by Barbara Pym
Viola heard this with dismay, for she was not of a gregarious nature. If she could not talk to Aylwin Forbes she would go to bed and read, but the thought of the little cell-like room was not inviting and she found herself moving with the others into a sort of common-room, crowded with little armchairs and pervaded by the smell of coffee and the clatter of teaspoons.
‘It will be nice to have a cup of coffee,’ said Dulcie.
Viola thought with irritation that Dulcie was just the kind of person who would say it was ‘nice’ to have a cup of indifferent coffee with a lot of odd-looking people. She had already classified her as a ‘do-gooder’, the kind of person who would interfere in the lives of others with what are known as ‘the best motives’. She determined to shake her off as soon as she could. It was unfortunate that their rooms were next to each other. Viola even considered asking that her room might be changed, but it seemed hardly worth while for a week-end. Besides, she did not know whom to ask.
The common-room had glass doors at one end, beyond which there seemed to be a kind of conservatory. Viola contrived to get separated from Dulcie in the coffee queue and to slip through the doors — unnoticed, she hoped.
It was indeed a conservatory, with potted palms and the gnarled stem of a vine breaking out into a profusion of leaves overhead. Viola sat down in a basket chair and looked up at the leafy ceiling from which bunches of black grapes were hanging. It was wonderful to get away from all those dreadful people. What ever had possessed her to come to this conference? She closed her eyes self-consciously, imagining that somebody might come in and find her. But Aylwin Forbes, looking through from the common-room, withdrew hastily at the sight of her, and began an animated conversation with Miss Foy and Miss Randall about mutual acquaintances in the academic world. Eventually, it was Dulcie’s voice, with those of two other women, that broke into Viola’s solitude, saying, ‘Look, here’s a charming conservatory, with a real vine. And grapes too, how lovely! Do you mind if we join you?’
‘Of course not,’ said Viola coldly. ‘Anyone can come in here, I imagine.’
So the evening came to an end, Dulcie and Viola and two women in flowered rayon dresses sitting on the basket chairs, offering each other cigarettes and speculating about the hardness of their beds. It was not long before conversation petered out and Dulcie and Viola retired to their adjacent rooms.
Before she slept, Dulcie thought of the big suburban house where she had lived with her sister and her parents and which was now hers, her parents being dead and her sister married. Outside her bedroom window was a pear tree on which the pears were now ripe; she could almost see them in a Pre-Raphaelite perfection of colour and detail, leaves and fruit. September was her favourite month — the garden full of dahlias and zinnias, Victoria plums to be bottled, pears and apples to be ‘dealt with’, windfalls to be collected and sorted. It had been a good year for fruit and there would be a lot to do. The house was big, almost ‘rambling’, but very soon her niece Laurel — her sister’s child — was coming to London to take a secretarial course and would be living there. Dulcie looked forward to planning her room. She would have liked the house to be full of people; it might even be possible to let rooms. There were so many lonely people in the world. Here Dulcie’s thoughts took another turn and she began to think about the things that worried her in life — beggars, distressed gentlefolk, lonely African students having doors shut in their faces, people being wrongfully detained in mental homes …
It must have been much later — for she was conscious of having been woken — that there was a tap on her door.
‘Who is it?’ she called out, curious rather than alarmed.
A figure appeared in the doorway — like Lady Macbeth, Dulcie thought incongruously. It was Viola, her dark hair hanging loose on her shoulders, wearing a dressing-gown of some material that gleamed palely in the dim light. Dulcie saw that it was lilac satin.
‘I’m so sorry, I must have woken you up,’ Viola said. ‘But I couldn’t sleep. The dreadful thing is that I seem to have forgotten my sleeping pills. I can’t think how it can have happened. I never go anywhere without them …’ She sounded desperate, on the edge of tears.
‘I’ve got some Rennies,’ said Dulcie, sitting up in bed.
‘Oh, I haven’t got indigestion,’ said Viola impatiently, irritated at Dulcie’s assumption that it was a stomach upset that had prevented her from sleeping.
