by Barbara Pym
‘I hope I didn’t wake you,’ said Dulcie anxiously. ‘I thought you might like to have a cup.’ That was the worst of trying to be helpful, she reflected; so often one did the wrong thing.
‘I should have had to wake up some time,’ said Viola, not really answering the question. ‘And it was kind of you to bring the tea, even though it was Indian.’
Dulcie bowed her head and they walked in silence into the little chapel, which seemed to be filled with a greenish light from the leaves of rhododendrons and other shrubs pressing against the windows. A youngish woman, looking grimly determined, sat pedalling at the harmonium.
It seemed hardly suitable that the first hymn should be ‘All things bright and beautiful’. Dulcie sang in a loud indignant voice, waiting for the lines
The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate,
God made them high or lowly and ordered their estate,
but they never came. Then she saw that the verse had been left out. She sat down, feeling cheated of her indignation.
The lay reader then gave a short address. He tried to show how all work can be done to the Glory of God, even making an index, correcting a proof, or compiling an accurate bibliography. His small congregation heard him say, almost with disappointment, that those who do such work have perhaps less opportunity of actually doing evil than those who write novels and plays or work for films or television.
But there is more satisfaction in scrubbing a floor or digging a garden, Dulcie thought. One seems nearer to the heart of things doing menial tasks than in making the most perfect index. Again her thoughts wandered to her home and all that needed to be done there, and she began to wonder why she had come to the conference when she had so many better ways of occupying her time. It was not until the lay reader, in his extempore prayers, made a vague reference to ‘one of our number who has been taken ill’ that she remembered Aylwin Forbes and his beauty, the way his eyes had opened when she bent over him, the hollows of his temples. The sight of him had made her forget Maurice for a moment. Then there was Viola who, in spite of her rather hostile manner, seemed to be an ‘interesting’ person, somebody who might even become a friend.
Before lunch she saw the two of them standing in the vinery together, and it occurred to her that she might easily see them again — if not by chance, then by asking them to her house for a meal one evening. She almost began to plan the menu and the other guests.
Aylwin lifted his glass to drink the cold dark wine which might almost have been made from the wizened grapes hanging above their heads. Only in a Mediterranean climate can one experience a shock of pleasure from the roughness of such a wine, he thought. Certainly not in Derbyshire.
‘Evenings are really better than lunch-times for me,’ Viola was saying, ‘and there’s more time to talk.’
Chapter Three
DULCIE lived in a pleasant part of London which, while it was undoubtedly a suburb, was ‘highly desirable’ and, to continue in the estate agent’s words, ‘took the overflow from Kensington’. ‘And Harrods do deliver’, as her next-door neighbour Mrs Beltane so often repeated.
Dulcie did most of her work at home — an arrangement which dated from the time when her mother had been alive and in need of attention during the day. Now she was free, but she still preferred not to be bound by routine and had built up a useful reputation as a competent indexer and proof-corrector, the sort of person who could even do a little mild ‘research’ in the British Museum or the libraries of learned societies.
The day after she got back from the conference was a brilliant September morning. She did a little work on an index, washed some clothes and had lunch in the garden. The woman who came to help her in the house was due in the afternoon, and she prepared herself to listen to her varied conversation.
Miss Lord was a tall grey-haired spinster who had formerly worked in the haberdashery department of one of the big Kensington stores. But she had found the long mornings, standing about with nothing much to do, boring and exhausting, and had turned to housework, for which she had a natural talent and which nowadays did not seem to be regarded as in any way degrading. Probably because of her connection with haberdashery she had a passion for small gadgets and ‘daintiness’, as she put it, which was encouraged by the advertisements on commercial television with their emphasis on this aspect of life. She did not care for men, with their roughness and lack of daintiness, though the clergy were excepted, unless they smoked pipes. She herself liked a filter-tipped cigarette with a cup of tea or coffee, and she sat smoking one now, while Dulcie made Nescafe at the stove.
‘I tried a new place for lunch today,’ she said.
‘Oh? “What did you have?’ Miss Lord always told Dulcie exactly what she had eaten for lunch on the days when she came in the afternoon.
