No Fond Return of Love

by Barbara Pym

  ‘What is that sauce one has with turbot?’ Dulcie asked. ‘Du something or other. I suppose this is only one course of dinner at the Hotel Bristol. I feel quite hungry again. Do we go in by this side door — where it says “American Bar”?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Viola pushed open the door and led the way. A young man in a white coat stood behind a bar polishing glasses; otherwise it was empty. Some small tables had on them dishes of olives and potato crisps. Dulcie and Viola sat down at one of these.

  ‘Two gins and tonic, please,’ said Viola, in a rather high voice as if she were nervous: and indeed, it did seem quite an ordeal to break the silence, like getting up to ask the first question after a lecture.

  ‘It’s like a poorly-attended church,’ whispered Dulcie. ‘Or even a cathedral.’

  I expect it’s pretty lively in the season,’ said Viola doggedly.

  The barman finished polishing glasses and began to read a newspaper. It was a relief that he did not show any signs of wanting to make conversation.

  They finished their drinks rather more quickly than they had intended, said ‘Good night’ to the barman, and found themselves again by the dining-room window.

  ‘They’re eating roast duck now,’ said Dulcie. ‘I can hardly bear it. I think we must go to Eagle House now and book our rooms.’

  ‘You’re sure we want to stay there?’ asked Viola doubtfully.

  ‘I don’t know about “want”,’ said Dulcie, ‘but we’re going to. I can feel it. The whole thing now has the inevitability of Greek tragedy.’

  They walked on in the dark until they came to Eagle House. Seen at close quarters and at night there was something strangely impressive about it, so that the artist’s picture did not seem so much exaggerated as they had at first thought. There were indeed little turrets and narrow Gothic windows and the general effect was one of size and mystery, increased by the fact that the place seemed to be in total darkness.

  ‘Perhaps they are all at dinner, round the back somewhere,’ Viola whispered. ‘Is this the main entrance?’

  ‘It’s the sort of door that looks as if it’s never opened,’ said Dulcie. ‘Or only when a Stuart king ascends the throne of England. But this door seems to be open and there’s a dim light on inside. We’d better go in here. It seems to be a kind of lounge,’ she added, trip-ping over a small footstool. The floor seemed to be littered with them, like toadstools. ‘I don’t recognize this from the photograph.’

  ‘What extraordinary pictures!’ Viola exclaimed. ‘Coloured prints of the Pre-Raphaelites, aren’t they? “The Death of Guinevere”!’ she read, peering at one of them. ‘Where on earth did they get these?’

  ‘There’s a room leading out of here. Ah, this is it — the Corner of the Residents’ Lounge in the photograph!’ cried Dulcie enthusiastically. She approached a glass-fronted bookcase and opened one of the doors. ‘Novels by Marie Corelli and Florence Barclay. Kelly’s Directory of Somerset for 1905. Aylwin — of course! that’s where he got his name. And a bound volume of Every Woman’s Encyclopaedia for 1911 — that’s the one I’ve got.’

  ‘Dulcie, we can’t stay here like this,’ said Viola firmly. ‘We must find somebody to ask about booking rooms. There seems to be a kind of reception desk through here — perhaps somebody will come if we wait.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Dulcie. ‘I can hear voices through that door.’

  They were quiet and heard a woman’s voice with a pronounced West Country accent and a cultured man’s voice engaged in conversation.

  ‘Yes, I could,’ said the man, ‘but I don’t feel that’s a very good way to start married life. I’d rather make my own choice, if it has to be. Did you hear somebody outside? I’ll go and see who it is.’

  ‘You’d better leave that to me, Nev,’ said the woman. ‘You wouldn’t know what to say.’ She laughed roughly. ‘Good evening, ladies. What can I do for you?’

  Actually confronted by Mrs Forbes, Dulcie could think of nothing to say, so surprised was she by her air of total unlikeness to Aylwin. It was Viola who inquired about the rooms. Dulcie was peering behind the desk to the room leading away from it, where a clergyman in a cassock was standing facing her. Neville Forbes at last, she thought. Is this why we have come here?

  ‘I see that dogs are not allowed in the public rooms,’ she said impulsively, for he had come out as if to speak to her.

