Company in the Evening

by Ursula Orange

  The letter was from the woman editor of one of the most reputable women’s monthly magazines. I glanced through it quickly.

  The editor wrote to say that she was returning a story by Dorothy Harper entitled Mermaids in Bloomsbury, recently submitted to her by us. This story had already been refused by her a week or two ago when sent direct from Miss Harper. Would we take care to see that this did not occur again, as it wasted everybody’s time?

  Now, as I had explained to Barry, we could not prevent Dorothy Harper sending stories to editors on her own, much as we disliked it. We could, however, and must prevent her from handing on to us stories which had been previously rejected without telling us the names of the magazines which had already seen them. This was right against etiquette, and extremely bad for our reputation—as Miss Dorothy Harper very well knew.

  “Of course she didn’t say anything to you about anyone having already seen it when she sent it in?” asked Mrs. Hitchcock.

  “Not a word. She gave me to understand it was smoking-hot from her pen.”

  “I wonder if she sent it anywhere else first,” said Mrs. Hitchcock darkly. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”

  “Nor would I,” I agreed. “I suppose she hoped nobody would bother to write and tell us, so she wouldn’t get found out.”

  “Yes. Or she may have even hoped it would get accepted the second try-on with the same magazine. It’s amazing what people will hope for.” Mrs. Hitchcock looked grim. “This must be stopped. I wish it wasn’t so necessary not to offend her. I’ve great hopes of her new novel, you know. She’s writing it with an eye to serialization first, and I believe I’ve got Miss Page interested.”

  Miss Page was the editor of one of the best-paying monthly magazines, and the new novel, to which Mrs. Hitchcock referred, was not yet actually in our hands, although we had seen some of it—and very promising it was too. It certainly seemed a very bad moment to offend Dorothy Harper.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Hitchcock firmly, “you’ll have to have that talk with her after all. Write and ask her out to lunch.”

  “Won’t you?” I said weakly.

  “No, no. You undertook to do it before, if you remember,” retorted Mrs. Hitchcock with a steely glint in her eye which showed she remembered only too well the circumstances in which I had promised before. “Besides, you’re the head of the short story department and this Mermaids in Bloomsbury business is your affair. You’d much better do it. Be tactful, you know, but make it clear she just mustn’t do that sort of thing.”

  “All right,” I said wearily.

  “And of course don’t send out that story again until you’ve seen her and found out where it has been to. Perhaps you’d better not send out any more of hers until you’ve got the truth out of her. I don’t trust that woman.” Mrs. Hitchcock stalked out of the room with a disgusted expression.

  I sat down to my typewriter forthwith and rattled out a note to Dorothy Harper. Friendly it was (according to our office code which favours friendliness and the personal relationship between agent and author) and yet deferential. I had a notion that Miss Harper was herself all for the deference side. She always treated me as if I was the office-girl she was giving a bit of a treat to.

  I did not fancy the job. Too much hung on it for my taste—not only the necessity for not offending Dorothy Harper but also the necessity for showing Mrs. Hitchcock I could be more tactful than she had once been. I showed the letter to Mrs. Hitchcock before it went, and she approved.

  I should have liked her to say something encouraging about “I’m sure you’ll manage the woman beautifully,” but naturally, being Mrs. Hitchcock, she didn’t. All she remarked was, “That’s O.K. Bring her back to the office if you like after you’ve given her lunch and said your piece and I’ll be genial to her for a few minutes.”

  This was, of course, no comfort at all—rather the opposite. I sent the letter down to the girl who deals with the post and tried to forget all about it. I had left Dorothy Harper to fix the date, and probably it wouldn’t be for a week or two.

  I worked very hard all the rest of that day and returned home dead tired and planning an immediate bath and bed.

  Blakey met me in the hall.

  “Ever such a to-do we had this morning with the doctors,” she said instantly.

  The very last thing I wanted to hear about was ‘to-do’s’ of any sort whatsoever. I suddenly remembered how, airily, I had told Betty that I found it ‘refreshing’ to live in two atmospheres, home and office. On this particular evening I saw no prospect of being refreshed at all.

  “Doctors?” I said mazedly. “What doctors? How’s Mrs. Sylvester?”