‘I always find that if I read a nice soothing book it sends me off to sleep,’ said Dulcie, meaning to be helpful. ‘But is there something worrying you? I think there must be. Is it Aylwin Forbes?’ she asked kindly,
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Viola sat down on the bed.
‘You love him or something like that?’ Dulcie was not perhaps choosing her words very skilfully, but it was, after all, the middle of the night.
‘I don’t know, really. You see, his wife has left him, gone back to her mother, and I should have thought — all things considered — that he’d have — well, turned to me.’
‘Turned to you? For comfort, yes, I see.’
‘We did this work together — we were such friends, so of course I thought…’
‘Perhaps he thinks it’s rather soon — I mean, to turn to anybody.’
‘But comfort — surely one could do so much. I should be so glad to do what I could.’
‘Yes, of course one does like to, perhaps women enjoy that most of all — to feel that they’re needed and doing good.’
‘It isn’t a question of my enjoying anything,’ said Viola sharply. ‘I want to do what I can for him.’
Dulcie wanted to ask more about the wife’s leaving — had she been driven to it by something he had done? — but she did not feel she could do so yet. From the way Viola was talking it seemed that Aylwin Forbes was the injured one.
‘Perhaps his grief has gone too deep,’ she suggested.
‘But he has come to this conference.’
‘Yes, to take his mind off things. It might well do that.’
‘But I feel he’s avoiding me,’ Viola went on. ‘He was very awkward when we met before dinner, didn’t you notice?’
‘Well, the gong rang almost immediately and everybody started to push forward — it would have been awkward for anybody.’
‘Then afterwards, when I was sitting by myself in the conservatory’ — Viola seemed to be speaking her thoughts aloud — ‘I think he looked in through the glass doors and didn’t come in because he saw me there.’
‘He may have thought it would be draughty, or that you didn’t want to be disturbed,’ said Dulcie, becoming increasingly feeble in her reassurances as sleep threatened to overtake her. ‘I’m sure things will be better in the morning,’ she went on, feeling that this was really the coward’s way out. ‘Do you think you will be able to sleep now?’
What a pity we can’t make a cup of Ovaltine, was her last conscious thought. Life’s problems are often eased by hot milky drinks.
Chapter Two
NEXT morning Dulcie was conscious of a tramping of footsteps past her door, almost as if the place were on fire and people were hurrying to safety. It was some time before she realized that it was nothing more alarming than enthusiasm for early morning tea. All these people, whose thoughts were normally on learned matters, had shown themselves to be human. Dulcie got out of bed, put on her dressing-gown and combed her hair. She decided to get a cup of tea for Viola, who had probably slept badly after her disturbed night.
Aylwin Forbes lay in his bed listening to the clink of spoons in saucers. In his capacity as a lecturer at the conference he had imagined that a servant — perhaps even in cap and apron — would bring him a tray of tea at a suitable time. He was unprepared for the appearance of Miss Randall, in hair-net and pince-nez and the flowered quilted dressing-gown he already knew, standing in the doorway with a cup and saucer in her hand.
‘You lucky men, lying in bed while we women wait on you,’ she said, in an uncharacteristically arch
tone, perhaps to cover her embarrassment at seeing him all tousled and in his pyjamas. ‘Sugar’s in the saucer — I didn’t know if you took it.’
She put the cup down on the bedside table and tiptoed heavily from the room.
‘Thank you so much!’ he called after her. ‘I didn’t realize we had to …’ but she was gone, and anyway he felt at a disadvantage, lying in his bed.
He raised himself on one elbow, pushed aside with the spoon the two brownish sodden lumps of sugar in the saucer, and took a sip of tea. It tasted strong and bitter. Like Life? he wondered. Perhaps like the lives of women — his wife Marjorie, and Viola Dace, reclining in a basket chair in that conservatory with her eyes closed. ‘Some problems of an editor’, he thought, recalling the title of his lecture, did not, or were not generally reckoned to, include women. Marjorie — going back to her mother in that prim house overlooking the common: what was he supposed to do about that? Viola was perhaps a litde easier to deal with: he could try to speak kindly to her in the presence of others — not at breakfast, of course, but before or after some other meal, when people strolled round the gardens admiring the herbaceous borders.