  ‘Aren’t they?’ He turned to where she was reading from a printed notice. ‘Oh, I see. Well, I expect we could make an exception for yours.’

  ‘I haven’t got one,’ Dulcie blurted out.

  ‘We are going upstairs to see the rooms,’ said Viola sharply.

  The four of them ascended a wide staircase, covered in dark red Turkey carpet. Mrs Forbes led them along a corridor, lined with closed doors and with engravings of violent battle scenes on the walls. It was all as quiet as the grave — as if nobody had ever penetrated behind the doors, which must surely conceal some dreadful secret. At last she stopped at one, which she unlocked from a bunch of keys, and stood aside for Dulcie and Viola to go in.

  A double bed, covered with a white honeycomb quilt, dominated the room. Had the brochure said ‘hot and cold water in all bedrooms’? Dulcie wondered, for she could not see any. And a double bed! Viola would never stand for that. But this is Aylwin Forbes’s mother, she told herself firmly, impossible though it may seem. They would have to accept what she offered.

  It was with shame and relief that she heard Viola, who was perhaps less conscious of the sacredness of the relationship, protesting and saying to Mrs Forbes in a firm tone, ‘I’m very sorry, but this room won’t be at all suitable. We should want one with two beds and hot and cold water — or two single rooms.’

  Mrs Forbes was silent for a moment, but a crafty look had come into her eyes.

  ‘It would be more expensive,’ she said at last. ‘And there’d be a double lot of sheets. You wouldn’t believe the price of this old laundry here, robbers they are.’

  ‘Yes, laundries are expensive, I know,’ said Dulcie, anxious to please, but feeling at the same time that it was hardly fitting for a hotel proprietress to fall back on this kind of excuse for not offering her visitors single rooms. ‘Are all these other rooms taken?’ she asked, indicating the closed doors on either side of the corridor.

  ‘Oh, those. Not taken, really, but people might come.’

  ‘Yes, but if they haven’t in fact come, surely we could have two of them,’ said Viola rather impatiently. ‘You mean they haven’t actually been booked by other people ;’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t like to say that. People come for the stag hunting. Fifty sitting down to dinner — and all that washing up! Many’s the time Aylwin and Nev have given a hand in the kitchen when they were lads.’ Mrs Forbes cackled with laughter. ‘And the ladies in evening dress and diamonds — oh, it was a sight.’

  ‘And furs, too, Mother,’ said Neville, who had appeared at their side. ‘I’m afraid my mother is apt to live in the past at times,’ he said in a low voice, turning to Dulcie. ‘She does very little business now, except sometimes in the summer. But there’s a woman who comes in to cook and clean, so we could make you tolerably comfortable. You could have two of these smaller rooms.’

  Dulcie was still bemused by the picture of Aylwin and Neville as lads, giving a hand in the kitchen, and left it to Viola to clinch the deal with Mrs Forbes.

  ‘We’d better get the beds made up,’ said Neville, and Dulcie wondered if he himself would be doing it. She imagined him tuck-ing in the sheets rather untidily and getting blanket fluff all over his black cassock.

  ‘We shan’t want to come till tomorrow night,’ said Viola firmly, ‘but perhaps we could move our things in the morning?’

  Dulcie peeped into one of the rooms they were to have. It looked cheerless and unlived-in, though there was a basin with the possibility of hot and cold running water. But now a new anxiety came over her — one inherited from her mother: was it certain that the beds
would be properly aired; A damp bed … she could hear again the horrified tone in which these words were pronounced. Damp beds — rheumatic fever — death: this was the natural sequence of events, with all the horror of a Victorian novel.

  ‘Then that is settled,’ Neville was saying pleasantly. ‘We shall expect you tomorrow.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  I SUPPOSE the newer graves would be in the town cemetery, wherever that may be,’ said Dulcie thoughtfully, as, having ‘vacated their rooms’ at The Anchorage and left their things at Eagle House, they climbed the hill leading up to the parish church.

  ‘What do you mean exactly?’ Viola asked.

  ‘I mean the late Mr Forbes — he must be buried somewhere,’ said Dulcie firmly. ‘And probably in Taviscombe.’

  ‘Perhaps he was killed in the war.’

