by Barbara Pym
Dulcie had been wanting to ask him about his brother Neville, and now, with the anxieties of the meal safely behind her, she found the courage to begin.
‘By the way,’ she said casually, ‘haven’t you a brother who’s a clergyman?’
‘I have a brother in Holy Orders, certainly,’ he said rather reluctantly.
Dulcie was a little discouraged by his cautious tone and tried to remember quickly whether it was possible that she could know about this by legitimate means, as it were. Then she was back in the cloakroom of the learned society with the washbasin cluttered up with flowers for an invalid and heard again the tall woman saying that she had been curious to see Aylwin Forbes because he happened to be ‘our vicar’s brother’. So it was all right to know about Neville and quite unnecessary to reveal that she had made a special journey to the public library to look him up in Crockford.
‘Somebody told me at the conference last summer,’ she explained ‘and I have an uncle and aunt who live quite near his church. I happened to go past it once.’ ‘Happened to go past’ could describe any sort of manoeuvre, really: she wasn’t telling a lie in describing it in those words.
‘We don’t see much of each other,’ said Aylwin. ‘Just because somebody is one’s brother it doesn’t necessarily mean that one finds him particularly congenial.’
‘Blood isn’t always thicker than water, then,’ said Maurice.
‘Well, it’s hardly a question of that,’ said Aylwin a little testily.
‘And just because he is a clergyman it doesn’t necessarily mean that one should pretend to feel more than one does,’ said Viola, as if she were rising in Aylwin’s defence.
‘No, of course not. Perhaps one expects more of the clergy than of other men, but really he has been rather troublesome lately. My mother and I have had a good deal to put up with.’
‘Ah, your mother,’ said Dulcie, hoping for more. She pictured a rather conventional kind of mother, elderly, of course, with white hair, and lace at her throat. But were mothers like this nowadays? Anyway, old Mrs Forbes was somewhere in the West Country, putting up with a good deal from the Rev. Neville Forbes. It was an unusual picture, but the details were blurred. And now Aylwin had changed the subject and they were somehow back at the neo-metaphysicals again. Dulcie, while appearing to listen, was going over in her mind the various ways in which a clergyman son might be ‘rather troublesome’. The possibilities were infinite, and not all of them could be discussed in the present company. It seemed that she would have to go to his church again; this time it would probably be better to attend a service …
Soon after this the party began to break up. Maurice, it seemed, lived in Highgate now, and had a long journey. Aylwin found himself resenting the way he took his hostess’s hand in both of his, as if he had some special claim on her, but was glad that he appeared to ignore Laurel almost completely.
‘My dear Dulcie,’ Maurice murmured, ‘so very sweet of you. A lovely evening…’
So her name was Dulcie. Aylwin registered this fact for the first time, and when he came to say goodbye he made a point of using it, not to be outdone by the younger man.
‘Thank you, Dulcie,’ he said, ‘for a most delightful evening. And a memorable dinner.’
Dulcie hardly knew what to say, so surprised and pleased was she at his use of her Christian name. And yet there was nothing so very special about it, when they were all on quite friendly terms. It was just the contrast with the chilly ‘Miss Mainwaring’ that delighted her. She wondered when she would dare to call him ‘Aylwin’.
Chapter Fourteen
EVERY morning now Laurel drew back her curtains as if she were flinging open the shutters on to a prospect of the Bay of Naples or some soaring mountain peak in Switzerland instead ofjust-the dripping February trees of Quince Square. Life was what one called ‘intoxicating’, from this moment of waking, through all the stages of getting up and making her own breakfast on the little concealed cooker, to the final rush to the bus stop, sometimes in company with one of the other inhabitants of the house. These consisted of various other young girls, like Marian and herself, two Africans who were studying at the London School of Economics, a young man who worked in a bank and did morris dancing in his spare time, a young actor and his friend who were always pressing their suits in the ironing room downstairs, and one or two as yet unidentified young men who wore bowler hats and looked rather alike, so that Laurel thought there might be any number of them or only one.