Breakfast was a rather uneasy meal. It seemed as if the strain of being with a crowd of strange people was felt more at this early hour. Conversation flowed less easily, and the absence of Sunday papers seemed to be deeply felt. Even Miss Foy, serving out porridge and then sausages, was rather subdued.
‘Bangers,’ she murmured in a low tone, but her observation was received without comment.
When the meal was nearly over, two men and a little group of women, wearing hats, came in with the self-conscious air of people who have risen early from their beds to go to church, and now hope — though very humbly — for a breakfast they feel they have earned.
Dulcie noticed that Viola had not yet appeared, though she had seemed to wake up when Dulcie had taken her a cup of tea. As she walked along the corridor to her room Dulcie saw her coming out of a bathroom, wearing the lilac satin dressing-gown, her hair hidden in a flower-printed bath cap to match.
‘You’ve missed breakfast, I’m afraid,’ said Dulcie.
‘Breakfast?’ Viola repeated the word as if it were unfamiliar to her. ‘I couldn’t face it. I never do eat breakfast anyway. That cup of tea was quite enough.’
‘We had sausages,’ said Dulcie, in what she felt was a solid tone.
Viola shuddered. ‘Then I’m certainly glad I didn’t come down. What’s the programme for this morning?’
‘First we are to have the lecture by Aylwin Forbes’ — Dulcie hurried over the name, remembering the painful revelations of the night before — ‘and then’ — her tone brightened — ‘there’s to be a short service in the chapel, undenominational, taken by somebody who’s a lay reader and allowed to take services, I suppose, saying “we” and “us” instead or you”.’
Viola looked puzzled, so Dulcie hastened to explain, ‘I mean in the blessing and that sort of thing — a lay reader can’t say the Lord bless you, he has to say us, because he isn’t in Holy Orders.’
‘Oh, of course,’ said Viola in a bored tone.
‘I must go and tidy my room,’ said Dulcie. ‘I expect I’ll see you at the lecture?’
‘I expect so,’ said Viola, drifting into her room. It was surprising, she felt, that Dulcie had not offered to ‘bag’ her a seat.
Presumably, Dulcie thought, as she contemplated her hollowed mattress, it wouldn’t be particularly upsetting to hear a lecture on a rather dry topic on a Sunday morning from a man one loved or had once loved. But in this she may well have been wrong, not having experienced the power of the tie that shared academic work can forge between two people. Whatever there had been between her and Maurice, it had certainly not been that. ‘You and your “work”,’ he would say, in a fond, mocking tone that Dulcie found painful to recall at this moment.
The lecture was not to be held in the large hall, but in a kind of lounge, with comfortable chairs and a grand piano shrouded in a holland cover. Soon the air was thick with cigarette smoke, the women seeming to smoke more than the men.
Because of the emptiness of their lives, no doubt, most of them being unmarried, Aylwin Forbes thought, as he shuffled through his notes before beginning his lecture.
But before very long he began to wish that smoking had been forbidden — surely it ought to have been;-for it seemed to be making the room uncomfortably stuffy.
He looks even paler than usual, Viola thought. I could never love a man with a ruddy complexion. Marjorie’s leaving him has affected him in some way, undoubtedly — it must have been a shock to his pride, if nothing else. But now he must begin to rearrange his life. It wasn’t natural for a man to be alone. But was he alone; Did one know even that?
Of course, thought Miss Foy, the journal he edits is fortunate in having an exceptionally able assistant editor. What does A. F. really know of the problems of an editor; he didn’t have problems as she knew them. Still, it was always interesting to hear one’s own particular kind of shop talked, though she had heard him lecture better than he was doing this morning. She took another crushed-looking filter-tipped cigarette from a squashed packet and lit it from the stump of the old one. Coffee after this, she hoped. She wouldn’t be attending the church service. A brisk walk round the grounds would be more her idea of worshipping God, if, indeed, He existed.