  They had come to a granite obelisk, surrounded by railings and carved with the names of local men who had lost their lives in the two wars.

  ‘There’s no Forbes here,’ said Viola after scrutinizing the lists.

  ‘We can look in the churchyard, then, and inside the church. And I suppose we could find out where the cemetery is and go there.’

  ‘Goodness,’ said Viola faintly. ‘I hope we find it here.’

  They entered the churchyard through the lich-gate. On either side of the path stood crooked rows of gravestones, delicately ornamented with cherubs’ heads and skulls, now worn away and overgrown with orange lichen.

  ‘Not here, of course,’ said Dulcie dreamily, running her finger over the surface of a stone.

  ‘Where, then?’ asked Viola impatiently. ‘All these graves seem to be old.’

  ‘These are newer — 1887 and 1891 — but still no Forbes. You’d think the name would crop up.’

  ‘Perhaps he came here from somewhere else,’ Viola suggested.

  ‘Good morning!’ A jolly voice, belonging to a jolly-looking man wearing a pepper-and-salt tweed suit and a high, old-fashioned clerical collar, greeted them as they rounded a corner of the church.

  Dulcie and Viola returned his greeting.

  ‘I suppose the newer graves would be in the cemetery and not in this churchyard,’ said Dulcie, forgetting her shyness in her preoccupation with her quest.

  ‘Oh, nobody’s been buried here for about forty-five years — except for old Miss Forbes a year or so ago,’ said the clergyman. ‘And of course that wasn’t in the churchyard, exactly. They opened up the family vault for her — terrible business,’ he chuckled. ‘Found there wasn’t room for her after all!’

  ‘So what did they do?’ Viola asked politely.

  ‘Had to tell the others to move up! They did find room in the end, but it was a tight squeeze. I keep thinking we ought to have a “House Full” notice put up, so that those who come after us won’t have to go to all that trouble again.’

  How strange, Dulcie thought, that the name of Forbes should crop up again. And yet it wasn’t really — the Miss Forbes who had been buried in the vault must be the Miss Forbes who had once lived in the castle that Miss Fell was talking about at dinner. It would have been easy to verify this, but again a curious delicacy held her back. Nor could she bring herself to ask whether there was any connection between this Miss Forbes and the proprietress of the Eagle House Private Hotel. There might be some clues inside the church, but now that the vicar, or rector, had attached himself to them they would doubtless have to endure a tedious ‘conducted tour’, for he was inviting them to look round the church, which contained, he promised them, several ‘unusual’ features.

  ‘The ladies are starting the Easter decorations, so the place is a bit of a shambles,’ he said apologetically, as they stepped over bundles of greenery in the porch. Bunches of daffodils were crammed into containers and a commanding-looking woman, carrying a trug full of polyanthus, seemed to be directing operations.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Benjamin,’ she said rather ominously.

  ‘Just a moment, dear. These ladies are visiting the church — I just want to show them one or two things.’ He turned to Dulcie and Viola. ‘This little pamphlet — no charge — will tell you what to look out for,’ he said. ‘The main feature, as far as I’m concerned, is the unique oil-fired system which heats the church — the only one of its kind in the West Country, I think you’ll find.’

  ‘That must be very convenient,’ said Dulcie politely.

  ‘Oh, it’s a real blessing. And we’ve got the same at the vicarage — ‘ he lowered his voice — ‘a substantial legacy from a grateful parishioner. Constant hot water, of course …’

  Dulcie reflected for a moment on the curious obsession of the clergy with paraffin, almost as if it were some kind of holy oil. And which was the holier — the pink or the blue?

  ‘Radiators and open heaters — we’ve got a 500-gallon storage tank. I dare say you noticed when you came in? Behind the yew trees.’

  ‘Surely that is a Norman font?’ said Viola rather sharply.

  ‘Yes, I believe so,’ he said, indifferently. ‘Yes, Miss Brewis, what is it?’

  An indignant-looking lady — an obvious crank — had come up to him, holding a bunch of celandines.

  ‘Your wife has seen fit to reject my humble offering,’ she said. ‘And yet one of our greatest English poets did not disdain to im-mortalize it. A wild flower it may be, but there are many in this church who could learn something from it. Now she said to me, “Miss Brewis, we do not usually have wild flowers — that is not our custom here”…’

  Rather meanly, Dulcie felt, she and Viola moved away, leaving the vicar to deal with the celandine lady.

