by Barbara Pym
‘No?’ said Senhor MacBride-Pereira. ‘And yet it is only the English who would think of replacing a loved one with an animal.’
‘Oh, come now, Luiz!’ said Mrs Beltane in mock indignation.
‘I believe you’ve come to London to take a secretarial course?’ said Monica, turning to Laurel. ‘What do you intend to do after that?’
Laurel felt a little like a schoolgirl being interviewed by a headmistress, but she realized that Monica was trying to take a kindly interest, so she tried to sound intelligent and purposeful. ‘I’d like to be secretary to a publisher,’ she said. ‘I think that would be awfully interesting.’ She hurried over the last words, ashamed of their naivety. ‘I don’t really want to go into commerce or anything like that.’
‘What were your best subjects at school?’ Monica continued.
‘I liked English and History best,’ said Laurel lamely.
Ah, thought Dulcie sardonically, how many a young girl must have given the same answer to that question! And really what did it mean? A sentimental penchant for King Charles the First or even Napoleon, or a liking for the poetry of Marvell, Keats, or Matthew Arnold? That was what it had been with her, but she had been fortunate in having an ambitious English teacher and parents who, rather bewildered by the whole thing, could afford to send her to Oxford. And now she was making indexes and doing little bits of research for people with more original minds than herself. What, as Miss Lord would ask, did it lead to? And what answer should a girl give now when asked what had been her favourite subjects at school? Russian and nuclear physics were perhaps too far advanced, as yet, but English and History would hardly do.
‘I am a lecturer in botany,’ said Monica.
‘Oh, how — interesting,’ Laurel breathed, for what answer could one make to the kind of statement designed to bring conversation to a full stop.
‘Yes, it is interesting to see how the same thing has come out in our family,’ said Mrs Beltane. ‘My husband was a great gardener and had a gift for water divining — not very useful in the suburbs,’ she added with a little laugh. ‘Monica has this passion for botany — the scientific side, you see — while Paul is very artistic and loves flowers for their own sake. And Felix is very fond of nature too, aren’t you, darling?’ She looked down at the poodle, who had lapsed into silence on his little cushion.
‘Where is your flower shop?’ Laurel asked Paul politely.
‘In Kensington, just off the High Street,’ he said.
‘I must come and see it some time,’ said Laurel. But how, exactly? she wondered. To buy a plant or a bunch of chrysanthemums, presumably. But she could not quite see how their friendship was going to prosper on this purely commercial basis.
Chapter Six
DULCIE had not forgotten that she was going to look up Aylwin Forhes’s brother in Crockford, but it was some days before she was near to a public library, and when she went into the reading room she found that the clerical directory was in use. A shabbily dressed man with a raffish air appeared to be taking down names and addresses, perhaps with a view to writing begging letters to unsuspecting clergymen. Dulcie always found a public library a httle upsetting, for one saw so many odd people there, and it must be supposed that a certain proportion came in because they had nowhere else to go. Others were less easy to classify and less worrying. Why, for instance, was a reasonably prosperous-looking middle-aged woman — the smartness of her clothes detracted from by the dowdy laced-up shoes that told of bad feet — so anxious to get hold of a pre-war Kelly’s Directory of Somersete?
At last Crockford was free, and Dulcie set to work. There were several clergymen called Forbes, but she finally picked out one as being the most likely brother for Aylwin Forbes, and vicar of the parish where the lady who had cluttered up the washbasin with the flowers lived, and perhaps even ‘worshipped’.
‘FORBES, Neville Arthur Brandreth. — Univ. of Lond. B.A. 1937. Kelham Th. Coll. 1938’ she read. He had been a curate in West Hampstead, then a chaplain with the Navy, and was now (since 1954) vicar of a parish in North-West London, ‘Gross Inc. 626l. and Ho’ — did that rather jolly-sounding phrase mean an income or stipend of £626 per annum and a house? she wondered. She was glad that his parish was in an accessible part of London. Indeed, when she looked on a street map, she found that it was almost with-in walking distance, if one were wearing comfortable shoes, of where her Uncle Bertram and Aunt Hermione lived. She must make a point of going to tea with them soon, perhaps on a Sunday. Then it might be possible to go to the evening service at the church.
