by Barbara Pym
‘Of course I’m not really much good at punting,’ said Francis apologetically, ‘but I dare say I can get it along.’
‘I’m afraid I’ve never learnt properly,’ admitted Barbara.
‘Ah, you’ve always been taken on the river by some accomplished young man,’ he said gallantly.
‘Yes, I suppose I have, really,’ agreed Barbara, lying back on the moss-green cushions. She liked this picture of herself surrounded by admirers. The cold-fish remark was still rankling a little. He would soon find out how wrong he had been, she thought boldly. ‘How nice to have a bottle of wine,’ she said. ‘That’s essential for a romantic river party.’
‘Yes, I thought it would be a good idea,’ said Francis.
‘“The viol, the violet, and the vine”,’ quoted Barbara in a dreamy voice.
‘This seems to be a nice place to tie up,’ said Francis, pointing to a tree-shaded bank.
‘Oh, yes. How do we fix it?’
‘I’ll stick the pole into the mud,’ he said, ‘and there’s a rope at the other end that ought to be tied to something.’
Barbara got up and walked along the swaying floor of the punt. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘There’s quite a convenient branch here if I can reach it.’
‘Mind you don’t fall in,’ said Francis jokingly.
Barbara stretched out towards the branch with the rope in her hand ready to tie it, but at that moment the punt suddenly lurched away and there was a cry and a splash. She had fallen into the water.
‘Barbara!’ Francis dithered about, encumbered by the long, awkward pole. At last he flung it onto the bank and, without really thinking what he was doing, floundered into the water after her. He splashed round the punt and eventually found her. She was in no danger. She even appeared to be swimming. There had been no need for him to jump in at all, he thought with sudden annoyance, but the next moment this unworthy thought was chased from his mind as he put his arms around her and helped her back into the punt. Barbara, who was of course soaked to the skin, shivered convulsively and drew nearer to him.
He kissed her and she responded with more warmth than she had ever done before.
Dear Francis, she thought, jumping into the water to save me. Of course she hadn’t really needed saving, but his action had somehow turned a ridiculous mishap into a romantic episode. There was something beautiful about that. She felt that they were very close to each other.
‘Barbara,’ he said in a rather odd, high voice, ‘how would you like to go to Paris with me?’
‘Paris….’ She looked up at the dark tangle of branches above their heads. ‘Oh, Francis, it would be divine.’ Little shivers passed all over her. If they weren’t careful they were both going to catch cold, she thought, but had no wish to spoil the romance of the moment by pointing out that they ought to hurry home and take hot baths. For it was a romantic moment. It seemed to Barbara the most romantic moment she had ever known in her whole life.
‘We shall get pneumonia if we don’t hurry home,’ said Francis at last.
‘Oh, look, the poor bottle of wine. We never had it,’ said Barbara. It lay abandoned among the cushions, still unopened. Looking at it, Francis suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to bring a corkscrew… .
As he let himself into the house, Ellen was just going up to bed.
‘Good night, Ellen,’ he said.
‘Good night, sir.’
She glanced at him, but without interest. Evidently she saw nothing unusual in the fact that he was carrying a bottle of wine and had evidently fallen into the river. She had always thought him a bit touched anyway.
XX. An Unexpected Outcome
Francis woke up with the feeling that it was a special day. This was, for him, a most unusual feeling. He couldn’t remember having experienced it for years. All days were so much alike, or should be, giving the same lectures and tutorials, seeing the family or the undergraduate faces that had looked vaguely the same for the past twenty years, so much so that some dons could scarcely have told you what year or even what season it was, unless their wives had made them put on woollen underwear, when they would realise that it must be time for a certain set of lectures which were given only in the winter term.
But today was different. Why? he wondered. And then he remembered. He sat up in bed in a panic. He was going to Paris with Barbara. What on earth had made him think of doing such a thing? He sat up in his blue-striped poplin pyjamas and remembered. Dr. Fremantle, the evening on the river, the bottle of wine … he saw that it was still there, unopened. It looked curiously out of place standing on the dressing-table in his respectable, almost monastic, bedroom.
