Company in the Evening

by Ursula Orange

  I told her quite casually that I had decided that this was the best thing to do, and was just going to ask her, more or less as a matter of form, whether she had any objection, when something interrupted us. Rene did not broach the subject again to me, and I took it that that was all settled.

  I was wrong, very wrong. I did not see it for myself. Barry had to tell me.

  Rather to my surprise he asked me, a little formally, to come out for a walk with him on the following Sunday afternoon. Recently it had been Barry and Rene who had usually been out together for walks then, accompanied by Philip in his pram. Barry seemed to have none of the conventional man’s distaste for being seen walking with a pram. Considering that he was, after all, a headmaster, I found this rather sweet and endearing of him. I had usually either taken out Antonia in a different direction (two children were, I felt, really rather too much for Barry!) or, on the alternate Sundays when Blakey was on duty, stayed in and enjoyed having the house to myself for once. However, since on this occasion Barry gave a direct personal invitation to myself, and since it was Blakey’s Sunday on duty, I accepted, with outward calm and with some inward surprise and speculation.

  I had not to wait very long before I discovered the meaning behind all this.

  “Vicky, I won’t beat about the bush,” said Barry, when a pause in our conversation occurred shortly after we had started out. “Rene doesn’t like to tell you something herself—she thinks you’ll think her so silly, although I assured her you wouldn’t—so I said I’d explain to you.”

  “Good gracious!” I said, surprised. “Whatever is it?”

  I forbore to add, “And however did Rene come to tell you about it?” although the words were certainly on the tip of my tongue. Now that my attention was drawn to the matter, however, I suddenly realized that Barry and Rene had been seeing quite a bit of each other recently and that it had occurred to me in a vague way that really those two seemed always to find quite a lot to say to each other.

  Barry paused. “I don’t want you to think Rene has been sort of going behind your back and in any way confiding to me things that she would do better to say straight out to you,” he said gravely.

  It seemed to me that this was precisely what Rene had been doing. However, I really didn’t mind if she had. I made reassuring sounds.

  “Rene is the most loyal person on earth and has the greatest admiration for you,” continued Barry punctiliously. “She didn’t want in the first place to tell me what the trouble was. I just saw something was the matter and made her tell me. In the second place she didn’t really want me to tell you—but when she said she simply couldn’t herself, I said I was just going to.”

  “All right, all right,” I said kindly. “Let’s get to the point and hear what the trouble is.”

  “It’s just this. Rene is absolutely dreading the prospect of being alone while you’re away.”

  “Good Lord!” I said amazed. “I quite thought she’d like it.”

  “It isn’t the work, of course,” explained Barry. “It’s the being alone at nights.”

  “Whatever is she afraid of? Burglars? Bombs? Being ill?”

  “Nothing, I think, that she can precisely put a name to, Vicky. She knows it’s silly herself. These irrational fears are the hardest of all to conquer.”

  “She doesn’t even want to try to do it?” I said, possibly a little scornfully.

  Barry looked at me, and I felt a mild reproach in his gaze.

  “It isn’t so very silly to be nervous in the circumstances, Vicky. Remember Rene’s a lot younger than you and never has lived on her own at all. It’s quite natural I think, not to like the idea.”

  “Well, natural or not, Barry, it seems to me a problem that Rene’s got to face some time,” I said. “After all, she is a married woman more or less on her own, not a helpless dependent. I can’t guarantee never in my whole life to leave her alone. We might so easily be reduced to a daily instead of a sleeping-in maid and would that then mean I could never go away with Antonia, even for a night, to see Mother or someone?”

  I sounded perhaps more indignant than I should have liked to, but I really felt quite hysterical at the vista of future difficulties Rene’s objection to being left alone opened up. Whatever I had bargained for, I had not bargained for that.

  “Vicky . . .” said Barry pleadingly.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Well . . . you see, why Rene was nervous of telling you herself?”

  I sighed. I did.

