by Barbara Pym
She watched Jane plunging dishes and glasses indiscriminately into the water without any attempt at a scientific arrangement or classification.
‘Flora’s young man might have done this quite well,’ she said.
‘Do you approve of him?’
‘Well, I hardly know,’ said Jane. ‘One rather hopes that he will be the first of many. I have been trying to see how he could be described as “rather amusing,” which was what Flora said about him in her letter.’
‘He didn’t really show it,’ Prudence agreed, ‘but perhaps he was shy and felt he had to go on talking about Geography. I dare say he is better when they’re alone. Perhaps he is a wonderful lover.’
‘Oh, dear!’ Jane looked up from the sink anxiously. ‘One doesn’t want that kind of thing. Flora is only eighteen. What should be my attitude?’
‘Flora is very sensible,’ said Prudence. ‘I shouldn’t worry.’
‘Yes, she isn’t like me. Somehow Paul isn’t quite what I’d hoped for her. I know it’s silly — but I’d hoped that Lord Edgar might fall in love with her — when they were at tutorials, you know.’
‘But he hates women, surely?’ Prudence asked.
‘I know, that’s the point. I’d imagined Flora breaking through all that.’
Prudence laughed and then looked a little apprehensively at Jane, who was swishing the wine-glasses about in an inch or two of brownish water at the bottom of the bowl. ‘You really need clean water for the glasses,’ she pointed out.
‘And they should have been done first,’ said Jane rather sadly. ‘Look, the twilight is coming; we’d better have the light on.’
The light over the sink was a dim but unshaded bulb and added a kind of desolation to the whole scene, with its chicken bones and scattered crockery. Jane went on washing in an absent-minded way, looking out over the sink to the laurels outside.
‘We have laurels outside Nicholas’s study window and here,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘No doubt Nicholas and Mrs. Glaze deserve laurels, a whole wreath of them, but I don’t. Oh, Prudence,’ she said, turning to her friend with a little dripping mop in her hand, ‘you and Fabian must make a fine thing of your married life, and I know you will. You’ll be a splendid hostess and such a help to him in everything.’
‘He hasn’t asked me to marry him yet,’ said Prudence.
‘Why don’t you ask him? said Jane recklessly. ‘Women are not in the same position as they were in Victorian times. They can do nearly everything that men can now. And they are getting so much bigger and taller and men are getting smaller, haven’t you noticed?’
‘Fabian is tall,’ said Prudence rather complacently. ‘I must say I like a man to be tall.’
‘Ah, you like a rough tweed shoulder to cry on,’ said Jane scornfully. ‘Now, why don’t you go and interrupt Fabian and Nicholas in the rather dull conversation they must be having, and suggest a walk in the twilight?’ ‘You mean I should ask if I may see him home?’ said Prudence derisively.
‘Well, why not? Why shouldn’t a woman take the initiative in a little thing like that?’
Prudence went on drying forks, and soon the sound of men’s voices was heard in the passage.
‘Can we help?’ asked Nicholas in the tone of one who hopes he will be too late.
‘Yes, we really should have offered sooner,’ said Fabian, ‘but I never feel I’m much good in a kitchen — not at the sink, anyway.’
‘I never see why men should be good at cooking and yet not able to clear things up,’ said Prudence rather acidly.
‘Why don’t you and Fabian leave the finishing touches to us,’ said Jane. ‘Husband and wife at the sink — that’s very fitting.’
Fabian sighed. Jane wondered if he had bitter-sweet memories of washing-up with poor Constance.
‘Good night, then,’ he said. ‘It has been such a pleasant evening.’
‘Well, if you’re sure I can’t do any more,’ said Prudence, hanging her damp drying-cloth on a line in the kitchen.
She walked into the hall with Fabian. The front door was open and she went out on to the steps.
‘Perhaps I should be going now,’ said Fabian. ‘It seems rather a dismal end to the party, to leave them washing up.’
‘Oh, I don’t think Jane had anything else in mind. It was the meal that was the main thing.’
‘I shall be seeing you to-morrow, darling,’ said Fabian. ‘You are all coining to tea with me. We shall have it in the garden under the walnut tree.’
‘How nice,’ said Prudence.
