Civil to Strangers and Other Writings

by Barbara Pym

  Tonight Cassandra tried hard to concentrate on what Adam was reading. She listened attentively to the description of fishing, and even noted the advice:

  But let not on thy hook the tortured worm

  Convulsive, twist in agonizing folds …

  What funny things the eighteenth-century poets chose to describe in verse, she thought. In spite of the austerity of some of their poetry they were very homely, and she loved them for it. Her attention wandered, although she was still thinking of homely things. She began to wonder whether the loose covers ought to be sent to the cleaners. Spring-cleaning was so difficult with Adam about the house all day. If she chose to turn out a particular room she could be quite sure that he would want to use it just when it was at the height of its confusion. On these occasions he would say that it was impossible for him to write in any other room, and, of course, it was hard to argue with him, for how could ordinary mortals possibly know where an author could or could not write at a particular time?

  Cassandra wondered idly how many wives were at this moment having ‘The Seasons’ read to them. Probably none, she decided, and looked up at Adam with a happy and affectionate smile on her face. It was comforting to know that after five years of marriage he should still be taking the trouble to educate her.

  ‘Do I sound as if I had a cold?’ said Adam suddenly.

  Cassandra pondered a while. ‘Perhaps you do a bit,’ she said. ‘But how could you have got one?’

  Adam looked guilty. ‘I was sitting on the bank by the stream yesterday afternoon,’ he explained, ‘and the grass may have been damp. “Or lie reclined beneath yon spreading ash” – that reminded me of it. I feel rather shivery too.’

  Cassandra was at once all concern. ‘Oh, darling, you really ought to be more careful. If only you’d had more sense you’d have realized that the grass would be damp at this time of the year. And it’s such long grass too.’ She laid her hand on his forehead. ‘I hope you aren’t feverish,’ she said anxiously. ‘I think you’d better stop reading and go to bed.’

  Adam smiled complacently, for he liked being fussed over when he was in the mood for it. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have had that tinned salmon,’ he suggested.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Cassandra. ‘I’d forgotten about that, but I don’t think it can have been anything to do with the salmon. It must have been the damp grass. You must have a hot bath and a hot drink and I’ll rub your chest.’

  Thus, in the space of five minutes, Adam Marsh-Gibbon was turned from a perfectly healthy man who had perhaps eaten an unwise mixture of things for his tea, into an invalid with a devoted wife fussing round him.

  When he was in bed Cassandra brought him a hot, milky drink and a box of biscuits.

  ‘I’m going to rub your chest,’ she declared, ‘with good old-fashioned camphorated oil. There’s really nothing like it.’

  He took hold of her hand. ‘Where should I find another wife who would look after me so well?’ he asked, gazing at her fondly. ‘Nobody else would take such care of me when I was ill,’ he said pathetically.

  ‘Oh, Adam, don’t be so ridiculous. You know perfectly well that if you weren’t married to me you’d be married to somebody else,’ said Cassandra sensibly. ‘There are plenty of people who would be only too glad to be your wife and who would look after you as well as I do.’

  Adam smiled. ‘Well, yes, I daresay there are,’ he said complacently, pleased at the picture of himself surrounded by adoring wives all ministering to his needs.

  Cassandra put the cork back into the bottle of camphorated oil. ‘There,’ she said. ‘You ought to be all right in the morning.’

  ‘That’s a long way off,’ said Adam comfortably, as he kissed her good night.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘Well ordered home, man’s best delight … ’

  The next morning Adam decided that his cold was a little worse. He woke up at about ten o’clock to find Cassandra standing over him with an expression of anxiety on her face. She was wearing a soft grey dress, and held a thermometer in her hand. She seemed relieved when Adam stirred and opened his eyes.

  ‘I do hope you’re feeling better, dear,’ she said. ‘I’m going to take your temperature.’

  ‘How long have you been standing here watching me asleep?’ demanded Adam. ‘You should have woken me up. My time’s too precious to be wasted lying in bed till all hours of the morning.’

