by Barbara Pym
‘That’s what the lads always used to call it,’ Bertram explained, perhaps unnecessarily.
‘I should have thought that young men training to be school-masters would have been above such puerile jokes,’ said Hermione tartly. ‘You can hardly wonder that there is all this juvenile delinquency when the teachers themselves have so little sense of responsibility. Quis custodiet…’ she began, but either the rest of the quotation evaded her or she thought it unnecessary to continue one so well known.
‘Oh, they were up to every prank,’ said Bertram complacently.
‘I always think men are like a lot of children when they get together,’ said Hermione. ‘I suppose the monks will be just as bad.’
‘I think people aren’t always at their best when they are together in large numbers,’ said Dulcie smoothly. ‘I noticed at this conference I went to in the summer that everybody got rather childish. By the way — ‘ she turned to her uncle — ‘one of the lecturers there has a brother who is vicar of a church somewhere near here. The name was Forbes — I wondered if you knew hime’
‘Ah, yes. That must be Neville Forbes of St Ivel’s,’ said Bertram.
‘Yes, I think his name is Neville. But isn’t St Ivel a kind of cheese?’
‘Why, yes, so it is. Then perhaps it couldn’t also be the name of a saint in the Kalendar.’ Bertram looked puzzled. ‘Yet we have St Martin, an excellent marmalade, if I remember rightly.”
‘Oh, I suppose St Ivel’s could very well be the name of one of the sort of churches you like,’ said Hermione childishly.
Dulcie sighed and took a sip of water. She had so often heard her uncle and aunt going on like this, bickering about unimportant things. Is this what growing old with somebody does to one? she asked herself. Would it come to this with anybody, perhaps even with Aylwin Forbes? She saw again the fluffy little woman in the mauve twin-set, wrapping up the pottery donkey … yes, certainly, even with Aylwin Forbes. But not, perhaps, with Maurice? There had been only rapture and misery there — impossible ever to tie him down to the breakfast table and the laundry list, or other fruitful occasions for bickering. Then she realized that it was herself, rather than other people, that she had been unable to imagine in such petty squabblings. She had forgotten the recent little disagreements with Viola, about clothes left dripping in the kitchen, the bathroom light left on all night, lack of co-operation in household tasks, even the merits of calf’s — as opposed to lamb’s — liver. Now she remembered them and felt humbler, for these were not even academic bickerings which one could regard afterwards with detached amusement.
The second course was stewed apple and semolina pudding, dishes which Mrs Sedge had mastered to perfection.
‘I wonder what Maisie will be giving the Vicar this evening,’ said Hermione thoughtfully. ‘He will hardly feel like eating, of course. Nor will she.’
‘No, but they will be urging each other to take something, as people do in these circumstances,’ said Dulcie. Bereavement was in some ways the most comfortable kind of misery, for there would always be somebody to urge; the unhappiness of love was usually more lonely because so often concealed from others.
‘Macaroni cheese, perhaps,’ Hermione went on, with what seemed unnecessary persistence. ‘I know he likes that, and it is easily digested if there is not too much cheese.’
‘I should think you know his likes and dislikes better than Maisie does,’ said Bertram quite amiably. ‘It’s a pity that you can’t be looking after him.’
‘Oh, well, Maisie came at once — there was no question of anybody in the parish being asked.’ Hermione had risen from the table and begun to assemble the dishes for clearing.
‘I’ll just go down and have a word with Mrs Sedge,’ said Dulcie, picking up the dish of stewed apple.
‘Yes, do, dear — she would like that,’ said Hermione.
She would expect it, Dulcie thought, and take it out on Aunt Hermione afterwards if I did not go. She was something of a tyrant without having acquired the qualities of a ‘treasure’. There was a graciousness in her manner as she rose to greet Dulcie and to accept her thanks for the delicious meal.
The kitchen was warm, and comfortable in a rather old-fashioned style, with deep basket chairs and a round table covered with a red plush cloth. The dominating feature of its decoration, apart from the television set, was a large highly-coloured print of the Duke of Edinburgh — the eyes stern-looking and of a brilliantly improbable blue. ‘The light that never was, on sea or land’, Dulcie always thought when she saw it. Its presence in the room was another indication of Mrs Sedge’s ‘Englishness’, like her cooking and her acquisition of the traditional cook’s title of ‘Mrs’, when she had never been married.