‘Egg on welsh and a Russian cream,’ said Miss Lord. ‘Quite nice, really.’
‘It sounds…’ Dulcie hesitated for a word — ‘delicious,’ she pronounced with rather more emphasis than she had intended. ‘What exactly is Russian cream?’
‘It’s a kind of mousse with a sponge base and jelly on the top,’ said Miss Lord. ‘The jelly can be red, yellow or orange.’ She finished her coffee. ‘Were you going to throw these flowers away? Unsightly, aren’t they.’ She bundled up some slimy-stalked zinnias and dahhas in The Times Literary Supplement and went out to the dustbin with them.
‘The garden’s looking lovely,’ she said as she came back. ‘Will you be cutting some fresh flowers for these vases?’
‘Yes, later,’ said Dulcie, ‘but I must do something about the plums. I’ve been worrying about them all the week-end.’
‘Oh, a garden’s a responsibility,’ sighed Miss Lord. ‘The fruits of the earth… Harvest festival soon. Will you be sending something along to the church?’ she asked deliberately.
The same question was asked every autumn and the same answer given, for Dulcie was not a regular churchgoer and Miss Lord was.
‘I don’t think so,’ Dulcie said, ‘but if you’d like to take anything, please do. Plums or apples, and flowers, of course.’
‘So kind of you, Miss Mainwaring. Of course we have no garden and one does like to do one’s bit. I suppose I could bake a loaf, but anything to do with yeast is so troublesome, isn’t it. One never knows… A year or two ago we did have a loaf in church, quite a beautiful thing, a fancy shape, plaited. But do you know,’ she lowered her voice, ‘it was made of plaster. I thought that very wrong. You couldn’t send a plaster loaf to the hospital, could you.’
‘I suppose not — it would indeed be a case of asking for bread and being given a stone.’
‘Well, Miss Mainwaring, it would be being given plaster, wouldn’t it. It was when we had the new vicar, the one who wanted us to call him Father — that, on top of the plaster loaf! Well, we com-plained to the Bishop, and could you blame us?’
‘No, change is a bad thing on the whole,’ said Dulcie. ‘You know that my niece Laurel is coming to live here soon, don’t you?’
‘Your sister’s eldest child? Yes, Miss Mainwaring, you did mention it. Which room is she to have?’
‘I thought the big back room would be best.’
‘The room Mrs Mainwaring had?’ asked Miss Lord in a hushed tone.
‘Yes, I think it’s better that it should be used again now. I thought we might do something about it the next time you come. We could put the big bed in the spare room and move in one of the divans; and then she will want a bookcase.’
‘All this reading,’ said Miss Lord. ‘I used to like a book occasionally, but I don’t get time for it now.’
‘I took my degree in English Literature,’ said Dulcie, almost to herself.
‘But what does it lead to, Miss Mainwaring?’
‘I don’t know exactly. Of course learning is an end in itself, and a subject like English Literature can give one a good deal of pleasure.’
‘Yes, I suppose it’s nice,’ said Miss Lord doubtfully.
‘Like you do, Miss Mainwaring, with all those cards and bits of paper spread out on the floor.’ Miss Lord laughed, a light derisive laugh.
Dulcie felt humbled and went on in silence picking out the over-ripe plums from the not so ripe.
‘I think I’ll stew these for this evening,’ she said. ‘I’ll put them on now.’
As she worked, Dulcie planned Laurel’s room. The old blue velvet curtains were rather drab and faded, though they kept out the draughts in winter and the room seemed cosy when they were drawn. Perhaps a modern print would be gayer and more suitable for a young girl… What dreary thoughts to have on a fine afternoon, she told herself, ashamed even of the language in which they had framed themselves. It must be the contact with poor Miss Lord or the thought of herself as an aunt responsible for a niece. Laurel’s mother, Dulcie’s sister Charlotte, lived in Dorset, where her husband Robin was headmaster of a grammar school and curator of the local museum in his spare time. Laurel was the eldest of their three children and had just left school. Dulcie imagined herself trying to cope with the mysterious moods of adolescence, lying awake worrying when Laurel was out late. She was not looking forward to it very much, but it seemed inevitable that the girl should come to live with her. She could hardly have stayed in digs or a hostel when she had an aunt in London, or so Charlotte thought.
