by Barbara Pym
Ned sat primly looking down into his glass, clasped firmly in his little hands, waiting for Leonora’s reaction. His life in London had lately become so complicated—for the encounter with the young man in the theatre bar had been the first of several — that flight seemed the only possible solution. Various people, of whom James was the most important, would thus be detached at one blow, for none was in a position to follow him or even to question that his mother needed him.
‘She’s seriously ill, then?’ Leonora asked.
Ned’s fractional hesitation, no more than the smallest part of a split second, gave her the answer. ‘I’m very sorry,’ she said formally, ‘but I hope your stay in London has been rewarding—I mean, that you’ve managed to do all your research on …’ The memory of the afternoon at Keats’s house came back to her and she stopped. ‘James will miss you,’ she said at last.
‘Leonora, he won’t.’ Ned bent forward towards her and made as if to take her hands, but she evaded him. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I had simply no idea … I was appalled to know that he hadn’t been seeing you at all.’
Leonora was stunned for a moment. ‘But surely you must have known?’
‘I swear I didn’t. I never dreamed Jimmie could be so …’ Ned seemed at a loss for words and Leonora did not help him. ‘But don’t you see, now, when I’m gone, it can all be the same again. Believe me, Leonora, if I’d ever dreamed … When Jimmie told me, I couldn’t sleep nights for thinking what you must have suffered.’
Leonora did not comment.
‘I know Jimmie loves this room,’ Ned went on, looking around him. ‘All your lovely things … he’s missed you so much and I expect you’ve missed him too.’
Leonora tried to say something but no words came. It needed all her strength and self-control to hold back her tears.
Ned was watching her with dispassionate interest, wondering if she would let go and preparing to soothe her if she did. Tears, thought by some to be a woman’s most powerful weapon, did not of course move him, but he was good at comforting weeping women. There had been quite a number of them in his life, from his mother to older women and young girls who had been foolish enough to expect more than he was prepared to give. He had seen with distaste many a red face working and blotched with tears, rather as Leonora had seen Meg weeping for Colin. Older women especially were most unwise to cry, it was ruination to their appearance.
Yet Leonora appeared to deal with the situation as elegantly as she did everything else. If he had hoped to see her crumble he was disappointed. Could it be that she didn’t still care for Jimmie after all?
‘My dear, you needn’t mind me,’ he said almost kindly. ‘We may never meet again. I just want to think of you and Jimmie happy together in your wonderful friendship.’ He felt generous and good as he said this, and now he really did want it. But his glass was empty; he wished Leonora would refill it and thank him for giving James back to her, but she did neither. Her silence was disconcerting. ‘You must forgive him,’ he went on. That was what women should do and even did, in his experience; they overlooked things, they took people back, above all they forgave.
‘But James hasn’t asked me to forgive him.’
‘He hasn’t?’ Really, Jimmie might have made things a little easier for him. ‘I expect he will, though, and you mustn’t be too hard on him. If he came to you on his bended knees, surely you’d forgive him?’
Leonora said nothing.
‘You mean he could come to the door and you wouldn’t open it—you’d let him go away? Like that scene at the end of Washington Square? Leonora, I’m sure you read Henry James, he’s so very much your kind of novelist.’
‘Of course one has read James.’ Leonora tucked the embroidered handkerchief she had been clutching into her sleeve and stood up. ‘Goodbye, Ned. I hope you’ll find your mother much better when you get home.’
‘My mother? Oh, thank you, I’m sure I will. And that reminds me, I suppose I’ll have to go to Liberty’s and get presents for my female relatives. What do you recommend?—lengths of dress material, I suppose, but I’ve always wanted to buy one of those leather hippopotami for a particularly unfavourite aunt …’ Ned prattled on in his usual style. ‘I’ve had a wonderful time in London, and it’s been great, meeting you, Leonora. I’m sure that in time you and Jimmie …’He looked out of the window, as if hoping to see James crawling painfully towards the house on his knees like some primitive Latin American Catholic pilgrim.
In the hall he glanced confidently at the place where James’s fruitwood mirror had hung, but the space was empty and he was denied the pleasure of seeing himself. He turned to Leonora and kissed her, then hur iod out of the house. A taxi appeared in the road and he got into it.
Leonora watched him go; she supposed she had acquitted herself quite well, perhaps she had even won a kind of victory, but it hardly seemed to matter now.
The evening sun showed up a few specks of dust on her china and glass objects, so she decided to wash them. It would give her something to do and the result would be satisfying. As she picked up a miniature jug decorated with flowers she noticed that a petal from one of the forget-me-nots was chipped off. How had she not seen this before? She could not bear to have anything not quite perfect in the room and she was just putting the jug away in a cupboard when the telephone rang.