Lily Sedge — had the name originally been Lilli Segy, or Söj, or what? Dulcie wondered — had never really cared for cooking, if the truth were known. She had no idea how to make the strudels, torte and schnitzels for which her native land was famous; but twenty years ago, with her bad English, it had seemed easier to become a cook than a typist. As time went on she had made herself very comfortable, and even achieved a certain amount of power over her various employers. It seemed to be taken for granted that a Viennese woman would be a good cook, and it had not taken her long to learn the kind of easy dishes English people were accustomed to.
‘You have met my brother, I think?’ said Mrs Sedge, and Dulcie now saw that Bill Sedge (Willi Segy?) was standing in a corner of the room, bowing rather lower than an Englishman would have done and rubbing his hands together as if asking what her next pleasure might be. He, like his sister, had been fortunate in finding a comfortable niche for himself as the knitwear buyer in a chain of shops whose brilliant crowded windows were to be seen in many parts of London. ‘I know what ladies like,’ he would say, and he always made Dulcie in her subdued greys and browns feel rather drab and unfeminine. At least, though, one did not have to worry about the Sedges; there was nothing sad about them. Indeed, they were a great deal less pathetic than many English people, and that was something of a relief.
‘The evenings are drawing in,’ said Bill Sedge.
‘Yes, they are. I think they’ve really drawn in by now, haven’t they?’ said Dulcie. ‘One is now almost thinking of .them drawing out again.’
‘In Vienna we did not notice such tilings,’ said Mrs Sedge.
‘But in Finchley Road one is always talking of the weather,’ said her brother.
‘Well, a merry Christmas to you both,’ said Dulcie, feeling that they had in some way got the better of her.
‘And the same to you, Miss Dulcie,’ they echoed.
Back in the drawing-room Dulcie exchanged Christmas presents with her uncle and aunt. A tea cosy and a tin of shortbread from them to her, and a bed jacket and a book about religious orders in the Anglican church from her to them.
‘This is “just the job”, as they say,’ said Bertram, glancing through the book. ‘I shall spend many happy hours with this book.’
‘I think I ought to be going now,’ said Dulcie, her thoughts on Neville Forbes’s church. ‘I know you like to get to bed early.’
‘Yes, dear, but I think I shall telephone the Vicar again, just to find out if there is anything I can do.’
Dulcie hoped that he would find something, even if it was a thing he didn’t really want doing at all. It was sad, she thought, how women longed to be needed and useful and how seldom most of them really were. It reminded her of Viola and Aylwin Forbes.
Once outside the house she broke into a run, both because of the coldness of the evening and the lateness of the hour — nearly nine o’clock. Was it likely that the church would be open now or that she would be able to glean anything from looking at the outside of it?
The road she had marked on the map seemed much longer than it had looked, and the church was not easy to find. Dulcie had imagined that as soon as she turned into the road it would be immediately visible, if only in the distance, a Victorian Gothic building with its
own kind of nobility, its lacy spire towering above the houses. But she had come right up to it before she realized that the ordinary-looking red brick building in front of her was indeed St Ivel’s Church. Only a notice-board, conveniently placed trader a street lamp, with the times of services in faded gilt lettering and a poster announcing a whist drive, gave any clue. Then she looked up and saw that it had a little campanile, half hidden by trees, and that the windows were vaguely ecclesiastical in shape. She stepped into the porch, where another notice-board gave the services for the week typed on a printed form with little crosses at the corners. ‘Confessions — Saturday 6.45’, she read with a shudder. So it was High Church and Aylwin Forbes’s brother might very well be unmarried.
