as she climbed the worn linoleum-covered stairs, that she was worthy of a more gracious setting, but then there are few of us who do not occasi
onally set a higher value on ourselves than Fate has done. Generally she was quite happy, for she was naturally of a sanguine disposition, and the flat, with its three rooms, kitchen and bathroom all self-contained, was so very ‘desirable’ in these days that she knew she was lucky to have it. It was furnished in a way that is sometimes described as ‘bohemian’ but which is just as often the result of not being able to buy quite enough furniture and carpets. Yet the general effect was comfortable, for Catherine was domesticated in a casual way and a good cook. Her small hands were often rough with housework and sometimes smelled of garlic. Tom used to tease her and say that it was a good thing the custom of hand-kissing was not much practised in England.
Catherine and Tom had met on a Channel boat, during a bad crossing from Dieppe to Newhaven. When they arrived in London it seemed that Tom had nowhere to go that night, so Catherine had offered to put him up in her spare room. After he had stayed a night or two it seemed pointless for him to look for lodgings when in a few days time he was going to stay with his parents in Shropshire, and when he returned to London he had come back to Catherine’s flat as naturally as if it had been his own home. They had become fond of each other, or perhaps used to each other; it was almost like being married except that there were no children, which Catherine felt she would have liked. The fact that she tended to regard most men, and Tom in particular, as children wasn’t quite die same thing. Catherine had always imagined that her husband would be a strong character who would rule her life, but Tom, at twenty-nine, was two years younger than she was and it was always she who made the decisions and even mended the fuses. It did not seem to occur to Tom that they might get married. Catherine often wondered whether anthropologists became so absorbed in studying the ways of strange societies that they forgot what was the usual thing in their own. Yet some of them, she had observed, were so highly respectable and conventional, that it seemed to work the other way too, as if they realized the importance of conforming to the ‘norm’, or whatever they would have called it in their jargon.
She went into her sitting-room and noticed that the tulips in the window were nearly out. They should be at their best by the time Tom came. Now they were in bud and looking almost like hard-boiled eggs, but with more yellow than white in them. She reached for her note-book and jotted down the little simile; these odd details often came in useful. There was a page in her typewriter, half typed, and she sat down, hoping to finish the story she was writing. But the inspiration seemed to have gone and the falsely happy ending she had planned seemed unbearably trite and removed from life. She imagined women under the drier at the hairdresser’s, turning the pages lazily and coming to1 ‘The Rose Garden’ by Catherine Oliphant. They would read the first page, the one that had the drawing of a girl standing with a rose in her hand and a man, handsomer than any real man could possibly be, standing behind her with an anguished expression on his face: but would they turn to the back of the magazine, where the continuation and ending were to be found? Catherine wondered gloomily. Dear as remembered kisses after death, she typed idly, but was it likely that her hero would have read Tennyson or quoted the line aloud like that? Not very, she thought, getting up and walking about the room.