It was Meg. She wondered if she could come round and see Leonora; she wanted to ask her something. Something that would be easier to discuss face to face than on the telephone.
One of the things James had taken from Leonora was the pleasure of being alone which she had enjoyed before she met him. Now she almost welcomed Liz’s interruptions or Meg’s cosy chats about Colin. She was conscious of sounding quite enthusiastic as she told Meg she would be glad to see her.
‘You’ve done something different to the room, haven’t you?’ said Meg as she came in. ‘Put the sofa in a different place, is that it?’
Leonora poured drinks and they sat down. As she took a sip of her gin she realised that she had already drunk a large one with Ned. She had needed it then; now it made her feel light-headed and unreal as if she were moving in a dream.
‘And how’s James?’ asked Meg chattily. ‘I was sure you’d be out with him, or he’d be here, when I rang. Is he away? Gone on one of his Continental jaunts to buy things for the shop?’
‘James is….’ Leonora began, but she found herself unable to go on. The tears she had held back from Ned now flowed and her body was racked with sobs in the most embarrassing way. Helpless as she was, she could still feel a sense of shame at what was happening to her. It seemed the final touch of irony that she should break down in front of Meg of all people. Fumbling for her handkerchief, she struggled to control herself, to produce some explanation for this most uncharacteristic behaviour, but Meg forestalled her with soothing words. She came over to the chair where Leonora was sitting and put her arms round her. Leonora, who found the contact distasteful, tried to shake her off but she was powerless and could not move.
‘My dear, I knew how it was,’ Meg murmured. ‘I guessed—about James. You put such a brave face on it at Christmas, but I knew. He’s gone, hasn’t he …?’
Leonora did not need to answer.
‘So like Colin,’ Meg went on. ‘I’ve been through it all so many times. But they always come back in the end, you’ll see.’
‘No …’ Leonora was surprised at her own vehemence. ‘It could never be the same again.’
‘That’s what you think at the time,’ said Meg, ‘but you’ll see—it’ll be all right. You mustn’t expect things to be perfect, Leonora, they never are.’
Leonora, now recovering her composure, was beginning to be conscious of how ridiculous Meg looked, kneeling there on the floor, even when she was voicing such noble and unselfish sentiments as the need to accept people as they are and to love them whatever they did.
‘What a lot of weeping seems to have gone on in this room,’ she s
aid, with something of her usual cool amusement. ‘Is it the gin, or what? Let me refill your glass, Meg. I’m sure you need it.’
‘Well, just a very small one with plenty of tonic,’ said Meg, going back to her chair.
‘You came to ask me something,’ said Leonora, ‘what was it?’
‘Oh, yes. You know the flat at the top of your house—I was wondering if you’d got another tenant since … it became empty. Because Colin’s brother is looking for a place, such a nice young man, I’m sure you’d like him and he’d be a model tenant.’
‘Oh, Meg, I’m afraid it’s impossible,’ said Leonora in her sweetest tone. ‘I really don’t think I couH cope with a young man.’
‘It might be an interest for you,’ Meg began, ‘I mean … Oh, Leonora, what is going to happen to James—and to you-haven’t you thought?’
‘I shall be quite all right, thank you, Meg, and as for James—who knows? He might even get married.’
‘You think so? I’m sure Colin would never marry’ said Meg, with a faint air of superiority.
XXV
When it came to the point, James and Ned parted amicably enough after the terrible scene they had had, saying unforgivable things to each other and throwing objects, such as the fur cushions and at one point a heavy Venetian glass paperweight which had narrowly missed not only Ned, for whom it had been intended, but the huge mirror which filled one wall. Ned’s eyes had sparkled —obviously he was enjoying the whole thing enormously. Such a scene was, of course, only one of many in which he had been a protagonist. James, hurt by Ned’s infidelities and wounded by the things he had said, had enjoyed it less, especially as it had been his jealousy and hurt pride that had started it off. Afterwards, when it was all over, Ned seemed to be almost his old self again, so that James had been made to feel rather a fool. ‘My dear Jimmie, that’s life — you mustn’t take things so hard…’ If Ned had stayed, James thought—but he had to go back to his mother who, if she wasn’t exactly at death’s door, really did need him, and nothing would make him change his mind. It had been amusing choosing the dress lengths for his female relatives in Liberty’s, not to mention the leather hippopotamus—’Aunt Hetty will die when she opens the package’—but in the end parting had come with the inevitability of the last scene of a well-constructed play.
Now James was on his way to see Leonora. It seemed the only thing left to do and he had the feeling that she would be expecting him. One of the last things Ned had done was to urge him to go and see Leonora. ‘Jimmie, she needs you,’ he had said, and James felt that he was probably right, as usual. However badly one had behaved—and James was prepared to admit that he had undoubtedly managed things clumsily and in a way that had hurt her—Leonora would always be there, like some familiar landmark, like one’s mother, even.