Aylwin Forbes, watching from an upper window of his house, had once seen Laurel leaving the hostel, and after that he often found himself at the window at about that time. He decided against a chance morning encounter at the bus stop, however. He was not at his best in the mornings and would, he thought, be totally incapable of making sparkling conversation with the young girls who, this year, were dressed in bright shaggy coats and sweaters which made them look like delicious furry animals.
The coming of spring found him in a state of indecision about everything. His book was finished but he had not yet started a new piece of work. The thought of Marjorie still nagged at his conscience — it was at this time of year that they had first met — but he made no attempt to visit the house in Deodar Grove. He imagined his mother-in-law vigorously washing the net curtains and turning the house upside down with spring cleaning. Perhaps Marjorie would be helping her, or giving tea to that organist he had met on the doorstep on the afternoon of the jumble sale. His thoughts turned quickly away from her; it was she who must make the next move. As for the other woman in his life — if somebody who is making an index for one’s book can be so described — he was relieved to think of her living with that nice Dulcie Mainwaring, and felt that he need not worry about her any more. The index was finished, she had been fulsomely thanked in the foreword, and that was that.
Having decided against a chance morning encounter with Laurel, Aylwin began to wonder whether a chance evening encounter might not be arranged. The days were drawing out now and he could easily be walking round the square in the twilight at about the time the young girls were coming home. For the first time in his life he began to wish that he was an animal-lover, that he had a dog who needed to be taken out for an evening walk. A vigorous, bounding animal, from whom the girls might need to be protected, might be the best, and he imagined himself apologizing for Nigger’s or Rover’s — he had conventional ideas of dogs’ names — muddy paws soiling one of the fluffy coats. Or, again, a smaller animal, one who might be petted and exclaimed over, should also be considered. But then, advantageous though the possession of a dog might be, what was he going to do with it when he was not using it to walk round the square? He disliked animals in the house and it was too much to expect the servants to have it with them all the time. The only solution would be to ask that nice Dulcie Mainwaring to look after it, but then the animal would be too inaccessible to be available when it was needed.
As it happened there was no need even to consider getting a dog. The encounter took place quite naturally one evening when Aylwin himself was returning from his publishers and Laurel from her secretarial college. They found themselves getting off the same bus, with Laurel’s friend Marian, and the three of them walked into Quince Square together.
Laurel introduced Marian rather confusedly. They had enjoyed several jokes about Aylwin, as women, even the youngest, will about men, and an unexpected meeting with him was somewhat unnerving.
‘You were just going home,’ he said rather lamely. He, in his turn, found Marian somewhat unnerving — such a sharp little face above the fluffy orange coat, a contrast to Laurel’s gentleness. ‘Have you had a good day?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ they answered politely.
‘Have you?’ asked Laurel, aware that any kind of comparison of their ‘days’ must sound ridiculous. It was beyond her to imagine what his would be like.
‘I always think one needs a drink at this time,’ he said, as they approached his front door.
/> ‘A drink?’ said Marian in a surprised tone, and Aylwin realized that they were so much younger than he was that they could have hardly any points of contact between them. Their gay, birdlike little days would not need drinks at the end of them, like some kind of restorative, as the days of grown-up people like himself did. Really, one could sympathize with those elderly ladies who kept brandy in the house for ‘medicinal’ purposes only.
‘Well, a drink is sometimes nice,’ said Laurel, a little apprehen-sively.
‘Will you excuse me, Dr Forbes? I have a date this evening and must hurry and change.’ Marian’s little pointed toes and stiletto heels, so precariously supporting the fluffy orange bundle of her body, were away and into the door of the hostel before either Laurel or Aylwin realized what had happened.
‘Then perhaps — ‘ Aylwin turned to Laurel and smiled — ‘you would like to come and have a drink with me — if you aren’t doing anything better?’
Poor lonely man, Laurel thought with a rush of pity, using to herself the words he had not dared to utter himself for fear of ridicule. Would they go to a pub or to his house? she wondered. Presumably his house, as it was so near.
‘I should like to very much,’ she said.
‘My house is just opposite. I had been hoping I might see you some time. And how is your aunt?’
‘Aunt Dulcie?’ she asked in a rather surprised tone. ‘Oh, very well, I think. She usually is. I don’t see so much of her now, of course.’
They were going in through the shiny painted door and climbing flights of stairs softly carpeted in red. Dark oil paintings, sinister because the subjects were not easily discernible, adorned the walls. Aylwin went on ahead and flung open a door.
‘My library,’ he said.
There were certainly a great many books, the kind that looked as if they might be a false facade, swinging back to reveal a cocktail cabinet. Laurel peered at them, more for something to do than from any particular interest; the bindings were beautiful but the titles meant nothing to her.
‘Very obscure English poets,’ said Aylwin apologetically. ‘The sort of things I’ve spent my life studying.’
‘Goodness!’ said Laurel, wishing that Marian were with her to make some pert and amusing comment.
‘What would you like?’ he asked, waving his hand towards the drinks which were decently set out on a small table near the gas fire.
Laurel hesitated, wishing that he would suggest something.
‘This is quite a pleasant sherry,’ he said, picking up a decanter. ‘Or there’s gin, of course, or even whisky — but I don’t suppose you’d like that.’
‘Probably not,’ said Laurel rather sadly. She accepted a glass of sherry and stood looking round the room, holding the glass in both hands.
‘Well, here’s to your very good health,’ he said stiffly, feeling that it was not quite the thing to say to one who looked such a picture of health anyway. He would have liked best to sit and gaze at her, not saying anything — for, delightful though they were, these young girls were not for talking to — but he tried his best to make suitable conversation, asking again after her aunt, inquiring about her work and how she was enjoying life in the hostel.
While he struggled with conversation Laurel’s eyes had strayed to a large table which was littered with papers.
‘You are looking at the proofs of my book,’ he said. ‘It’s now in its final stages.’
‘That’s the one Miss Dace has been helping you with?’ she asked.
‘Well, yes, in a sense. She has only done the index,’ he said meanly.
‘I should find that kind of work terribly boring, I’m afraid,’ said Laurel confidently.
‘Yes, it’s a dreary job — one I simply can’t imagine you ever having to do.’ He smiled.
‘But somebody has to.’
‘Yes, somebody has to. But there are people trained to do such things.’
‘Like performing seals,’ giggled Laurel, who was not used to such large glasses of sherry as Aylwin provided.
But he seemed to think her little joke terribly funny and they both laughed rather more than was necessary. In the back of his mind Aylwin may have felt a little guilty, thinking of women he knew who made indexes — that nice aunt of Laurel’s, and poor Viola, of course — but this was not the moment to remember them.
‘Your glass is empty,’ he said, his hand on the decanter.
‘I don’t think I ought to have any more,’ said Laurel. ‘Or perhaps not a full glass. I really ought to be going now.’
‘Must you?’
He stood with the decanter poised over her glass, and Laurel, looking up at him, thought in a variation of Dulcie’s words when she had bent over him at the lecture, why, he must have been very good-looking once. And now the lines round his eyes and the few silver threads that her sharp eyes detected in his golden hair touched her heart, so that she felt rather pleasantly sad and remembered a line from a poem she had read in some anthology —
His golden locks Time hath to silver turn’d —
and, when one came to think of it, he must be rather old — getting on for fifty, probably. She was rather sorry now that she and Marian had mocked him.
He bent down towards her, almost as if he were about to kiss her. A feeling of panic came over her and she cried out inside herself, Oh, Paul, Paul… but at that moment there was a knock at the door and a dark foreign-looking maid stood in the doorway.
‘Please sir, Mrs Williton is here. She will speak with you.’
Down in the hall Grace Williton stood in front of a mirror, ornately framed in gilt cupids, and straightened her pink felt hat. She had decided to wear her new hat with her grey costume for this visit to her son-in-law. He would have got her letter yesterday, warning him of her visit. She was glad that the maid had said he was in. That showed that he was not shirking his duty — for once, she added sarcastically. But sarcasm was not normally within her range. She liked to think of herself as a straightforward sort of per-son. ‘People always know where they are with me,’ she would say rather smugly; it never occurred to her that people might not always want to know such things.
She began to climb the stairs, wondering as she did so if the carpet was brushed every day and if moths lurked in the darkness of the treads. She had never felt at home in this house and she never would. Neither had Marjorie, if it came to that.
‘Dr Forbes is in the library,’ said the maid, backing away from the door so that Mrs Williton could go in. ‘I say you have come.’
‘Well, Aylwin,’ she began uncompromisingly, feeling as always what a ridiculous name he had.
‘Why, Grace, this is a surprise!’ he brought out, feeling that while ‘Grace’ was not quite right, ‘Mother’ was impossible.
Mrs Williton had not at first seen Laurel, who was over by the table, displaying an unnatural interest in the proofs of Aylwin’s book.
‘May I introduce Miss — er — Mainwaring,’ said Aylwin, who had temporarily forgotten Laurel’s surname.
Laurel looked up in surprise, not at first recognizing herself under her aunt’s name. She saw a little dumpy woman in a grey suit and pink felt hat, her gloved hands clasped tightly together.
‘Mrs Williton — my mother-in-law,’ Aylwin explained.
‘How-do-you-do,’ Laurel murmured, smiling because of the sherry and the unlikeliness of Dr Forbes having such a banal thing as a mother-in-law. ‘I was just going,’ she added.
‘Let me see you down, then,’ said Aylwin. ‘You will excuse us, Grace? I shan’t be a moment.’
‘I didn’t know you had a mother-in-law,’ said Laurel brightly, as they were going down the stairs.
‘Well, it isn’t the kind of thing one reveals — or conceals, for that matter,’ said Aylwin, unhappy that the evening should be ending in this slightly ridiculous way. ‘I’m sorry she should have chosen to call just no w.’
‘But I had to go anyway,’ Laurel reminded him.
‘You must come
again. Goodbye!’ He took her hand and kissed it lightly. Laurel, astonished and inclined to giggle, ran out into the square.
Upstairs Mrs Williton prowled uneasily round the room, beating her still gloved hands together. She noticed the two sherry glasses and the almost empty decanter. Plying a young girl with drink, she thought, assuming that the decanter had been full at the start of the evening. It was disgusting. She had always known that her son-in- law was a man of loose moral character, but never before had she been confronted with the actual proof of his degeneracy. What might not have happened had she not chosen to arrive at that moment! And in a library, too, surrounded by great literature! She removed her gloves and took out her spectacles to peer at some of the titles of the books surrounding her — such fine old leather bindings, but the gilt lettering was a little difficult to read. The Rosciad, Night Thoughts, The Pleasures of Imagination, The Bastard — could it be? She peered more closely; it looked like ‘Bastard’, or was it perhaps ‘Bustard’, a kind of bird? … She turned away from the books shocked and confused. What made the whole thing even more shocking was that Aylwin should be carrying on in this way when he must have known from her letter that she would be arriving at any moment. And yet that too was typical of him. The man was — what was that word that Miss Wellcome had used when they met in the library that day and she had been returning a book about Lord Byron? — a libertine, that was it. She repeated it to herself, saying it almost out loud.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Grace.’ Aylwin almost bounded into the room. ‘Do sit down and we’ll have a drink. What would you like?’ He fetched a clean glass from the table and stood for perhaps the third time that evening with the decanter poised.
‘No, thank you. You know I never take spirits,’ said Mrs Williton, pursing her hps.
‘Well, sherry isn’t “spirits” ‘ — he seemed to emphasize the word in a sarcastic way, she thought — ‘But I dare say we’ve got some tomato juice or something like that downstairs. I’ll ring for it.’