by Barbara Pym
‘ I only hope we can find a shady spot for tea,’ said Mrs Dyer, ‘or we shall all get sunstroke.’
‘Unlikely, Mrs Dyer, in our temperate climate,’ Adam assured her.
Tom was less confident but he remembered that there were some fine trees in the grounds of Seedihead Park, where they were going, and hoped they could eat their tea underneath them.
Mrs Dyer went on to tell them all about a ‘mystery tour’, taken by the old people’s association of a neighbouring village (the Evergreen Oldsters), on just such a hot afternoon as this on which they were now setting out. One of the old people on the journey home had been observed to be curiously silent, not joining in the sing-song.
‘And do you know what?’ Mrs Dyer waited for an answer.
‘He was dead?’ said Emma brightly. ‘Or was it an old woman?’
‘No, it was an old gentleman.’
‘I thought as much – a woman would have more consideration than to do a thing like that, to die on an outing, with all the inconvenience.’
‘Oh come. Miss Howick – aren’t you being a bit hard on us?’ Adam protested.
‘ He was sat in his seat,’ Mrs Dyer went on, feeling that attention was being diverted from her, ‘quiet, with his mouth open – they thought he was asleep.’
‘But he was dead,’ Emma repeated.
‘They didn’t know what to do – should they stop the coach or go on?’
‘And those notices you see outside pubs – NO COACHES or COACHES WELCOME,’ said Emma, embroidering the theme. ‘Which to stop at? That must have been a problem.’
‘It would seem best in those circumstances to return home,’ said Adam. ‘Did they do that?’
Mrs Dyer seemed flustered by a direct question and began to protest that it was in another village and how should she know what they had done.
‘I expect they stopped the sing-song,’ said Adam, ‘when they saw what had happened. Or perhaps history doesn’t relate that detail.’
‘No – one wonders what we are failing to record now that future historians will blame us for,’ said Tom. ‘It’s impossible to cover everything.’ He recalled that several members of the society were going round the villages with tape-recorders in an attempt to capture the ‘immediacy’ of local happenings as they occurred, but the results so far had been curiously disappointing. They lacked the vividness of a Wood or Aubrey or Hearne, he felt. Perhaps we were all flattened out into a kind of uniform dullness these days – something to do with the welfare state and the rise of the consumer society. And then we were taken care of from the cradle to the grave, weren’t we, and that must have an effect….
The coach drew up at a handsome gateway flanked by stone animals of an indeterminate species – lions, their features blunted by age, or some mythical beast. The driver said a word to the lodge-keeper and the coach proceeded to move slowly up the drive. This was shaded on either side by thickets of trees, but the surface was broken and uneven. The owner had only recently opened his park and house to the public.
‘You’d think they’d make a better road,’ said Mrs Dyer as the coach lurched along. ‘Is this where we have our packed tea?’ She peered suspiciously into the dark woods on either side.
‘Plenty of shade here, Mrs Dyer,’ said Tom cheerfully. He stood up in the back of the coach, a feeling of liberation coming over him. He knew from experience of such occasions that not everyone would wish to accompany him on a conducted tour of the house – some would prefer to walk in the grounds or sit down under the trees. He looked forward to a congenial talk with Emma and was pleased when he saw that she was waiting to go round the house, waiting almost meekly, like a school-girl in her blue and white cotton dress.
Emma’s appearance of meekness concealed a preoccupation with the letter she had received yesterday from Graham Pettifer and the strange news it contained. He wrote of his desire to ‘get away from things’, to have a chance to ‘get down to’ the book he was working on. He didn’t say anything about wanting to see her again, yet the amazing revelation at the end of the letter did seem to indicate a desire for her company, if nothing more, for he then said quite casually, ‘I’ll be spending the rest of the summer in a cottage I’m renting in your district – thought I ought to warn you!’ The way he had put it was ambiguous, and after the flatness of the flower festival evening she was at a loss to predict what their future relationship might be. And where was this cottage he was going to rent – why had he not asked her to find something for him? The only cottage she could think of was the one in the woods – could it possibly be that?
