by Barbara Pym
Later, however, she awoke with the realisation that married people did not understand the importance of the full hot-water bottle. Hers was now thin and cold and she had not had her visual hot bath before going to bed. For a moment she wondered whether she could creep downstairs and refill her bottle, but it seemed to be too much trouble and she did not want to wake anybody up. So she draped her fur cape over the bed and then, a sudden inspiration, one of the little rugs from the floor over her feet and lay curled up under the weight of all these clothes, waiting for sleep.
Chapter Nine
‘SHOULD WE have something to eat before we go, do you think?’ Jane asked. ‘I believe refreshments are provided, but they may not be till rather late.’
‘Perhaps a glass of sherry and a biscuit?’ suggested Prudence hopefully. ‘One doesn’t really want much to eat . . but how we need a drink, she continued to herself; the idea of facing this whist drive without one was quite terrifying.
‘Oh, yes, that would be the thing,’ said Jane quickly, with her head bent. She found herself quite unable to look at Prudence, whose eyelids were startlingly and embarrassingly green, glistening with some greasy preparation which had little flecks of silver in it. Was this what one had to do nowadays when one was unmarried? she wondered. What hard work it must be, always remembering to add these little touches; there was something primitive about it, like the young African smearing himself with red camwood before he went courting. The odd and rather irritating thing about it was, though, that Nicholas was gazing at Prudence with admiration; it was quite noticeable. So it really did work. Jane studied her own face in the looking-glass above the sideboard and it looked to her just the same as when Nicholas used to gaze at it with admiration. Would he look at her with renewed interest if she had green eyelids? she wondered, but her thoughts were interrupted by his voice asking about the glass of sherry. Were they going to have one or not?
‘I’ve got it here,’ said Flora; ‘and a few sandwiches. I think we’d better start soon.’
‘Why, how nice you look, darling,’ said Jane in a surprised mother’s voice. ‘That’s the dress you made, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. I did make it,’ said Flora quickly, embarrassed by her mother’s comment and fearing worse to come. ‘Does anybody want a sandwich I they’re only cheese, I’m afraid.’
‘It’s a charming dress,’ said Prudence, wishing she could feel more natural with Flora. It was awkward when one’s friends’ children suddenly became grown-up people. ‘You look like, oh, something Victorian, that striped silk and the locket and the way you’ve done your hair. There was a picture very like that in last month’s Vogue,’ she went on, anxious to please.
‘Oh, but your dress is much nicer,’ Flora burst out, ‘and the colour of your nail varnish is so lovely. What is it?’
So we’re two women talking together, thought Prudence with surprise and a little dismay. She was glad when Jane made some joking remark about not liking Flora to use nail varnish, thus turning her into a child again.
‘We really ought to be going,’ said Nicholas. ‘It starts at eight, you know.’
‘We can be a little late,’ said Jane, ‘though not as late as the party from the Towers. It would be a serious social error if we were to be later than the Lyalls.’
‘I suppose the villagers will be there already,’ said Prudence, glancing at her watch.
‘Yes, the old order hasn’t changed that much. Edward Lyall isn’t one of these new-fangled Members of Parliament. His ancestors have represented this place for generations.’
They set out, Jane in her old tweed coat, Prudence in a fur cape. The hall was practically next door to the vicarage, so there was little time in which to compose oneself. Suddenly a door was pushed open and there was a noise of talk and laughter and chairs scraping on the wooden floor. Looking around her, Prudence realised at once that she was overdressed. Her green-and-gold shot taffeta cocktail party dress was out of place here, where most of the women were in long-sleeved wool or even coats and skirts. Her fur cape was the only one in the little cloakroom where they hung their coats.
‘I think I’ll wear it round my shoulders,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t seem very warm.’
‘You’ll be boiled,’ said Jane cheerfully. ‘And it will get in the way of the cards.’
They went out into the hall and stood vaguely around, but only for a moment. Mrs. Crampton and Mrs. Mayhew were upon them, Prudence was being introduced, and within a matter of seconds she found herself sitting down at a table with three others.