People always look on indexers as unintelligent drudges, thought Dulcie a little indignantly, as she smiled faintly at an old joke he had just trotted out; but a book can be made or marred by its index. And love and devotion are not necessarily the best qualifications, she thought, remembering the wives and others who undertook what was often acknowledged to be a thankless task. He looks very pale. When you have the opportunity to study him like this you can see that he must be very attractive to women.
Perhaps he could ask for a window to be opened, Aylwin thought, for the room really was extraordinarily hot. Although he was not reading from his notes, he was disconcerted to find that he had lost his place and for a moment he stopped speaking, unable to remember what he had been going to say next. He found himself looking into the audience. Viola Dace was gazing at him — that was the only word for it; embarrassed, he turned his glance elsewhere. Miss Foy’s cigarette holder seemed to be jutting right into his face, then it receded, the room became very dark and from a long way off he heard a woman’s voice, rather a pleasing voice, saying, ‘Something’s the matter — he’s ill!’
Dulcie had hurried up to the platform when she saw him clutch the stand on which his notes were arranged and then stumble, but the chairman had taken him by the shoulders and sat him down in a chair.
‘Brandy!’ called Miss Foy in a loud voice, looking hopefully around her. But it seemed unlikely that any would be forthcoming in such circumstances and company.
‘There is water here,’ said the chairman, pouring some from a carafe which stood on the table.
‘I have some smelling salts,’ said Dulcie calmly. ‘They should revive him, and perhaps a window could be opened?’
Fancy carrying smelling salts about with her, thought Viola scornfully, but wishing that she could have supplied them
Aylwin opened his eyes. ‘Where am I?’ he asked, really knowing perfectly well where he was, but feeling that some such remark might excuse his weakness.
‘You were in the middle of giving a lecture and you — er — had a nasty turn,’ said the chairman solemnly.
Aylwin smiled. ‘Ah, yes, “a nasty turn”,’ he repeated, his Hps quivering with amusement.
Why, he’s beautiful, thought Dulcie suddenly. Like a Greek marble, or something dug up in the garden of an Italian villa, the features a little blunted, with the charm of being not quite perfect.
‘So stupid of me,’ he murmured. ‘I felt rather odd for a moment. But I’ve just had flu.’
‘Well, it’s nothing to be ashamed of,’ said Dulcie, rather in a brisk nurse’s manner. ‘The room was so frightfull
y hot. I think I should go and he down in your room if I were you,’ she added sensibly.
‘Yes.’ He looked up at her gratefully. ‘Perhaps I shall.’ The lecture had been nearly finished and he always disliked the quarter of an hour or so of pointless questions at the end. Nobody could expect him to go on with it now.
‘Oh, dear,’ lamented Miss Foy, ‘I had wanted to ask … but perhaps later, when he’s feeling better.’
The chairman was still standing on the platform, wondering whether it was necessary to bring the proceedings formally to an end. He decided that nothing of the kind was needed, for anything he could say would be an anticlimax after the dramatic scene that had just taken place. He stepped down from the platform and looked rather ostentatiously at his watch.
‘Half an hour to go before the service in the chapel,’ he said to nobody in particular, but as he was the lay reader who was to conduct it he felt that some reminder was necessary. Most of the women seemed to have gathered round Forbes, he noticed, and were all prescribing different remedies and courses to be followed — strong sweet tea, a good rest, a darkened room, a brisk walk in the fresh air, were some that he heard.
His thoughts turned to the service and he hoped that the unfortunate occurrence would not have an adverse effect on the numbers attending it. He also hoped that the harmonium was in good working order and that the lady who had offered to play it was reasonably competent.
‘Of course I’m really an Anglo-Catholic,’ said Viola rather crossly as she and Dulcie walked in the garden, not mentioning Aylwin Forbes, who was sitting on a seat being talked to by Miss Foy. ‘I had hoped to be able to get to Mass somewhere.’
‘Some people went to a Communion service in the village,’ said Dulcie vaguely. ‘Would that count?’
‘Yes, but I couldn’t get up for it after that wretched night. I don’t think I closed my eyes till dawn and then I slept until you came in with the tea.’