Excellent Women

by Barbara Pym

  ‘Dear Rocky . . .’ I turned back to the letter with determination and wrote on a fresh sheet of paper. ‘I have just come back from my holiday in Devonshire and happened to see Helena there.’ That was a good clear beginning. I would say that she seemed unhappy and bored, then I might ask how he was and what he was doing. The next thing would be to introduce a more personal note—‘You may think it very interfering, but it does seem to me . . .’ What seemed to me? I wondered, listening to the rain which had suddenly become heavier, and why should he take any notice of what I said?

  The shrill sound of my door-bell made me start as if somebody had fired a pistol shot at my back. Who could be calling now? Not that it was very late—barely half-past nine—but I could not think of anybody likely to visit me unexpectedly and on such a wet night. I went down to answer the bell rather unwillingly, but hearing the rain drumming on a skylight I hurried, realising that whoever it was must be getting very wet standing by the door.

  I had just started to turn the handle when I heard my name being called. It was Winifred Malory’s voice. I had certainly not expected it to be her, for I had imagined that she and Julian and Allegra would all be cosily together in the vicarage, from which I felt myself to be somehow excluded these days.

  ‘Oh, Mildred, thank goodness you’re in!’

  I drew her quickly into the hall and saw that she was soaking wet. Then I noticed that she was wearing only a thin dress without a hat or coat and that on her feet were what looked like bedroom slippers, now sodden with rain.

  ‘Winifred! Whatever are you doing dressed like that? You must be mad coming out without even an umbrella.’ I suppose I must have spoken sharply, for she drew back as if she would go out again and I saw that she was crying. So I led her up to my sitting-room and put her in an armchair in front of the fire. I found myself turning on the second bar and plugging in the electric kettle for a cup of tea, almost without thinking what I did.

  ‘I couldn’t stay in the house a minute longer with that woman!’ Winifred burst out.

  ‘What woman?’ I asked stupidly, thinking as I did so how melodramatic Winifred sounded, talking about ‘that woman’ as if she were in a play or a novel.

  ‘Allegra Gray,’ she stammered in a burst of tears.

  I was so astonished that I could think of nothing to say, but wondered irrelevantly if I was to be caught with a teapot in my hand on every dramatic occasion.

  ‘But I thought you were such friends . . .’ was all I could say, when words came out last.

  ‘Oh, we were at first, but how was I to know what she was really like? It’s such a terrible thing to be deceived by a person, to think they’re something and then find they’re not.’

  Of course it all came out then, all I had always felt myself about Allegra Gray but with apparently no justification. It seemed that the friction between her and Winifred had started quite a long time before they went on holiday together.

  ‘You remember those flowers Lady Farmer sent for the church at Whitsuntide?’

  ‘Oh, yes, lilies, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yes. Well, Allegra and I were doing the altar and naturally I felt that the lilies should go there, but she had the idea of putting them on the floor at the side and having peonies and delphiniums on the altar. I told her we never had peonies on the altar and naturally Lady Farmer would expect the flowers she sent to be used for the altar. . . .’

  I suddenly felt very tired and thought how all over England, and perhaps, indeed, anywhere where there was a church and a group of workers, these little frictions were going on. Somebody else decorating the pulpit when another had always done it, somebody’s gift of flowers being relegated to an obscure window, somebody’s cleaning of the brasses being criticised when she had been doing them for over thirty years. . . . And now Lady Farmer’s lilies on the floor and peonies on the altar, an unheard-of thing! But here, of course, there was more to it. The little friendly criticisms, the mocking which had gradually become less good-humoured—‘Winifred, you really must do something about your clothes. . . . Have you made any plans for when Julian and I are married? Where are you going to live?’ And then the suggestions flung out, the settlement in the East End, the religious community—‘Dear Winifred, you’re just the kind of person who would have a vocation, I feel’—or the cheap and comfortable guest-house in Bournemouth, full of elderly people. . . .

  ‘But Mildred, I’m not elderly! I’m only a year or two older than she is.’ Winifred’s voice came at me plaintively and I reassured her that of course she was not elderly.

  ‘I’d always thought we could live together so happily, the three of us. I never imagined any other arrangement. Julian never gave any hint of it.’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t, of course,’ I said. ‘This may sound a cynical thing to say, but don’t you think men sometimes leave difficulties to be solved by other people or to solve themselves? After all, married people do like to be left on their own,’ I said as gently as I could. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that perhaps you ought to find somewhere else to live after they were married?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid it didn’t, but then I haven’t known many married people. And it never occurred to me that Julian would marry. Men are so strange,’ she said, in a pathetic puzzled way, as if she were finding it out for the first time. ‘He always said he would never marry. You see, Mildred, I always used to think it would be so nice if you and he . . .’

  ‘Oh, there was never any question of that,’ I said quickly. ‘Where was Julian when all this happened this evening? Surely he didn’t let you run out of the house in the rain?’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s his boys’ club night and he went out immediately after supper, otherwise Allegra would never have said the things she did. She was always nice to me when he was there. He thinks she has such a sweet nature.’