‘You must be Mrs. Cleveland’s friend that’s come to stay,’ said a woman in a dark felt hat trimmed with a bird’s body. ‘I’m Mrs. Glaze and this is my nephew’ — she indicated a fresh-faced young man — ‘and this is Mr. Mortlake. We’re all great churchgoers and we like the vicar so much.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Prudence nervously.
‘Canon Pritchard was a good man in his way, but we didn’t care for his lady,’ said Mrs. Glaze. ‘Much too interfering. There’s none of that from Mrs. Cleveland.’
‘No, I don’t suppose there is,’ said Prudence. ‘She usually gets on well with people.’ She wished they wouldn’t talk quite so much, for it was many years since she had played whist and she found she had to concentrate. Her partner, Mrs. Glaze’s nephew, the butcher, was taking no part in the conversation, but the others kept up a continual flow, most of it about people she didn’t know or had just heard Jane mention.
It was a relief to find herself at a table with Jane, and Mr. Oliver and Mr. Whiting, who were also apparently church-people.
‘They will be arriving soon,’ said Mr. Whiting, ‘the party from the Towers, I should say. I hope Mr. Edward will give us a few words. We need that bit of encouragement these days.’
‘Does he usually give a few words?’Jane asked.
‘Yes, Mrs. Cleveland; he usually has a message. And then we adjourn for refreshments. After that he takes a hand himself and Mrs. Lyall too, but the poor lady has very little notion of how to play.’ He shook his head, and gathered in a trick.
‘She’s a good sort, though,’ said Mr. Oliver. ‘She’s got the right ideas, though of course she can’t go against the party openly.’
‘If you can call them the right ideas,’ said Mr. Whiting, glaring at Mr. Oliver. ‘Personally, I shouldn’t.’
‘Well, you know my views,’ said Mr. Oliver truculently.
“We’ve certainly heard them often enough,’ said Mr. Whiting.
Jane and Prudence exchanged a look.
‘Well, we all have different views,’ began Jane, but fortunately it was not necessary for her to continue with her platitudes, for at that moment a hush seemed to strike through the hall, cards were laid down and faces turned towards the door.
A slight, dark young man, with a pale, interesting face and hair worn rather too long, stood on the threshold. He was accompanied by a middle-aged woman in a black lace dress, who looked about her anxiously.
‘There they are!’ said Mr. Whiting, raising his hands and bringing them together in a clap which was taken up by the rest of the hall.
‘Is it usual to clap one’s Member?’ whispered Jane to Prudence. ‘I should have thought the time would be after he had said a few words or given his message.’
Edward Lyall acknowledged the applause by a wave of his hand and a charming smile which seemed to include everybody.
‘Thank you, my friends,’ he said in a ringing voice; ‘thank you. It gives me great pleasure to be among you tonight and to see so many of you here in this good cause. As I drove down from the House this evening to be with you I found myself wondering what I could say to you, what encouragement I could give you.’
‘He might well find himself wondering,’ said Mr. Oliver in a low tone, but he was silenced by an angry look from Mr. Whiting.
Edward Lyall’s smooth voice flowed on. Political speeches at such gatherings tend to have a certain sameness about them, and Edward Lyall’s message t
o his constituents had nothing particularly original about it. Jane found herself noticing his continual references to the ‘burden’ and began to wonder whether this word was more used by clergymen or politicians. Indeed, after Edward had been speaking for about ten minutes, she came to the conclusion that his words might almost have been coming from a pulpit. Would he perhaps end with a prayer?
‘And now, my friends, I have talked long enough. You didn’t come here to listen to me, I know. And I’m not ashamed to admit that as I drove down from the House tonight I found myself looking forward to Mrs. Crampton and Mrs. Mayhew’s excellent refreshments’ — he turned to those ladies and smiled — ‘so I won’t keep you from them any longer.’ He ended with a reference to ‘these austere days’ and flung in an extra burden for luck, as it were, and then he really had finished. Jane and Prudence found themselves being borne forward on a tide of people surging towards the refreshments and their beloved Member.
