by Barbara Pym
Rodney seemed to have no ready answer.
'What about that splendid Miss Hitchens?' Sybil prompted.
'Yes, she's certainly very capable and a good sort, but she's not much to look at. Besides, she wears -' he hesitated and we waited in almost breathless anticipation.
'Go on, Rodney,' said Rowena eagerly. 'What can you be going to say?'
'Well, sort of thick stockings - cotton or something, would they be? She goes to play golf sometimes straight from work - I suppose that's why,' Rodney added, as if feeling that he had been unchivalrous.
'Intellectual women are seldom attractive,' said Piers. 'The combination of beauty with brains is to me unnatural and therefore rather repellent.'
'That's an old-fashioned idea,' said Rowena. 'Nowadays women seem to have everything - I suppose men find that frightening.'
'Not always,' said Rodney. 'Miss Hitchens has a friend who's most attractive and intelligent too - she brought her to lunch in the canteen one day. A Miss Bates,' he added solemnly.
'Miss Bates?' I laughed. 'Hasn't she a christian name?'
'Yes, it's Prudence, I believe. She works for Grampian, the economist. Eleanor Hitchens tells me that she was engaged to a Member of Parliament but broke it off.'
'Now what does that tell us?' asked Sybil. That she was too beautiful to be an M.P.'s wife or that he was too stupid to be the husband of an intelligent woman? Was he Tory or Labour? - perhaps it would be invidious to speculate. And now,' she went on, 'I have a surprise for you. Does anybody remember what day this is?'
'Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday,' said Piers rather surprisingly, 'so today must be Shrove Tuesday. I hope the surprise is pancakes.'
'You're quite right, it is,' said Sybil. 'Pancakes should be thin enough to read a love letter through, they say. Now who can put it to the test?'
Rodney drew a piece of paper with cyclostyling on it from his pocket. 'A bit of a report I've been working on - not confidential, of course - that should do quite well.'
'Oh, Noddy!' exclaimed Sybil. 'Can nobody do better?'
'I think I can,' said Piers. He produced what was undoubtedly a letter, written on lined paper in very blue ink, in a round childish looking hand. I tried hard to read some of it, but without success.
'Was that really a love letter that Piers brought out?' I asked Rowena, when we had retired to my bedroom for a moment after dinner. 'It looked rather an uneducated sort of handwriting.'
'Wilmet, darling! Surely the writing of love letters isn't a monopoly of the educated, is it?' said Rowena, who was sitting at my dressing table trying out my bottles of scent 'Anyway your guess is as good as mine. I suppose one knows less about the affairs of one's near relations than one does about anyone else's.'
'I've often wondered who he shares his flat with,' I said, 'though of course I've never asked him outright.'
'He did share it with a friend who worked with him, but I've never met him and for all I know they may have quarrelled. People who share flats do seem to quarrel, don't they? Piers is always chopping and changing.'
'Do you usually like his friends?'
'I haven't met many of them. They aren't usually our type.'
I could imagine this. 'I suppose he has led his own life,' I said tritely.
'Well, of course.' Rowena took up another of my scent bottles and dabbed some on the nape of her neck. 'I shall smell simply marvellous,' she said. 'Do you think Rodney will be impressed? It seems a waste just for Harry.'
'Rodney doesn't notice particularly,' I said in a complacent wife's tone, 'but he may if it's you, of course.'
'Wilmet -' Rowena began looking at herself intently in the glass, smoothing her eyebrows with a finger.
'Yes?' I asked, rather puzzled.
'You weren't annoyed about Harry's Christmas present, were you?'
'Annoyed?' I echoed, even more puzzled.
'You didn't mention it - that's why I wondered.'
'But what was it? I don't think I can have had it - I do hope it didn't go astray?'
'Oh, I hope not!' Rowena turned round to face me. 'It was a rather pretty little box, just the kind of thing you like - Regency or something - and it had an inscription on the lid.'
'I know,' I said. ' "If you will not when you may, when you will you shall have nay." I did get it and thought it charming, but I couldn't imagine who it was from,' I added quickly.