  ‘Look — this must be the Forbes family monument,’ said Viola. ‘Rather disappointing, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dulcie agreed. ‘I’d hoped for splendid recumbent figures with children and dogs lying under a great canopy. This is obviously Victorian.’

  ‘Here’s a tablet to Archibald Forbes — killed in the South African War,’ said Viola. ‘But that doesn’t tell us anything.’

  ‘Don’t you think Aylwin and Neville might be of noble lineage?’ said Dulcie, as they walked away from the church. ‘They both have fine features.’

  ‘Yes, but Mrs Forbes is obviously of humbler birth. The name must be just a coincidence.’

  ‘I wonder where the cemetery is,’ said Dulcie. ‘It might be on the map at the back of the guide.’

  ‘Couldn’t we sit down and have coffee somewhere before we go and look for it?’ Viola pleaded. ‘My feet are beginning to feel tired. And I want to get a postcard to send to Bill.’

  ‘Oh, yes. You mustn’t neglect him,’ said Dulcie perfunctorily. The idea of sending postcards to real people was very far from her mind at that moment.

  ‘This café looks quite nice,’ said Viola.

  ‘Yes, and if we can get a window table we shall have a good view of the main street.’

  The cafe was over a shop, a large rather bleak room, apparently full when they entered it, but luckily an elderly couple at a window table were just paying their bill. Dulcie and Viola slipped into their places with almost indecent haste, so that the woman gathered her plastic macintosh around her with a little gesture of indignation, and swept out after her husband with a hostile backward glance.

  ‘Black coffee for me,’ said Viola. ‘It seems to be very weak, unless it’s tea the people over there are having.’

  Dulcie opened the map, while Viola gave their order to the waitress.

  ‘The cemetery is marked!’ she cried out excitedly. ‘And it doesn’t look very far from here — we could easily manage it before lunch. Is the cemetery far from here?’ she asked the waitress when she brought the bill.

  ‘About twenty minutes’ walk, madam. You go straight up the main street and it’s just past the gasworks — on your left. You can’t miss it.”

  ‘She didn’t seem to think it an odd question,’ Viola commented. ‘Do people often ask for it, I wonder?’

  ‘Perhaps at Easter, taking f
lowers to relatives’ graves and that kind of thing. Cremation is so much more anonymous, isn’t it.’

  ‘Yes, but better — though in a way one likes to think of people visiting one’s grave,’ said Viola, as they trudged on. She had bought a postcard for Bill Sedge and was wondering rather anxiously what to write on it and whether she should end up with ‘Love’.

  The gasworks towered up before them; then the houses became more spread-out, and suddenly they were in the open country and the cemetery was on their left — a sloping field, spiked with white gravestones, looking like teeth in the distance, stretching as far as the eye could see.

  Even Dulcie’s heart sank at the sight of so many.

  ‘Do you think they’re classified or arranged in some way?’ she asked, as they opened the gate. ‘They might be in order of date, perhaps.’

  ‘This one’s 1904,’ said Viola, ‘and this one next to it 1927.1 suppose the more recent ones must be all together.’

  ‘But don’t people — or their relatives — choose plots? I mean, one might want to be buried under those yew trees, or up on the hill.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ said Viola hopelessly.

  ‘Let’s sit down on this seat and think out a plan of campaign,’ Dulcie suggested. ‘It would probably be better if we separated — each one covering a different bit. Otherwise, we can’t possibly go over the whole area.’

  ‘Oh, good heavens,’ Viola burst out, ‘we’ll never be back in time for lunch at this rate! I really can’t think why you don’t ask Mrs Forbes or Neville outright where the grave is. We don’t even know that he’s buried in Taviscombe at all.’

  ‘Well, now that we’ve come we may as well look,’ said Dulcie. But she too was beginning to feel a little discouraged. How, indeed, did they know where the late Mr Forbes was buried?

  ‘Do we,’ she asked in sudden confusion, ‘even know that he’s dead?’

  ‘Oh, Dulcie, really …‘ Viola looked at her watch. ‘It’s nearly quarter past twelve.’