She tried to picture the Reverend Neville Arthur Brandreth Forbes, but all she could see was Aylwin Forbes in a dog collar. It was difficult to tell from the entry in Crockford which was the elder of the two brothers. Somehow she imagined that Aylwin was the younger, for in these days it was often an elder son who went into the Church. Now was the time for the little piece of research she had been saving till last, the looking up of Aylwin in Who’s Who. Her fingers fumbled nervously with the pages as she prayed that there might be at least a short entry for him. There was — and it gave quite a wealth of information. His date of birth was 3rd June 1912, but his parentage was not mentioned. He had married Marjorie, daughter of James Williton, no date or children given. His publications — a modest half-dozen on seventeenth-and eighteenth-century literary subjects — were listed, and his recreations given as ‘conversation and wine’.
Dulcie closed the book with a slight feeling of distaste. ‘Conversation and wine’ — what an affectation! He had got little enough of either at the conference — she smiled to herself at the memory of his avoiding conversation with ladies and sipping the cold dark wine in Derbyshire. And for you, she thought, a wife will go back to her mother, an unhappy woman will he on the grass, wearing red canvas shoes and not caring about anything. And perhaps another — usually so ‘sensible’ — will begin to think she is falling in love … It was not to be considered for a moment.
Dulcie turned out of the reading room and walked down the steps, her mind full of confused plans for the future. She did not remember until she was nearly home that Laurel would be there in the evening, and was conscious of a slight feeling of dismay that she would not have the house to herself, that she would have to make conversation with a girl of eighteen.
But hardly had she entered the house when the telephone rang. It was Laurel, asking if it would be all right if she stayed in town for the evening. Some of them were going to a coffee bar for a snack, but she wouldn’t be late. Dulcie urged her not to miss the last bus, purposely putting its time a little earlier than it actually was. Ought I now to worry? she asked herself, trying to put herself into her sister Charlotte’s place, imagining that Laurel was her own child. If I had married Maurice, she thought doubtfully, I might have had a child, but the picture of herself as a mother did not become real. It was Maurice who had been the child. Theirs would have been one of those rather dreadful marriages, with the wife a little older and a little taller and a great deal more intelligent than the husband. Yet, although she was laughing, there was a small ache in her heart as she remembered him. Perhaps it is sadder to have loved somebody ‘unworthy’, and the end of it is the death of such a very little thing, like a child’s coffin, she thought confusedly.
The evenings are drawing in, she said to herself, going to the window. In the dusk, men were coming home from the City, striding briskly along the road, looking forward to a drink and a meal. And Paul Beltane was coming to the house, carrying a sheaf of roses: the long, pale, thornless kind — rather like himself, Dulcie thought, so gentle and lacking in manly toughness.
‘Good evening,’ she said, anticipating his ring by opening the front door.
‘Oh — Miss Mainwaring. Good evening.’
Dulcie was not the sort of woman to make some immediate and rapturous comment when somebody appeared on the doorstep with a bunch of flowers. After all they might not necessarily — in-deed, could hardly — be for her.
‘Yes, I brought the bracelet back. I think it’ll be all right now. And these flowers … ‘ he flushed.
Poor boy, thought Dulcie, he had not expected an aunt.
‘How kind of you,’ she said. ‘I’m sure she’ll be very pleased. I’m afraid she isn’t in yet, but I’ll tell her you called.’
Paul walked away, his hands, now that he had nothing to carry, hanging rather sadly at his sides. They looked a little red — from being in and out of water all the time, Dulcie supposed. Of course it’s really nothing for him to bring a bunch of hot-house roses, she thought, hardening her heart against him. They would just be left over from the shop and would probably be dead tomorrow.
She arranged the flowers in a vase and took them up to Laurel’s room. Entering a little nervously into the girl’s private territory, she was nevertheless curious to see what she would find there.