  “Oh, she seems all right,” said Blakey, “but I’m afraid she’s got you into trouble with Doctor Saunders—and with Doctor Lambert too.”

  I think at that moment I really hated Blakey. Not only was she evidently taking a ghoulish pleasure in retailing bad news, but she was referring to Rene in the tone of voice which I most disliked—and which I certainly ought to pull her up for, were I not so tired.

  “You’d better tell me what happened, Blakey,” I said coldly.

  “It was just before lunch this morning, and Mrs. Sylvester was just finishing getting up—like you told me she would—when Doctor Saunders arrived.”

  “I didn’t know he was coming again,” I interrupted.

  “No. There was no need, I’m sure. Perhaps Mrs. Sylvester made herself out worse than what she really was when he came before,” said Blakey.

  I almost slapped her.

  “Blakey, will you please leave all remarks about Mrs. Sylvester put of it, and simply tell me what happened?”

  “Well, Doctor Saunders was up there in the bedroom seeing Mrs. Sylvester when who should drive up but Doctor Lambert. I didn’t know why she’d come, I’m sure. Nobody had told me anything about it.”

  “Go on,” I said grimly.

  “Doctor Lambert seemed to be expecting to see Mrs. Sylvester and the baby. I showed her into the drawing-room and asked her to wait. I thought it best not to say anything about Doctor Saunders being up there. Of course I knew nothing about it all, but it seemed a funny thing if Mrs. Sylvester wanted to see two doctors at once.”

  “Of course she didn’t,” I said impatiently. “Now Blakey, don’t pretend you know nothing about how it happened. I know for a fact you heard me ringing up Doctor Lambert the other evening. I dare say I oughtn’t to have, done it, but it was my doing, not Mrs. Sylvester’s. Couldn’t you have been clever about it somehow? Kept Doctor Lambert in the drawing-room until Doctor Saunders had gone or something?”

  “I was just trying to think how to act for the best,” said Blakey self-righteously, “when Mrs. Sylvester spoilt it all.”

  Incorrigible old fiend!

  “How?” I said wearily.

  “She came downstairs with Doctor Saunders, just at that moment. Wearing a dressing-gown she was, over her clothes. I suppose she meant to show Doctor Saunders to the front door. There was no call for her to do that, I’m sure,” added Blakey spitefully, “I was ready to hand him his coat and hat in the hall.”

  “Well?”

  “Mrs. Sylvester, she said before I could stop her, ‘I expect you left your coat in here’ and opened the drawing-room door and there was Doctor Saunders and Doctor Lambert staring at each other.”

  “Did Mrs. Sylvester realize who Doctor Lambert was? She’s never seen her.”

  “Yes, because Doctor Saunders said, ‘Oh! Good morning, Doctor Lambert!’ at once in a surprised sort of voice, and then Mrs. Sylvester looked ever so put-out and said. ‘Oh dear!’ If she hadn’t showed so plainly that something was wrong I might have managed to pass it off even then,” said Blakey, so thoroughly enjoying herself by this time that I felt I simply could not bear to hear a word more.

  “All right, Blakey. You needn’t tell me any more. It was all very unfortunate, and I shall have to explain how it came about to them both, if I get a chance. It was entirely my faul
t, not Mrs. Sylvester’s at all.”

  I made as if to go up the stairs.

  “Oh, Mrs. Sylvester told them that,” said Blakey with unction. “I heard her say—I couldn’t help hearing her say, she spoke so loud—I heard her say ‘Mrs. Heron said it would be all right to ask you too, Doctor Lambert.’”

  I would not swear that I did not give Blakey a distinct push as I passed by her on my way upstairs.

  “Vicky!” called an entreating voice from Rene’s room.

  “Hello,” I said, opening the door and going in.

  The moment I had got home Blakey had enjoyed herself at my expense. Now Rene wanted to unburden her mind on to me. It wasn’t fair, I thought childishly. Men breadwinners have slippers laid out warming for them and a loving welcome from little wifey.

  “Oh Vicky, I am so sorry about this trouble I’ve got you into about the doctors. Blakey was telling you, wasn’t she? I am upset about it, I really am. I couldn’t help crying after they’d gone.”

  “Never mind, Rene.”