Dulcie turned the heavy ring of the door handle. To her surprise the door opened; she had expected it to be shut at this time of the evening. What if some strange form of service were going on and she were trapped into taking part in it? But inside all was quiet; there was nobody to be seen, and yet she had a feeling that the building was not empty. Just inside the door was a marble stoup with some greenish — presumably Holy — water in the bottom. Dulcie dipped her finger in it and crossed herself, dropping down on to one knee as she had seen people do in Roman Catholic churches. Then, feeling that she had, as it were, a right to go in, she walked boldly up between the rows of chairs until she stood facing the altar. A few lights were on, and through the gilded rood screen she caught glimpses of bright Victorian stained glass and brass candlesticks on the altar. On her left was the organ, and she tiptoed up to it to examine the music lying on the stool — Rubinstein’s Melody in F, ‘O for the wings of a dove’, ‘Arias from Cavalleria Rusticana’, and, surprisingly, a piano selection of Salad Days. Did these reflect the musical tastes of the organist, she wondered, trying to picture him, young and eager, perhaps riding a scooter. Round the corner behind the organ was a sort of choir vestry with blue cassocks hanging on hooks and piles of rather tattered-looking music stuffed into a bookshelf. There was a kind of mist hanging over the place, either fog which had seeped in from outside or the smoke of incense lingering from the last service. Dulcie groped for a light switch, and rather to her surprise found one. She was now able to see more clearly and to read a notice nailed to the door in front of her, which said ‘Nobody, repeat nobody, is to tamper with the electric heating apparatus in here’. At the same time she was aware of a strong smell of paraffin. Puzzled, she tried the door, but it was, understandably, locked, so she switched off the light and returned to the main part of the church. The somewhat tetchy word-ing of the notice seemed out of keeping with the elegant italic hand in which, it was written. Could it be the hand of Aylwin Forbes’s brother, she asked herself. She wondered who might be tempted to ‘tamper with the heating apparatus — possibly the organist or the churchwardens; devout ladies slipping in for a moment’s prayer and meditation might even be seized with an irresistible urge to do so.
Dulcie left the church with a vague prayer and a small coin for each of the boxes that invited her charity — sick and poor fund (in these days?); altar flowers; sanctuary fund; restoration fund (all churches seemed to have this, whatever their state of repair); and vicarage expenses. The last was rather obscure, and just because it was so, Dulcie put a shilling into the box.
She had just come out into the porch when she was aware of somebody — a woman, she thought, hurrying past her, opening the door and going into the church. Dulcie was certain that she was crying, though the handkerchief held over her face might have meant that she had a cold. She opened the door a crack and heard the sound of sobbing. It was difficult to know what to do, and Dulcie might have stood there undecided for some time longer had she not seen another woman making her way rather purposefully towards her.
‘I’ve just come to put out the lights and lock up,’ she said. ‘Father Forbes would wish the church to be kept open for private prayer even at a time like this’.
‘Oh? Has there been some trouble then?’ asked Dulcie delicately.
‘Trouble? Oh, my dear!’ The woman made a little darting movement towards Dulcie, almost as if she were about to dig her in the ribs.
‘I suppose people might break in and steal things if the church were left open all day,’ Dulcie said, and yet she had a feeling that it was not that kind of trouble. Her thoughts ranged over the different varieties generally associated with the clergy and she began to feel that she had better have gone straight home rather than come here at what might be a painful and embarrassing time.
‘We’ve never had people steal things here,’ said the woman. ‘We always leave it open till about ten o’clock every night — then I generally come over and lock up, or Father Forbes does — it all depends. I’m his housekeeper, you see.’
‘He’s not married?’ asked Dulcie boldly.
‘Oh, no!’ The woman looked surprised at the question, as if Dulcie ought to have known that he was not married. ‘But of course a good-looking man like that would have his difficult moments — only to be expected, seeing what women are, too. People are only human after all, be they male or female,’ she added rather strangely.
Dulcie could not but agree. What does it mean, being ‘only human after all’? she asked herself. It was generally said of a person who had committed some indiscretion or even sin. It looked rather as if Neville Forbes had got himself involved with some woman — perhaps a young Sunday school teacher, or even a married woman.
‘I saw a woman go into the church just before you came,’ Dulcie said. ‘She seemed to be crying, and I wondered if I ought to go after her and ask what the matter was.’
‘What the matter was!’ echoed the housekeeper derisively. ‘Well, I suppose there’d have been no harm in asking, as they say. I wonder what she’d have said, though.’
