by Barbara Pym
The woman hovered over her, almost smiling. ‘May we send them somewhere for you, Madam?’ she asked.
‘Thank you, no.’ Leonora almost smiled too. ‘I have a taxi waiting outside, so if you could just pack them up in something…’
‘With pleasure, Madam.’
Leonora drew on her long lilac-coloured gloves while the woman busied herself with shavings and tissue paper and a large box. When she had finished she came out to the taxi and handed the parcel in.
‘How beautifully packed, thank you so much.’ Leonora almost beamed. Somewhere from the back of her mind a ridiculous tag or motto had come to her, the sort of thing one saw, or rather had seen, in poker-work —something about passing through this world but once and therefore taking care to be kind to a fellow creature, which was absurd really, because she might well visit the shop again. Why had the woman called her ‘Madam’ so unnecessarily after every sentence, Leonora wondered, when she was obviously a social equal? Perhaps that was why. Does one then seem so cold, proud and formidable, she asked herself, when one is none of these things?
‘Couldn’t wait here much longer, Miss,’ said the taxi driver, grudgingly, but sure of a good tip.
‘No, I know,’ said Leonora warmly, ‘it was good of you.’ She leaned back with a sigh of relief, cradling the precious parcel in her arms.
When she got home there was some post lying in the hall. A card from James from Lisbon—Black Horse Square—with a loving message and looking forward to seeing her soon, and a letter in a cheap brown envelope, addressed in a small spiky hand and with the stamps stuck crookedly down one side. Not the sort of letter one was accustomed to receive, thought Leonora, wondering who it could be from.
‘Dear Miss Eyre,’ she read, ‘I had your letter about James’s furniture and it is certainly not convenient for it to be collected on Monday or at any time. I have no intention of giving up the things until James asks me to. Yours sincerely, P. J. Sharpe.’
It was some seconds before Leonora realised that the anonymous, even masculine-sounding ‘P. J. Sharpe’ was the girl Phoebe Sharpe, but of course the message about the furniture was clear enough. How upsetting and tiresome it all was! And what was she to do now, when James’s other furniture had already come from the depository and been arranged in the flat upstairs. It was too bad, and almost took away the pleasure which buying the vases had given her. Perhaps Humphrey could suggest something. It was half-past three; Leonora decided to summon him to tea with her.
Humphrey was in the act of selling a pair of Staffordshire figures to an exacting Jewess from Bron-desbury when Miss Caton came hovering in the background with ‘an urgent telephone call from Miss Eyre’. Humphrey excused himself and went to the telephone, but in the two minutes he was away the potential buyer had changed her mind, and the American woman who had been ‘just looking around’ had suddenly remembered that she had arranged to meet her husband in twenty minutes’ time at the Hilton and couldn’t decide right now whether she really wanted the bronze representing Actaeon set upon by hounds.
Not that one really needed to sell things, Humphrey told himself as he got into his car, and poor Leonora had sounded genuinely distressed. Yet it did seem rather a storm in a teacup or whatever was the appropriate phrase, all this fuss about James’s few sticks of furniture. He could lend him a few of the less choice pieces from the shop, if necessary—but if Leonora was unhappy something must be done about it.
‘But, my dear, this is monstrous—that you should be worried about James’s bits and pieces,’ he fulminated, as they sat in Leonora’s little patio drinking tea.
‘I wanted to have everything nice for him when he got back,’ Leonora faltered, on the edge of”tears.
‘I know you did, my love,’ said Humphrey at his most soothing, ‘and you shall. We’ll drive down there now and bring the stuff back with us.’
‘Now?’
‘Why not? It’s only quarter past four—we can be down there by six.’
‘But it’s so sudden—I don’t think I could face it at the end of a day.’
‘You needn’t do anything — you can sit in the car and wait, I’ll go in and fetch them.’
‘Very well then, I’ll get ready.’ Leonora went to her bedroom and put on a mauve tweed coat; a black chiffon scarf draped gracefully over her head and dark glasses completed her outfit. At the last minute she slipped a bottle of smelling salts into her bag—one never knew, there might be unpleasantness.
