by Angus Wilson
She laughed. ‘Well, really, David,’ she cried, ‘you opt out of all this. And why not? But then, when you contribute, it’s to doubt my competence. Yes,’ she went on, ‘I think I can manage. I might be quite good. At any rate, we can see. I’ll go and ring Rogerson now.’
Later David got Meg a whisky and soda to take up to her bedroom. She had said, soon after she recovered from the first days of her breakdown, ‘Do you mind, David, getting whisky in for me? Now that I’m in a proper house again instead of hotels and other people’s rooms, I can’t bear the idea of not having a nightcap. It was one of Bill’s strictest habits.’ Tonight, when she took her drink, she said, ‘It was nice having Bill to protect me from people. I don’t care how bad for me it was, it was still very nice.’
David said, ‘Meg, you don’t have to take this job with Fred Rogerson.’
She smiled. ‘Don’t I, David?’ she asked. ‘No, I suppose I don’t. But I shall. I’ve agreed now, and I think I shall find it interesting. Besides, I shall still be here and that’s all that matters to me at the moment. Although I’m afraid I’m not managing it very well.’
*
As far as David could tell, Meg greatly enjoyed working for Fred Rogerson. She left Andredaswood every morning in the Rover at a little after eight and was back most evenings before six. His attention, however, was given very closely during June to the nursery. He knew that he had been neglecting it and, if he realized with a certain amusement that the staff managed very happily without him, he felt a certain dislike for the idea of recognizing himself as a sleeping proprietor. He told himself, and he knew that there was enough truth in the view to make it tenable, that if the Nursery staff could get on without him, they got on better when he showed a full interest. Climbers, it was true, her affection secured by Eileen’s using her as a baby-sitter and proxy ‘aunt’ for the children, had developed a dogged attachment to Tim. It was an attachment perhaps a little more maternal than that she had for David, and certainly not without patronage, but Tim, under his wife’s management, was now rather proud of his capacity to deal with ‘the old thing’. Each indeed began to act as interpreter of the other to David. Climbers clearly saw herself as one who understood the younger generation and the new class.
‘I shouldn’t take too much notice of Tim’s abruptness, David,’ she said, ‘it’s only a part of the sort of upbringing he’s had, you know,’ and ‘I know how you feel, David. We liked things done in a certain way, didn’t we? But these young people have a kind of directness that’s jolly good really.’ And on occasion Tim would say, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry too much with what looks like the muddle of Climbers’ sales returns. It used to send me up the wall, but I’ve found she has her own ways and methods and I’ve given up arguing. She was usually right in the end.’
All this David took with amused detachment; but there came a day when Climbers and Tim approached him together in the little office. Collihole, they said, was given too free a hand with the shrub roses. ‘We haven’t the facilities here or the experience,’ Tim said, ‘to make all these experiments with hybridizing. He’s wasting time repeating work that’s being done, and far better, in specialized rose nurseries. Some of the graftings he’s made are ridiculous. Work done ages ago by Korde in Germany.’
‘Yes,’ Climbers chimed in, ‘it’s quite quite true, David. Tim’s been showing me a lot of articles in the Rose Annuals.’
‘We can’t do more here,’ Tim said, ‘than supply tried favourites.’
David felt angry. ‘You have a free hand with the rhododendrons,’ he said to Tim.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ was the answer.
He reminded Climbers of Collihole’s long and loyal service.
‘Oh, yes, David. He’s a wonderful chap. But he’s a bit of a stick-in-the-mud.’
He forbade them to interfere; they had to accept, but he could see that they didn’t like it.
David had always spoken a little sarcastically of the shrub roses because of the ‘chic’ aura that hung around the demand for them. Yet, as he knew, when the shrubs, the hardy herbs, and the annuals had all become routine bores to him, the shrub roses still retained his affection and interest. He now gave his full time to working with Collihole, and his trust in the rake-thin, glassy-eyed old man was confirmed by the number of prizes that they won at the June show.
On top of this, the new electrical machinery was installed in one of the houses to generate a moist heat for forcing on rootings. Tim was enthusiastic and grateful to David for allowing the expenditure.
‘We can advance everything by at least two weeks,’ he said.
David knew that Tim would master the working of the machinery and its potentialities far more quickly than he would. Nevertheless lie set about studying it himself and towards the end of July felt able to meet Tim in discussion of its value and its future uses. Tim, perhaps, proved a little less on the spot in these discussions, since his mastery had already been completed for some weeks and his interest diverted to a new colour reproduction process which might allow them to insert two illustrated pages in their annual catalogue. David noted his own perseverance and excused any misgivings he felt by telling himself that he must either be competent at the Martha tasks of his life or relinquish them. There for the moment he let his inner debate rest.
Preoccupation and fatigue, then, allowed him to do little more than note the success of Meg’s acceptance of the job with Fred Rogerson – a success which, in any case, was brought to him daily by Else’s proud reports of Meg’s evident but less irresponsible happiness and of Fred Rogerson’s complete satisfaction.
June had given him further reason to delight in Meg’s presence. The nearness of Glyndebourne had been one of the chief factors that had decided the purchase of Andredaswood. For him and for Gordon the June season was the crown of the year. They disliked the chic atmosphere but easily forgot it in their pleasure at the performances. Else, on the other hand, found it impossible not to think the smartness was in some way an evidence of a certain falseness, shallowness, or unseriousness, which her spiritual integrity demanded that she should detect. Things could be done on this lavish scale, she seemed to imply, on the Continent; but the essence of English musical culture was its simplicity, almost its amateurishness. If they remarked on the great Continental singers or conductors who appeared there, she smiled in a way that suggested she knew with what embarrassment they saw their talents subordinated to English shallowness. She loved to say, ‘So all the snobs have had their spectacle. The opera was beautifully arranged to enhance the decor.’ She made this joke every year.
Meg, then, was a welcome companion. He suspected that he estimated her appreciation. and her knowledge more highly than was justified because she always seemed to ask the questions that he found worth answering and to minimize the faults that he thought inconsiderable. Her enthusiasm was unashamed and he decided that it was not sentimental to find this refreshing. Also she took the social aspect of Glyndebourne for granted with an entirely neutral acceptance, and made him, perhaps for the first time, entirely at ease with it.
June, then, when it brought them together, did so entirely and satisfactorily. July kept them largely apart. As the end of term approached she began to return later in the evenings, often staying for dinner with the Rogersons. She even went to Fred Rogerson’s house on two Sundays to cope with arrears of work. When David did see her, she was full of talk of the school and of Fred and Joan. Fred, she told him, was a different person as soon as he got down to school affairs.
‘Different from what?’ he asked.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t take all his political and “local culture” activities very seriously. It’s fascinating to me because, never having met that sort of professional progressive, it was that aspect that made me interested in him. But he’s largely a fool in such things, David, or perhaps I should say very conventional – only I’m not used to the convention. He’s what I imagine Tory people mean by a typical N
ew Statesman reader. But the truth is he’s not really interested; he does it all out of habit. Don’t tell Else I said so. Joan’s quite different. Her emotions dominate her intelligence, but she cares about it all, and in so much of it, I think, she’s right. But he doesn’t. And as a result, he’s unbearably pompous in things outside the school and, of course, Joan’s admiration for him doesn’t help. In fact, he’s like that a bit with all adults because he feels at a disadvantage. But as soon as there’s anything to do with the girls or the boys, he becomes a very impressive person indeed, I think …’
David thought that this view of Fred Rogerson’s virtues, if somewhat a stereotype of those of a good schoolmaster, was probably true, but as he had no interest whatever in the school, it did not alter his view that the Rogersons were slightly tiresome bores. He was interested and a little moved to see the ardour with which Meg came to what were, after all, somewhat trite conclusions. She’s like a child in her ardours, he thought, and realized that it was the mixture of simplicity and sophistication in her that he liked. He was pleased to know that she was there, talking with enthusiasm about her new life; he heard her with amusement once or twice trying to fuse her admiration for Fred Rogerson with Else’s, although their reasons for liking him were entirely opposed; but, on the whole, he ceased to do more than pretend to listen. Indeed, once or twice the pretence was not well maintained, for Meg said, ‘Oh dear, David, I didn’t think secondary-modern schools were going to bore you so much,’ and again. ‘It’s not fair. I should listen if you told me all about that old electrical mistmaker, but you’re so unselfish, you never do.’
It seemed to him, however, that the value of Meg’s presence there was made surer by the fact that he still welcomed it when their interests diverged.
When term ended, Else gave him to understand that Meg would go on with Fred Rogerson in the autumn; and Eileen told him that Fred had secured the agreement of the Education Committee to the establishment of a second secretary. Meg said nothing that suggested she would not continue; indeed she talked of the events of the winter term – the school play, for instance – as matters of interest to her. She made the suggestion that she should take a holiday in London for the last two weeks of August, but the plan came to nothing: because on August 10th Else received a telephone call from Birmingham to say that Gordon’s mother had had a stroke. There were nurses, there was recovery of movement and of speech to be expected; but still there was need of Else. She left an hour later. She was in tears. ‘I have always taken Ada for granted,’ she said, ‘and I know what being taken for granted means.’
Meg agreed to give up her London plan and take over Else’s work in her absence. Else left a careful list of what had to be done. David, going over it with Meg, was appalled at how much there was and how much he and Gordon had come to accept it. Else kept house for them, shopped, did much of the cooking, and yet two days a week managed to act as secretary and wages clerk for the nursery. Every job she did was carefully ordered by the most exact system of timetables and cash books. He thought of the irony of her parting words: she supposed that he and Gordon took her personality for granted, when in fact, they had lavished much care and thought on understanding her and accommodating their lives to her edged character; yet this mass of work which they had so selfishly disregarded, she did without considering that anyone need be grateful to her.
After the first week of doing Else’s jobs, Meg said, ‘I really don’t know how she fills in her time, David. Of course, all these little books she keeps spin things out. But even so …’
He said, ‘But Meg, I was appalled at what she does. And the little books are surely models of neatness and exactitude.’
‘Of course, they are,’ she answered, laughing. ‘They’re the sort of things a little girl would invent when playing at “keeping houses”. I’m sure it’s something Freudian, only I don’t know the name for it.’
He asked her earnestly, ‘Well, do keep them up to date, please, Meg. It’s Else’s job and she mustn’t be made to feel you don’t regard it seriously.’
She looked for a moment as though she would object, then she said, ‘Of course, if you say so, David. The dear little books shall be my only concern. After all, as you say, it’s her affair if she likes to spend all day on this sort of thing. I never thought, David, I’d be a locum tenens. Do you remember how Mother loved that expression? She must have had a series of absentee doctors, she was forever calling in locum tenenses or whatever the plural is. It was one of my mystery words as a child. And now I’m locum tenens for Else Bode. Well, well! Secondary modern schools, locum tenenses, wages clerk, there’s no end to what life holds in store.’
He saw all the same that she was enjoying herself. And he, too, enjoyed her housekeeping. It was not only that the food was better, he had expected that; it was also that she was more obtrusive than Else; she frequently discussed household affairs with him and he thoroughly enjoyed the discussions. Poor Else! She prided herself on her unobtrusive management of the house. Mrs Boniface was enthusiastic about the new regime. ‘I must say it’s nice to have things done with a bit of life. And someone who tells you what they like and what they don’t like before it’s done and not after.’
David said with that sort of mock solemnity which is meant to be taken seriously, ‘Mrs Boniface, Miss Bode will be coming back in a few weeks, you know.’
She winked at him. ‘Oh, don’t you worry, Miss Bode and me get on all right. I just said it was nice to have a change.’
As to Meg’s efficiency with the Nursery correspondence, both Climbers and Tom said that inevitably Meg’s being professional made an enormous difference.
David had been more moved than he expected when he had heard that Mrs Paget’s twisted old oak tree had been struck down. He was anxious, in any case, to hear that, since death was not yet to release her, she should be mistress once more of her eccentric, purposeful movements. But now her quick recovery seemed to him even more urgent, so that Else could return before opposition to her rule had hardened into partisan lines. Perhaps what he feared most was his own defection. He mistrusted the strength of his loyalty against the presure of his wishes. Knowing that his very recognition of this self-mistrust was a step towards its realization, he hoped that Else would return very soon.
Mrs Paget recovered enough to ‘get about’ by the first week in September and Else returned. Her loneliness assuaged by having been of use, she was at her best; and faced by this best the consciences of all at Andredaswood were roused to make her welcome. Meg had kept faithfully to her promise over the little books. Else, reassured by this attention of her totems, felt her suspicions of Meg fading. Everything, David thought, was well: loyalty had been saved.
Meg went to London for the last week of the holidays. The Rogersons too were away at a summer school until two days before term. It was exactly then that Meg, returning to Andredaswood, announced that she would not be returning to the school. Fred Rogerson, she said, did not want her.
The outcry against the Rogersons was loud and immediate. David said little, wishing only that he had exerted his influence to prevent Meg from taking a job before she was ready, to have saved her a humiliation that might well retard the recovery of her self-confidence. For all the honeyed words that had been spoken, he had no doubt that she had proved unequal to the job. The vacillation and evasion with which Fred Rogerson had dismissed her was all that he could truly blame, and these did not surprise him. Else was strongest in her condemnation. All the idealism she had found in the Rogersons was forgotten, she saw once more only their shallow materialism. She remembered above all a picnic on a summer afternoon of especial beauty when Fred had discoursed to them on the paramount importance of the teachers’ new wage claim. Eileen was almost as distressed. ‘The truth is,’ she said, ‘that Fred’s got more and more tied up with these political summer schools and things and he’s letting the school go to pot.’ She remembered suddenly a number of complaints that various parents had been making in
the last months. All this they said to David. No one liked to speak to Meg about it, because behind her calm acceptance of the rebuff and her refusal to say more than that Fred Rogerson presumably knew what he needed, they sensed that her self-esteem had been badly wounded. Silence seemed best.
In the second week in September Eileen telephoned to David and asked him to come over that afternoon. He entered the toy– and nappy-strewn contemporary sitting room to find Eileen looking like a schoolboy unfairly punished, Tim trying to look grave, and Else, the more severe for the mannish felt hat she wore when visiting, looking like a schoolmistress who’s been ‘let down’.
Tim offered a drink as one who feels that, despite a death in the house, the duties of host must be observed; but Eileen brushed such concessions aside.
‘We don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill, David,’ she said, ‘but Mrs Eliot’s behaved pretty badly.’
Tim said, ‘But look here, darling, she’s been very ill, you know.’
Else said,’ ‘All this is for David to decide. It is a matter only for him.’
Then what are you doing here? David thought. He felt disgusted and very angry at their interference in Meg’s affairs, whatever might be the cause.
He said, ‘Look, Eileen, all of you. This sort of thing has got to stop. Meg’s affairs are entirely her own concern. If you’ve got some objection to something she’s done, you must speak to her.’
‘I’m sorry, David,’ Eileen said with an off hand, no nonsense laugh, ‘I’m afraid this is very much our concern. Certainly mine. I won’t speak for anybody else. Else and I got her the job with Fred Rogerson, and she’s let us down very badly.’
Tim’s attempt at gravity had broken down into plain embarrassed gloom.
Else said in an artificially soft voice, ‘David, surely you must see that it would be a very bad thing if I or Eileen were to talk to your sister about this business. I think maybe she is ill. There is certainly something not open in her conduct over this that seems not quite healthy.’