Less Than Angels

by Barbara Pym

  ‘Festschrift for Felix!’ boomed Miss Lydgate. ‘What a splendid idea I We must cook up something really good.’

  They left the table busy with ideas about the birthday tribute, turning over the names of those who should be asked to contribute and, almost as important, those who should not. Everard Bone would perhaps edit it himself; Miss Clovis would ‘do the work’, as she put it, rounding up and bullying the contributors and harrying the printers; Everard’s wife Mildred would of course do the typing. Perhaps they could even think out an arresting tide, the sort of thing that might make people buy it, in the hope that it was something new instead of a ragout of scraps which the contributors had had lying around for years and never done anything about. Of course it was possible that they might get some new or exciting stuff. Gertrude’s work on the post-prandial fricatives, or whatever it was, would be most stimulating, Esther thought.

  She arrived at the research centre later than usual and, glancing in at the readers in the library, noticed a good many new faces among them. So they come and go, she thought, perhaps a little tritely, hoping for much and sometimes receiving a little, or expecting nothing and getting more than they bargained for … she smiled and nodded vaguely at the two lumpish undergraduates, the dapper little priest and the three young women who had looked up at her entrance.

  Then she moved on to the little room next door wondering if anybody had made use of the hat-stand there.

  Inside, sitting rather far apart on the horsehair sofa, were Digby Fox and Deirdre Swan. They looked up a little guiltily as they said good morning.

  ‘Ah, you find it quieter to work in here, do you?’ Miss Clovis beamed. ‘I am so glad that you are to have poor Tom Mallow’s grant,’ she added, turning to Digby. ‘I feel that you really deserve it.’ He was a nice young man and he had helped to move the horsehair sofa, she remembered. ‘Is it true,’ she asked, lowering her tone so that it was almost hushed, ‘that your friend has forsaken anthropology and gone into business?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid Mark’s deserted us. It was rather a blow to me, really. He is going to work in the office of his future father-in-law in Leadenhall Street.’

  ‘Leadenhall Street!’ hissed Miss Clovis. ‘The very sound of it is dreadful. And yet one is reminded even there of the African custom of the suitor giving service to the father of the girl he wishes to marry, but Leadenhall Street ‘—she seemed unable to leave the name alone—‘that’s rather different from raising the mounds for the yams.’

  ‘Yes, it certainly is,’ said Digby rather feebly.

  ‘And you, my dear,’ Miss Clovis turned towards Deirdre, meaning to say something and then realizing that perhaps nothing was necessary. But had she not once, and not so very long ago, either, been discovered on this very sofa with poor Tom Mallow? Perhaps it would be better to have it moved back into her own room after all. Her thoughts flew to the lumpish young men in the libarary, they looked strong and willing, indeed, if she asked them to do it they could hardly refuse … But then one of those disconcerting waves of sentimentality which she had surprised in herself lately came over her and she thought, no, let the sofa remain where it is and if the young things want to hold hands, why shouldn’t they? After feeling a pang of sadness for Tom Mallow, who seemed to have been so quickly replaced, she remembered something she had once read about the beliefs of a certain African tribe. It described how the dead survive only as long as people think of them. When they are forgotten they die a second time and then reappear in the form of small mushroom- shaped anthills in the bush. This time they are thought to be really dead. She began to wonder how long she herself would be kept alive, under these conditions, Gertrude would remember her, perhaps …

  ‘Ah, Esther, my dear, there you are I ‘ Professor Mainwaring stood before her, wearing a rich-looking overcoat with an astrakhan collar. ‘I have a piece of good news for you.’

  ‘Really? I wonder what it can be,’

  ‘I think I am going to be able to get some money for research grants. And where do you think I am going to get it from?’

  ‘I can’t imagine,’ said Miss Qovis rather shortly.

  ‘You could easily guess, but it is really so obvious that perhaps you won’t be able to,’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Sweden? China? Brazil?’

  ‘No, you are quite wrong. The United States of America.’ he said gleefully. ‘So simple, isn’t it. I wonder we didn’t think of it before.’

  ‘Well, didn’t we? I’m sure I did, but all the money seemed to have been snapped up by other bodies.’