Through the trees and the fence at the end of the garden Dulcie could see her neighbour, Mrs Beltane, sitting in a flowery dress in a flowery canvas chair from Harrods, watching her hose watering the lawn with its special spray attachment. She was an elegant blue-haired, stiffly-moving woman of about sixty, who imagined herself to have seen better days. At least, this was the implication, for she had let the top floor of her house as a flat to a Brazilian gentleman, a diplomat admittedly, and she never tired of reminding people that of course she would never have done such a thing in ‘the old days’.
Senhor MacBride-Pereira — for he was, like many Brazilians, of mixed nationality — was a nice person, Dulcie thought. He was in his late fifties, rather fat, with soft brown eyes and a delightful smile. He spoke English well and was steeped in English ways and conventions. ‘To be a foreigner is bad enough,’ he would lament, ‘and perhaps to be an American, too, but to be a Latin-American — that is really terrible!’
This afternoon he sat by Mrs Beltane, playing with Felix, the little grey poodle, and talking in his musical voice. Dulcie could not hear what he was saying, but occasionally Mrs Beltane’s silvery laugh was heard tinkling out. In spite of the come-down of having to take a lodger, she enjoyed his company: but there was no risk of scandal, for her two children Paul and Monica lived at home.
Dulcie crept to the fence with a dish of plums in her hand. She did not like to interrupt her neighbours too suddenly, but preferred to stand for a while pretending to tie up the dahlias, then, if they did not notice her, she would creep away with her dish.
‘Why, Miss Mainwaring,’ called out Mr; Beltane in a gracious tone, ‘how splendid your dahlias are!’
‘I was wondering if you’d like a few plums,’ said Dulcie.
‘Plums?’ Mrs Beltane sounded as puzzled as if she had been offered some rare tropical fruit. ‘But how kind. One can always do with plums.’
‘Are they Elvas plums?’ asked Senhor MacBride-Pereira.
‘Well, no, plums off this tree,’ said Dulcie, gesticulating vaguely. ‘I think they’re Victoria plums.’
‘Ah, Victoria plums,’ echoed Senhor MacBride-Pereira with deep satisfaction. ‘My grandfather was at Balmoral once. That was before he came to Sao Paulo, of course.’
Mrs Beltane had advanced towards the fence to receive the dish, which was an ordinary glass casserole.
‘They will look delightful on my Rockingham fruit plates,’ she said. ‘What beautiful ones they are! And how did you enjoy your conference?’
‘Oh, it was great fun!’ said Dulcie enthusiastically, and then began to wonder if it had been exactly that. ‘A lot of people doing the same kind of thing always find plenty to talk about,’ she explained, conscious that this was a dreary description.
‘I never remember what it is that you do, exactly,’ said Mrs Beltane graciously. ‘Some kind of secretarial work, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, you might call it that, really. I do odd jobs for people.’
‘And did you meet anyone nice at this conference?’ asked Mrs Beltane, her tone rising a little with expectancy.
‘There were some nice people there, and interesting people too,’ said Dulcie, wondering if the two qualifications could go together. ‘Aylwin Forbes,’ she said, pronouncing his name with conscious pleasure. ‘He’s very well known in certain circles,’ she added quickly, sensing Mrs Beltane’s boredom. ‘And a very attractive young woman called Viola Dace.’
‘Oh, I see. Dace. Isn’t that a kind of fish?’
‘I don’t know, perhaps it is. I haven’t ever had it.’
‘Not to eat, but I think it is a fish. Senhor MacBride-Pereira, isn’t dace a kind offish?’
He smiled and spread out his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘Perhaps it is eaten by Roman Catholics here?’ he suggested.
Dulcie felt a sense of unreality coming over her, as she often did when in conversation with her neighbours. It was one of their chief charms, their being so out of touch with everyday life and reminding her of England in the ‘twenties or Sao Paulo in the ‘nineties.
