Company in the Evening

by Ursula Orange

  The furnished lodge cottage I was lucky enough to find in the grounds of a big estate just on the outskirts of Harminster was even more of a come-down for Blakey than the flat. I told her it had ‘character,’ and she looked at me as if she thought I was crazy, and said she supposed it was meant for the gardener’s wife or someone of the sort. I waited to see how much she would permit me to demean myself by helping her, and it turned out that I was to be allowed to do light dusting and make jam and cakes. I was a bit rebellious at first (I hate light dusting and rather like washing-up), but in the end I got to know my place and keep to it. I was, however, permitted to take charge of Antonia on the days when I was not at the office, and this, after two years of Proper Nannies I found refreshing—although, at first, of course, much more exhausting than making a dozen beds.

  Infuriating, loyal old body! Sometimes I used to feel I really could not bear her ‘Poor Miss Vicky, she’s come down in the world and no mistake’ attitude a moment longer. Then I imagined life without Blakey and my heart quailed.

  Antonia, I believe, sees a different side of her. She has a wonderful stock of stories and old songs and, although she firmly believes that the great lesson children have to learn is that they can’t always have their own way, she is not ‘strict’ in the sterilized, white-apron discipline-for-the-sake-of-discipline way some nurses seem to go in for. A biscuit at an unorthodox hour or a new toy taken to bed isn’t an unthinkable crime to her, but a natural and unremarkable occurrence.

  Having called me ‘Miss Vicky’ since I was a child, that is how she still continues to address me, except when company is present, when I am occasionally ‘Madam.’ I have never discussed with her my divorce, but somehow I have been given to understand that her attitude is that I have been badly let down by an unscrupulous man who was not worthy of me. Since this has never been put into words, I have never had an opportunity of denying it.

  As I came downstairs I said, “Blakey, I’ve some news for you,” and then, taking the bull by the horns, “Mrs. Sylvester—Mr. Philip’s widow, I mean, not my mother, of course—is coming to live with me here.”

  Blakey’s immediate reaction was, as I knew it would be, to fall back on her ‘well-trained-servant’ act, look non-committal and say, “Oh yes, Miss Vicky. I suppose you’d like me to get the little room ready for her?”

  Yes, yes, Blakey, I wanted to say, yes, I know, it’s my house, and I know I’ve a perfect right to invite anybody I like here, and I know your job is to take orders from me, but can’t we pass all that over and talk about it as human beings? However, one just can’t skip the preliminary stages with Blakey. She is a stickler for formality.

  “Yes—the little room,” I said. “We’ll have to clear it out together next week-end.”

  “Yes, Miss Vicky,” said Blakey formally.

  Annoying old woman! Of course she was longing to hear all about the whys and wherefores, and, of course, she would be very hurt if I didn’t tell her everything. Why couldn’t she be natural and ask?

  “Give me a cup of tea, Blakey—no, no, out of that pot will do—and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  I did. Blakey received it all with great decorum. Badly as I wanted a little reassurance and encouragement, I obviously wasn’t going to get it at this stage. Blakey, under cover of the well-trained-servant act, was holding her hand—an old trick of hers.

  “. . . And the baby’s due in November,” I finished.

  “Antonia will be ever so excited at finding a little baby in the house,” said Blakey, unbending a little.

  “Yes. Of course, I shall prepare her beforehand. Don’t start talking about gooseberry bushes to her, will you, Blakey?”

  I don’t really think the whole of a child’s development is twisted by an injudicious reference to a gooseberry bush at the age of four, and, as soon as I had said it, I wished I hadn’t, for Blakey immediately froze again.

  “It’s for you to say, Miss Vicky.”

  Damn!

  Conscious that I had put my foot in it, I made one last bid for friendliness and chattiness.

  “I hope it will work, Blakey,” I said, and I would not swear that my voice wasn’t wistful. “Of course it’s never very easy sharing one’s house with someone but Mrs. Sylvester will—will be company for me in the evening.”

  Having embarked on that sentence, I could not, for the life of me, think how to finish it in any other way.