They had reached the gate by now and were standing rather aimlessly by it. Some bats were wheeling about in the dusky air and Prudence put her hands up to her head and uttered a little cry.
‘What is it, darling?’ asked Fabian anxiously.
‘All these bats! I loathe them.’
‘Then you’d better go indoors,’ he said sensibly. ‘It would have been rather pleasant to go for a little walk, but I expect you are rather tired and it wouldn’t really do.’
‘Wouldn’t it?’
‘Well, you see the village people walk about at night, but we don’t,’ he declared.
‘What a strange idea! Paul and Flora have gone for a walk, haven’t they?’
‘Ah, young love,’ said Fabian fatuously. ‘They make their own rules. It is quite probable that I may be elected to the Parochial Church Council next year,’ he went on more seriously. ‘You see what I mean.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Prudence laughed rather hysterically. ‘Naturally you couldn’t be seen walking in the dusk with a woman.’
‘Well, it might look a little odd. Good night, darling,’ he bent and kissed her hand. ‘A domani!’
Prudence walked back into the house and found Jane, her shoes off, lying on the drawing-room sofa.
‘I didn’t feel like going for a walk,’ Prudence said. ‘I’m rather tired, really.’
‘How do you think it went — the evening?’ Jane asked.
‘Very well,’ said Prudence politely. ‘It was a lovely chicken.’
‘A lovely chicken!’ Jane laughed. ‘Yes, it certainly was; and the wine and the conversation about Geography and then the washing up — you and Fabian, Flora and Paul, me and Nicholas.’
‘Fabian isn’t what you’d call a brilliant conversationalist,’ said Prudence half to herself.
‘Oh, who wants that!’ said Jane. She yawned and got up from the sofa. ‘Nicholas is out seeing to his tobacco plants — I shall fall asleep if I lie here any longer. Shall we go up before the “young people” get back? It might be rather daunting for them to be faced with me when they come in — of course, you would be different.’
‘No, I think I’m quite ready for bed,’ said Prudence. ‘May I have a bath?’
‘Yes, do!’ said Jane enthusiastically.
Most of the hot water had been used for the great washing up, but it was a warm evening and Prudence lay for some time in the tepid water, contemplating the dingy ceiling of the vast room with its stained-glass window and the bath cowering in a corner. It was like having a bath in a chapel. I am drained of all emotion and nothing seems real, she thought, certainly not Fabian. Tea under the walnut tree to-morrow … and then what?
‘Have you got something nice to read?’ Jane asked, coming into Prudence’s room.
‘Yes, thank you; a novel.’
‘And what could be better,’ said Jane, ‘particularly Mr. Green’s latest, or is it Mr. Greene? I never know. Both are delightful in their different ways. And you have a book of poems too, if Mr. Green or Greene should fail to charm or soothe.’
‘Yes. Fabian gave me that,’ said Prudence rather quickly.
‘A very nice anthology,’ said Jane, turning the pages. Of course, it was the same as the one poor Constance had given to him which Jane had rescued when the ‘things’ were sorted out.
Perhaps he did not know of any other. She turned back the pages quickly until she came to the fly-leaf. He had written, ‘Prudence from Fabian,’ with the date,
and then,
My Love is of a birth as rare
As ‘tis for object strange and high;
the same inscription as Constance had written for him fifteen years ago.
How strange that he should have remembered that, thought Jane. Had it been somewhere in the back of his mind for all these years, to be brought out again, as a woman, searching through her piece-bag for a patch, might come upon a scrap of rare velvet or brocade?
She closed the book quickly. ‘Does Fabian read much poetry?’ she asked.
‘No. I don’t think so. He knows one or two tags,’ said Prudence casually. ‘Men don’t really go in for that sort of thing like women do.’
‘No,’ Jane agreed; ‘one has to accept that, together with their other limitations. Listen, I can hear Paul going up to his attic.
I wonder if they had an amusing evening? One assumes that he has other conversation apart from Geography.’
‘O my America! My new-found-land,’ said Prudence. ‘I wonder if he quoted that to her?’
‘Oh, geographers don’t read poetry,’ said Jane confidently. ‘Good night, Prue dear. Sleep well.’