  “I feel it was all my fault, I really do.”

  “No, it wasn’t, Rene. It was my doing in the first place.”

  “You see, I’ll tell you exactly how it happened. Just before lunch—”

  “Yes, yes, I know, Rene, Don’t bother to tell me all over again.”

  “I thought and thought afterwards about all the different things I might have said to them to make it look better, and I am so awfully sorry that I did actually say you’d said it would be all right. I could have bitten out my tongue after I’d said it.”

  “That’s all right, Rene. It was I who rang up Doctor Lambert, after all. Anyway, I don’t imagine they turned on you and demanded an explanation, did they?”

  “Oh no—nobody said anything really except me, who tried to sort of explain.”

  “M’m. Well, it, was unlucky, Rene, but it just can’t be helped, so don’t let’s talk any more about it. How are you this evening? You don’t look too bad.”

  “Oh, I’m better, thanks. If it hadn’t been for this upset I’d be practically well.”

  “Good. I’ll tell Blakey to send you up your supper. I’m going to have mine in bed too, as a matter of fact. Where’s Philip? In my room?”

  “Yes, in his basket on your bed. I’m so sorry, Vicky . . . I didn’t realize you’d be wanting your room just yet.”

  Poor Rene! I had said good-bye to her that morning like a competent nurse going temporarily off duty. I had come back a tired breadwinner, with first claim on any comfort there was going.

  “Bring him back in here, Vicky. He’s sound asleep, I think. I don’t think the light will wake him.”

  “No, I tell you what. I’ll pop him in Antonia’s room till ten o’clock. Then you can have him again after that, if you like. You’re so much better now, I’m sure he can go back to sleeping with you.”

  “Oh yes, I’m sure he can, Vicky. Don’t bother to get out of bed to bring him to me at ten this evening. I’ll get up.”

  Poor Rene! If I wasn’t going to play at nurse any longer, she couldn’t continue to be the grateful but utterly dependent and submissive patient. Here she was going all apologetic and ‘don’t-let-me-be-a-nuisance’ again.

  “No, no,” I said quickly. “Don’t get up again to-night. To-morrow you shall be considered quite well.” I meant this as a promise. I only hope it did not sound too much like a threat. “To-night I’ll bring him to you at ten—or probably, I shouldn’t wonder, soon after half-past nine.”

  Rene looked shocked at such a scandalous suggested departure from routine; but did not, poor child, like to protest.

  I went and had a bath, during which I found time to muse on the strange ill-luck which had, from the very start, dogged my relationship with Rene. Sometimes we began to get on well together, but always, before we had time to develop any real friendship, Fate seemed to take a malicious pleasure in tripping us up and sending us stumbling headlong again. Fate had thrown that wedding photograph at Rene’s feet and embarrassed her during our first real talk together. Fate had contrived the Blakey-overhearing-us contretemps which had put an end to my efforts to ‘take Rene into my confidence.’ Fate had allowed us to play prettily at Nurse and Patient for a little, and then arranged that the interlude should close not gracefully but with an unfortunate muddle over the doctors, which left a bad taste in everybody’s mouth.

  Recalling all these incidents to myself, as I lay in the hot water and soaked the fatigue out of my limbs, I was, for the first time, quite struck by the sheer bad luck of it all. It did seem, on the face of it, that Rene and I had been victims of a far greater number of unfortunate coincidences than one would really have expected. Then, thinking a little deeper, I was not so sure.

  I have never believed in ‘good reasons’ for quarrels, I only believe in quarrels. The reasons are, I am perfectly certain, usually irrelevant, and the people who quarrel are the people who really like quarrelling and so will find ‘good reasons’ without much difficulty. Well, Rene and I very seldom openly quarrelled, but I could not help finding the same line of argument applicable to us. So few points of contact existed between us, so many points of potential disagreement, that really ‘unfortunate coincidences’ were not bad luck at all on the part of Fate, but sheer probability. I could not believe in ‘reasons’ for not getting on with someone, any more than I could believe in ‘reasons’ for quarrels. I could only believe in incompatibility. It was a conclusion that I would really rather not have come to.