‘I suppose we should wait to be introduced,’ said Jane, looking over to where Edward Lyall and his mother were waiting, as if to receive presentations. ‘It’s a pity they’re standing right in front of the refreshments, though. We could at least have made a start on those.’
‘Surely not before they start,’ said Prudence. ‘They aren’t eating anything yet.’
‘Ah, Mrs. Cleveland …’ Miss Doggett, in her purple woollen dress, seemed to take command of the situation. ‘Let me introduce you to our Member.’
Jane followed meekly and shook hands first with Mrs. Lyall and then with her son. He had an appropriate word for her, if not exactly a message, and she found herself liking him very much, falling a victim, as she put it, to his easy charm of manner. Refreshments now began to be offered and many ladies came up to him with plates of sandwiches and other delicacies. Jane saw Mrs. Mayhew offer a plate rather furtively and heard her say in a low voice, ‘Oyster patties — specially for you. I know how much you like them.’ The situation interested and amused her; there was something so familiar about it and yet for a moment or two she could not think what it was. The hall, the trestle tables, the good-looking young man, the ladies surrounding him … where had she seen all this before? Then it came to her. It was usually curates who were accorded such treatment, but this parish had no curate. Edward Lyall, therefore, was a kind of curate-substitute. The idea pleased her so much that she wanted immediately to tell somebody about it, but she found herself standing next to his mother and felt she could hardly reveal her thought. What should she say to Mrs. Lyall, a gentle-looking person with a rather long, melancholy face?
Fortunately, Mrs. Lyall started first.
‘Edward is so tired,’ she said; ‘it’s really a nice rest for him to come down here. That speech yesterday took a lot out of him.’
That speech? Jane never followed the proceedings” of Parliament, but she could imagine quite well what a young man of his party might have said, so she said cheerfully, ‘Yes; it must have done. Very fine, I should think it must have been. That bit about Youth and the Empire,’ she hazarded.
‘Yes, everyone was very pleased. I’m glad to see him doing so well, though of course, as you may have heard, I don’t always agree with everything he says.’ There was a little worried frown on Mrs. Lyall’s face, which made Jane say in a hearty reassuring voice, ‘Oh, no, of course one doesn’t. There’s good and bad on each side, isn’t there?’
‘I’m so glad to hear you say that, because it’s just what I feel.’
‘After all,’ said Jane, warming to the subject, ‘Members of Parliament axe only human beings, aren’t they? We all make mistakes, even the best of us, whichever the best may be.’
She realised that she had spoilt her little message of cheer by throwing in this last obscurity, for the worried frown appeared again on Mrs. Lyall’s face.
‘If only one could take the good from both sides,’ said Mrs. Lyall sadly. ‘Still, I do feel that things are not quite as they used to be.’
‘No,’ Jane agreed. ‘There have been many changes in the last few years.’
‘Especially since the war,’ went on Mrs. Lyall. ‘I think of it often, especially at breakfast-time.’
‘At breakfast-time?’ Jane echoed.
‘Yes, all those dishes on the sideboard. When my husband was alive, we’d have three or four different hot dishes and cold ham when there were only the three of us at breakfast.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Jane eagerly; ‘kidneys and bacon and scrambled egg and boiled eggs, perhaps haddock too, not to mention porridge. I used to read about it in novels about Edwardian country house parties.’
‘Now we’ve done away with all that,’ said Mrs. Lyall, ‘and it’s such a relief. I just have tea and toast. Edward likes coffee and a cereal of some kind. He might have a boiled egg or a rasher of bacon occasionally. …’
Jane turned away, feeling that she was not worthy to receive these sacred revelations of his tastes. Others ought to have been listening and they apparently were, for Miss Doggett’s voice chimed in, saying, ‘I think a man needs a cooked breakfast, especially after an all-night sitting in the House. I can imagine Mr. Lyall needing a cooked breakfast then. Can’t you, Jessie?’ She turned to her companion and spoke rather sharply for, as Jane had noticed, Miss Morrow was smirking a little as if there were something funny being said.
‘Men seem to need a lot of food at all times,’ said Miss Morrow in a rough, casual tone.
‘Sometimes,’ said Mrs. Lyall, on what seemed a reproachful note, ‘Edward is too tired to eat breakfast when he’s been in the House all night.’
‘Oh, dear …’ Mrs. Mayhew and Mrs. Crampton had now joined the little group round Mrs. Lyall.
‘Perhaps a nourishing milk drink would be best at a time like that?’ suggested Mrs. Crampton. ‘Benger’s or Ovaltine …’
‘Or a more drastic remedy,’ said Miss Doggett boldly. ‘Brandy, perhaps?’
‘Yes, one does feel that in cases of fatigue, something really strong is needed,’ said Mrs. Mayhew.
‘I always think one should have brandy in the house,’ said Mrs. Crampton.
‘Does she mean in the house or in the House?’ said Miss Morrow to Jane. ‘I think we can safely leave them to their worship now, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Jane agreed. ‘Why, what have you got there?’ she asked, seeing that Miss Morrow appeared to be secreting a paper bag behind her back.
‘Oyster patties,’ whispered Miss Morrow. ‘I like them too. I thought I would eat them when I got home in the privacy of my bedroom. I took these when nobody was looking, or, rather, nobody who mattered. I think Mr. Oliver saw me,- but with his views he could hardly disapprove. Would you like one?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Jane. She looked rather anxiously round the hall to see that Prudence and Flora were all right. The latter was talking to Mr. Oliver, but Prudence was standing in an incongruous little group, which consisted of Mrs. Glaze, Nicholas and the two churchwardens. She did not look as if she were enjoying herself very much, and she had been promised at least a glimpse of Fabian Driver, Jane realised, and there was no sign of him as yet.
‘I wonder what can have happened to Mr. Driver?’ she said to Miss Morrow. ‘Doesn’t he usually put in an appearance at these affairs?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Miss Morrow. ‘He will be coming along when he judges the time is ripe.’
‘Ripe?’ echoed Jane in a puzzled voice. ‘How can it be ripe, and for what?’
‘A good entrance. He has to time his appearance carefully - it mustn’t be too soon after the arrival of Edward Lyall, otherwise he wouldn’t be noticed.’
‘Surely he wouldn’t consciously think of it like that,’ said Jane, laughing. ‘I expect he likes to have a leisurely dinner and then come along.’
‘Yes; Mrs. Arkright has left him a cold bird - pheasant, I believe - with a salad, and he will take his time over the meal, but he will take more time than is really necessary.’
‘What a lot you know about him,’ sa
id Jane, looking at Miss Morrow with new eyes. What she saw was unremarkable enough; the birdlike little face with long nose and large bright eyes, the ordinary dark blue crepe dress with a cheap paste clip at the neck.
‘Well, living next door, you get to know these things. I knew Constance, his wife, of course. One can know a lot about men through their wives.’
‘Oh, dear…’Jane considered herself ruefully. ‘Yes, I suppose one can. What was she like?’
‘Older than he was, not a very interesting person really; she was a good needlewoman.’
Miss Morrow’s tone was dry and Jane did not feel she had gleaned very much about Constance Driver from this bare description. Surely he will come soon, she told herself, anxious for Prudence’s evening, and very soon after this he did come, walking in slowly, his leonine head held rather high, looking around him with an air almost of surprise.
Miss Morrow smiled sardonically. Jane advanced towards him and he greeted her.
‘I want you to meet Miss Prudence Bates,’ she said. ‘She is staying with us for the week-end.’
So this is Fabian Driver, thought Prudence, putting on a rather cool social manner. She had a natural distrust of good-looking men, though they seemed to offer a challenge which she was never unwilling to accept. Fabian’s glance when they shook hands was so penetrating that something of her poise deserted her. She had often enough had men look at her like that, and perhaps it is a thing that women cannot have too much of. She returned his glance and held it.