by Barbara Pym
‘Why, hullo — surely it’s Viola Dace, isn’t it?’
Viola looked up suspiciously, not realizing who had spoken to her. Then she saw Dulcie standing over her, smiling, carrying a shopping-bag full of books and a brown-paper parcel.
‘What a good idea to sit here,’ she said, flopping down on the grass beside Viola, the books spilling out of her bag. ‘I think I’ll join you for a minute, if you don’t mind.’
Viola could hardly say that she did mind, but she was not particularly anxious to see Dulcie again. I am unlovable, she thought, and unfriendly. When some nice well-meaning woman comes up to me my instinct is to shrink away.
‘I was just going,’ she said ungraciously. ‘There’s no good place to lunch round here so I brought sandwiches and ate them in the open air with all the office workers.’ She laughed self-consciously, dissociating herself from them.
‘Poor things, I suppose they’ll have to hurry back soon,’ said Dulcie. ‘Now tell me what you’ve been doing since we last met.’
Viola shrank even further into her shell at this disconcerting question. What, indeed, had she been doing?
‘I’ve written a couple of articles,’ she lied, ‘and I’m thinking of writing a novel. It seems more worthwhile than doing research,’ she added provocatively.
‘Yes, perhaps it may be,’ Dulcie agreed. ‘It’s creating something of one’s own, certainly, even if it isn’t any good. I’m sure,’ she added hastily, ‘that yours will be awfully good. I should think you have the gift for observing people and getting them down on paper.’
‘Oh, it won’t be that kind of a novel,’ said Viola distastefully.
‘How far have you got?’ asked Dulcie bluntly.
‘It’s only in my head at the moment, but I’ve made a few notes. And what have you been doing?’ Viola counter-attacked.
‘Bottling fruit and making jam and chutney,’ said Dulcie briskly. ‘And I’ve also been getting a room ready for my niece who’s coming to live with me soon.’
‘Have you got a big house? I can’t remember.’
‘Yes, too big for me, anyway. It was my parents’ house. It has four bedrooms.’
‘But it’s in the suburbs. Yes, I do remember now,’ said Viola thoughtfully. ‘I’ve got a little flat near Notting Hill Gate, but I’ve been having trouble with the Rent Act and various other things and I don’t suppose I shall be able to afford it much longer.’
‘I looked you up in the telephone book,’ said Dulcie, ‘but couldn’t find you. I was thinking it would be pleasant to meet again.’
Viola did not answer, so Dulcie went on, ‘And wasn’t it a strange coincidence, just before I saw you I met Aylwin Forbes.’
‘You met him?’ asked Viola sharply. ‘You mean you spoke to him?’
‘No, he was going down to a train and I was coming up. I don’t think he even saw me, but of course I recognized him at once. Have you seen much of him lately?’ Dulcie asked, hardly meaning to be catty.
‘No,’ said Viola stiffly. ‘Where are you going this afternoon?’
‘The Public Record Office.’
‘We might walk along together,’ Viola suggested. ‘I was going to look at City churches. That’s why I’m wearing these shoes.’
So at last it was out, the reason why she was wearing those uncharacteristic red canvas shoes. Dulcie imagined them padding brightly about the dim aisles of ruined or restored churches and wondered if the vicars would notice them. But probably there wouldn’t be any vicars, only elderly vergers or caretakers, who might even be women.
‘Perhaps we shall meet again,’ she said rather more timidly than usual, when they reached Fleet Street.
‘Yes. You must come and have a meal with me one evening,’ said Viola casually, as if she might be saying it because it was expected of her, with no intention that the meal should ever really take place.
‘That would be nice,’ said Dulcie.
‘Perhaps we could fix a date now?’
‘Why, certainly.’
‘What about Monday, then?’ said Viola flatly.
She wants to get it over as soon as possible, thought Dulcie, agreeing to Monday. ‘I shall look forward to that.’
‘It’s 91 Carew Gardens — you ring the top bell and just walk up. Come about half past seven, will you?’
‘That will be nice.’
‘Oh, it won’t be much of a meal, I can assure you. Goodbye.’