‘Have you got a freezer, Miss Howick?’ The voice of Magdalen Raven broke in on Emma’s thoughts. It seemed irrelevant when they were examining the Jacobean embroidery on a pair of curtains, but no more so than Emma’s speculations about Graham Pettifer.
‘I? A freezer? No, I haven’t.’
‘Mummy, she probably wouldn’t have, living alone,’ said Avice impatiently. ‘Just that little compartment at the top of the fridge, like you had, remember? You can keep things up to three months and it’s quite useful, but no good for us, of course. We need the very biggest one, what with meat and the veg and fruit from the garden, and I always make an extra casserole, and cakes and bread….’
‘Really?’ said Emma politely. ‘Even bread?’
‘Oh yes – there’s really nothing you can’t freeze, or almost nothing. Cucumber isn’t very successful.
‘There is a connection with the Civil War,’ now Tom’s voice was breaking in.’ We shall be shown the room where certain of the Royalists are said to have met….
‘Are said to?’ Adam repeated. ‘Don’t they know?’
‘One hesitates to claim that kind of knowledge,’ said Tom, ‘but the tradition has been handed down – there is a room at the top of the house known as the king’s room.’
‘That does seem to indicate something,’ said Emma. ‘Could Charles himself have been here?’
The rest of the party had moved on and Emma found herself alone with Tom at the foot of a narrow staircase.
‘That person who was with you at the flower festival,’ he said suddenly, as if wanting to put the question before anyone else joined them, ‘was that a relative?’
‘A relative….’ Emma found herself wanting to laugh – ‘relative’ was the term anthropologists used in their dry accounts of ‘social organisation’. ‘You mean Graham Pettifer? I used to know him when I worked in London.’
‘Ah, London. I expect you got to know a lot of people in your work there.’
‘Yes, I did, certainly. I used to go to a centre for anthropological studies and often met colleagues there.’
‘Colleagues….’ Tom considered the word.
‘People in the same line of business – as you might meet other clergy or people interested in local history.’
Tom looked very doubtful at this but said nothing.
‘Then one often met people in libraries.’
‘Ah, libraries,’ Tom said, but his face clouded over, as if while acknowledging the use and value of libraries he was remembering his sister’s friend Heather Blenkinsop and her unnatural interest in the problems of hedge-dating.
The silence induced by the thought of libraries was broken into by Miss Lee and Magdalen Raven, obviously in a state of agitation.
‘It’s Miss Grundy – something rather upsetting – she’s had a kind of turn.
‘It must be the heat,’ said Tom. ‘I was rather afraid something like this might happen. I blame myself,’ he added. It was so much easier to take the blame, almost expected of him.
‘Oh, it’s not that,” said Miss Lee impatiently, ‘not that kind of turn – more like an experience – she says she’s seen something, some person from the past.’
‘A ghost?’ Emma suggested. ‘Or something like Miss Moberly and Miss Jourdain at Versailles?’
‘We’d better go to her,’ said Tom, ‘see if there’s anything we can do.’
They fo
und Miss Grundy in a small anteroom, sitting on a folding chair, surrounded by a group of sympathetic but puzzled fellow tourists. A white-haired woman, wearing a flowered nylon overall, was standing over her holding a cup of tea.
‘One of the housekeepers,’ Magdalen whispered, ‘she’s been so kind.’
Would tea be the most appropriate drink in the circumstances? Emma wondered. But it was what everybody would think of, what would spring to mind.
‘What did she see?’ Tom asked of whoever was prepared to answer, for Miss Grundy seemed incapable of speech but sat staring in front of her.
‘A young man with long hair, wearing a brightly coloured coat – rather in an Oriental style, she said, when she told us – she was a bit confused, of course, and now she doesn’t seem to want to say any more,’ said Magdalen. ‘Perhaps Avice would know what to do – but she’s gone on ahead.’