  “The whole situation’s complicated, Barry, by the fact that, not realizing I was letting myself in for this, I rather firmly refused to let her have Mrs. Dabchick come while I was away. Did she tell you about that?”

  Barry shook his head.

  “Well, that’s decent of her, considering I really was rather foul. It was like this.” Briefly I recounted to him the course of the argument in question. I think I made my point—still, I was convinced, a perfectly sound and genuine one—without sounding offensive. Barry, at any rate, seemed to comprehend perfectly my attitude and to sympathize with it. I ended up, in a burst of candour, “And of course, Barry, even though I still agree with myself over the whole situation, I do see that I ought not to have said it was my house. The trouble was I had had a very harassing day at the office and wasn’t in the mood to discuss things to start with.”

  “Oh, I quite understand, Vicky. Believe me, I do see your point there perfectly, and just how difficult it was for you to insist—quite rightly—without sounding nasty.”

  “It seems to me you’re wonderful at understanding both Rene and me,” I said, and then added, a little bitterly, “The only trouble is Rene and I never seem to understand each other at all.”

  “Vicky. Will you be offended if I suggest something?”

  “No, no, I’m past being offended. No one realizes better than myself that I’ve made a pretty good hash of having Rene to live with me. I think it slightly odd and awful that we should talk to you about our domestic bothers, but if you don’t mind, I certainly don’t.”

  “Minor domestic bothers are only a symptom of something rather more fundamental,” suggested Barry, “and, since I’m your friend and Rene’s friend too now, I hope, I’m naturally interested in things that concern ybu both.”

  “Thank you, Barry. That makes it sound rather less trivial and squabbling. Well—what were you going to suggest?”

  “Simply this. You say you’d had a tiring and harassing day at the office when Rene brought the subject up. Well—why on earth not tell her that as soon as you come in, if you like? Rene would be most awfully pleased if you would sometimes confide that sort of thing to her, and I’m sure that, if you did, no one could be more thoughtful and sweet about it. She can’t be tactful if you keep her at arm’s length always, now can she? Rene has never, of course, expressed any of this to me. She wouldn’t. She’s too loyal, and besides, she admires you tremendously, Vicky, as I said before. I’m only speaking from what I can see for myself without much difficulty.”

  “Barry.” I paused and made up my mind. “Barry, that’s a perfectly true and honest observation, and I’ll give you a perfectly true and honest answer, shall I, even though you won’t like me for it?”

  “Please. I’m sure I couldn’t dislike you for anything you say in all honesty, Vicky.”

  I accepted the compliment with a smile and (also with a smile) the implied rebuke.

  “Well, it’s like this, Barry. Rene, I am sure, would be sweet if I told her I was tired and worried. She’d fetch me cups of tea and tell me to put my feet up and love fussing round me. The trouble is, I just don’t want that sort of cosy, feminine atmosphere around me. I don’t much care for sympathy and cups of tea and girlish confidences in front of the fire. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I hate it. I liked Blakey’s rather standoffish attitude, not out of snobbery but because I didn’t have to worry about her. She was, for all her devotion to me, a self-sufficient sort of person—like myself. I
like the unsentimental atmosphere of an office. I like, in the midst of people—I’m not hermit—to preserve my own independence. I don’t want to ‘serve’ other people particularly—except Antonia, she doesn’t count in all that I’ve been saying; the maternal instinct’s very strong in me, I assure you, but a rather unrelated part of my character—and perhaps it’s very reprehensible that I haven’t much impulse to ‘serve’ people, but at least I don’t want it both ways. I definitely dislike other people ministering to me, ministering spiritually, I mean.”

  Barry nodded. My words, I am sure, carried conviction.

  “What exactly made you offer Rene a home, if I may ask?” he enquired.

  “Oh—a sense of duty, more or less. A desire to take her off Mother’s hands. The fact that I don’t feel for other people as perhaps I should, and don’t even want to feel, doesn’t mean I haven’t quite a strong sense of what I ought to do.”

  “You didn’t think it would be nice to have her company or anything like that?”