  ‘Yes, men are sometimes taken in. They don’t ever quite see the terrible depths that we do.’ The Dog beneath the Skin, I thought, and then remembered that it was the name of a clever play William Caldicote had once taken me to, so perhaps it didn’t apply here.

  We sat in silence for a while and I thought of the unfinished letter to Rocky lying on my desk. ‘What time will Julian be back?’ I asked. ‘I had better come back to the vicarage with you when you’re quite sure he will be there.’

  ‘Oh, but, Mildred, I hoped I could come and live with you,’ said Winifred with appalling simplicity.

  For a moment I was too taken aback to say anything and I knew that I must think carefully before I answered. Easy excuses, such as the difficulty of finding a whole pair of clean sheets that didn’t need mending, would not do here. I had to ask myself why it was that the thought of Winifred, of whom I was really very fond, sharing my home with me filled me with sinking apprehension. Perhaps it was because I realised that if I once took her in it would probably be for ever. There could be no casting her off if my own circumstances should happen to change, if, for example, I ever thought of getting married myself. And at the idea of getting married myself I began to laugh, for it really did seem a little fantastic.

  Winifred noticed my amusement and smiled a little uncertainly. ‘Of course it may be too much to ask,’ she faltered, ‘but you’ve always been so kind to me. I should pay, of course,’ she added hastily.

  The truth was, I thought, looking once more at the letter on my desk which could not now be finished tonight, that I was exhausted with bearing other people’s burdens, or burthens as the nobler language of our great hymn-writers put it. Then, too, I had become selfish and set in my ways and would surely be a difficult person to live with. I could hardly add that the bed in my spare-room was hard or that Dora might want to come and stay with me. I must obviously make a gesture towards helping Winifred.

  ‘But of course you must stay for a night or two,’ I said, ‘at least until we see how things are going to turn out.’

  She thanked me and then we were both silent for a time, as if thinking over the implications of the last
part of the sentence. I felt better after I had made this offer and together we looked out a pair of sheets and some blankets. We had just finished making up the bed in the spare-room, when the front door bell rang again, urgently and impatiently.

  I went down and found Julian Malory outside the door. He was hatless and had flung round his shoulders one of those black speckled mackintoshes which seem to be worn only by clergymen. He looked worried and upset. I could not think why he should be carrying a couple of ping-pong bats in his hand, until I remembered that it was his boys’ club night.

  ‘Where’s Winifred?’ he asked sharply. ‘Have you seen her this evening?’

  ‘Oh, yes, she is here,’ I said. ‘She is going to stay a night or two with me—after what happened,’ I added, feeling awkward.

  ‘That’s quite impossible,’ said Julian quickly. ‘You must see that it is.’

  We were walking upstairs and as I switched landing lights on and off I racked my brains to discover why it should be impossible for Winifred to stay a night or two with me.

  ‘Don’t you see,’ he went on, ‘Mrs. Gray and I cannot stay alone in the vicarage. It would be most awkward.’

  ‘But she could keep her own flat, surely?’ I said, wondering why he was calling her ‘Mrs. Gray’ and not ‘Allegra’.

  ‘Even so, we are still under the same roof.’

  ‘Oh, don’t quibble so,’ I said, impatient of his talk of roofs. ‘Nobody would think anything of it. You are both respectable people, and after all you are engaged to be married.’

  ‘The engagement is broken off,’ said Julian flatly, laying down the ping-pong bats rather carefully on the kitchen table.

  I hardly know what happened next, but eventually we were all sitting down and I was trying to console both Julian and Winifred, who seemed to be in tears again. It occurred to me that I might have to put them both up for the night and I began to wonder how it could be managed. I should have to sleep on the narrow sofa in the sitting-room, unless I used one of the Napiers’ beds.

  Julian did not tell us very much about what had happened. It appeared that he had come in and asked where Winifred was and then the whole story had come out. I should never know exactly what had passed between him and Allegra Gray. There are some things too dreadful to be revealed, and it is even more dreadful how, in spite of our better instincts, we long to know about them. I found myself worrying about irrelevant details—who had actually done the breaking off, had she given him back the ring, and how did it come about that he was still carrying the ping-pong bats, which he had presumably taken from the boys’ club to the vicarage, when he came to my flat? Had he perhaps been holding them in his hand all the time the dreadful scene was going on? I knew that things like that could happen. . . .

  At that moment the telephone rang. It was Mrs. Jubb who looked after the Malorys at the vicarage. I handed the receiver to Julian and heard him say ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ once or twice in answer to what seemed like a great flood of conversation from the other end.

  ‘Well, she’s gone,’ he said, turning towards us. ‘She left the house ten minutes ago with a small suitcase. Mrs. Jubb thought I ought to know.’

  Winifred gave a kind of moan and began to cry again.

  I looked at Julian questioningly and he nodded.

  ‘Come, Winifred,’ I said, ‘you’ve had enough for tonight. You must go to bed and I’ll bring you a hot drink and something to make you sleep.’

  She came with me willingly enough and when I had settled her as comfortably as I could, I returned to Julian, who was sitting despondently by the electric fire.