The first thing she saw was the unmade bed — a peculiarly shocking sight at six o’clock in the evening. No doubt Laurel had been in too much of a hurry to make it this morning. But who had she supposed was going to make it? If Dulcie put the flowers on the table, Laurel would realize that she had been in the room and must therefore have seen the bed and would make some comment on it. And clothes all over the room, too, stockings on the floor, and drawers half open! Why, the child hadn’t even unpacked properly!
Dulcie stood in the middle of the room, the vase of roses still in her hand. She was just about to go downstairs again, when her eye was caught by the photograph of a young man on the little table by the bed. She had not realized that Laurel had a boy friend. Certainly Charlotte had said nothing about it. Bending over to study the photograph more closely she saw that it was signed, and with a name vaguely familiar to her. Then she realized that it was a popular singer on the wireless and television of rock-and-roll, jive, skiffle, or whatever they called it. It was a young, brooding face with an elaborate hairstyle. The signature was in block capitals, as if he had no handwriting of his own.
Dulcie went downstairs, smiling to herself. She would give the flowers to Laurel when she came in, without revealing that she had been into her room. Then she need make no comment on the un-made bed if she did not feel inclined to. She set.about preparing her supper. It would have to be one of those classically’ simple meals, the sort that French peasants, are said to eat and that enlightened English people sometimes enjoy rather self-consciously- a crusty French loaf, cheese, and lettuce and tomatoes from the garden. Of course there should have been wine and a lovingly prepared dressing of oil and vinegar, but Dulcie drank orange squash and ate mayon-naise that came from a bottle. While she ate she read an old bound volume (circa 1911) of Every Woman’s Encyclopaedia, thankful that it was not in these days necessary to join ‘a working party for charity’, making useful garments for ‘the poor’. She wondered what kind of clergyman Aylwin Forbes’s brother was — did he preside at working parties, where the ladies made things for the church bazaar and the appearance of the vicar and the tea were the high spots? She could almost imagine Aylwin himself in such a role. It was, perhaps, a pity that she so seldom went to church. She wondered if Laurel ought to go — if her mother would wish her to; that might be another worry.
Later, when the girl came in, her eyes shining from the impact of coffee bar and London on a fine early autumn evening, Dulcie wondered if the time was approaching when she would have to enjoy herself in the lives of younger people, as mothers were said to — waiting up eagerly to hear about the dance and what the young man had said, and often getting precious little out of it, for all the waiting up with knitting and a dying fire and the kettle or saucepan of milk ready to be boiled for the hot drink. She rejected the picture of herself doing this as quickly as it came into her mind. Laurel was not late — indeed, it was barely ten o’clock — but suddenly Dulcie felt the desire to be a little annoyed; she decided that she would mention the unmade bed after all.
‘Paul Beltane brought back your bracelet and these roses for you,’ she said. ‘And when I took them up to your room I noticed that you hadn’t made your bed.’
‘Sorry, I thought your Miss What’s-it came today,’ said Laurel, her attention on the roses. ‘How sweet of him! I must thank him sometime.’
‘Miss Lord doesn’t make beds,’ said Dulcie rather stiffly. ‘At least, not our beds. So you must make your own. Yes, they’re lovely roses, aren’t they. Will you write him a little note or call in the shop, perhaps, on your way home tomorrow?’ Dulcie saw Laurel doing this as it might have been herself. She imagined Paul emerging from behind vases of tall exotic flowers, ot sitting patiently making a wreath or a cross.
‘Yes, I could do that,’ said Laurel, not revealing which alternative she had decided upon.
‘Are you making some nice friends at the secretarial college?’ Dulcie went on, feeling more like an aunt.
‘Yes, the girl I was with this evening has a lovely bed-sitting-room in Quince Square.’
‘Quince Square, did you say?’
‘Yes, near Holland Park — very convenient.’ Laurel saw again the dark trees — some of them really were quinces, Marian had said — and felt the nearness of London through them. She longed for the impersonality of the hall as one came into the house, the utter privacy of Marian’s room, with its concealed washbasin and the little electric cooker in a cupboard where she really cooked meals.