'Harry thought you'd guess.'
'Did he tell you about it?'
'Well, not exactly. I think he meant to do it secretly, but I happened to see it, so of course he had to tell me then,' Rowena laughed. 'Men aren't nearly so good at secrets as women, are they? I do think you might have guessed, though - surely you knew Harry had a bit of a thing about you?'
I felt so deflated and stupid that I could hardly bring myself to answer. Harry had sent the little box. The revelation disappointed and sickened me out of all proportion. I could only be thankful that I had been spared the humiliation of making some coy allusion to it when I was with Piers.
'I knew Harry liked me,' I brought out at last 'He took me to lunch at Simpson's.'
'You lucky thing! Really, I'm quite jealous,' Rowena laughed. 'All that wonderful meat. He never takes me there. You did like the box, didn't you?'
'I simply loved it,' I said enthusiastically. 'And I shall go and tell Harry at once.'
We linked arms and went down to join the men. I reflected what a splendid and wonderful thing the friendship of really nice women was. It could surely be said that Rowena and I were fortunate in each other.
'Harry!' I burst out in my most extravagant tone, 'so it was you who sent me that delicious little box? And I never guessed!'
'Glad you liked it,' said Harry, mumbling rather. 'Saw it in a shop in Jermyn Street - thought it was the kind of thing you'd like.'
'What box is this?' asked Rodney.
'A sweet little box Harry sent me at Christmas.'
'I didn't know Harry had sent you anything,' persisted Rodney.
'No, darling, Wilmet didn't either,' said Rowena in her sweet voice.
'Neither did I. It was an anonymous gift - so much more fun than the other kind.'
'Do we all take black coffee?' Sybil broke in.
'I should imagine so,' said Piers. 'And perhaps with brandy, too.'
The evening went on with everybody being rather bright and drinking a little more than they should - almost like young people, I thought sadly. Sybil brought out some knitting.
'Mother, I haven't seen you knit for years,' said Rodney.
I had seen the wool when she bought it, a rather becoming shade of green. She intended to knit a pullover for Professor Root.
'It's a lovely green,' said Rowena.
'Yes, there is green in Arnold's eyes,' said Sybil surprisingly.
'Nobody ever knits for me,' said Piers, glancing at me.
I turned my head away. I was angry with him and yet it was not his fault. He would never know.
'I don't like knitting,' I said.
'No, I despise women who are always knitting,' said Sybil. 'But it can be a useful occupation - the kind of thing one can do when talking.'
'I wonder if women brought their knitting when Oscar Wilde talked,' said Piers.
'I daresay not,' said Sybil calmly, 'but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have liked to.'
Before the guests went I thanked Harry again for the box, and later, when we were upstairs, I showed it to Rodney. He read the inscription aloud in his most civil servantish voice, I thought.
'A bit subtle for old Harry,' he commented.
'Yes, it sounds almost as if he were inviting me to have an affair with him, doesn't it?' I said.
'An affair? Old Harry Grinners? Oh, darling, really –'
'Well, I don't think it's all that funny.'
'No, I daresay Rowena does have a good deal to put up with,' said Rodney complacently.
'Don't all married women?'
Rodney looked rather confused. 'You didn't d
isplay the box with your other Christmas presents,' he said. 'I suppose you were embarrassed.'
'Yes, that was it. And I hardly know what to do with it now.'
'Well, what do women do with things like that? Keep pins in them, I suppose.'
'Yes, pins - that's what I'll keep in it.'
But I never really use pins, I thought resentfully, as I got into bed. Rodney had already put out his light and turned over as if about to go to sleep. I was about to do the same when I realized that it was Ash Wednesday tomorrow, the beginning of Lent. Obviously the little box full of pins was intended to be some kind of a penance.
Chapter Twelve
'Was it you who telephoned the clergy house yesterday evening?' asked Mr Bason, hurrying to my side as I left the lunch- time service on Ash Wednesday. I had been unable to get up for the quarter to seven or even the eight o'clock services, and was thankful that Father Thames provided this later opportunity for fulfilling one's religious obligations. There had been a good many strangers in the congregation, but I had not noticed Piers among them.
