by Barbara Pym
‘Oh, Mother is very well, thank you,’ said Edward. ‘Full of beans as usual,’ he added, his tone losing a little of its joviality. He knew that it was wicked and unfilial of him, but he sometimes wished that Mother was not quite so full of beans.
They went on talking about various academic matters on the bus, and then Mr. Killigrew got off and walked through Canterbury Road to his house. He hurried, because Mother didn’t like him to be late for tea.
Francis Cleveland did not bother to hurry. Nobody minded whether he was late for tea or not. He found his wife with Anthea and Simon Beddoes in the drawing-room. Nobody asked him where he had been. Mrs. Cleveland was reading, while Anthea was measuring a pullover against Simon, who was refusing to keep still. The tea, with no cosy on it, was stewing in the pot, and there appeared to be nothing left to eat except a dry-looking piece of fruit-cake and a leathery crumpet in a dish in the fireplace.
‘Oh, Simon, why can’t you keep still?’ said Anthea plaintively. ‘It’ll be too short if you don’t let me measure, and then you won’t wear it.’
‘Darling, I’ll wear it whatever it’s like,’ said Simon soothingly. ‘I’m sure it’s going to be wonderful, anyway. Oh, hullo, sir,’ he said, springing up when he saw Mr. Cleveland. ‘Do come and sit here. I seem to be taking up all the room.’
‘Will this tea do for you?’ said Mrs. Cleveland, peering doubtfully into the pot.
‘Oh, yes, we haven’t had it long,’ said Anthea casually. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Father?’
‘Miss Beaton rang up. She wanted to know whether you could take any more of her young women,’ said Mrs. Cleveland cryptically.
‘Well, what did you say?’
‘I told her I didn’t know, of course, dear. I said you’d ring up yourself.’
Francis groaned. ‘Never be an English don,’ he said to Simon. ‘It’s a dog’s life.’
Simon, who was convinced that he would certainly be Prime Minister or the leader of some new and powerful political party long before he was Mr. Cleveland’s age, smiled and said that he was sure he would never rise as high as that.
Francis looked pleased. He began to think that he rather liked Simon. Margaret had thought he was too conceited and full of himself, but she wasn’t always right. By no means, he thought, getting his teeth into the leathery crumpet and devouring it with every appearance of enjoyment.
Francis looks different, thought his wife. Almost sprightly, which is an odd thing for a middle-aged don to be, even in spring. Still, there was something very disturbing about the spring in Oxford. Even she had felt it this year, walking up the Banbury Road on a fine morning to do her shopping. It was the sort of feeling one had had thirty years ago, going to meet one’s love—Francis, she thought, almost with surprise—or thinking that one might see him by accident in the town. It was not the sort of feeling a busy don’s wife had time for, so she had put it from her and gone into Elliston’s to see about the new curtains for the bathroom, but even when she got absorbed in check gingham and flowered oilskin she knew that the feeling was still there. Perhaps Francis felt it too, but somehow one didn’t talk about things like that now.
But Francis was wondering if Barbara had got the lilies yet.
As he was thinking of her, she had just come back from her tea party and undone the paper. She took out the card, imagining that the flowers were from a persistent young man who had admired her at a lecture. She read what was written on it— ‘You shall have your lilies, even if I can’t pick them for you’ —and then of course she knew who had sent them. She touched them with her fingers and stood staring down at them, not quite knowing what to think. At the back of her mind she was conscious of a slight feeling of disappointment. She wished he had put a quotation from some seventeenth-century poet on the little card. It would have been so suitable somehow, so romantic. But perhaps he had been in a hurry. It was often difficult to think of an apt quotation when one was in a hurry.
IX. Ballet in the Parks
I do not think Mr. Latimer is very well,’ said Miss Doggett. ‘He looks pale and seems rather nervous, but the Sanatogen ought to pull him round, and he’s been taking a glass of milk every night, too. Of course sensitive and intelligent people are nervous, there’s no denying that.’
‘I think Mr. Latimer is highly strung,’ ventured Miss Morrow.
‘Yes, he is like a finely tuned instrument,’ agreed Miss Doggett.