‘ There’s no need to bother your daughter,’ said Miss Lee, irritated by the fuss. ‘It was probably a modern young man she saw –you know how young people dress now and how long they wear their hair. Come along, Flavia,’ she said firmly, ‘we’re going to have our tea now.’
‘Yes, tea would obviously be a solution,’ said Tom to Emma.
The little episode had created a bond of sympathy between them and both seemed conscious of it. Tom reflected on the difficulties of living with a person with whom one did not always see eye to eye. Emma had the same kind of thoughts and then found herself wondering about Tom and Daphne and speculating on why he hadn’t managed to achieve a more congenial living arrangement or ‘life style’. Surely he, an attractive and intelligent man, could have contrived to marry again?
Some members of the party had already established themselves under a tree on the lawn, not in the dank woods they had seen on entering the park. Emma observed that Mrs Dyer and her companions were sitting at a little distance away from Tom and the history ladies who were crowding round him, but she was sure it was none of Tom’s doing. No doubt he would strenuously attempt to maintain equality however uncomfortable it might be – it would be Mrs Dyer who would separate herself and then blame him for it.
Adam Prince lowered himself carefully on to the ground – his new jeans were still a little stiff.
‘I hope you won’t judge our efforts by the standards you expect in your restaurants,’ said Miss Lee, handing him tea in a green plastic cup but not caring in the least what his opinion was. Adam Prince’s ‘work’ was a joke in the village – it seemed hardly credible that people could be paid money to go around eating meals at expensive restaurants.
‘I’m sure the tea will be up to your usual standard,’ said Adam, now the smooth-tongued clergyman rather than the restaurant inspector; after all, he had a long experience of the more humble side of catering.
‘Can we picnic in the grounds of our own stately home?’ Emma asked. ‘The manor, I mean.’
‘We’ve never tried,’ said Tom. ‘Somehow the question has never arisen. I think we should feel there was something inappropriate about it – too near home, perhaps.’
‘In the old days’, said Miss Lee, ‘the school-children were given a tea in the manor grounds in August.’
‘That kind of thing’s not necessary now,’ said Avice. ‘People can stand on their own feet without patronage of that kind.’
Of course – Mother’s Pride and Heinz baked beans (thanks, Mum), Emma thought. There was no need for the Lord of the Manor to entertain the children of his tenants in these days.
‘But can people stand on their own feet?’ Adam was asking. ‘People seem less capable now – they seem to need more help rather than less.’
‘Oh well, there are the supportive services, certainly,’ Avice agreed, ‘and that’s just as it should be. But all that patronage and paternalism or whatever you like to call it has been swept away, and a good thing too.’
‘Perhaps the people have been swept away too,’ said her mother.
‘Yes – I certainly miss the manor and all it stood for – we haven’t got any kind of centre to the village now,’ said Miss Lee.
‘I suppose the clergy and the doctors have taken the place of the gentry,’ Emma said.
Avice was prepared to acknowledge this, though she thought the doctors should have been placed first. Tom merely smiled; he was thinking of the encounter with Dr G. in the mausoleum and how we all came to the same thing in the end – dust and/or ashes, however you liked to think of it.
‘Do you ever hear anything of Miss Vereker?’ Tom asked Miss Lee. He had been reminded of ‘the last governess’ and how she had liked to visit the mausoleum.
‘Yes, we keep in touch. I had a card at Christmas, a charity card, of course – was it the National Trust or the Gardeners’ Benevolent Fund? I can’t remember, something to do with Nature. She wrote a few words on the back.’
‘I find most people tend to do that, now that the postage is all the same,’ said Magdalen.
‘Miss Vereker is giving up her flat and going to live with her nephew and his wife,’ said Miss Grundy, speaking for the first time since her ‘experience’.
‘She would miss her flat,’ said Magdalen. ‘It’s always rather sad to give up one’s independence.’
‘Oh Mummy, what a way to talk! You certainly haven’t done that,’ said Avice. ‘I don’t know what we should do without you – all your little jobs in the house and your baby-sitting – nobody could say you weren’t independent.’
‘I’m going to have a cigarette to keep the midges off,’ said Magdalen suddenly.