  ‘Where will she have gone at this time of night?’ I asked, almost fearing that the bell might ring and I should find her outside my own door.

  ‘Oh, she has a friend in Kensington who will put her up. I expect she has gone there.’

  ‘What sort of a friend?’

  ‘Oh, an unmarried woman with her own flat. A very sensible person, I believe.’

  I lay back and closed my eyes, for I was very tired. I wondered if Mrs. Gray’s friend was tired too. I imagined her in the tidy kitchen in her dressing-gown, just putting on the milk for her Ovaltine and being startled by the front door bell ringing and wondering who on earth it could be calling so late. And now she would have to sit up half the night, listening and condoling.

  ‘What does she do?’

  ‘What does who do?’ asked Julian rather irritably.

  ‘This friend with the flat in Kensington.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure. She is a civil servant of some kind, I believe. I think she has quite a good job.’

  ‘I suppose Mrs. Jubb knows what has happened?’

  ‘Oh, I imagine she will have gathered that something is wrong. I suppose everybody will know tomorrow, but these things can hardly be concealed.’

  ‘Are you going to put an announcement in The Times?’

  ‘Oh, does one do that?’ asked Julian vaguely. ‘I should hardly have thought it was necessary.’

  ‘Well, it might save embarrassment, and there is nothing dishonourable about it, I mean nothing to be ashamed of,’ I said. ‘It is much better to have found out now rather than later.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what people say, isn’t it? I suppose one must bear the humiliation of having made a mistake. I obviously had no idea of her true character. You see, I thought her such a fine person.’

  She was certainly very pretty, I thought, but I did not say it. I could not add to the burden of his humiliation by pointing out that he may have been taken in, like so many men before him, by a pretty face.

  ‘Of course it was mostly my fault,’ Julian went on. ‘I can see that now.’

  ‘Well, I imagine there are always faults on both sides, though one person may be more to blame than the other. But I’m sure you need not reproach yourself for anything you did.’

  ‘Thank you, Mildred,’ he said, with a faint smile. ‘You are very kind. I don’t know what we’d do without you.’

  ‘Perhaps clergymen shouldn’t marry,’ I said, realising that Julian was now a free man again and that we ladies of the parish need no longer think of ourselves as the rejected ones. But the thought did not, at that moment, arouse any very great enthusiasm in me. Perhaps I should feel differently in the morning when I was less tired.

  ‘Some seem to manage it very successfully,’ said Julian rather sadly.

  I could think of nothing to say beyond suggesting that he could always have another try, but this did not seem to be quite the moment to say it.

  ‘I know the kind of person I should like to marry,’ he went on, ‘and I thought I had found her. But perhaps I looked too far and there might have been somebody nearer at hand.’

  I stared into the electric fire and wished it had been a coal one, though the functional glowing bar was probably more suitable for this kind of occasion.

  ‘I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,’ said Julian softly.

  Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, I continued to myself, feeling the quotation had gone wrong somewhere and that it was not really quite what Julian had intended.

  ‘That’s Keats, isn’t it?’ I asked rather bluntly. ‘I always think Nor What Soft Incense would be a splendid title for a novel. Perhaps about a village where there were two rival churches, one High and one Low. I wonder if it has ever been used?’

  Julian laughed and the slight embarrassment which I had felt between us was dispelled. He stood up and began to make preparations for going. He put on his speckled mackintosh, but seemed to forget about the ping-pong bats on the kitchen table, nor did I like to remind him. I went to bed immediately after he had gone, but I did not sleep very well. In my dreams Allegra Gray came to my house with a pile of suitcases, Rocky stood by the electric fire and asked me to marry him, but when I looked up I saw that it was Julian in his speckled mackintosh. I woke up feeling ashamed and disappointed and made a resolution that I would take Winifred her breakfast in bed.

  CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

  There was a kind of suppressed excitement about Mrs. Morris’s manner next morning and she went about her work smiling and almost nodding to herself, occasionally glancing at me and then at Winifred with an expression of triumph on her face. I could see that she was longing to get Winifred out of the way and when, after we had drunk our mid-morning cup of tea, Winifred asked if I would mind if she went over to the vicarage to see if Julian was all right, I was almost as eager as Mrs. Morris to see her go.

  ‘Well, Miss Lathbury, now what’ve you got to say?’

  She stood with her back to the sink, her hands on her hips. I felt unequal to the note of challenge in her voice, as if I were about to perform before a critical audience and was certain that I should not fulfil expectations.

  ‘It’s all been so sudden,’ I said feebly. ‘I hardly know what to say.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s how it goes. Getting engaged and breaking it off. One minute it is and the next it isn’t.’

  I had to agree that this was certainly so.

  ‘I hardly know what really happened,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, well, if that’s it,’ she said comfortably, ‘I’ve had it all from Mrs. Jubb. She heard every word.’

  ‘Oh, dear, I do hope she wasn’t listening at the door.’

  ‘Listening at the door? Goodness, you could hear it all over the house. Mrs. Gray, that is, not a word out of the vicar. Only a sort of muttering, she said. Oh, it was terrible!’