by Barbara Pym
‘I hear Miss Vereker paid a surprise visit,’ Daphne was saying. ‘I’d have liked to have met her, having heard so much about her. Tom said she was discovered wandering in the woods, somewhere near the site of the deserted medieval village.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Of course that’s all he thinks about, especially when he’s by himself. I can’t help wondering how he’s been getting on without me. I suppose that’s” why I sometimes feel I ought to come back – for Tom’s sake.’
‘Oh, do you really?’ said Isobel, coming back into the conversation. ‘I think it’s a great mistake to go back to a place. It would be like living your life backwards, wouldn’t it? We must go on and up!' She gesticulated to that effect. She was evidently speaking in her role of headmistress, though her meaning was not altogether clear.
‘But Tom has always been so helpless,’ Daphne protested.
Beatrix produced a rather exaggerated laugh, as if to dismiss any idea of Tom being in need of any kind of help that Daphne might be able to give him. ‘I shouldn’t worry about your brother,’ she said firmly. ‘Men aren’t nearly as helpless as women like to think,’ she added, to strengthen her case. ‘I think you’ll find that Tom has….’ She had been going to say ‘other fish to fry’, but rejected the culinary analogy as inappropriate, and substituted ‘plans of his own.’
‘Plans?’ Daphne echoed in disbelief. ‘Tom never has plans, except for medieval fields or villages. He hasn’t said anything to me about any plans.”
‘Beatrix thinks he may be thinking of marrying,’ Isobel declared, bringing it out into the open.
‘You don’t mean he’s asked you to marry him?’ Daphne burst out in a way that could hardly be interpreted as flattering to Isobel.
Isobel flushed but said nothing, and again Beatrix wondered if she had entertained hopes of Tom for herself. On the other hand, perhaps she was beginning to realise what was in Beatrix’s mind. The three women – Beatrix, Isobel and Daphne – stood in silence, looking over to where Tom was standing with Emma. They appeared to be laughing together over one of Dr G.’s antique surgical instruments.
Beatrix wondered how Emma was going to react to the plans that were about to be made for her. And, of course, how Tom would react, for that must also be taken into consideration. But he was less important and more easily manipulated, she felt –manipulation might not even be necessary.
As well as Dr G.’s antique surgical instruments, a few ‘bygones’ had been displayed on the table by which Tom and Emma were standing-examples of treen, such as a wooden apple-scoop and a dish and platter, and a collection of faded sepia photographs depicting groups of country people engaged in various rural activities that could apply to any region.
‘Did your friend Dr Pettifer finish that book he was working on?’ Tom asked. ‘I was wondering whether we might ask him to give a talk to the society sometime.’
Emma hesitated for so long and seemed so doubtful that Tom feared that he might have said something ‘out of turn’ or dropped a brick in the way he knew the clergy sometimes did. Was the thought of Graham Pettifer still painful to her?
‘I don’t think he’d be likely to give a very suitable talk,’ said Emma stiffly. She took up one of the sepia photographs and began to peer at it. ‘People in front of the manor,’ she said, ‘on some nameless, long forgotten social occasion?’
‘Oh then, perhaps you yourself,’ Tom said, as if suddenly inspired, ‘you’ve been in the village some time now and must have made notes on certain aspects of our life here, come to your own conclusions. You could relate your talk to things that happened in the past’ – he indicated the photograph she was studying –‘or even speculate on the future – what might happen in the years to come.’
‘Yes, I might do that,’ Emma agreed, but without revealing which aspect she proposed to deal with. She remembered that her mother had said something about wanting to let the cottage to a former student, who was writing a novel and recovering from an unhappy love affair. But this was not going to happen, for Emma was going to stay in the village herself. She could write a novel and even, as she was beginning to realise, embark on a love affair which need not necessarily be an unhappy one.