Chapter Eighteen
THE NEXT DAY was Sunday, and Prudence was awakened early by Nicholas’s voice calling from what seemed to be the depths of the linen cupboard on the landing. ‘Jane, there’s no clean shirt here! What did you do with the laundry?’
Then Jane seemed to come, there was a good deal of rushing up and down stairs and agitated conversation. It was not at all as Prudence had thought it would be. She had imagined that she might perhaps hear the quiet footsteps of Nicholas and Jane creeping out to Early Service. She might almost have wished that she could have joined them herself. Was every Sunday morning like this? she wondered. Looking back to the other occasions when she had stayed with them, she decided that it probably was. If she were married to a clergyman, she would see that everything was put out ready for him on the Saturday night…She dozed off again and was woken by a knock at the door and Jane in her hat and coat coming in with a cup of tea in her hand.
‘Good morning, Prue. I thought you’d like a cup of tea,’ she said, standing by the bed. ‘How interesting you look, even at this hour of the morning. The whole effect is very Regency.’
Prudence had bound up her hair in a kind of emerald green turban, a shade darker than her nightdress, which was of a very transparent material, a little shocking, Jane thought. It was perhaps a good thing that Nicholas had not brought in the tea.
‘We are going to church, of course, but Flora will start getting the breakfast,’ she said, thinking how wonderful it was that Prudence should have taken the trouble to curl up her hair after what had seemed to be rather an unsatisfactory evening with Fabian.
‘Oh, then I’ll get up and help her,’ said Prudence without much enthusiasm.
‘Well, thank you, Prue, but I dare say Paul will be doing that. I believe he is quite useful in the house.’
After Jane had gone, Prudence drank her tea and then turned over on to her side. She felt disinclined to get up and face penetrating glances from Paul’s blue eyes. Did he talk about Geography at breakfast? she wondered. At the best of times it was not a meal she enjoyed, and the prospect of the company of a young man under twenty-five and Jane’s bright conversation seemed altogether too much to be endured. However, when the time came, Paul and Flora seemed to be engrossed in their plans for the day and little notice was taken of her. She attended Matins out of politeness to her host and hostess and noticed with a kind of scornful interest that Fabian was in church. She determined to look her best when they met in the afternoon, and to behave rather coldly towards him.
Jessie Morrow knew that she could not hope to equal Prudence in elegance, so she made no special preparations for the tea party under the walnut tree to which she and Miss Doggett, perhaps because they were next-door neighbours and could not be left out, had been invited. Her strength would have to He in the deepening intimacy that was growing up between her and Fabian on the evenings when Miss Doggett was out. Besides, did men really notice one’s clothes as much as all that? She had certainly made an effort to appear more striking on the first evening when she had called on Fabian in Constance’s old blue velvet dress, but at other times she had gone to him in whatever she happened to be wearing and he had not appeared to be any less affectionate towards her. She had almost welcomed Prudence’s visit this week-end, for she felt that it might give Fabian a chance to straighten things out. Perhaps last night he had taken a walk with her in the dusk and they had talked about the situation. But then it occurred to her that perhaps it would be better if he waited until Sunday, which would be Prudence’s last evening. She could then go back on Monday and it would be much less awkward. After that things would just take their course. But the first thing was to get rid of Prudence, Jessie thought ruthlessly.
‘Just imagine how lucky!’ Miss Doggett was saying. ‘Mr. Driver has persuaded Mr. Lyall and his mother to come to tea.’
‘However did he do that?’ asked Jessie abstractedly. ‘I suppose he just asked them and they had no excuse. He fancies himself dispensing hospitality to the great.’
‘It should be a delightful party,’ Miss Doggett purred. ‘And such a fine day. I shall wear my navy and white and my new hat.
I suppose you will wear your flowered crepe?’
‘I had thought I would go in this,’ said Jessie, pulling out a crumpled fold of her faded blue linen dress. ‘I can’t compete with Prudence Bates.’
‘Compete with Miss Bates!’ Miss Doggett’s laugh rang out.
‘I should think not, indeed. But you can at least wear a cleaner-looking dress. Our Member is going to be there, after all.’
‘Well, I am not a supporter of his Party,’ said Jessie.
‘Now, now, Jessie; none of that nonsense… . Look.’ They were standing by an upper window which overlooked Fabian’s garden. ‘Mrs. Arkright is putting out chairs under the walnut tree. She has been at it all morning, seeing to the food, Mr. Driver was to have only a light lunch — a salmon salad with cheese to follow. Not tinned salmon, of course,’ she added hastily.
‘No, one could hardly give a man tinned salmon,’ said Jessie ironically.
‘It is very popular among the working classes, of course, but that’s another matter. I see no reason why we shouldn’t be the first to arrive,’ continued Miss Doggett on a different note. ‘Somebody has got to be first after all.’
‘Shall I watch out for a propitious moment?’
‘Well, yes; we don’t want to arrive too early, of course, not before the preparations are fully completed.’
Jessie waited at the window and saw Fabian, in a light grey suit of some thin material, step out on to the lawn. She drew back into the shelter of the curtain and observed him, moving a chair here and there, standing back and surveying the scene. He looked just a little common in the grey suit, she thought; perhaps the colour was too light or there was something not quite the thing about the way it was cut. She could almost imagine that he might be wearing brown-and-white shoes, like the hero of a musical comedy in the ‘twenties, but that was hardly possible. Yet she felt, as we so often do with somebody we love, that any little defect could only make him more dear to her.
‘I think we could perhaps go now,’ she said aloud. ‘Mr. Driver seems to be surveying the stage as if he expected somebody to make an entrance very shortly.’
At the gate they met Jane and Nicholas and Prudence, in a lilac cotton dress of deceptive simplicity.
‘I’m glad we’ve met you,’ said Jane. ‘We were afraid we were too early.’
Fabian welcomed them and they lowered themselves cautiously into deck-chairs on the lawn.
‘Your daughter isn’t coming?’ Miss Doggett asked.
‘No; she has a friend staying and they have gone off somewhere for the day, to see a bit of the countryside.’
‘I expect she has made some nice friends at Oxford,’ said Miss Doggett.
> ‘This is a young man,’ said Jane obscurely.
‘Oh?’ Miss Doggett’s eyes brightened.
‘A geographer,’ said Nicholas in a bluff kind of voice.
‘Oh.’ There was a slight falling-off of interest in Miss Doggett’s tone. ‘Of course, she will meet lots of young men,’ she said reassuringly.
‘I certainly hope so,’ said Jane heartily. ‘After all, she is only eighteen.’
‘Ah, to be eighteen again!’ said Fabian sentimentally.
‘Is that a good age for a man?’ Prudence asked, swinging her sunglasses in her hand, like a picture in Vogue, Jessie thought, her eyes riveted on the crimson toe-nails that peeped out through the straps of her sandals.
‘Yes, I think it is,’ said Nicholas. ‘You have your whole life before you, or so it seems.’
‘All the things one was going to do, the books one was going to write,’ said Jane dreamily, ‘the brilliant marriages one was going to make.’
‘Marriages?’ said her husband. ‘Well, well … Ah, here is Mrs. Lyall and her son.’
‘Strange how different it sounds said like that,’ said Jane. ‘Usually one says Mr. Lyall and his mother.’ He had timed his arrival well, she thought, but perhaps he had by now had enough practice, knowing that he must always be last.
The ladies almost rose from their deck-chairs at the sight of their beloved Member, who shook hands with them all. There were enquiries about his health, the word ‘burden’ was mentioned by Miss Doggett, Jane noticed, and Mrs. Arkright came hurrying out with the tea.
He will ask Prudence to pour out, thought Jessie, a sudden agony of fear breaking through her carefully schooled indifference, and indeed at the sight of the silver teapot Prudence had sat up a little in her deck-chair and taken off her sunglasses again.
‘I have asked Mrs. Arkright if she will kindly pour out for us,’ said Fabian. ‘It is rather troublesome to have to do it oneself, and I am really no good at it.’
‘A splendid idea. Then there will be no hard feelings among the ladies,’ said Nicholas in his best vicar’s manner.
‘Would there be hard feelings?’ asked Edward in an interested tone. ‘Do people like pouring out tea?’