  “Good God, no! That was absolutely the last thing I wanted. Believe it or not, Barry, I was perfectly contented with my circumstances before Rene came. Frankly, Barry, Rene whatever she was going to be like, was going to be dead loss to me. She was something I just hoped to make a reasonably good job of because I had to.”

  Barry took me up rather quickly. I suppose I did sound a perfect brute.

  “But surely you like her, Vicky? I can’t imagine anyone not liking Rene. She has such a very sweet nature.”

  “I don’t dislike her,” I said cautiously (for, after all, I supposed rather drearily that I didn’t), “but she’s just so hopelessly—not my sort of person, Barry. Just as, I readily admit, I’m not her sort.”

  There was a rather horrid pause. All that I had said was so true and therefore so hopeless. I think Barry felt this too.

  “I know I sound awful, Barry,” I said apologetically. “And believe me I do see Rene’s point of view very clearly. Just because things aren’t right between us I see it all the more passionately. I think it’s the most frightful waste that all her many good qualities happen to be ones I personally don’t appreciate. She’d be a splendid companion to many people, I do see that.”

  “You see it—but you don’t feel it,” suggested Barry.

  “Yes, I dare say you’re right there. Only, in order to remedy that you’ve got to take me to bits and make me up again into a totally different person, haven’t you? I think I had at first some faint hopes that Rene would perform a miracle of the sort on herself—and suddenly become independent and self-sufficient like me. We might have got on fine then. Only obviously she couldn’t and wouldn’t—and indeed, why should she?”

  “You’re very clear-headed about all this, Vicky. I’m glad to understand—even if it’s only understanding that the situation really is rather at a deadlock.”

  “I’m afraid so. I only hope Rene doesn’t see things as clearly as I do.”

  “No, I’m sure she doesn’t,” said Barry quickly.

  “Oh well! There’s nothing to be done about it,” I said, thinking that really Barry must be spared further outpourings of the sort. “I think I can trust myself always to behave fairly well on the surface, you know. Better indeed than I would do if our relationship was on firmer foundations. I’ll certainly, for instance, arrange that Rene isn’t left alone while I’m on holiday.”

  “What will you do? Ask Blakey to stay on?”

  “Well, if I was Rene, which, of course, I’m not, I should feel too awful if that was arranged for me. No, I’ll try to get Mother to come here. It’s only for ten days, after all.”

  “Good. That’s a splendid idea,” said Barry heartily.

  We changed the conversation. Just as we were approaching the house, half an hour later, Barry referred to the topic once more. He thanked me for having spoken so frankly and fully.

  “It was very nice of you to listen, Barry, It was a relief, telling you all that. Won’t you come in and have tea now?” We had halted on the doorstep.

  “No, thank you, not to-day. I must be getting back now, I’ve got some work to do. Good-bye, Vicky, and many thanks—for the walk and everything.”

  We shook hands, I don’t know quite why. It seemed an appropriate gesture.

  I lingered on the doorstep a minute, idly watching Barry’s broad back disappear down the drive. I suddenly had the strangest sensation that he had, on this occasion, said good-bye to me in a way that was as final as it was intangible. Why should this be?

  I knew. I had known really while he was listening to my long outburst about myself that afternoon. Sympathetically as he had received it, I had felt at the time that he was at last seeing me, by my own wish, for what I was, and understanding completely, sadly perhaps, but finally, that he and I would never have been happy, had I consented to marry him.

  I had tried before, and failed, to make him see the sort of person I was. Now, I felt, he was at last convinced of the truth and, being Barry, the truth would shock him deeply in a fundamental way. The blood of his Quaker ancestors, all of whom had in their various ways lived to serve humanity and practise the principles of Christianity throughout their lives, had, I felt sure, risen in his veins to proclaim that this girl who spoke of ‘independence’ and ‘self-sufficiency’ as the breath of life to her, was no spiritual mate for him. Not only did I admit that I did not love my neighbour as myself, I asserted that I did not even? want to. Indeed, my heart would have to be broken into small bits and refashioned anew before Barry and I would, in the deepest sense, speak the same language. And then—as perhaps^ he saw—I would not be Vicky any more.