Like an Aeolian harp, thought Miss Morrow, pleased with the idea. But really a frightened rabbit was nearer the mark. Mr. Latimer had been quite ridiculously furtive with her lately; indeed, ever since the night of the walk on Shotover, now that she came to think of it, and that was months ago. Sometimes she had found it hard not to laugh out loud at him and explain the whole thing to Miss Doggett. It was a wonder she hadn’t guessed that there was some secret between them, for nowadays Mr. Latimer never addressed a remark to her directly and always followed Miss Doggett out of the room if there was any chance that he would be left alone with Miss Morrow. But of course it would never have occurred to Miss Doggett to suspect anything. He was a clergyman, a finely tuned instrument, whereas Miss Morrow, if she was anything, was a harp with broken strings, an old twanging thing that somebody might play in the street. What could Mr. Latimer have to say to a person like Miss Morrow? She turned her head away, smiling at her thoughts.
It was pleasant sitting in the Parks in the sunshine, which was as warm as June, although it was only the beginning of March. But Miss Doggett had not yet been tempted to put on what she called ‘flimsy clothes’ and still wore her skunk cape, gaiters and fur-lined gloves.
‘I thought Mr. Latimer’s sermon last week was very fine,’ she said, still on the same subject. ‘He is a really gifted preacher, such a command of language. And those quotations were really quite obscure. Anyone can see that he is a very well-read man.’
No doubt he would appear so to one who read nothing but Tennyson, thought Miss Morrow, but it was not really so difficult to find quotations unknown to the average elderly female churchgoer to adorn a sermon. There were many excellent anthologies. Mr. Latimer had several on his shelves, and Miss Morrow had seen him skimming through a Wordsworth one evening, where, as most people surely knew, one could prick an appropriate line about Man or Nature or both with a pin.
‘It was clever to suit it to the time of year,’ went on Miss Doggett. ‘ “Behold, I make all things new”, and how we see that borne out in Nature and in the new ideas which we often get at this time of year.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Miss Morrow, thinking of Miss Doggett’s new idea, which had been to move the silver-table in the drawing-room to the other side of the room.
‘But I was glad to see that he remembered the need for moderation,’ said Miss Doggett. ‘New ideas are not necessarily better than old ones.’ She paused, as if thinking of the silver-table, for the moving of it had cost her much anxious thought. ‘It is unusual to find a young man who realises this. Mr. Latimer knows as well as anybody that we can sometimes be too rash, and that we should ask for God’s guidance at such times.’
‘One always thinks of clergymen as realising things like that more strongly than other people,’ said Miss Morrow. ‘I suppose we are apt to attribute to them all the virtues they preach.’
‘Yes, clergymen are better than other men,’ said Miss Doggett, agreeing with her companion for once. ‘They are chosen, you see, set apart. That is why there are not very many of them.’
‘Oh.’ This seemed rather a curious idea to Miss Morrow. She imagined God selecting half a dozen and saying, ‘Well, that’s enough for North Oxford. We don’t need any more.’
Miss Doggett had now gone on to speak of secular things, although this particular topic of conversation was no less holy to her than sacred things themselves. Anthea and Simon had been up to London together last week, and she was saying how splendid it was that Anthea should have made such a good impression on Lady Beddoes.
‘I belie
ve she is very easy to get on with,’ said Miss Morrow.
‘Well, she has that graciousness of manner that one would expect,’ said Miss Doggett, who did not somehow like the idea of her companion’s finding somebody of Lady Beddoes’s position ‘very easy to get on with’. ‘You see, Anthea is really nobody on her mother’s side,’ she went on, ‘and even the Clevelands can hardly compare with the Beddoeses.’
‘But Anthea is such a sweet girl,’ protested Miss Morrow. ‘Anyone would like her. And Lady Beddoes’ father was only an English professor teaching in Warsaw. She told Anthea.’
‘Miss Morrow, I don’t think you understand these things,’ said Miss Doggett.
‘No, I don’t think I do,’ said Miss Morrow humbly.
‘It will be a splendid thing for Anthea, really splendid,’ purred Miss Doggett. ‘I wouldn’t have thought she had so much sense.’
But sense is just what a girl in love doesn’t have, thought Miss Morrow, who didn’t understand these things.
‘I feel the sun is doing us so much good,’ she ventured.