‘Now you know what Martin thinks about smoking,’ said Avice on a warning note.
‘Yes, it is agreeable to smoke out of doors sometimes,’ said Adam, offering his old-fashioned silver cigarette case. ‘Try one of mine, Mrs Raven.’
‘Does the governess – Miss Vereker – come back here sometimes?’ Tom asked. He had never heard that she did but it occurred to him that it might be possible to pick her brains, even take a tape-recording of her memories of life at the manor.
‘She hasn’t been lately,’ said Miss Lee. ‘The fare would be rather a drain on her resources, even with a Senior Citizen’s rail-card.’
There was a brief silence of embarrassment. Tom wondered if the P.C.C. might do something, rector’s discretion fund sort of thing, but he didn’t like to suggest it.
‘Better for her to stay where she is, in London,’ said Miss Grundy, who was thinking of the choice of churches even in West Kensington where, she believed, the nephew and his wife lived.
‘You’ll be glad to have Daphne back, won’t you?’ said Miss Lee. She felt that Tom got somehow out of control – though she could hardly have specified in what way – when his sister was on holiday.
‘She talks of getting a dog,’ Tom said, imagining the animal bounding all over the place, upsetting everything.
In another bus on an equally hot day Daphne rested her eyes on the grey-green of the olive groves, “miles and miles, kilometres and kilometres of them, stretching as far as one could see. She let the sound from the driver’s transistor radio pour over her, loud blaring music, songs with an Oriental strain. She closed her eyes, basking in noise and heat. Now she was hearing again the croaking of the frogs as they had walked last night in the town, and in a side street catching sight of whole animals – lambs, she supposed – roasting on spits. Then, earlier, dazzled by the ugly white cube-like buildings of a village baking in the mid-day sun, such a contrast to the dull damp greyness of her home. She did not consciously compare them, living entirely in the present with no memory of any kind of past. She remembered seeing animals crowded together in a kind of shelter in a field, and for some extraordinary reason this reminded her of Tom’s history ladies, but only for a moment. She did not dwell on the memory but pushed it away from her.
The Sunday after the history society excursion, Emma went to Evensong. She found the ill-attended service more restful, even more ‘meaningful’ than the morning ‘family’ service with its cryi
ng children. She did not gain much from the sermon, for she was inattentive, but she had the impression that it was not one of Tom’s better ones, an unsuccessful mingling of past and present. Afterwards she hurried away, not waiting to say goodnight in the porch.
Opposite the church there was a cottage which always interested her because its garden was crowded with derelict motorcars. The owner seemed just to deposit his old car when he bought a new one, like a snake shedding its skin. The process reminded her of old animals, or even old people, being sheltered in a kind of rest-home. There was something peculiarly charming, even beautiful, about the sight of the cars, one still shrouded in the grey plastic cover which had protected it from the rain of the nineteen fifties, and Emma stood for a while looking over the broken-down wall into an orchard where through the trees she caught sight of something that looked like a bull-nosed Morris, surely a vehicle of historic importance? She wondered if Tom knew about it, but then of course his historical interests lay farther back and he probably regarded the abandoned motorcars merely as an eyesore, as some of the villagers did. Yet it was all a sort of history and was there not something significant and appropriate about this particular kind of graveyard being opposite the church – a kind of mingling of two religious faiths, the ancient and the modern? ‘A Note on the Significance of the Abandoned MotorCar in a West Oxfordshire Village’ might pin it down, she felt.
Once home she sat with her notes and forgot what she had just seen. Later she took out Graham’s letter again and pondered over it. There may be an unlimited number of things that can happen to the ordinary person, but there are only a few twists to the man-woman story. For instance, it would be more satisfactory if Graham could expand on the bare information contained in his letter – if he could indicate something of his feelings, even. That might help her to clarify her own, for she was not sure whether she wanted him or not. There is such a thing as the telephone, she thought, glancing at the silent instrument. Its fashionable shade of grey suggested peace and repose, (unless one thought of grey as the colour of desolation, which it might also be).