  ‘Yes, darling,’ said Cassandra meekly, with a little smile on her face. Her time was also precious this morning, for Lily and Mrs Morris, the cleaning woman, were giving Adam’s study a thorough spring-cleaning, and she wanted to get back to them as quickly as possible. There were so many things that needed careful handling, and everything must be put back in its proper disorder, so that Adam should not know what had been happening behind his back. As she put the thermometer into his mouth Cassandra could not help hoping that Adam’s temperature would be just the tiniest fraction above normal. So much could be done in the house if he were safely out of the way for twenty-four hours.

  She put her hand on his forehead. ‘It feels rather hot, dear,’ she said, and then took the thermometer out of his mouth, holding it up to the light to read it. Practically normal, or as near as made no matter, she decided. But no, perhaps it was just a little above normal. Now that she came to look at it again she was sure of it, and so she felt justified in giving herself the benefit of the doubt. Adam must stay in bed today. It was a golden opportunity. Why, they might be able to turn out the drawing room as well. Cassandra bristled with energy at the thought of it.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s not quite normal,’ she said brightly, ‘but I daresay it wouldn’t do you any harm to get up,’ she added, knowing that it was no use commanding Adam to stay in bed.

  Adam drew the eiderdown round his shoulders. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to make a fuss, but I certainly feel rather shivery. I dare say I could work just as well in bed too,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps I’d better have breakfast in bed anyway,’ he said, looking up at Cassandra for her approval. ‘I hope it won’t be very inconvenient.’

  Cassandra thought that there was no need to remind her husband that never, under any circumstances, did he get up for breakfast, although she was surprised that his recollections of such an important event in his daily life should be so hazy.

  Adam explained at some length that although he did not feel completely well, neither did he feel completely ill. Cassandra listened with sympathy and understanding, and not long afterwards returned with a well-laden breakfast tray. ‘Feed a cold and starve a fever,’ she laughed. ‘I hope there’ll be enough for you here. If you want anything more, just ring for it. I’ve brought you The Times. I thought you’d like to do the crossword. That poet yesterday was Dryden, not Milton. That was what put us wrong. Is there anything else you’d like to read? The new Crime Club book is one of the best we’ve had.’

  She left Adam happily settled with food, cigarettes, a crossword puzzle and a murder story. He ought to be all right until lunch-time, she told herself, and hurried downstairs, stopping on the way to put on her overall, which she had hung over the banisters. Then she went into Adam’s study.

  ‘Please ma’am, what shall I do with all these bits of paper?’ asked Mrs Morris, the cleaning woman. ‘I can’t get at this table to polish it.’

  ‘Oh, leave those to me,’ said Cassandra, gathering them up. She sorted the papers as well as she could, and put them in the desk until the room was finished. She wished Adam wouldn’t be so extravagant with paper. Some of these sheets had only one sentence written on them. If he didn’t like crossing out mistakes, he could use an india rubber, she thought sensibly; he nearly always began by writing in pencil.

  After a while Cassandra went into the kitchen to give Bessie the orders for lunch, and then she went back into Adam’s study and began to arrange his things exactly as they had been before the great cleaning. She put the books back on the table, taking care to leave them open a
t the right places, wondering as she did so why he should be reading an article on Wireless in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. After she had done this, she thought about her shopping. If Adam were to be kept contentedly in bed he must be treated like a proper invalid, and given specially nice food.

  She made out her shopping list and went upstairs. It looked cold outside, so she put on the grey squirrel coat that Adam had given her last Christmas. On her way down she listened for a moment at his door, but could hear nothing but a contented droning sound, which was his way of singing. It was a sign that he was quite happy, and could safely be left for an hour or two.

  Cassandra walked down the drive. The grass under the poplars was golden with daffodils. On an impulse she stopped, and picked a bunch of the nicest ones with long golden trumpets. Mrs Wilmot might like to have them, and she would have time to leave them at the rectory.