Dulcie went on her way encouraged, even by the thought of a not very good meal on Monday. One did not go out to see people for the sake of a meal, she told herself stoutly, thinking of all the things she disliked most — tripe, liver, brains, figs and semolina. She was certain that Viola needed her friendship, and was gratified that she had made this move. Work at the Public Record Office seemed less attractive now, even though the things she had intended to look up had once concerned living people.
She turned off Fleet Street and into the doors of a learned institution which offered her library and cloakroom facilities. She decided to wash her hands, but when she went into the cloakroom she found that the washbasin was filled with flowers. It would be impossible to wash without removing the flowers, and there was nowhere to put them.
‘What a nuisance,’ she said, as a tall woman came into the cloakroom, ‘somebody’s cluttered up the basin with flowers and I wanted to wash my hands.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ said the woman rather stiffly. ‘I’m afraid the flowers are mine. There wasn’t anywhere else to put them.’
‘Oh, I didn’t realize,’ said Dulcie apologetically. ‘Of course one must put flowers in water to keep them fresh.’
‘I’m taking them to an invalid,’ said the woman, her voice rising on what sounded to Dulcie like a note of triumph.
‘An invalid,’ Dulcie repeated. ‘I am sorry. If only I’d realized …’ Another distressing picture was added to her day but somehow it was less disturbing than the beggar in the street, Aylwin Forbes’s face in the crowd, or Viola lying on the grass in her red canvas shoes. She saw the invalid as a brave, tight-lipped person, without pathos, sitting up tidily in bed, doing good to others by her example. The kind of person to make a visiting clergyman feel small — really he was the one to benefit from the visit, not she … Dulcie could hear the voice flowing out from the pulpit. She prepared to creep away from the cloakroom, her hands unwashed, but the woman went on in a more friendly voice, ‘Weren’t you at the conference last monthťI’m sure I remember your face.’
Dulcie said that she had been there.
‘Jolly, wasn’t it,’ said the woman. ‘And that lecture when the man fainted…’ she broke into nervous laughter. ‘ That was unexpected, if you like!’
‘It certainly was,’ Dulcie agreed. ‘Such a pity that we heard so little of it.’
‘Some problems of an editor,’ repeated the woman, faintly sarcastic. ‘Do you think many people really wanted to know about them?’
‘I don’t know. Does one ever really want to hear any lecture, if it comes to that? One just submits, as it were.’
‘Ah, now you’re going very deep,’ said the woman. ‘But I was curious to see Aylwin Forbes because he happens to be our vicar’s brother.’
‘Your vicar’s brother?’ Somehow it was an astonishing statement.
‘Yes. Even an unmarried vicar may have nearest and dearest, and ours has a brother — Aylwin Forbes.’
‘Well, what a coincidence,’ said Dulcie.
It was only afterwards, sitting in the Public Record Office, that she realized that she had not asked the woman the name of the parish where Aylwin Forbes’s brother was vicar. But a short visit to the public library would give her the information she wanted, and she decided to save it up as a kind of treat for herself.
For this was really the kind of research Dulcie enjoyed most of all, investigation — some might have said prying — into the lives of other people, the kind of work that involved poring over reference books, and street and telephone directo
ries. It was most satisfactory if the objects of her research were not too well known, either to herself or to the world in general, for it was rather dull just to be able to look up somebody in Who’s Who, which gave so many relevant details. Crockford was better because it left more to the imagination, not stooping to such personal trivia as marriages or children or recreations.
Love was a powerful incentive to this kind of research, and, ridiculous and impossible though it obviously was, Dulcie did feel that she had fallen a little in love with Aylwin Forbes. It might be that the absurd conference had served some useful purpose after all.
Chapter Five
LAUREL leaned forward anxiously in the taxi, wondering if the driver was taking her the right way. Then she saw a building that she recognized as the Albert Memorial, and sat back in her seat, relaxed. Now she would be able to take more interest in her surroundings. She wished she were going to live in one of the tall cream-coloured houses facing the park rather than with Aunt Dulcie, but perhaps that would be better than a hostel where you had to be in by half past ten. As far as she could remember, her aunt was a reasonable sort of person and quite young for an aunt, but there was nothing elegant or interesting about her. She wore tweedy clothes and sensible shoes and didn’t ‘make the most of herself’. Laurel’s mother had told her that Dulcie hadn’t bothered since a love affair had ‘gone wrong’.