  “Oh, by the way, Miss Vicky—Mr. Fortescue rang up and said were you expecting him to-morrow to supper? He wasn’t sure.”

  “Oh, thanks, yes I am expecting him. I’ll ring him,” I said, hardly noticing what I was saying because, having had my joke with myself about ‘company in the evening,’ I was now anxious to get the bed-sitting-room-for-Rene idea across to Blakey at once to prevent future misconceptions. “Although, Blakey,” I went on quickly, “I expect Mrs. Sylvester and I will both want to be pretty independent in some ways. I mean, we’ll each have our own room and we shan’t necessarily want to be always together.”

  Nicely put, I thought. I could not think why Blakey gave me such a very odd look. More of a comprehending look than the situation really warranted—and anyway, Blakey never really has understood that I genuinely like my own company.

  However, Antonia came running in to show me Susie in her new frock, and it was only half an hour to her bedtime, and I hadn’t seen her for three whole days. I gave her my whole attention. She was distressed because the frock was too big at the neck and, because I was feeling affectionate and maternal and cosy about her, I didn’t think she was a bit of a nuisance to be so fussy, but got quite a mild kick instead out of being a Resourceful Mother and producing a bit of ribbon to pull it up with. Then we played snakes-and-ladders, revised version: the one who wriggles down the longest snake wins, because Antonia likes wriggling down snakes better than going up dull, straight ladders; and finally we topped up with three chapters of an appallingly dull and rather revoltingly instructive book about some priggish children who are of the greatest possible help to their parents on a farm.

  It was a very cosy and ‘only-childish’ sort of play-hour, and, even if it would have been healthier for her to have been playing cricket in the garden with six brothers and sisters, and getting hard bumps and not making a fuss, it wasn’t my fault that things were as they were, and I didn’t see why both I and Antonia shouldn’t take our pleasure where we could find it.

  Later, when I was having my bath, my thoughts reverted to Blakey and the way she had taken my news, and I reflected that it was really very irritating of Blakey to put on the automaton act when it suited her, because, as I knew quite well from experience, she wouldn’t necessarily put it on at all when it suited me. Behind the façade of a well-trained manner she was as human as the rest of us, and would find exceedingly human ways of showing me what she thought and felt. When it suited her she could play the ‘privileged old family retainer who speaks her mind’ rôle with equal exactitude.

  Blakey wanted it both ways, I decided, yawning. Like most of us, I conceded, pulling out the plug by hooking my toes round the chain—a habit Raymond used to laugh at.

  Raymond—marriage—Blakey. Out of the jumbled juxtaposition of these musings a sudden comprehension flashed across my mind, so that I could almost hear the click with which the links in the chain of thought joined up. I nearly laughed out loud.

  Why had Blakey suddenly remembered about Barry Fortescue ringing up? Because I had just made that silly remark to her about ‘company in the evening.’ What had I gone on to say to her next? That nice little speech about Rene and me being ‘independent’ and each having our own room.

  There was absolutely no connection in my mind between the two subjects. Obviously there had been in Blakey’s, and that was the reason why she had suddenly given me that extraordinarily comprehending look.

  Oh dear! Was that Blakey’s little dream for me? Now I came to think of it, she did usually smirk a bit when she announced Barry. Oh dear, o
h dear! Could I possibly, without being a swine to Barry, tell Blakey that I had most definitely refused Barry six months ago, and so prevent any further misplaced comprehension from her on the subject?

  Oh dear, oh dear. Still giggling slightly, I trailed into the bedroom. On a table by my bed stood a nice little tray scrambled eggs on a hot-water plate marked ‘Baby’s Own’ (Antonia gobbles and I don’t, so I use it), a salad, coffee. Also on the table lay six short stories, of the would-be woman’s magazine type, all of which I had resolved to read and write reports on before going to sleep. A typical evening.

  My thoughts, however, were, for once, not entirely typical. I suddenly had one of my bad turns—by which I mean that for about five minutes I missed Raymond so badly that it was like a positive physical pain.