  ‘But they didn’t know about Mrs. van Heep! She seemed most interested in our work. Cornelia,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘that is her name, beautiful, isn’t it.’

  ‘It’s better than Minnie, certainly.’

  ‘Ah, poor Minnie. You knew, of course, about our painful meeting? I am afraid I had to talk to her rather severely. You see, my dear Esther, Minnie is too full of what is known as simple goodness, and goodness is so much better when it is not simple. Can you imagine it, she really thought that as Father Gemini was doing research in Africa too it wouldn’t really matter who had the money—that it would comc to the same thing in the end. I tried to make her understand how wrong she was, poor Minnie. I wonder if I succeeded?’

  ‘Oh, I should think so,’ said Miss Clovis shortly. ‘And now, Felix, I really must get on with my—er—work.’

  ‘And I shall go to meet Cornelia for luncheon. She returns to the United States next week.’

  ‘Well, be sure and get the money before she goes.’

  ‘Yes, I shall do that. This time I shall bring it away with me in a little bag!’ He left the room in high good humour, hurried down into the street and hailed a taxi.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Catherine stayed nearly a fortnight at the Swans’ house, during which she was cosseted and cared for and almost knew what it was like to be one of a family. In that short time she experienced all the cosiness and irritation which can come from living with thoroughly nice people with whom one has nothing in common. She enjoyed breakfast in bed, shopping, reading books from the library after lunch, listening to the wireless and knitting in the evenings. Sometimes it was a morning in the West End followed by lunch and a matinée, with the comfortable rattle of the tea-tray being passed over the knees in the dark as the third act began. But after a while she began to feel restless, like a trapped bird who might be safe and happy in a cage but must go out into the cruel world because it is the natural thing. She began to long for her flat and her typewriter and her odd solitary life. All sorts of ideas for stories and articles were bubbling up inside her and she could hardly wait to get back to work.

  ‘Of course you must go, dear,’ said Mabel, ‘you will want to get back to your flat, though we have so much enjoyed having you here. You could always write upstairs in your room, you know. We shouldn’t mind that a bit.’

  Catherine imagined herself sitting up at the little desk in the spare room with the gas-fire on and everybody moving with rather ostentatious quiet on the stairs. Her eyes would be sure to light on the dressing-table, with its blue linen duchesse set embroidered with crinoline ladies and she knew that that would upset her.

  ‘We were thinking of asking Mr. Lydgate in to supper tomorrow evening,’ said Rhoda hopefully. ‘And if Deirdre asks Digby and Malcolm brings Phyllis it could be quite a nice little party.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Catherine agreed enthusiastically, for she did enjoy the supper parties and the preparation that went with them. But yesterday, over the garden hedge, Alaric had asked her to come out to the pub with him at a quarter to one and she had been forced to say that she couldn’t very well because they always had lunch at one, and she couldn’t come in late and smelling of beer. His face had gone rather Easter Island and he had turned away as if he had thought she didn’t really want to come. She felt she could re-establish the right sort of contact only if she were free and living by herself.

  ‘I shall often c
ome and see you,’ she told Mabel and Rhoda when she took her leave of them. ‘But of course I must get back to my own squalor, really—you understand, don’t you?’

  They said that they did, but afterwards Rhoda remarked to Mabel that she couldn’t understand why Catherine always referred to her living conditions in such strange terms. Surely it was just as easy to have things nice as not to, and Catherine did seem to be such a home-loving girl.

  So Catherine returned to her flat and found her sitting-room just as she had left it, with the sheet of paper still in her typewriter and the cup and teapot still on the table, all untouched since the day she had heard of Tom’s death. For she had been back only once to get some clothes and had done no more than open the door of her sitting-room and shut it again.

  But now she set to work vigorously, turning on the wireless as she swept and dusted. It was Brahms, really ‘noble’ music which seemed to raise her work into a higher sphere, so that she found herself wondering if there were not something after all in the phrase ‘dignity of labour’ in which even women could share. When she had finished her cleaning she went over to the Cypriot restaurant and bought a bottle of red wine to drink with her evening meal. She cooked herself an oily dish full of garlic, of the kind she had not eaten for a fortnight. Later, as she looked at herself in the glass in the bathroom, she noticed that her teeth were blackened by the wine, like Queen Elizabeth’s were said to have been, she thought.