Now, standing in the doorway as if she had been watching out for the taxi, which indeed she had, Dulcie seemed to Laurel just like anybody’s fussing aunt. It was a wonder she had been allowed to come from Paddington by herself, a young girl of eighteen who might let herself be spoken to by some strange person who would entice her away to South America, Laurel thought scornfully; only now it would probably be as near home as Bayswater.
‘There you are, dear, so punctual!’
Dulcie ran out and began to help the taxi-man to unstrap the trunk. Laurel got out of the taxi with her small case and a cardboard box containing a roasting fowl and a dozen new-laid eggs which her mother had made her bring. She put them down in the doorway and looked around her.
The road was full of substantial-looking houses and bushy pollarded trees, now beginning to shed their leaves. An elderly man paused and said good-afternoon to Dulcie with exaggerated, almost foreign, deference. In a garden opposite a woman was tying up chrysanthemum plants, while from the upper window of another house a face peered out from behind net curtains. Really, it was not London at all, thought Laurel, a wave of depression overwhelming her. Of course she had known what it was like from visits to her grandparents when they had been living here, but she had been a child then and the surroundings had had the attraction of novelty. Now she was grown up and had her own idea of living in London — brightly lit streets, Soho restaurants, coffee bars, and walks and talks with people of her own age. Still, that would come later. It might not be a bad thing to stay with her aunt for a little while before she found a place of her own.
Looking at her niece, Dulcie thought nervously, why, she’s a stranger now, no longer a schoolgirl but a self-contained young woman who must be treated as an equal. She began to wonder what they would find to talk about — their work and the domestic trivia that bound all women, whatever their ages, together’
‘I expect you’d like to see your room,’ she said, leading the way upstairs. ‘I’ve given you the one at the back looking over the garden. I thought it would be easier for you to study there. Of course it’s been redecorated.’
‘Since Granny died?’ Laurel prompted.
‘Well, yes, it was her room. You don’t minde I thought it was the nicest.’
Laurel remembered it vividly as a child would remember — the figure in the bed (what exactly was the matter with Granny?’) the faint scent of lavender water, the fire burning in the grate even in summer, the family photographs in silver frames, and the Victorian watercolour of Mount Vesuvius. But when Dulcie opened the door, of course it was all changed. The walls were pale turquoise and the paint white; there was a divan bed, an armchair, a desk, and an empty bookcase. There were no pictures on the walls now.
‘I thought you’d rather choose your own things,’ Dulcie explained, apologizing for the room’s bareness.
‘Yes, of course. But I did love that picture of Vesuvius. What have you done with it?’
Dulcie wanted to explain that she too had once been a child who had loved that picture. ‘It’s in my room now,’ she said, ‘I always loved it.’
Laurel went to the window and looked out. The garden was like the garden at home on a smaller scale. There was the same early autumn richness and untidiness — windfalls lying in the grass, eaten by birds and wasps, zinnias and dahlias and early chrysanthemums.
‘There’s a gas-ring here,’ said Dulcie rather brightly, pointing to the hearth, ‘and a kettle and saucepan.’ It had been convenient when her mother was ill to be able to fill a hot-water bottle or heat up milk, and she had imagined that Laurel might like to make tea or coffee here. Her imaginings had not extended beyond hot drinks but, now that she came to think of it, there was no reason why she shouldn’t boil an egg or heat up a tin of soup. The possibilities were endless, only the circumstances under which all this might take place remained a little vague.
‘You can bring your friends up here,’ she said. ‘I want you to feel that you can be quite independent. I shall be independent too,’ she added firmly. ‘But let’s go and have tea now, shall we? It’s all ready in the drawing-room. I’ve only got to put the kettle on. I’ll leave you to tidy up.’