  * * * * *

  These early months of 1941 seemed to be a trying time for almost everyone. If I have not referred much to the war in this book, it was not for want of thinking and worrying about it—merely for want of any comment that has not already occurred and been given expression by thousands of others. The war was always in my thoughts—not necessarily in the foreground, which space I kept reserved for private pre-occupations and troubles, but as a dark background. It was almost a disappointment to me as it must have been to many people, to find that I still minded about little things just as much as ever. One might have thought that, by comparison, one’s trivial worries would dwindle to vanishing-point. On the contrary. Whether it was that one’s nervous resistance was permanently slightly below par, or whether it was that one’s personal radius of activities necessarily shrank and consequently every little episode loomed disproportionately large in one’s mind; whatever it was, little things seemed to matter enormously. However much one thought about the Czechs and Poles and told oneself one was really astoundingly lucky, I, and everyone else I had the chance of observing, seemed to feel the same.

  Barry, more idealistic by nature than I, probably took the war itself harder. But even he found plenty of time to bother about his private worries. Just about this time he was very, upset about an unfortunate occurrence in his school. One of the housemaids found that she was expecting a baby, and accused one of his undermasters of being the father of the child. The man denied it, and the man’s wife appealed to Barry to believe her husband and to show no mercy to the erring girl. It was a horrid sordid muddle for Barry to untangle. It brought into direct conflict his Puritan streak and his desire to believe the best of everybody. I suspected that he was not much of a hand at guessing which of the parties was lying, and no hand at all at taking a robust, practical, commonsense point of view of the matter. He told me he felt very unhappy about the whole thing and personally ‘smirched’ by it all.

  “Oh Barry! What nonsense,” I said briskly.

  “Yes. I do. I should have hoped—I have tried—to make the atmosphere of my school such that such things just could not occur. I must have failed somewhere, Vicky.”

  It is rather amazing that Barry can say such things without sounding the most howling prig. He can.

  “You’re not tough enough, Barry,” I said. “You have too high an opinion of people. You’re too hurt when they behave badly. You’re not the sort of person to deal with a muddle like this.”

 
; “I know,” said Barry sadly. “That’s why I wanted to ask your advice, Vicky.”

  I was touched.

  “Barry darling, how can I be able to be any help to you? I’ve never seen the housemaid or the master or the master’s wife. How could I have an idea who’s telling the truth?”

  “Sometimes . . . I thought a woman’s point of view might be a help,” confessed Barry.

  “You ought to have a wife, Barry,” I said directly. “A nice, practical, good-tempered wife. A really thoroughly out-and-out nice wife. That’s what I’d prescribe for you.”

  “You know whom I wanted for my wife, Vicky.”

  “Yes. And you were wrong. Oh Barry, you were wrong, believe me. It really would be such a tremendously good thing if you’d forget all about ever having wanted to marry me and—and consider yourself free to find someone else.”

  “Vicky! Please! Are you telling me to go out and look for a suitable wife as one might engage a housekeeper or something?”

  “No, no, you needn’t put it like that. You know quite well what I mean.” (I paused, struck by a strange echo of my conversation with Betty over a possible husband or lover for myself. My own rôle was now reversed with a vengeance!) “I only mean acquire the state of mind in which you might find someone. You simply mustn’t be a bachelor all your life, Barry. It’s too—wasteful.”

  “There’s absolutely no hope of your ever changing your mind, Vicky?”

  “Absolutely no hope at all, Barry dear,” I said steadfastly.

  He changed the subject; and afterwards, I felt a pig. He had come to me for comfort and help in trouble and what had l given him? Advice that might be good but was certainly hurtful.

  I reflected sadly that these days I seemed to have lost my old talent for ‘handling’ people well.

  Chapter 9

  *

  It was April, and less cold at last. Springtime. Even though Benghazi had just been evacuated by the British, the Germans had invaded Greece and Yugoslavia and the Budget announced our Income Tax of 10s. in the pound, I felt a little more cheerful. The end of the war seemed as far off as ever, or possibly a little farther, but at least we had struggled somehow through a winter of rationing, raids, black-out and bitter cold. Dunkirk was nearly a year ago. Even if we were not yet winning, we had not yet lost. In those dark days it was all we could hope for, and now at least we had the summer in front of us. It is well known that nothing is ever quite so bad in summer as it is in winter.