Humphrey meanwhile was clearing the back of the estate car, removing a broken picture frame and a marble head, a few old copies of The Times and an umbrella, the sort of clutter that might give some indication of his trade. The sooner this business was settled the better, he thought. Get the furniture away from this girl and into Leonora’s house and then let things take their course. He had been somewhat dismayed at Leonora’s sudden, and to him rash, action in having James’s furniture moved into her house. And was it really wise to go now and snatch back the things James had lent to his mistress—for this was how Humphrey now regarded Phoebe—without giving her due warning? Yet at the back of his mind there was a kind of hope, unworthy though he knew it to be, that this time Leonora might well have gone too far. And if James rebelled and left her, what would she do then? What could she do, but turn from the nephew to the much more suitable uncle?
There seemed to be something about the atmosphere of Vine Cottage that made people want to establish their identities so that there could be no doubt as to who they were. As Leonora and Miss Culver had declared themselves, so now Humphrey although they had already met at the shop, stood before Phoebe and announced; ‘I am James’s uncle.’
‘Oh . . Her startled face suggested that she feared bad news. Something had happened to James—he was dead, killed in a car or plane crash. She waited apprehensively.
‘I wondered if I might collect those few small pieces of furniture he lent you.’
So James was not dead; not even her pride could be saved now.
‘Oh, take them,’ she said roughly. ‘Did Miss Eyre send you here?’
‘I offered to collect them,’ said Humphrey more coldly. ‘I am James’s uncle,’ he repeated, as if it were a magic formula, ‘if you would kindly show me . .
‘There’s this chair, and a little table upstairs.’
He followed her up, embarrassed at entering what was obviously her bedroom. With an angry gesture Phoebe swept a pile of books off the table. ‘That’s the table,’she said,’and there’s one or two other things… .’ Humphrey picked up the table. It was not heavy but awkward to carry down the narrow staircase. Phoebe did not attempt to help him, but stood in the’doorway, looking at the woman in the car. She knew immediately that it was Leonora Eyre —this cool elegant figure in mauve, her hair swathed in black chiffon. Her eyes were hidden by dark glasses but there was a glimpse of a pale cheek and a well-shaped mouth. This was certainly not the comfortable, grey-haired, motherly woman she had first imagined packing up James’s things, nor even the aunt-like person she had been led to expect from Miss Caton’s description. Seeing Leonora—one could hardly say meeting her—opened up to Phoebe a new dimension in James’s life. A romantic attachment to an older woman; it explained a lot. In her scorn she classified Leonora as a mother figure to replace the one he had lost—what the girl in the photograph might have become if she had lived. She found herself wondering if James and Leonora ever made love together, but the idea was too distasteful to contemplate. No doubt the marble cheek would lean itself to be kissed, and perhaps that was enough for James.
The car drove off. Humphrey attempted a mollificatory wave in Phoebe’s direction—he felt sorry for the girl—but Leonora remained still, her head turned away. Of course she had taken a surreptitious peep at Phoebe—no woman could have resisted that—but in her moment of triumph she preferred not to look upon the girl she now regarded as her vanquished rival.
XVI
‘But, Jimmie, is that wise?’ Anxiety seemed
to intensify the gnat-like quality of Ned’s voice, so that combined with the noise of the plane James really did feel as if an insect were buzzing round his head.
‘It isn’t a question of its being wise,’ he said rather crossly. Wisdom was somehow the last quality one would associate with Ned, anyway. ‘It just happens to be a convenient arrangement until I find myself a new flat. After all, I’ve got to live somewhere.’
‘But with Leonora, and in the same house . . .Jimmie, you’ll have to be firm with her and not let her boss you. Believe me, it could be very difficult to get away. With your sweet nature you might feel yourself under an obligation to her, and then where would you be?’
James did not answer but turned his head to look out of the window. They were flying through an eiderdown of grey clouds, coming down into a wet English autumn day.