Later that evening Dulcie looked up Viola Dace in the telephone directory, but could not find her name. Then she looked up Aylwin Forbes. He lived in the Holland Park or Notting Hill area to judge by the address — 5 Quince Square, W.11. I might see him one day, Dulcie thought. She imagined herself in various places but could not exactly visualize the meeting. Perhaps, she told herself with a quicken-ing of excitement, it would have to be contrived. Women were often able to arrange things that men would have thought impossible.
Chapter Four
ONE isn’t safe anywhere, thought Aylwin Forbes, turning his head away quickly. He had just spent a fruitless morning discussing his matrimonial affairs with his solicitor, and now this had happened.
And yet it had been a small harmless incident with no danger apparent in it. He had been walking through the Temple, and, attracted by the fine weather, had made a slight diversion into the gardens in front of Temple station which were now full of office workers enjoying their lunch hour in the sunshine. They sat crowded together on seats among the dahlias, reading books and newspapers, holding hands, talking, or doing nothing. Those who had found no seat lay sprawled on the grass, some prudently on newspapers or macintoshes, others not caring or asking themselves if the grass might be damp after yesterday’s rain. And among these last he had suddenly noticed Viola Dace, sitting upright, her hands clasped around her knees, her face raised to the sun. He had looked at her with curiosity before he recognized her, for his attention had been drawn to her feet in red canvas laced-up shoes, which he thought distinctly odd. That was why he had not realized at first who she was, for such a lapse of taste was not to be expected of the Viola he knew, though Vi or Violet might well have been capable ofit.
He hurried past her and into the station. As he sighed with relief and bought his ticket to South Kensington, he wondered what she had been doing there in such unlikely surroundings. Had she become a little eccentric, even unhinged, sitting on the grass in red canvas shoes with office workers, apparently worshipping the sun? Could it be for love of him that she did this strange thing? He looked around him, as if the faces of the people surging up the stairs from a train which had just come in might give him the answer. And among the faces, he saw one that was vaguely familiar. It was a fair pleasant face and the sight of it reminded him of that unfortunate lecture where he had made such an exhibition of himself. But he could not put a name to the face, and in a moment he had forgotten all about it and his thoughts had gone forward to the Victor
ia and Albert Museum where he planned to spend the afternoon.
Dulcie was half annoyed and half amused to find that the sight of him gave her a fluttery disturbed feeling in the pit of her stomach — what people called ‘butterflies’, she believed. He had looked preoccupied and a little worried, but then people usually did when they were caught unawares. She noticed that he had been carrying an Evening Standard, and it gave her an insight into his character to see that he was the kind of person who bought an evening paper at lunch-time, thus spoiling his evening’s pleasure, or so she thought. She might almost have spoken, but the encounter had been over so quickly. And what would she have said?
She had had a busy morning, shopping for curtain material for Laurel’s room and ordering a bookcase and desk to make the room more useful and attractive. But somehow it made her feel old and depressed to be doing this for a nearly grown-up niece. Then, at Oxford Circus, she had seen a new and particularly upsetting beggar selling matches; both legs were in irons and he was sitting on a little stool, hugging himself as if in pain. She had given him sixpence and walked quickly on, telling herself firmly that there was no need for this sort of thing now, with the Welfare State. But she still felt disturbed, even at the idea that he might be sitting by his television set later that evening, no longer hugging himself as if in pain. Such a way of earning one’s living seemed even more degrading than making indexes for other people’s bocks or doing bits of hack research in the British Museum and the Public Record Office. It was for the latter that she was bound this afternoon, and the chance sight of Aylwin Forbes made her feel, in an obscure and illogical way, that there was perhaps something in research after all. She decided to walk through the gardens in front of Temple station where there were always such lovely flowers.
Viola was still sitting in the sun. Just as Dulcie had felt that there was something in research after all, so Viola felt that there was something to be said for the unintellectual, even pagan, way of life — sun worship, nudism, even something really cranky. She opened her eyes and fixed them on her red canvas shoes, so ugly, really, but comfortable for walking about and looking at City churches, which was what she intended to do that afternoon. It was not the kind of occupation in which she was likely to meet anyone that she knew, so it didn’t matter what shoes she wore, or that her cotton dress would be crushed from sitting on the grass.