‘Yes, it is very beneficial if taken in small doses,’ agreed Miss Doggett, ‘but we mustn’t sit still too long, or we shall catch cold.’
They moved slowly away, Miss Morrow adjusting her usually brisk step to suit Miss Doggett’s more majestic one. They walked in silence, enjoying the sunshine and their surroundings.
Miss Morrow loved the Parks, especially in fine weather when they were full of people. In the spring there was a faintly ridiculous air about them, like Mendelssohn’s Spring Song, but, as in the song, there was also a prim and proper Victorian element which chastened the fantasy and made it into something quaint and formal, like a ballet. Dons striding along with walking sticks, wives in Fair Isle jumpers coming low over their hips, nurses with prams, and governesses with intelligent children asking ceaseless questions in their clear, fluty voices. And then there were the clergymen, solitary bearded ones reading books, young earnest ones, like chickens just out of the egg, discussing problems which had nothing to do with the sunshine or the yellow-green leaves uncurling on the trees. There were undergraduates too, and young women with Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader or lecture notebooks under their arms, and lovers, clasping each other’s fingers and trying to find secluded paths where they might kiss. But for Miss Morrow the lovers were only a minor element; the North Oxford and clerical elements were stronger and gave more character to the ballet. She felt that even she and Miss Doggett could be principals in it, together with all the other old ladies who were being walked or wheeled about by their companions to get the fresh air. As they passed such couples, they could hear snatches of their conversation.
‘Do you know Archdeacon Liversidge?’
‘What?’ This in a querulous tone.
‘I said, do you know Archdeacon LIVERSIDGE?’ Very loudly and clearly.
And then they would pass out of hearing, and Archdeacon Liversidge would remain forever an unknown quantity.
Miss Morrow listened with delight to all she could hear and was glad that Miss Doggett did not want to start a conversation of their own. They had been walking in silence for about ten minutes, when two young men ran up to them.
‘Oh, Miss Doggett, what a delight!’
‘It only needed a meeting with our dear Miss Doggett to make the day quite perfect.’
‘Why, Michael and Gabriel,’ she said, ‘what are you doing here? You quite startled me, leaping about like that.’
‘We feel we must express ourselves in movement,’ said one of them. ‘We’ve been playing Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps all day, and we’re simply shattered by it.’
‘Michael wants to leap into that pool with one glorious leap,’ said Gabriel.
‘Wouldn’t you frighten the ducks?’ said Miss Morrow prosaically.
‘Oh, no, we are quite at one with all the wild creatures today,’ said Michael, i really think it’s wicked that one should have to work. I’ve got a tutorial with Mr. Cleveland after tea.’
That reminds me,’ said Gabriel suddenly, in a mysterious voice. ‘Do you think we ought to tell Miss Doggett?’
‘Tell her what?’
‘What we saw in the Physick Garden?’
‘He means the Botanical Gardens,’ explained Michael. ‘Of course it was the Physick Garden in the seventeenth century, wasn’t it? We always like to use the old names.’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Miss Doggett indulgently.
‘Well, it’s rather naughty.’ Michael giggled.
‘But it may be our duty to tell,’ said Gabriel piously. ‘Think how frightful it would be if we failed in our duty.’
‘Yes, we always like to have a clear conscience,’ said Michael.
‘Well, it’s about Birdikin and Mr. Cleveland,’ said Gabriel importantly.
Miss Doggett at once looked interested. One could almc L say that her face lighted up, thought Miss Morrow, as she watched her.
‘We were walking along a secluded path,’ said Michael, ‘and we saw them crouching in the bushes.’
‘Perhaps they were playing Red Indians,’ suggested Miss Morrow.
‘Miss Morrow, this is no time for joking,’ said Miss Doggett sternly. ‘You must tell me all you can,’ she said to Michael and Gabriel. ‘It may be a very serious matter.’
‘Oh, a scandal! How thrilling!’ they cried.
‘Oh, no, nothing like that,’ said Miss Doggett hastily. ‘My nephew suffers from rheumatism, and he ought not to be crouching in bushes,’ she said, offering a somewhat unconvincing explanation for her interest. ‘Did you notice anything else?’
‘Well, of course, we’re such innocent lambs,’ Michael said, ‘but we did think it rather odd.’