Ned’s friends from Oxford were meeting him with their car at London Airport, so James made the cool rainy bus journey to Cromwell Road alone with his thoughts. He had bought a carton of duty-free cigarettes for Phoebe on the plane and intended to give them to her at the first opportunity. It wasn’t a very personal present, he realised— perhaps he ought to have got her a pair of filigree earrings or a Portuguese tile—but it was too late to worry about that now. The sunless drive through the spoiled countryside laid a deep melancholy on him, as it must over returning travellers with lives less complicated than James’s had now become. Ned, Leonora, Phoebe … the names came to him in that order—how was he going to fit them all in? Did he even want to? He had already more or less dropped Phoebe and if he did not get in touch with her to give her the cigarettes she might just fade out, as other girls had done. But could he do without Leonora?
Climbing down out of the bus he saw that Leonora was there to meet him, wearing a raincoat like the iridescent wing of some beautiful beetle. Caught unawares for a moment, her face looked worried, almost old, and he felt a pang of love and pity for her.
‘James!’ She had seen him and was radiant. It was flattering and disturbing to think that the sight of him could bring about such a change. ‘I’ve got a car waiting outside, so we can go straight home.’
Not even an ordinary taxi but a car hired specially to meet him.
Home, he thought, picturing his old flat with all his things around him. But home now was the flat at the top of Leonora’s house where Miss Foxe had lived, whose rooms he had never entered. No doubt it had not been ‘wise’, but what could he have done to stop it? And anyway, as he had told Ned, it was only a temporary measure.
‘You’ll see that it needs redecorating,’ Leonora warned him as they went up, ‘but of course I left it for you to choose what you want.’
‘It’s lovely,’ said James weakly.
It was certainly better than he had imagined and Leonora had done one of her marvellous flower arrangements of chrysanthemums and michaelmas daisies in the sitting-room.
‘Oh, it’s so wonderful to have you back!’ Leonora came up to him impulsively and flung her arms around him. James returned her embrace and for a moment they stood locked together in mutual pleasure at being reunited. Then James’s attention wandered and he found himself looking towards the window, with its view of trees and roof-tops.
‘Why, it’s got bars on it,’ he said.
‘Yes, darling—I suppose it must have been the nursery once. I never noticed them before, though goodness knows one needed bars with poor Miss Foxe up here—one never knew what she might do. I can have them taken away if you feel fenced in,’ she teased.
James laughed a little uncertainly.
‘You’ll be absolutely independent, you know,’ Leonora went on. ‘The man’s coming to fix the telephone tomorrow so we shan’t even be able to listen in to each other’s calls.’
‘I suppose you’ll have to give me a rent book,’ said James, half joking.
‘Oh, I think an impersonal banker’s order or something like that—don’t you? One would be so embarrassed—one hardly likes to take your money as it is. I asked Humphrey what he thought the rent should be. Of course Miss Foxe was a controlled tenant.’
‘Whereas I’m an uncontrolled one?’
‘Absolutely, darling!’
They moved into the bedroom.
‘More flowers,’ said James, ‘you have done things beautifully.’
‘Yes, I thought just a discreet vase of late roses by the bed.’
Was there a hint of irony in Leonora’s tone? James pondered uneasily over the possible significance of the roses, for she lacked Phoebe’s directness. Then he saw the bedside table.
‘But that’s the little table I lent to somebody!’ he exclaimed. ‘Or I thought I’d lent it.’
‘You did—but it came back,’ said Leonora, in a cool amused tone.
‘Oh, but I didn’t mean …’ What had he meant?
‘I thought you should have it, so Humphrey and I went and got it.’
James sat down on the bed, defeated.
‘Oh, don’t look like that, my love. It didn’t matter—can’t you see that?’
James bowed his head before the horror of Leonora’s unspoken forgiveness. He could not bring himself to ask if she and Phoebe had actually met and his imagination boggled at the idea of it.
‘I thought perhaps a cold meal, but I’ve made one of my soups,’ Leonora was saying, ‘just for your first evening back. Then Humphrey wants us to go round for coffee and drinks. But first let me show you your own little kitchen, where you’ll be cooking all those delicious Robert Carrier meals.’