He got up and went down to breakfast. There was nothing from Margaret. Well, he hadn’t written either. He felt angry and defiant, and bitter against his family for their neglect. He was altogether in a good mood to appreciate the little note that Barbara had written him. He hadn’t thought of doing anything like that. It was an omission, like the corkscrew.
Darling [it began], I shall never forget last night. It was heavenly wasn’t it? I never realised before how much I love you. It will be wonderful in Paris, just you and me… .
He would certainly have to go to Paris now. It was all settled. He wasn’t at all used to doing such things, but he would feel such a fool if he backed out. Darling Barbara, he thought, it would be wonderful in Paris with her. Youth and Beauty and Romance. The Right True End of Love. … He went on stolidly eating his eggs and bacon, trying to recapture something of what he had felt last night. Of course it wasn’t so easy at nine o’clock in the morning. But at nine o’clock tonight, well, that would be different, he thought hopefully… .
Of course, things weren’t quite the same in the cold light of morning, thought Barbara, as she stood in Elliston’s, fingering a pale blue chiffon nightgown. Of course she was going to enjoy it, it was going to be the most wonderful experience of her whole life. She had written to tell him so. This feeling that one would give anything to get out of it wasn’t real, it was only what anyone might feel before setting out on such an adventure. She mustn’t be a coward. She mustn’t, above all, be a cold fish.
Paris, she thought. Paris with Francis, she emended, for when she said just Paris she remembered being led round the Latin Quarter on a hot August morning, poring over a Metro map to find the best way to get to L’Opera from Cite Universitaire; the voice of a conscientious young American repeating over and over again, ‘I’ve gotta see the Mona Lisa’; a dreadful day at Versailles towards the end of the tour when the party was beginning to get quarrelsome and on edge. This was Paris as she remembered it. But Paris with Francis … she paused, unable to sort out the confusion that was in her mind at the thought of it. Oh, it would be wonderful, she told herself gaily. The beautiful city would become a thousand times more so when there was somebody one loved to share the beauty. They would be able to wander about Montmartre together, look at their favourite pictures in the Louvre, stand in the gardens of the Petit Trianon and remember Marie Antoinette, walk in the Champs Elysees and the Place Vendome. But the Place Vendome reminded her of the great couturiers who had their salons there, and that brought her back in a humble way to the blue chiffon nightgown. Because of course when one went away with somebody one loved there were nights as well as days; indeed, she believed that as far as some people were concerned the days could hardly be said to count at all. What a pity it was, she thought regretfully, that even Francis seemed not always to realise that there could be such a thing as platonic love and that the most beautiful relationship between a man and a woman was one in which they were in perfect spiritual harmony. Surely the poets had written about such a relationship? she thought hopefully, casting about in her mind for examples. But somehow she could think only of one quotation, the beginning of a poem by Abraham Cowley:
Indeed, I must confess,
When Souls mix ‘tis an happiness.
But not complete till bodies too do join.
Well, of c
ourse, she admitted reluctantly, one naturally wanted one’s love to be complete, although it was her private opinion that hers could hardly be more complete than it already was. Everything would be different in Paris. Oxford was too full of unsuitable associations: a wife, a family, a house in the Banbury Road. She quickly put all such uncomfortable thoughts out of her mind. It was too late now to go remembering things like that.
‘What time do we get to Dover?’ she asked quite gaily when they were on the road later that day.
‘I don’t know exactly,’ said Francis vaguely. ‘We can get the night boat, though, I’m sure of that. We’ll have a lovely time,’ he added in a soothing voice, which sounded as if he were trying to reassure himself as well as her.