‘It looked almost as if they were hiding from us,’ said Gabriel. ‘As if they didn’t want to be seen.’
Miss Doggett smiled indulgently but absently. ‘I think we must be going home to tea now/ she said, with the air of dismissing the young men. ‘You must come and see me soon,’ she added graciously.
‘Oh, Miss Doggett, we’d adore to,’ they said, melting gracefully away.
Miss Doggett and Miss Morrow walked on without speaking. Hiding in the bushes, thought Miss Doggett grimly. Obviously Francis had something to hide, something he was ashamed of. Well, she had no intention of interfering, not directly, that was. It was a thankless job talking to Margaret. Having no sense of duty herself, she did not seem to realise that other people had and that it might compel them to do things they would otherwise not have chosen to do. But when you compared Margaret with Miss Bird, you could hardly wonder at Francis’s behaviour.
I’ve never liked Margaret, thought Miss Doggett, suddenly and surprisingly. There she was, quite happy and contented, making no effort to keep her husband interested in her. Wearing the same old jumper suit and comfortable shoes, the same musquash coat with its old-fashioned roll collar, bicycling into town to do the shopping, sitting by the fire smoking cigarettes, taking no interest at all in her house and family. Look at those faded loose-covers, thought Miss Doggett unreasonably, and the way Anthea has been allowed to go about with young men ever since she was fifteen or sixteen. Yes, Margaret was a bad wife and mother. It was no wonder that Francis was looking elsewhere. And yet Miss Doggett would have been the first to condemn Mrs. Cleveland if she had suddenly started wearing smart clothes or spending money on beauty treatments, or if she had forbidden Anthea to go out with the eligible Simon Beddoes.
‘Murder will out,’ she said, with such suddenness that Miss Morrow was quite startled. ‘These old writers are very wise,’ she went on. ‘Things happened in their day just as they do now.’
Miss Morrow could not but agree. ‘Of course human nature doesn’t really change much,’ she ventured tentatively.
‘Nor can the leopard change his spots,’ said Miss Doggett gravely.
And so, with further exchanges of platitudes, the conversation was carried on until they reached the gate of Leamington Lod
ge.
X. Respect and Esteem
‘Hullo, Mr. Latimer, going to take evensong?’
The bright, almost chirpy tones startled him, and Mr. Latimer turned round to see Mrs. Wardell standing by the vicarage gate, with a trowel in one hand and a young plant in the other.
‘Yes, I am,’ he said shortly. It was surely obvious that he was going to take evensong. Where else could he be going, with a cassock slung over his arm and a face as long as a fiddle?
‘It seems a shame on such a lovely evening,’ said Mrs. Wardell chattily. ‘You know, I think there’s almost too much church in some ways. It would do you all more good to be digging in the garden. I’m going to have a gorgeous show of sweet williams here,’ she went on, waving her earthy trowel in the air and depositing some of it on Mr. Latimer’s cassock.
‘Well, I suppose I must be getting along,’ he said, brushing off the earth rather ostentatiously. ‘I mustn’t keep my flock waiting.’
‘Your flock! Really, you say the funniest things,’ she called after him. ‘As if they were a lot of sheep.’
‘It’s quite a usual expression,’ said Mr. Latimer rather coldly.
When he got to the church he found the usual weekday congregation there. Miss Doggett and Miss Morrow, old Lady Halkin, the Misses Grote, Mrs. Allonby, Miss Nollard and Miss Foxe, Mrs. Jason-Lomax and Jim Storry, a feeble-minded youth who did odd jobs in the church such as fetching vases and putting up wire frames for the ladies when they did the flowers.
Yes, this was the Church of England, his flock, thought Mr. Latimer, a collection of old women, widows and spinsters, and one young man not quite right in the head. These were the people among whom he was destined to spend his life. He hunched his shoulders in his surplice and shivered. The church, with its dampness and sickly smell of lilies, felt cold and tomb-like. He had the feeling, as he mumbled through the service, that he and his congregation were already dead. Even Miss Morrow, usually so bright and amusing, looked grey and corpselike in her dowdy hat—the one that went with everything and nothing—and her greenish tweed coat. Looking at her, Mr. Latimer wondered whether he could possibly do worse than marry Miss Morrow.