The next day James was back in the shop. Everything seemed reassuringly yet depressingly the same. The sale rooms had not yet reopened after the summer recess and the only excitement was in the expectation of potential buyers from the people who passed the shop and loitered by the window.
James had crept quietly down from his flat that morning so as not to disturb Leonora, but there had been no sign of her. The unworthy thought occurred to him that perhaps she was not at her best in the early morning. Only a young girl could appear to advantage in a housecoat, with tousled hair and the sleep still in her eyes. But Phoebe had looked the same always, he remembered, except at those times when she came to London and made her rather pathetic efforts to appear suitably dressed.
‘There’s a parcel for you,’ said Miss Caton brightly.
She had taken her summer holiday late and her leathery skin was still burnt an unbecoming brickish red. Now, when she brought the mid-morning instant coffee, still in the shameful thick white cups, she was obviously bursting to tell James all about it.
But he was preoccupied and inattentive, remembering that tomorrow was his birthday and suspecting that the parcel was from Phoebe.
It was a book—an anthology of modern poetry—so who else could it be from? There was no card or message to indicate the sender. James dared not look into the pages, fearing that he might come upon something to upset him.
‘A book, is it?’ asked Miss Caton. ‘Oh, poetry,’ she added in a falling tone. ‘Mr Boyce said he wouldn’t be coming in today. Nothing doing in the sale rooms, of course. There’s been an American lady after that bronze—she might come in again. Mr Boyce said you could deal with her. It seems she can’t make up her mind.’
‘Tell me about your holiday, Miss Caton,’ said James, who felt disinclined for work. ‘You said you’d been on a coach tour? That must have been very interesting. Where did you go?’
Miss Caton drew a deep breath and began to tell him. James only half listened, making an occasional appropriate comment, but after a while there was something almost enjoyable about her tediously detailed account of the flight to Paris, the coach journey through France and Switzerland and the arrival at Lake Maggiore. Her friend’s upset stomach and dislike of Continental Catholicism were made vivid to James, so that he found himself sharing in their relief at the eventual return to good plain food and the Anglican Church.
When evening approached James began to picture himself returning to the fla
t in Leonora’s house and cooking a meal in the little kitchen. The next day, being his birthday, he would of course be dining with her, but what was he going to eat now”? Should he buy food and take it home—grill a piece of steak or heat up a frozen pizza? It would obviously be difficult to make curry or fry onions or fish, for it was unthinkable that such smells should be permitted to waft down Leonora’s elegant staircase. In the end it seemed easiest to have a meal out and go to a film, creeping quietly in at eleven o’clock so as not to disturb Leonora if she had already gone to bed. Should he perhaps tap on her sitting-room door to say goodnight? It would be pleasant to drink a cup of China tea with her. But just as he approached the door the sound of laughter came at him and the voice of Leonora’s friend Liz, witty and cruel, saying, ‘But, darling, one would hardly wish to be a mother to somebody like that!’
What and who could they have been talking about? James wondered. Surely not himself? He felt shut out from their feminine cosiness and a little annoyed that Leonora should be keeping so very much to herself.
The next evening, of course, things were quite different. While Leonora was busy in the kitchen James sat at the white wrought-iron table in her little patio, trying to write a letter to Phoebe. He must thank her for the anonymous book, suggest a meeting, do something to ease his conscience. And then there was that carton of cigarettes he had brought for her. Idly he sat staring at the flowers which surely went on flowering later for Leonora than for anyone else—begonias and dahlias and a second blossoming of roses. He wondered if the grapes at Vine Cottage had started to ripen yet or if they were of the kind that never could.
There was a movement behind him and Leonora was standing at his side with a drink in her hand. She was wearing a black dress of a kind of pleated material, chiffon he thought, and her newly done hair was curving smoothly on to her cheeks in a style rather too young for her but becoming enough in the failing light.
‘Almost too dark to see,’ she said, ‘and I’ve brought you something with gin in it.’