  Personality. The, most fascinating unsolved puzzle in the world. How many thousands of times over as many thousands of years had two people mutually, tacitly, agreed to leave the riddle yet once again unsolved—and summed up the fascination and the insolubility of it all with the equivalent of a quick hand-shake and a casual, “Thanks for everything. Good-bye”?

  Chapter 14

  *

  My holiday was to last for a fortnight, and I could only have the bungalow for ten days—a week and two week-ends. I decided that the odd four days had really better be spent at home settling Mrs. Dabchick in. I wrote to her, accordingly, again, to ask her to come on the day after I returned home.

  I did not want Mother to feel that I was “using” her too much, and I did genuinely want to see her again and for her to see Antonia, so I pressed her to stay the full fortnight with us. The question of room-space of course arose, for, since Rene had come to stay with me I had had no spare bedroom, but I assdred Mother that we could manage perfectly well after my return; she could keep on in my room and I could easily park myself on a camp-bed in Antonia’s room. Rather to my relief Mother wrote back to say she would really prefer to move out to the small private hotel close by when I returned. She would love to stay on and see something of me and Antonia, but she thought visitors in the house were a mistake when one was settling in a new maid.

  I rather agreed with her, and felt infinitely relieved that she had seen this for herself.

  It was funny, I mused. An outsider would have said that of the two of us, Rene and myself, I was undoubtedly the stronger character. And yet, for Rene’s sake, I had done all sorts of things I would probably never have done otherwise—sacked Blakey, let down the office, shocked Barry, “used” Mother, and engaged a woman I would probably have turned down at sight myself. Even the fact that I was having a holiday now was indirectly due to Rene. I did not think it too far-fetched to say that if there had never been the “two doctors” upset over Rene, I would not have pressed Dr. Lambert so passionately for her advice as to whether there wasn’t something more I could “do” for Antonia.

  Funny. I dismissed this unprofitable line of thought with a mental shrug of the shoulders. Probably I had done all these things because I had a bad conscience about Rene, owing to the fact that I really could not like her. Or I might sound a bit more modern and call i
t a guilt complex. Same thing.

  The last week before my holiday passed very quickly. On the afternoon of the day before I went Blakey left.

  She was not going to another job, at least not for a month or two. She was going to stay with her recently-widowed sister in Cornwall. When I referred to this injudiciously as “a holiday” Blakey gave me to understand that, on the contrary, she was obeying the voice of duty. Her sister was, she said scornfully, a “poor manager,” and had been “quite knocked over” by her husband’s death. Someone had got to go down there to “see to things.”

  Saying good-bye to Blakey was something I had dreaded, and when it came it was just as unpleasant as I had thought it would be. Things often are, I have noticed, in spite of a prevalent popular belief to the contrary. I suppose Blakey got some grim satisfaction out of leaving the whole house more exquisitely clean and tidy than it had ever been before, but naturally I looked at the piles of Antonia’s freshly-darned, freshly-ironed clothes in the linen cupboard and felt awful, and more awful still when I found that Blakey had left a complete three-course supper for that evening ready in the larder. When Blakey, as a finishing touch, produced a very old torn feeder of Antonia’s—one that had been long more or less discarded—and apologized for leaving it unmended only we had just run out of tape, I wanted badly to smack her as a preliminary to an emotional reconciliation.

  “Oh Blakey!” I exclaimed. “Do stop it. Put that feeder down and stop making me feel awful for goodness sake.”

  But Blakey was not having any. She just wouldn’t play, and our final good-byes were just as miserable and constrained as Blakey apparently wanted. A frightful scene on the lines of “I have your address, haven’t I?” (twice over from me out of nervousness) and, “I’m sure I hope the new person will prove satisfactory, Miss Vicky” (with a strong relish of grim foreboding), from Blakey.