He ought to have been feeling happy and carefree, but he had not realised till now how difficult it was going to be for a dull, virtuous, middle-aged don to change suddenly into a dashing lover. But he could hardly turn back now, and of course he really wanted to go, he told himself stoutly, and at least it would show them—which meant in his mind the female inhabitants of North Oxford—that he was something more than a doddering old man whose head had been turned by the admiration of a pretty young woman. But as they got nearer to Dover he began to think that that was just what he was, and that what he was doing now was only an additional proof of his dotage. It was an uncomfortable feeling, and he did his best to shake it off by making bright, unnatural conversation with Barbara, who responded in the same strain.
‘A pity it isn’t a nicer day,’ he said, when the first drops of rain splashed against the windscreen.
‘Oh, well, it doesn’t really matter, does it?’ she said. ‘It’s sure to be fine in Paris.’
‘And even if it isn’t,’ he said, trying to say what was expected of him, ‘it won’t really matter. I mean, we shall be together,’ he finished rather lamely.
‘Do you know what time this boat actually goes?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ he said, ‘and it does seem to be farther to Dover than I thought.’
‘Yes, we aren’t nearly there yet,’ said Barbara.
They drove along in silence.
‘Well, here we are,’ he said. ‘This seems to be the Druid Hotel. I’ll get out and ask about the boats.’
It was raining heavily now. Barbara looked out and saw a square, yellowish building with a peeling stucco front and a general air of decay. Some servants hurried out to the car, old people, with shrivelled, birdlike faces and rusty black clothes too big for them.
After a few minutes Francis came back again. ‘We’ve missed that boat,’ he said. ‘I think we’d better stay the night here. It will be more comfortable, really.’
‘Oh,’ said Barbara in a colourless tone which seemed to express nothing.
‘You go into the lounge while I arrange about things,’ he said.
‘My friend Sarah Penrose lives near here—‘ Barbara began and stopped suddenly, for she had been going to say that she could spend the night with Sarah. But of course that would be quite impossible.
She stood in the lounge, nervously twisting her hands and looking around her with some agitation. She saw that the room was decorated with stiff palms in brass pots and that, grouped in a corner, as if for artistic effect, were a number of old people reading the newspapers. They looked as if they had been left there many years ago and abandoned. Or perhaps they were people who at some time long past had intended to go abroad and had then either not wanted to or forgotten all about it, so that they had stayed here ever since, like fossils petrified in stone.
The place seemed to have a calming effect on her, and she sat down on the edge of a green-plush-covered chair. It was still raining outside, and she was sure that if she were to touch the greenish wallpaper it would be damp or even mouldy. She had the idea that she was in a tank under the water or in a vault, and that if she spoke to one of the reading figures it would not answer her. She picked up a tattered copy of Country Life. It was dated 1932.
It gave her quite a shock when Francis came in. The occupants of the lounge looked up in surprise, as might corpses in a vault on hearing a live human voice.
‘I’ve settled everything,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come upstairs.’
She followed him meekly up the dim stairs and into a large, gloomy bedroom.
‘Our weekend in Paris,’ he said, with an attempt at gaiety, but his voice had a hollow ring.
Barbara felt she ought to make some sort of response, but somehow her voice would not come. She sat down on the enormous double bed with its hot crimson coverlet and looked about her.
‘What a funny room,’ she said at last.
‘Yes, it’s very gloomy and Victorian, but we don’t mind that, do we?’ he said rather uncertainly. ‘I think I’ll go and have a bath,’ he added more briskly, ‘and then we can have dinner. It’s rather late, but they said they could give us a meal.’
He came to her and kissed her gently on the forehead.
I can’t, she thought, sitting still and unresponsive. The kiss seemed to have woken her out of the dazed calmness which had come over her in the lounge, and all her panic came rushing back. Once more she could think of nothing but escape. I must get out of here, I must go to Sarah, she thought.
When he had gone along to the bathroom, she thought, I must leave a note. One had to remember things like that. It was usual on such occasions. Oh, if he comes back before I have finished! My pen. Oh, where did I put my pen? I must write in pencil. It doesn’t matter as long as I let him know something.