'It sounded rather like your voice,' Mr Bason went on.
'No, it couldn't have been me,' I said. 'Why did you think it might be?'
'Oh I don't know, and I see now that it couldn't have been you. This lady was asking for the times for the Imposition of Ashes, and you already knew the times, of course. She had a deep very cultured voice.'
A deep very cultured voice asking the times for the Imposition of Ashes - I wondered if I should have liked to think of myself like that. It seemed an ideal to aim at for Lent. I felt in a way that I had already fallen short by not being that woman.
'The services have been very well attended today,' said Mr Bason rather unctuously. 'One does feel that is a good thing.'
Surely he couldn't have attended more than one? I thought, and then it occurred to me that his domestic duties at the clergy house would be lighter than usual today. Meals would be fewer and less elaborate.
'I suppose you haven't much cooking to do today?' I said rather chattily.
'No, the poor things don't eat much on Ash Wednesday, of course, but they'll be having a meal this evening.' His eyes brightened and he took a piece of paper out of his pocket. I saw that it was covered with what looked like a list, written in purple ink in a large bold hand. For one wild moment I thought it must be a Lenten laundry list - the purple ink, of course, representing the liturgical colour. Naturally it was not that but something very nearly as good - a list of menus which Mr Bason had compiled for the clergy house during that solemn season.
'Just a few suitable dishes that occurred to me,' he explained. 'I've been carrying the list round with me in case anything strikes me.'
'Like a poet jotting down felicitous lines and images,' I suggested.
'Exactly, Mrs Forsyth. And what poetry there is in cooking! Poor Mrs Greenhill hadn't an idea beyond boiled cod or macaroni cheese for Lent. I hope to do a good deal better than that. Do you know one thing I propose to give them?' he asked. 'If I can get it, that is.'
'You seem to have such good ideas,' I said. 'I'm sure it must be something unusual.'
'It is - fried octopus! What do you think of that?' he asked triumphantly.
'It's certainly most original, but I doubt whether Father Bode would like it,' I hazarded.
'Oh, Bode!' said Mr Bason contemptuously. 'I've no doubt he was perfectly satisfied with Mrs Greenhill's cod. Then I thought I might give them scampi sometimes - with garlic butter, of course - and even escargots, not to mention all the delicious ways there are of doing quite ordinary fish.'
'I wonder whether they ought to eat anything actually delicious during Lent,' I said. 'I suppose the idea of fasting is that one should eat only enough to sustain life.'
Mr Bason laughed merrily, as if my ideas were too naive or old-fashioned to be taken seriously, and we parted on this note.
A few days later I happened to get into conversation with Father Thames on my way out of church after one of the Lenten services. I found myself remembering Mr Bason's menus and wondering if perhaps this very evening octopus was to be eaten at the clergy house, but I felt it was beyond my province to ask. We had been subjected - that seemed to be the only way to describe it - to an address of great dullness, and they were all to be given by the same man, Father Edwin Sainsbury, with whom Father Ransome was now lodging. He was one of those preachers who, on coming to the end of what they have to say, find it impossible to stop. Sentence after sentence seemed as if it must be the last but still he went on. I felt as if I had been wrapped round and round in a cocoon of wordiness, like a great suffocating eiderdown. I hardly knew what comment to make to Father Thames when I found myself beside him.
Luckily he spoke first. 'It was good of Father Sainsbury to take poor Father Ransome in, wasn't it?' he remarked. 'But of course he has plenty of room. Now this will surprise you - that vicarage has eight bedrooms! Eight bedrooms - just think of that! And he has no curate.'
'Is he married?' I asked in a rather social way, feeling that the question was a little unsuitable.
'Not that I know of,' said Father Thames rather oddly, for it seemed unlikely that a fellow priest would have any reason, or indeed be able, to conceal a wife. 'Between ourselves, you know,' Father Thames's tone became suddenly confidential, 'I'm not at all sure how long Father Sainsbury will be with us.'
I was at a loss - was he expected to die or become a missionary, or just get another living? I wondered.
'I suppose you read that letter of his in the Church Times last week?'
'The one about -' I began, hoping that Father Thames would prompt me.
'South India - exactly. He is taking an extreme view, and I am rather afraid that he may influence Ransome.'
'I suppose they would naturally discuss it a good deal, living in the same house.'
'Yes, they might very well - and before we know where we are we may have to be looking for another assistant priest' He sighed heavily. 'And you know how difficult they are to come by these days.'
'You mean that Father Sainsbury and Father Ransome might become Roman Catholics?' I said simply. 'Because they disapprove of the attitude we are taking towards the Church of South India?' I said 'we' but I was lamentably ignorant on the subject myself. I remembered the study groups Father Thames had mentioned. Perhaps he was now of the opinion that they would be too dangerous and send half his congregation over to Rome.
'Ransome is not very stable,' mused Father Thames, as if talking to himself, 'but of course he is young.'
'I do hope Mr Bason is being satisfactory?' I said, changing to what I felt might be a safer subject.
'He is a great treasure. I am most thankful for what you did for us there. We have had some most unusual dishes, I can assure you. Now this will amaze you - what do you think he gave us last night?'
'Octopus?' I suggested, laughing.
'Exactly! You thought of the most unlikely thing and that was it. Octopus fried in batter - delicious! Mrs Greenhill would never have thought of that.'
'No, I don't suppose so. It reminds one of Italy, doesn't it?'
'Ah yes, how it does!' Father Thames shivered and drew his cloak more closely around him. He seemed about to exchange some Italian reminiscence with me, but evidently guessed that our memories of that country might be slightly different and thought better of it.
'A rivederci!' I said boldly, and he responded with a wave of the hand, then walked up the steps of the clergy house, perhaps to brood in his study among his beautiful objects. Picking up his Fabergé egg he might well forget his anxiety over Father Ransome's instability in the contemplation of its elaborate - though to my mind rather vulgar - beauty.
It was certainly worrying for all of us if Father Sainsbury had leanings towards Rome which might eventually be the means of taking Father Ransome from us. I began to look out for him anxiously every day to see if I could detect any subtle change in him; and I was decidedly relieved when Miss Prideaux telephoned to ask
me to tea with her, adding as a kind of bait, 'Father Ransome has promised to look in for a moment.'
I was not sure whether it was Father Ransome himself or Miss Prideaux who had suggested that it might be only a moment, for when I arrived he was comfortably installed by the fire and seemed to have been there for some time.
Miss Prideaux was saying how nice it was for him to be lodging with an old college friend. There is much pleasure to be had in discussing old times, I always think,' she said.
And what times, I thought, for in her case they were the past glories of the Austro-Hungarian regime and life with a noble Italian family - hardly to be compared with the petty gossip and intrigue of a theological college. I had always thought of them like this since hearing of one where the principal was reputed to creep around in carpet slippers listening at doors, but it was probably unfair to generalize.
'Yes, we do a good deal of reminiscing,' said Father Ransome. 'It's always interesting to see how one's contemporaries have done.'
'I suppose you have theological discussions as well,' I said.
Father Ransome looked a little embarrassed, or it seemed to me that he did. 'Yes, we do occasionally,' he said, 'though it's surprising how little time one really has for things like that, and how much time is taken up with trivial domestic things. This morning, for instance, I discovered that the rain was coming through a corner of my bedroom ceiling, and we spent most of breakfast talking about that.'
Miss Prideaux made clucking sounds of distress. 'I should hardly call that a trivial thing,' she said. 'I hope it hasn't been too uncomfortable for you.'
'Well, a rather large piece of plaster fell down from the ceiling, but I've been able to move my bed to the other side of the room,' said Father Ransome modestly. 'But I suppose a little discomfort does one no harm, especially in Lent.'
'I'm sure the early fathers didn't envisage anything like that,' said Miss Prideaux indignantly. 'After all, a cave in the desert wouldn't have that kind of danger.'
'No, I suppose it was wild animals rather than falling plaster,' I said. 'One hardly knows which would be worse.'