Naturally Dulcie wondered too, but the housekeeper had now turned towards the church and pushed the door open in such a way that Dulcie felt she was being dismissed.
‘Bye-bye, dear,’ said the housekeeper. ‘I expect we’ll be seeing you in church.’
Dulcie murmured something suitable. It did rather look as if she would have to visit Neville Forbes’s church again, though in what capacity she could not as yet say.
Chapter Twelve
“TROUBLE? Oh, my dear!”’ said Dulcie. ‘Those were the words she used. It seemed to have something to do with a woman who ran into the church crying. The housekeeper was one of those bright, friendly little women who are natural but harmless gossips. I’m sure she wanted to talk about the “trouble” but felt she ought not to.’
‘I don’t suppose it was anything much,’ said Viola in her usual damping way. ‘The clergy are always having women make scenes over them — one reads about it in the papers nearly every day.’
‘Not in The Times or the Manchester Guardian, somehow,’ said Dulcie rather doubtfully.
‘No, of course not,’ said Viola impatiently. ‘But clergymen are rather at the mercy of women, aren’t they; all this popping into church at odd times.’
‘And people are only human after all, be they male or female — that’s what the housekeeper said. Still, the Forbes brothers do seem to have a rather unfortunate touch with women. Do you think Aylwin knows much about his brother’s affairs?’
‘I can’t think why you’re so inquisitive. It isn’t as if you’d even met Neville Forbes.’
‘No, but it’s like a kind of game,’ said Dulcie. It seemed — though she did not say this to Viola — so much safer and more comfortable to live in the lives of other people — to observe their joys and sorrows with detachment as if one were watching a film or a play. ‘Perhaps,’ she went on, ‘we might ask Aylwin to come in one evening — for a drink on his way home?’
‘On his way home? But this could hardly be on anybody’s way home,’ said Viola scornfully.
‘If he had been to Deodar Grove,’ suggested Dulcie tentatively, ‘it could be — almost. But then, if he had been there, it’s perhaps hardly likely that he w
ould want to go on anywhere else afterwards. Could we invite him to a meal? That might be better. I could ask another man,’ she said, going rapidly through the list of her male acquaintances. But somehow none of those who first came to mind — Paul Beltane, Senhor MacBride-Pereira, her uncle Bertram — seemed at all suitable.
‘Yes, that would be best. What about your — er — ex-fiancé — Maurice?’
‘Maurice? Why, of course.’ It would show him, she thought, not quite certain what it would show — perhaps that she could now bear to meet him in the ordinary course of social life — that she was a delightful hostess, a wonderful cook — that she knew people like Aylwin Forbes? ‘And Aylwin Forbes,’ she went on. ‘Will you ask him or should the invitation come from me?’
‘I don’t think it matters. Perhaps I should ask him, making quite sure that he realizes it is not to be à deux,’ said Viola a little bitterly. ‘I suppose he will wonder why he is being asked. I can’t very well say it’s because you want to find out about his brother’s “trouble”.’
‘But will he wonder? Surely men — and even women — can accept a simple invitation without too much questioning? Aylwin will think it is a simple tribute to himself. And after all, we can always talk about indexes — this having some little academic interest in common is a great safeguard. I suppose it will have to be after Christmas, won’t it?’
‘Oh, Christmas …’ Viola sighed, for she was to spend the holiday with her parents at Sydenham. She regarded it as her duty to go to them, while they, in their turn, felt they ought to ask her though they would much have preferred to be by themselves. At Christmas, Dulcie thought, people seemed to lose their status as individuals in their own right and became, as it were, diminished in stature, mere units in families, when for the rest of the year they were bold and original and often the kind of people it is impossible to imagine having such ordinary everyday things as parents. Christmas put people in their places, sent them back to the nursery or cradle, almost. Where, she wondered, would Aylwin Forbes be spending Christmas? Surely not in the house in Deodar Grove? Perhaps he was one of those people who ignored it and went on working, regarding it as nothing more than an unusually long week-end. After Christmas, if he came to dinner, it might even be possible to ask him what he had done.