She burst out of the room and ran down the stairs. But nobody followed her, nobody asked where she was going, nobody even noticed her. When she had reached the entrance hall with its stiff, unemotional palms she had calmed down enough to realise that she must try to look as if she were doing nothing unusual. By the time she was outside the hotel she felt almost light-hearted and was able to turn her mind to considering the best way of getting to Sarah Penrose.
I’m free, she thought; there won’t be any going to Paris. There won’t be any more love, or at least not that kind of love. I’ve run away from Francis. Not run away, I’ve left him, I’ve given him up. I’ve renounced him. There was nothing shameful about renunciation; on the contrary, it was noble. ‘I must not think of thee… .’ There was that poem in the Oxford Book of Victorian Verse about it. Barbara had often read it, but never before had she really understood what it meant.
She was sure she would never marry now, and there came into her mind the comforting picture of herself, a beautiful, cultured woman with sad eyes—she thought vaguely of Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelites. She should have quoted Christina Rossetti in her note to Francis, she thought regretfully.
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than you should remember and be sad.
To smile, but never laugh—Barbara was not fond of laughing anyhow.
By the time she reached Sarah’s friendly red-brick house she was feeling very nearly happy.
She might have been surprised and even disappointed if she could have seen Francis sitting calmly in the lounge of the Druid Hotel, making conversation with the old people.
‘What’s happened to your daughter?’ asked an old lady. ‘Has she gone to bed? I didn’t know young people ever went to bed early.’
‘My daughter?’ For a moment Francis was puzzled. And then he understood. ‘Oh, she’s got a friend who lives near here,’ he said. ‘They were at Oxford together.’
‘Oxford? Do you know Oxford?’ said one of the old clergymen, pricking up his ears, i was at Oxford. I was up at Randolph in ‘eighty-five.’
‘Did you know Dr. Fremantle?’ asked Francis politely. ‘The present Master?’
‘Fremantle?’ mumbled the old man. ‘Let me see… . Oh, yes, there was a Fremantle up, but he was junior to me. A very gay young man. I remember… .’ And he went off into a confused reminiscence of something to do with a ‘lady of the town, a rather notorious person’.
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br /> But Francis was not listening. He was thinking of old Herbert Fremantle: a very gay young man. Somehow the idea of it filled him with an overwhelming sadness. It was as if he himself had suddenly become an old man with nothing to do but think exalted thoughts, with an occasional backward glance at a youth that was long past. For he realised now that he had tried to do something that was impossible. What had made him embark on this ridiculous escapade? He hesitated. What was Love, anyway? he asked himself, looking around at the old people. ‘Tis not hereafter.’ This place where he was now might very well be hereafter, and love, if it existed at all, would be nothing more than ‘calm of mind all passion spent.’
He sank into a kind of apathy, and the conversation lapsed. For a time there was complete silence, and then from somewhere quite near, he couldn’t exactly make out where, came the sound of somebody playing the piano. There was a jangle of chords, and he recognised the waltz melody from Offenbach’s overture Orpheus in the Underworld. It went on and on, sometimes hurrying and yet never seeming to get any nearer to the end. It became part of the surroundings, with the rain, the green wallpaper, the palms, and the heavy breathing of a deaf old lady who had fallen asleep.
After a while the old people roused themselves and went upstairs to sleep again. Francis followed them without a murmur. Indeed, he now felt himself to be one of them.
Barbara’s note was still in the pocket of his dressing-gown. Better not leave it there, he decided, coming back to reality for a moment. He lit a match and destroyed it and then got ready for bed. He felt melancholy now but not unhappy. After all, everything had happened for the best. Things generally did. Margaret always said so, and wives were usually right.
Aunts were right too, he thought, as he lay in bed looking round the overfurnished Victorian room. It was somehow like going to bed in Aunt Maude’s drawing-room, he felt. Well, they were all right and he was wrong. He would be back in Oxford tomorrow. He wouldn’t let them know he was coming early. He would give them a surprise. Life was very uneventful there and it would be nice for them to have a surprise, was his last thought before he put out the light and went to sleep.