  It was the giggling over Blakey that had done it, of course. Suddenly, excruciatingly, I wanted someone to tell the joke to, to giggle with. And the need, in such cases, was always for Raymond—or someone so like Raymond that you wouldn’t know the difference.

  He wasn’t what you’d call the epitome of a Good Husband, with capital letters. He wasn’t a rock of gentle integrity, like Barry. I could never rely on him to back me up at all costs (and this was not because he was fickle, but because his conception of me was always of a Person, never primarily of a Wife). But if, at the moment, you don’t happen to be wanting a Good Husband and, in all honesty, nine-tenths of the time I don’t—and do happen to be wanting someone to share a joke with, someone utterly companionable, someone restful because he’s quick, not because he’s slow, someone with whom you drop at once thankfully into a sort of allusive mental shorthand, then, to my mind at least, you want Raymond; and I very much doubt if, for me, there does exist anyone so like him you wouldn’t know the difference.

  * * * * *

  Blakey had succeeded in getting a chicken for supper for Barry and me.

  “What on earth are you doing?” enquired Barry.

  After I had served helpings for us both, I had turned the chicken upside-down on the dish, and was rummaging about with the carving-knife.

  “Getting out the oysters to keep for Antonia. If I don’t they may get eaten by mistake.”

  The moment I had spoken, I saw of what appalling bad manners I was convicting myself. This is just the sort of trap that mothers of only children ought to take the greatest care to avoid. One becomes so used to keeping the brat bits for one’s child that one begins to do it automatically. Perhaps this can’t be helped—but I could have avoided being so rude as to tell a guest that he might eat something by mistake which he shouldn’t.

  I felt so shocked at myself that I dropped the carving-knife and fork as if they had been red-hot, and quickly offered Barry the bread-sauce.

  Barry, however, was not looking shocked, but interested.

  “Oysters? Whatever do you mean?” he said.

  “Oh, don’t you know? We always called them that in our family. Those two oyster-shaped meaty bits you find underneath. Philip always had one and I the other. What Mother would have done if she’d had three children, I can’t imagine. Perhaps that’s why she never did.”

  “Antonia is lucky and gets both,” suggested Barry. “Do go on—please. I want to see these strange delicacies.”

  “No,” I said obstinately. “It was very rude of me to set about doing such a thing, and I certainly won’t go on. Not unless you’ll eat them yourself when I find them.”

  “Me?” Barry looked horrified. “Good heavens, no! They’re Antonia’s.”

  “No, they’re not. She’ll grow up into a perfectly horrible little girl if everything’s always kept for her.”

  “Vicky, you are absurd,” said Barry laughing. “Fancy calling Antonia a horrible little girl.”

  “I didn’t. I said she might be. Not that I’m not sure she isn’t, sometimes, already.”

  “What nonsense,” said Barry easily. “Why, you know you’re devoted to the kiddy.”

  Well. I don’t much mind what people look like and I don’t much mind what clothes they wear, but I am, I’m afraid, absurdly fastidious about the words they use; and a phrase like ‘devoted to the kiddy,’ said in all seriousness, makes me writhe inwardly. Bad language doesn’t. Inverted snobbery, I suppose, but I just can’t help it.

  I changed the subject hastily and began to talk about the office, I don’t think Barry ever knew how often, in his company, I changed the subject for just such an absurd reason. I hope not, because, in all humility, it never has been a question of Barry not being good enough for me. I am not nearly good enough for him.

  I had met him soon after I had come to Harminster. He was (and is) some ten years older than myself, unmarried, the head-master of a boys’ preparatory school just outside the town. He comes, I understand, from one of those solid North Country Quaker families, the members of which run so curiously to type—good idealists and good educationalists, and good employers; men of the world, perhaps, and yet, at rock-bottom, out-and-out Puritans.

  The way in which I had first made his acquaintance was characteristic of the man. I had travelled back from London by a late train, and a party of very noisy and drunken soldiers had invaded the carriage in which Barry and I were already decorously sitting. They didn’t worry me particularly, but obviously Barry thought they did—or else, that such language ought to shock me. Anyway, he had gone exploring further up the train and come back firmly to extract me and show me another place he had found. I went without protest, and subsequently chatted to him politely. It was the only thing to do.