It seemed not quite in the best of taste to take her a present or a bunch of flowers. James hoped it would be enough to have brought just himself.
‘Why, James … and what an elegant new car—white …’ Although she had been anticipating this moment Leonora was surprised when she opened the door and saw him standing there.
Should he kiss her? he wondered. They had always kissed in the past but she made no movement towards him, so he followed her into the sitting-room where everything looked different. He made the usual remark about her having rearranged it.
‘I suppose Ned’s gone now,’ she said. ‘I expect you miss him.’
How understanding she was; though James found himself thinking, as he so often had before, that it would have been easier if she had been just a little angry. He hadn’t really come here to talk about Ned.
‘Yes, I did miss him at first,’ he said, ‘but towards the end things went wrong, somehow. Ned is rather …’ He had been going to say ‘fickle’ but the adjective seemed too naive and old-fashioned.
‘Poor James, one had realised that, of course. I mean, how Ned was.’
Leonora was leaning back in the velvet-covered chair, perfectly relaxed. The evening sun showed up the fine lines on her skin and she looked older than James had remembered, yet still beautiful in her way.
‘Oh, Leonora, I knew you’d understand. You were always so …’ James fumbled for the word that would sum up Leonora’s behaviour over Phoebe, and of course over the much more serious matter of Ned.
‘Poor James.’ She sounded genuinely concerned. ‘Time is a great healer,’ she added, in a slightly mocking tone, ‘but you’re still much too young to know about that.’
‘Don’t make fun of me.’
‘I’m not,’ she protested. ‘I imagine you and Ned parted on good terms?’
‘Yes, in a way. But we had a terrible scene before he went.’
As she listened to James describing that last quarrel Leonora found herself tempted to laugh. It occurred to her now that Ned was in many ways a comic character but the realisation had come too late. And would it have made any difference if she had seen him as such when he first came into their lives?
‘But, Leonora, in the end he wanted to go back—he just didn’t care about me anymore.’
Leonora was less relaxed now, aware that with this confidence she was receiving more from him than she ever had before, but unable to respond in the way that he obviously expected. She and James had both been hurt, but it hardly seemed to make a bond between them—it was more like a barrier or a wedge driving them apart.
‘People do change,’ she said. ‘One sees it all the time.’
‘But not us, Leonora. I’ m sorry if I hurt you. Won’t you forgive me?’
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Yes, I forgive you,’ she repeated, as if she were not quite sure. One did forgive James, of course; one was, or saw oneself as being, that kind of person. Why, then, did one not make some generous gesture, some impulsive movements towards him, so that all could be forgotten in the closeness of an embrace? Evidently James expected it, for he stood up and came towards her, then hesitated when she did not respond.
‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘where do we go from here?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Leonora.
She wondered how many times Meg must have enacted this kind of scene with Colin, always receiving him back so that as time went on it became easier and no explanation was needed. The bottle of Yugoslav Riesling—his favourite wine, always in the fridge-would be broached, and by the time it was finished all would be well again. Meg would in due course, or perhaps immediately, buy another bottle and keep it there, ready for the next time. But there was something humiliating about the idea of wooing James in this way, like an animal being enticed back into its cage. Even if he had had a favourite wine, Leonora did not think she could have brought herself to produce it. Yet the sherry they were drinking now seemed actively hostile in its dryness, inhibiting speech and even feeling.
If she had chosen something with a more festive air, something sweet or sparkling or warm—even a late cup of tea —would it have made any difference?
James stood up, as if to go. He did not know what to do now. Hopefully he glanced over to the table where the little Victorian flower book used to lie, open at a different page every day, but it was not there. Had she put it away when she changed the room?
‘Humphrey is taking me out to dinner,’ she said. ‘Some new place he’s discovered.’
Was it worth trying again? James wondered, not knowing how to take his leave. What would Ned have advised? He moved over towards the window and saw his uncle’s car draw up in the road. Humphrey got out of it, encumbered by a large bunch, sheaf, perhaps, of peonies. There was something slightly ridiculous about the exuberance of the flowers and the way Humphrey, doggedly clutching them, went round fussily trying each door of the car to make sure it was locked.
‘Goodbye, James,’ Leonora was saying. ‘It was sweet of you to come.’
The sight of Humphrey with the peonies reminded her that he was taking her to the Chelsea Flower Show tomorrow. It was the kind of thing one liked to go to, and the sight o
f such large and faultless blooms, so exquisite in colour, so absolutely correct in all their finer points, was a comfort and satisfaction to one who loved perfection as she did. Yet, when one came to think of it, the only flowers that were really perfect were those, like the peonies that went so well with one’s charming room, that possessed the added grace of having been presented to oneself.
Table of Contents
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II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV