by Barbara Pym
‘Tis in arranging all my friends’ affairs,
Not having, of my own, domestic cares.
And she is laughing ha-ha – she is laughing, is this Miss Pym and thinking Oh, this is like my dear friend Jock who is in the frozen north, where the sea is frozen, and the snow is frozen, but the people they are not so frozen she thinks, else how could there be any lilla flickas? Well, she is thinking of her friend Jock, her dear friend, and she is wanting to thank him for his beautiful letter, which is the most beautiful letter she has ever had from him. I must write another letter, she thinks, that is what I must do. So cheerio chaps and here goes, she says, not being by any means one of your old fashioned spinsters. And it is evening and she is sitting by the fire in the drawing room smoking a cigarette and the wireless is on and dear Aunt Janie is knitting a white jumper, and this white jumper is always going wrong, oh, you have no idea how wrong it is going. Anyway here is Miss Pym in the middle of a happy domestic scene, so you can think of her in this same happy scene, and I know you will like to imagine her in the drawing room with Aunt Janie, rather than imparadis’d in Mr J’s arms in Balliol, or getting into a merry state of condition in the St George’s restaurant with Mr Pullein-Thompson, or walking in the Parks and telling her so sad life story to Mr B. H. de C. Ireland. Well, now you have what you like, so I hope you are content, because it is not often that we have what we like in this life.
And now you are asking, what is this Miss Pym doing with herself in Oswestry? And I will tell you, she is writing, simply that. And she is writing a new novel, and Chapter One is nearly done, but it is not in rhymes, no sir, not even Miss Pym is as clever as that. And this novel it is oh-so sober and dull, and there are no parties of young people getting beschwipst, and there are no Finns or Swedes or Germans or Hungars and the Magyar bor is not flowing at all freely, and there is no farm on the puszta … no, there is none of this. Well, there can be really nothing, you say. And you will be right die ganze Welt dreht sick um Liebe you will be saying in a furry, sentimentvolle Stimme as you see darling Henry and more darling Elsie and how happy they are. And you will be coming back to England, and you will be meeting this so dull spinster which is like the old brown horse walking with a slow majestic dignity, and you will be saying Well-fer-goodness-sake, Miss Pym, like they say in the films. But this spinster, this Barbara Mary Crampton Pym, she will be smiling to herself – ha-ha she will be saying inside. But I have that within which passeth show – maybe she will be saying that, but she is a queer old horse, this old brown spinster, so I cannot forecast exactly what she will be saying.
And what else is she doing you ask me? Well, she is reading, and she is reading The Christian Year, and Don Juan and Rainer Maria Rilke, and the Daily Mirror, and the so nice poems of Mr Betjeman, which remind her of standing looking up at the Randolph on early closing day, and having a coltish flirtation with a young man. Ho-ho, you say, wagging your finger very avuncular, so this spinster is having a coltish flirtation. Das ist nicht gut you add in a guttural voice, shaking your head, but Miss Pym, this so prudent sensible spinster, she is agreeing with you. Nej, she is saying, det ar dalig. For she thinks that may be Swedish for saying that it is not good to have a coltish flirtation outside the Randolph on early closing day, even if the sun is shining and you are only four and twenty. Then come kiss me four and twenty – but no it is not that, not at all – Miss Pym is four years too late. And Mr Liddell is chuckling because she is four years too late.
And Miss Pym is reading the newspapers and listening to Wien du Stadt meiner Traüme on the wireless. But it is not that any more. No it is Deutschland. Ein Reich, Ein Führer – Heil Hitler! that is what it is. And she is receiving letters from her so dear friend in Dresden, and he is saying that it is Schade that she is not in Germany to experience these so great events which have shaken the heart of Germany, or something similar. And Miss Pym is remembering how … but no she is not remembering, she is just writing back a very cautious letter because she does not like to be rude to a dear friend who has been always so kind to her when she was allein in einer Grosstadt, like Marlene Dietrich in the song, which her dear friend Jock wouldn’t know about. And Miss Pym is getting a letter from her dear little, young boy friend Mr J., whom her dear friend Jock thinks unprepossessing, which is not true. For Jock has not seen him in his pretty blue suit, looking like a handsome little boy out in the East End, and taking a pride in being so because it is so much more Stimmungsvoll to look like the Mile End Road than like Mayfair. Well, as I was telling you, Miss Pym is getting this letter from Mr J., and it is written from Dover where he is spending two hours because he has missed the boat which shall take him on the beginning of his journey to Spain. And Miss Pym is very angry, oh she is, you have no idea how angry she is with Mr J. It is coming over her like violent wave. Yes siree. And do you know why she is angry? You may think you can guess why, but even you are not so clever, Mr Jock Liddell. Your first in Greats availeth you nothing here. Well, I will tell you, I am not one for keeping you in suspense. She is angry because Mr J. writes oh-so-calm in his letter that he forgot to go to the Schools to do the French Unseen in Pass Moderations, and so he will not be able to get through his two subjects, no, not even though Miss Pym wrote him three beautiful letters and offered up so many prayers for him. Now do you see why Miss Pym is angry with him? And do you not think her anger is right? How shall thy fortress ever stand … well no, the rest of the quotation is not suitable, but how will Mr J. become oh so celebrated and famous if he is doing silly things like this? asks Miss Pym. And she is going to his tutor in Balliol and they are weeping together and drinking a glass of sherry wine to steady their nerves, and his tutor is saying Where were ye, nymph, and Oh, what the influence of a good woman could have done at this time, and they are weeping again, and Miss Pym is wishing she had stayed longer in Oxford, so that she could have led young Mr J. by the hand into Schola Magna Borealis, or whichever it was, and she and his tutor are very broken, but Mr J. is not broken, oh no, no how is he broken, he is in Paris, kissing people’s hands and paying nice compliments and being charming. And Miss Pym is quoting Gray’s ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’ and shaking her head, and being very wise and old, like as if she had a house in North Oxford and asked young men to tea on Sundays.
Well, another day is come, and the sun is shining all the time and it is as hot as summer and this Miss Pym, this spinster I was telling you about, is sitting outside in her green deckchair and she is reading Don Juan and smoking a Russian cigarette (she is quite a dog, this old spinster) and knitting a pink jumper. And then she is dropping off to sleep and the sun is shining on her face and making what we would call sun-kisses if we were not verboten to be all romantic. So we will say freckles. And Miss Pym is oh-so-pleased, and she is looking in the glass, and thinking how her face is a little brown, and she is singing a song ho-ho, and it is a song about somebody who is tall and tanned and terrific – you know how, like these so glamorous American playboys are that you see when you are in the Ritz in the two shilling seats. And Miss Pym is very pleased and happy and she has just had tea and when she finished writing to her dear friend Mr Liddell she will be writing that oh so dull and full of nothing novel I was telling you about in our last. And she is writing it in a fine book with a marbled cover, like I don’t know what unless it is a fine pulpit in the House of God. And Miss Pym is chirping out a poem
Of marble brown and veined
He did the pulpit make …
[John Betjeman]
She is chirping, oh so merrily with a hey nonny nonny, is Miss Pym. Miss Pym is asking tenderly after the Herr Lektor Harvey and his beautiful wife. And she is envying Jock because he is with these so dear people and he is seeing new things and he is filled with the Stimmung of the northern winter. And she is hoping to see dear Henry and darling Elsie if they come to England in the summer, and she is hoping that marriage has improved dear Henry, and that he will not any more be rude to her. For this Miss Pym, this spin
ster, she is getting to a good age now, and she is got very touchy like and crabby. And she is sorry that she cannot send dear Jock any beautiful cards and pictures like he sent her, but she has only a card of Balliol College Chapel and one of that place, and she thinks he would not be liking that. Plurimi pertransibunt … she is saying and her eyes are misty with tears and she is reaching for the Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. But then she is remembering poor Henry, and how he thinks Swinburne very fine, and she is giggling and thinking it is oh-so funny that he should now be reading this poet which she read on Sundays after evening chapel when she was a plump Backfisch of sixteen summers. And she is saying ho-ho, you brown bright nightingale amorous – so ist die Liebe, nickt wahr? And then everyone is angry with her because she says these things, and is not behaving like the old brown horse I was telling you about, but she is not minding that everyone is angry, no not at all. She is thinking of herself eating dinner in St Hilda’s College on the last night of last term, wearing a green chiffon dress and pearls and diamonds. And she is feeling oh so happy because why? Oh, you want to know everything, you old people, with your wagging fingers. Well, it is because she is eating a brown soup with no taste, and some slices of pork and some stewed plums – that is why she is feeling oh so happy. Do you think that is why? Well, you will never know now, because this Miss Pym, this old brown horse spinster, is all shut up like oyster, or like clam. And she is an old stuffed-shirt is this gnädiges Fraülein Pym vacker – no sir, no how, but she is a devoted friend, oh yes, she is so devoted. And she is sending so much love to Finland, to dear Jock, to the dear Harveys. Oh, she is so loving.
Joint letter to Robert Liddell and Henry and Elsie Harvey in Helsingfors
Ack! der mich liebt und kennt
Ist in der Weite
Oswestry
5 April 1938
says Miss Pym, thinking of her dear friends so far away Well, it is the last day of March. It is the first mild day of March, and it is the last. Perhaps the Herr Lektor will explain this so nische poem of Wordsworth to his dear wife if she does not know it already. And after this little digression Miss Pym, this old spinster I was telling you about last time I wrote, will continue her letter.
Well, now, what is she doing, this Miss Pym, what has she to tell her dear friends in Finland? She cannot write such an interesting letter as her dear friend Jock, but she can tell them about the lovely spring weather and the beautiful flowers which are growing in Shropshire. And the cherry tree at the bottom of the garden is out, and Miss Pym, this old learned spinster, is quoting A.E. Housman to herself, and she is picking flowers to put in her room, and she is wearing a black jersey and sandals, but she is not saying Hail Mosley! no sir, she is singing. Now what is she singing? Will no one tell me what she sings? I will tell you.
But now it is the third day of April, so now you will never hear what it is that Miss Pym was singing, but it was probably the ‘Horst Wessel Lied’, ‘God moves in a mysterious way,’ ‘Still wie die Nacht’, ‘Ungeduld’, and ‘St Louis Blues’, and now while she writes she is listening to the lovely wailing music from Budapest and it is reminding her of so many things, but they are not the sort of things you would wish to know about, so we will say no more about it. But now the music is finished and they are playing the Hungarian National Anthem which is so sad and beautiful like the Eton Boating Song and the Randolph and so many other things in Miss Pym’s life. But you would not want to hear about those either.
You will perhaps be more interested to hear that Miss Pym has written 60 pages of her new novel, in her lovely marbled notebook. Now this is not so much because during this last week she has written only about fifteen pages, because she has been doing other things. Yes, she has been sewing and buying new clothes. And she and her dear Aunt Janie are going to Liverpool on Thursday because Aunt Janie’s nice blue costume, well, it is oh-so nice this costume but there is something about the back of the coat that is not quite as it should be, which is like so many things in this life. So this coat must be altered and Miss Pym and her Aunt will be driving to Liverpool in a motor car and they will be spending much money, for Mrs Pym went yesterday to London and has left behind the housekeeping money with her daughter, and oh fancy! if Miss Pym should spend it on herself instead of on food for Mr Pym and her Aunt Janie and the dear servant Dilys – that would be a very wicked thing, would it not? And Miss Pym is thinking, it is no end of a nuisance all this food business, what should I do if I were married and had to be always bothering about it like the poor Fru Lektor? But if I were married I should be rich and have many servants and I should be sitting down writing a novel and at one o’clock lunch would appear, just as it does in Balliol or Trinity, where Miss Hilary Pym and Mr Peter Potter of the OUDS are eating oysters. But Miss Hilary Pym is now in Athens and she enjoyed so much the voyage from Brindisi when she watched the sunrise with a nice young man from Cambridge, while Mr David Hunt lay sleeping, not caring to do such romantic things. And Miss Pym says she is just oh so little disappointed in Athens because it is rather dusty and there are people squatting on the pavements wanting to weigh you and clean your shoes and sell you things. And the shops are not so beautiful as she had expected, but oh, one can see the Acropolis every day and there is dear Mr Dunbabin at the British School and dear Mr Casson coming too, and not so dear Miss Benton and they are all jolly chums together.
Miss Pym is praying every day for Mr J. in Spain and she is writing him a beautiful poem for his birthday, and it is in heroic couplets, and it is such a clever poem because it spells his name down the side, and it is not sentimental, no sir, it is most unique. But she cannot send it to him because he has no address in Spain and so she will send it to him in Balliol at the beginning of next term. And he will read it through once and then it will be lying on his table with all the letters from his admirers. And Monsieur Jean-Pierre Giraudoux, that so charming French boy will be coming in and reading it, and Mr J’s rich Indian friends will be coming in and Mr J will be putting a record on the radio gramophone, and can you guess what the record will be? It will not be the sad German record, or the funny Russian one, or the romantisch Hungarian one that Miss Pym likes – it will be Josephine Baker singing Si j’étais blanche – oh, fancy, says Miss Pym to Mr J, if your black friends should understand French! And she is remembering how she played bowls in Balliol with the late Mr Harvey and Mr Wall and Mr Sundarum. Oh, so many summers ago. But she is not sad, oh no Sie ist nicht traurig, because she is always happy when she is in Balliol.
And she is happy again now because she has had another letter from that so kind, nice Mr Liddell out of Helsingfors. And she is so especially, so immensely pleased with the photographs of her dear sister Elsie, who is so charming and who can speak Finnish, which is the most difficult language in the world. She is putting these photographs in her album, and hoping so much that she will be able to meet her dear sister in the summer. Snow we have not in Oswestry, she says in a low, sad tone, and oh for the Stimmung of the northern winter, and how I wish I were a man and could be invited to stay out in Finland. Oh how true it is that to him that hath it shall be given!
Well, every time she gets a letter from her dear friend Jock, Miss Pym is conscious that she has not so many interesting things to write about as he has. For the people she thinks so nice, he just thinks dull – and will not be wishing to hear about them, perhaps. But as long as this Miss Pym remains an old brown spinster, reading the poems of John Betjeman with calm of mind all passion spent, it is okay, nicht wahr? ¿no es verdad?
So cheerio chaps says this Miss Pym.
To Robert Liddell in Helsingfors
Oswestry
12 April 1938
Well, this is a lovely letter from Mr Liddell, and fancy, there is a page written by darling Elsie, and she shall have a separate letter all to herself from her loving sister. And there is a page with the Herr Lektor’s writing on it, but what he has written does not make sense, and he is not sending any nice messages, so he shall not have
a letter to himself. He shall have Mr Liddell’s letter. But is there enough for two? It is hardly worthwhile dividing a cherry, as my dear mother is fond of saying – Well, we shall see. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, as I said to Mr Jepsen in August 1937, and I daresay that if it did then it does now.
Life is so beautiful here, so ganz entzückena, the weather so fine and the garden so full of beautiful flowers. I was looking in my Shelley the other day, and I found a collection of flowers there which brought back a rush of memories. Oh, it came o’er me like a violent wave. Those flowers were some I picked in the garden of St Hilda’s in the spring of five years ago. It was a Sunday morning and I thought oh, if I could give them to Lorenzo – (but I didn’t talk like that in those days) but here they are still, brown with age but one still keeps its colour, it is a bright blue scylla and it was pressed in Marlowe, at the beginning of Edward II. Well, that was five years ago, and this old spinster this Miss Pym, she has some new pressed flowers now. They are a daffodil, an orchid and a violet, and they are some of the flowers given to her in Oxford this spring by a dear young friend. So, dear Lorenzo, would you like these poor flowers that have waited five years to be given to you? No? It was what I thought. You would not wish me to be deprived of any sentimental token that would give me pleasure.
‘No,’ said the Herr Lektor in an emphatic voice – ‘I should not wish it.’
‘I think Miss Pym is not quite herself today,’ said Mr Liddell, in a nervous, hurrying tone. ‘This talk of pressed flowers and sentimental tokens, it is not good. I understand that she was perfectly content at Oswestry. That there were no regrets, no …’ he stood holding a beef in his hand, making vague nervous gestures with it.
‘Oh, fancy if all passion should not be spent!’ said the Fru Lektor in a high, agitated tone.