  Barry afterwards told me that, after the first meeting, he hadn’t been able to get me out of his head. However, characteristically, he made no attempt to see me until we met by chance at a Sunday afternoon tea-party, where we were formally introduced by our hostess.

  He walked back with me to my cottage, and I asked him to tea the next week. After that, I saw him constantly. His school was only a quarter of a mile from where I lived.

  I did not want Barry to fall in love with me, but I cannot pretend that I did not enjoy the sensation of having a man about the place again. I do not consider myself in the least the sort of woman who must have a man to lean on, but neither do I care for an undiluted feminine atmosphere. I like pipe-smoke and masculine voices and men’s scarves in the hall and a good reason for getting out the drinks. Barry, on the other hand, I am certain, doesn’t care a rap for smart frocks and painted finger-nails and high-heeled shoes and the chatter and laughter of women in general. He fell in love with me, I’m sure, in spite of my appearance, not because of it.

  When I turned him down (as nicely as I could, because, although I did not feel any pain myself, I did feel his pain), he only said one bitter thing:

  “You know, Vicky, you can’t be surprised I fell in love with you. You did give me every chance.”

  I ready was a little taken a back. Ever since I had begun to suspect he was getting serious about me, I had tried to show him tacitly it was no good. A man more used to women would have understood at once.

  “Chance? In what way—beyond just seeing me?” I enquired.

  Barry looked uncomfortable.

  “Well, I mean—oh, you know.”

  “I don’t. I honestly don’t.”

  “Well—telling me to drop in whenever I liked in the evenings and so on. Letting me be alone with you for hours sometimes. I thought—I rather hoped—you wouldn’t be quite so . . .” (he fumbled for a word and finally brought out a rather gallant choice) . . . “so hospitable to anyone.”

  “Oh Barry! I would be just as ‘hospitable’ to anyone I liked as much as I like you. I’m sorry. But I would be, really.”

  “Do you think that’s wise?” said Barry gravely, and, much as I liked and admired him, I felt an awful nervous giggle welling up inside me.

  “Wise? I’m terribly sorry if I misled you.”

  “I meant wise for you,” explained Barry gently.

  “Are you trying to tell me that ‘some men are pre
tty good cads’?” I said, and the giggle burst its way out and exploded in an awful sort of strangled snort (and that was caddish, if you like. However, Barry didn’t know that ‘some men are pretty good cads’ was one of the many stock phrases Raymond and I used to bandy about between ourselves, and I hope he just thought I was overwrought.)

  “Well—yes,” said Barry stoutly. “I mean, without being melodramatic or anything, there is your reputation to think of, isn’t there?”

  “You can’t talk about a woman’s reputation without being melodramatic. That’s one of the rules,” I said. “Besides; believe it or not, I just honestly don’t mind ‘what the neighbours say.’ ”

  “But you ought to,” said Barry.

  “You mean I’m not so far sunk in the world already that I haven’t a right to hold up my head and boast I keep myself respectable?” I said naughtily.

  “Oh Vicky—you turn everything into a joke,” said Barry reproachfully.

  “No, I don’t. No I don’t, Barry, really,” I said quickly penitent. “Only—only in many things you and I just don’t talk the same language, you know. We really don’t.”

  “On the face of it, perhaps not,” conceded Barry, “but I know—and you must know too, surely—that because you talk about things jokingly it doesn’t mean that you’re a flippant person underneath. Does it?”

  I was serious then. I did want to make him understand.

  “It’s like this, Barry,” I said. “Of course what people are really like underneath matters infinitely more than how they talk and the things they laugh about. I couldn’t possibly deny that. And obviously if you’re passionately in love, such trifles don’t matter at all. Only one doesn’t spend the greater part of one’s life being passionately in love. It always seems to be Monday morning much more often than Saturday night and most of life is made up of small things and consequently non-essentials do matter by sheer bulk. To me, at least, they do. I can quite see that to you they probably don’t.”