  The next morning she was at her typewriter, wrestling with the ‘inexpensive’ cocktail party, when the telephone rang. It was a brisk ‘good-class’ woman’s voice, the kind that might be accustomed to giving orders at Harrods or Fortnums.

  ‘You don’t know me,’ it said, ‘ but I’m Josephine Coningsby, Tom Mallow’s sister. My aunt, Mrs. Beddoes, gave me your address, I believe you’ve met her.’

  ‘Yes, certainly, we …’ Catherine’s sentence tailed off, for it was difficult to know how to describe that curious meeting the day Tom had left her.

  ‘Well, look,’ said the voice briskly. ‘I was thinking it would be nice if we could all meet together for lunch or something.’

  ‘All? I don’t quite see, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, I meant you and me and Elaine and this other girl—Deirdre I think her name is—could you get hold of her? I thought we could have a sort of talk about Tom, you know.’

  ‘Oh, yes, that would be so -right, I think,’ said Catherine falteringly, for everything today seemed to defy description. ‘When shall we meet?’

  A day was fixed and the place, which was to be Josephine’s club somewhere near St. James’s Street. Catherine looked forward to the occasion with a certain amount of apprehension, her lively fancy leaping forward and picturing all sorts of awkwardnesses and embarrassments. She had a long telephone conversation with Deirdre, whose chief worry had been about her clothes. Would black or grey—colours which she never wore-be expected, or would her tweed coat do? And must she buy a hat? Catherine did not think it would matter very much how they dressed since it would be most unlikely that they would attain the standard set by Josephine and Elaine.

  When Catherine and Deirdre entered the lounge of the club, Catherine’s suppositions were proved correct, for they had hardly set foot on the soft carpet before two women, both wearing well-cut grey suits, small hats and pearls, and carrying fur wraps, stood up and advanced towards them. It was perhaps humiliating, Catherine felt, that she and Deirdre should be so easily recognized, hatless, in loose tweed coats and flat shoes. Deirdre had scraped back her loose and flowing hair into a kind of tail and darkened her eyebrows so much that she looked quite fierce. Catherine was just herself, but had made an effort to be neater than usual.

  Introductions were made and they all sat down rather nervously. Elaine was the fairer of the two and looked younger. Josephine, Catherine noticed with a shock of surprise, once you got past the neat formality of her clothes was exactly like Tom. She had his wide-open grey eyes, delicate nose and sweet smile, but lacked Tom’s gentle rather diffident manner. The effect was strangely disturbing.

  ‘Well, now, what about a sherry?’ said Josephine briskly, as if there were no other drink. ‘ A medium dry for everyone?’

  The drinks came and were gratefully seized upon. It was difficult, perhaps impossible, to name a toast, so each woman took a rather furtive sip and then set down her glass.

  ‘I thought it was a good idea for us to meet together like this,’ said Josephine, as if beginning to fear that it might not be after all.

  ‘Yes, we were all fond of Tom,’ said Catherine, rising to the occasion. ‘I suppose in a way we represent all the different aspects of his life.’

  ‘Yes. I have known him the longest, of course,’ said Josephine, ‘but Elaine has known him since childhood too. We all went to children’s parties together, just imagine it.’ She smiled Tom’s smile.

  ‘He always hated them,’ said Elaine gently. ‘He was so shy,’

  ‘I knew him for less than a year,’ Deirdre broke in abruptly. ‘I was sitting in the anthropology department one morning and he came in wearing his old blue corduroy jacket, and we went out and had a drink …’ her voice faltered and she turned her head away.

  ‘Shall we go in to lunch now?’ said Josephine. ‘The dining- room is through this way,’

  They got up and walked slowly, in a kind of procession, into a large well-proportioned room, whose walls were hung with oil-paintings of middle-aged and elderly women. Catherine wondered who they were, for she was not clear as to the function of the club, the particular kind of tie that bound its members together. It must, she thought, be something to do with the Empire or politics, and must surely be rather more than the wearing of good clothes and furs and real pearls and accounts at the best London shops.