Laurel washed her hands and then returned to her room. As she stood by the window she saw the figure of a young man moving in the garden which lay beyond. He was slight and delicate-looking with fair hair which he wore rather long. He looked interesting, the kind of person one might meet in a coffee bar. And he seemed to live here. She went downstairs feeling encouraged. Perhaps Dulcie would know him.
‘I’ve asked some people in for coffee tonight,’ said Dulcie when they were washing up. ‘Mrs Beltane and Monica and Paul and Senhor MacBride-Pereira — he’s a Brazilian who has a flat in Mrs Beltane’s house,’ she added. ‘They’re neighbours.’
‘How nice,’ said Laurel, a little overwhelmed. ‘Who are Monica and Paul?’
‘They’re Mrs Beltane’s children — at least they’re grown up now. Monica is a lecturer at London University and Paul works in a flower shop his mother bought for him. He’s a very nice young man. I think you’ll like him.’
Laurel was sure that she wouldn’t, but she made some effort with her appearance, mainly for the benefit of the unknown Brazilian, of whom she had formed a rather theatrical picture. But when the guests came she saw that she had miscalculated, for Senhor MacBride-Pereira was the elderly man who had said good-afternoon to Dulcie in the road, and Paul was the young man she had seen from her window. Monica was pale and fair like her brother, but rather gauche and unfeminine, so that it hardly seemed possible that she could be the daughter of Mrs Beltane, so scented and jingling with bracelets, carrying her little poodle, blue-rinsed to match her hair.
‘Felix will be very good,’ she announced. ‘I’ve brought his own little cushion.’ She placed a small rose-coloured brocade cushion edged with fringe down on the hearthrug.
Laurel, feeling that the presence of an animal was a good opening to conversation, put down her hand to stroke the small square muzzle thrusting itself up towards her.
‘Hullo, Felix!’ she said.
The little black beady eyes glared malevolently. Suddenly he snapped up at her bracelet and tweaked it from her wrist.
‘His little teeth are so strong,’ said Mrs Beltane fondly. ‘Has he broken one of the links, the naughty little person?’
‘It’s all right’ said Laurel, rather confused. ‘The clasp wasn’t very good, anyway.’
‘I hope it isn’t damaged,’ said Paul, who seemed to be as embarrassed as Laurel. He had a very quiet voice and beautiful brown eyes. ‘May I see?’
‘Yes, it is the clasp,’ he said. ‘I can get it mended for you very quickly.’
‘It seems to be the least we can do,’ said Monica brusquely.
‘In Brazil — ‘ Senhor MacBride-Pereira began.
‘Now we know what you’re going to say,’ said Mrs Beltane teasingly. ‘We all know how you Latins treat animals, you nasty brutes! But Felix has been very naughty and I don’t think Miss Mainwaring is going to let him have one of his favourite petit-fours, are you, Miss Mainwaring?’
Dulcie, busy pouring out the coffee, made a polite answer. She had not really catered for Felix, and it would certainly not have occurred to her to offer a dog a petit-four. ‘Would he like a plain biscuit?’ she suggested.
‘No, thank you, we wouldn’t, would we, Felix,’ said Mrs Beltane in a doting tone. ‘We don’t like plain biscuits, do we. We like petit-fours.’
Felix, perhaps feeling that after all he was going to get something to eat, rose from his cushion and bounced about the room, yapping with excitement.
‘There’s nothing like an animal for breaking the ice,’ said Mrs Beltane complacently. ‘I find that wherever I go with Felix.’
‘He breaks more than ice,’ said Monica, with an attempt at laughter. ‘We really must apologize for him.’
‘You have no animal, Miss Mainwaring? No pet, as the English say?’ asked Senhor MacBride-Pereira.
‘No, I somehow haven’t felt the need for one,’ said Dulcie, thinking that, with her broken love affair and family upheavals, it was rather surprising that she had not. It was also surprising that Mrs Beltane, with two children, should have done so. Monica was not, perhaps, the kind of child who would welcome any lavish-ing of affection, but Paul always seemed to Dulcie to be very lovable. ‘Perhaps when my mother died,’ she went on, ‘I might have got a dog or cat for company, but somehow I didn’t.’