Quince Square, thought Dulcie. Some of those big houses had no doubt been turned into nests of bed-sitting-rooms where young girls dreamed or lonely women remembered, or perhaps dreamed too. Did Aylwin Forbes have a whole house, or just a flat? She must investigate.
‘I know somebody who lives in Quince Square,’ she began, but at that moment the telephone rang.
It was a woman’s voice, unfamiliar to Dulcie until she told her name.
‘This is Viola Dace.’
‘Oh, how nice!’ Dulcie’s instinctive reaction was one of pleasure, then she wondered why Viola should be telephoning her and hoped she wasn’t going to put off the supper invitation.
‘I wonder if I might ask a favour of you?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Help with a piece of research, or an index to be made at very short notice — these unlikely and rather dreary alternatives came into her mind. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
Viola lowered her voice. ‘I can’t go into details here and now, but I’ve had a row with the woman whose house I’m living in and I wondered if you could possibly put me up for a time — I’d pay, of course.’
‘Why, certainly … ‘ Dulcie was so overwhelmed that she could hardly think what to say.
‘You did say you had room,’ Viola went on, ‘and of course it would only be for a week or two, until I found somewhere else. I know it seems rather a lot to ask …’
‘Not at all — it would be nice to have you,’ said Dulcie. ‘When would you want to come?’
‘Well, perhaps we could discuss that when you come to supper.’
‘Yes — all right then. I’m looking forward to that very much.’
‘Oh, it won’t be anything, I can assure you,’ said Viola, and rang off.
Dulcie came away from the telephone with mixed feelings. She realized dimly that Viola was making use of her, yet it was flattering to feel that she had been chosen, even to be made use of. Though perhaps she had been approached only as a very last resort — ‘that big house, plenty of room, but in the suburbs… a woman I met at the conference in August — rather dreary but a good-natured soul…’
Going into the kitchen she saw Laurel and wondered for a moment who she was, for she had imagined Viola in Laurel’s room. Suddenly it had been Viola boiling the little saucepan of milk, heating up the tin of spaghetti, waking with the dawn chorus and making the quiet cup of tea. And all Laurel did was to leave her bed unmade — which Viola might also do — and have a photograph of a skiffle musician by her bed, where Viola might have Aylwin Forbes. But
where was Viola to sleep?
‘That was a friend of mine,’ Dulcie explained. ‘She wants to come and stay here for a bit.’
‘Oh, but which room will she have?’
‘Well, there’s the spare room, or the little room over the porch, but that’s a bit small.’
‘And the spare room’s got the ironing board and the sewing machine in it, not to mention “Prosperity” and “Adversity”, and “The Last Watch of Hero”.’
‘Yes, it has,’ Dulcie admitted, for she had deposited these favourite pictures of her mother’s there, not liking to send them to a jumble sale so soon after her death, though the Scouts had called hopefully and, it must be admitted, most respectfully, with their little hand-cart less than a week after the funeral. She had given them only the shabbiest of her mother’s clothes, the best having gone to the Distressed Gentlewomen. ‘I don’t think Viola will mind the pictures,’ she went on. ‘After all, it’ll only be for a week or two.’
‘It will be nice company for you,’ said Laurel rather patronizingly.
‘Nice company?’ echoed Dulcie dreamily. ‘Oh, yes it will.’
Chapter Seven
VIOLA had said ‘about half past seven’, but Dulcie, too early in her eagerness, found herself approaching Carew Gardens nearly a quarter of an hour before that time. She began to walk more slowly, looking over the railings into the ‘gardens’, which consisted of a long strip of dry-looking grass, bordered with flower-beds and paths, and shaded by top-heavy trees about to shed their leaves. A woman was walking along one of the paths with a dog on a lead. She wore a grey tweed coat and transparent pink nylon gloves, and carried two books from the public library in a contraption of rubber straps. What is the use of noticing such details? Dulcie asked herself. It isn’t as if I were a novelist or a private detective. Presumably such a faculty might be said to add to one’s enjoyment of life, but so often what ore observed was neither amusing nor interesting, but just upsetting.