  ‘Who were these women?’ she asked brightly. ‘What did they do?’

  ‘Do?’ Josephine seemed puzzled. ‘I’m not sure that they did anything particular, they were just people who belonged in the past, the more distinguished members, I suppose.’

  ‘Did they ride to hounds, perhaps?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘Perhaps they did,’ said Elaine with her pleasant smile. ‘It could be that. You see, this is a club for country women up in London. My mother used to belong,’

  ‘Now, what shall we eat?’ Josephine was studying the menu.

  Another was placed before Catherine who read down the list of dishes in a daze, seeing only in a kind of horror that braised heart was five shillings.

  ‘I’m not really very hungry,’ Deirdre murmured.

  ‘But it’s a cold day and we ought to have a good meal,’ said Elaine sensibly. ‘I should think soup to begin with and then perhaps roast lamb or boiled chicken,’

  The others accepted her suggestions gratefully, glad to have the choice made for them.

  ‘The District Officer has very kindly sent all Tom’s papers back by boat,’ said Josephine, ‘but they haven’t actually arrived yet. Elaine and I were wondering whether you or Deirdre would like to have them. Of course we shouldn’t really know what to do with them or even understand what they were,’ she said comfortably. ‘It seems a pity that we should have them if there’s anything of value to anthropology in them.’

  ‘You could send them to Miss Clovis,’ Deirdre suggested. ‘She would know what to do with them or who would be able to make use of them. Or perhaps Professor Fairfax might be better.’

  ‘You wouldn’t like to have them yourself?’

  ‘Oh, no, please, I …’ Deirdre stammered in confusion, overcome with dismay at the picture of herself and Digby starting their life together with the burden of poor Tom’s field notes upon them.

  ‘Of course I could get Harrods to store them,’ said Josephine practically. ‘I believe there are seven or eight large wooden chests. To think of Tom writing all that I ‘ she laughed.

  ‘Some of them probably contain carvings and sculpture,’ said Catherine.

  ‘You mean African carvings?’ sai
d Josephine. ‘Well, I suppose that would be very crude stuff wouldn’t it, not the kind of thing one would want to have in one’s house?’

  ‘Oh, some of them are positively rude I ‘ said Catherine, temporarily forgetting herself. ‘Of course they wouldn’t go very well in some rooms,’ she added quickly. ‘ I believe you have some lovely dogs,’ she went on, turning to Elaine. ‘Tom often spoke about them.’

  ‘Yes, my golden retrievers, they are rather sweet. Tom told us that you wrote stories and were a very good cook,’ said Elaine simply.

  Catherine wondered if that was all Elaine knew. She hoped that she had perhaps been spared the full knowledge of what their relationship had been, but she felt that even had she known all she might have understood and forgiven.

  ‘Tom’s grave is in the cemetery out there,’ said Josephine rather gruffly, ‘and we shall have a tablet put up in the church at home. We thought you and Deirdre might like to know. It will be something quite simple, of course.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Catherine, wondering why people always said things like ‘quite simple, of course’. Presumably they had not in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and she felt now that she would have liked Tom’s memorial tablet to have weeping cherubs and a wealth of beautifully tortured marble surrounding it. As it was, she supposed it would be a flat piece of stone or brass with dull simple lettering, possibly outlined in red; the kind of thing for which some rather cowardly diocesan official could grant a faculty without any fear of criticism.

  After coffee and some more general conversation it seemed to be time for them to go their separate ways.

  ‘I’m going to see my aunt in Belgravia,’ said Josephine. ‘My cousin has just managed to get herself engaged—in her first season, too. Good show, isn’t it.’

  ‘Oh yes’ said Catherine sincerely. ‘Your aunt seemed anxious because she was so tall.*

  ‘Well, Guards’ officers are the answer to that,’ laughed Josephine. Then she became serious and, drawing Catherine aside, said in a low voice, ‘I don’t suppose anybody told you, I suppose nobody would, really, but a half-written letter to Elaine was found on the table in Tom’s hut. The District Officer sent it with some small personal things. It was a nice chatty letter, you know, but at least she is able to know that he was thinking of her so very shortly before the end.’