  Adam and Cassandra had no children, at least not yet, Cassandra used to tell herself, because she was always hoping that he would see her point of view about it before it was too late. He thought they would interfere with his work, and said that it would make him so old to see a creature growing up in his own likeness. He did not seem to realize that the child might quite easily grow up in the likeness of Cassandra. But she had accepted her husband’s decision very philosophically, telling herself that after all Adam needed quite as much mothering as Mrs Wilmot’s two girls and three boys, although at the back of her mind there was always the hope that Science might one day prove weaker than Nature.

  Cassandra decided to call at the rectory first, so that the flowers could be put in water at once.

  Janie Wilmot came to the door. Her dark eyes lighted up with pleasure when she saw the flowers. ‘Oh, how kind of you,’ she said, ‘and such lovely big ones too. Won’t you come in? Mother will be so pleased to see you.’

  Cassandra followed Janie into the dining room, where Mrs Wilmot was mending a pair of combinations.

  ‘Thank goodness it’s the summer term next term,’ she said, after the flowers had been admired and arranged in vases. ‘Edith will be wearing vests and won’t need to take any combs back with her. These are very thin, but they’ll do as an emergency pair for next winter.’

  ‘I hear Edith’s getting on so well at school,’ Cassandra said. ‘You must be proud now that she’s in the lacrosse team. She’s only fourteen, isn’t she?’ Cassandra was glad that Mrs Wilmot had such good reason to be proud of her second daughter, for she could not help feeling that she was in many ways a disappointed woman. When she had married her husband she had expected great things of him, and had imagined herself at some period of her life directing the affairs of the diocese as the wife of a Bishop or at least an Archdeacon. But the Reverend Rockingham Wilmot had never got beyond being the rector of Up Callow in Shropshire. The living was quite a good one, and he was very much liked in the parish, but Kathleen Wilmot had somehow got it into her head that he had been done out of his rightful heritage.

  It was therefore a consolation to her that Edith was doing so well at school. Janie was a nice girl, but not particularly talented in any direction, although she could decorate the church very artistically. The three boys, also away at school, were equally undistinguished, though the eldest showed signs of becoming a fair cricketer, to the delight of his father, whose passion it was.

  ‘I hope your husband is well?’ asked Mrs Wilmot as she walked to the door with Cassandra.

  ‘He has a slight chill and is staying in bed this morning,’ said Cassandra, ‘but there’s not really much wrong with him. It’s an awfully good opportunity to spring-clean his study. On ordinary mornings he’s always wandering about the house, but if he thinks he’s supposed to be ill, he’ll stay in bed quite happily.’

  Mrs Wilmot sighed as she contrasted Adam Marsh-Gibbon’s pleasantly idle life with that of her own husband. But she did not complain, for she was a great admirer of Adam’s novels, and she supposed that such a life was necessary for their production.

  Meanwhile Cassandra did her shopping. When she had ordered all the necessary things she went into the best fruit shop and bought some peaches and some grapes for Adam. In the shop she met Mrs Gower, a mountainous figure in a dark musquash coat.

  ‘Just the person I want to see,’ she declared, advancing towards Cassandra. ‘My dear,’ she whispered confidentially, ‘things really are beginning to happen now.’

  Cassandra looked puzzled and tried to guess what she was talking about. ‘Things?’ she echoed thoughtfully, and then said, ‘Oh, you mean Holmwood?’

  Mrs Gower paused a moment, and then said in a low voice, ‘A stove was seen going in this morning.’

  ‘A stove?’ said Cassandra incredulously.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Gower, ‘of rather a peculiar design.’

  ‘In what way?’ asked Cassandra, suppressing a desire to laugh, for she did not see that there could be much scope for peculiarity of design in things like stoves.

  ‘It seemed to have coloured tiles on it,’ said Mrs Gower, ‘like those you see abroad. Whatever would the new tenants of Holmwood want with such a thing?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s an heirloom, or it may have some sentimental significance,’ suggested Cassandra, smiling at the idea of a stove with sentimental significance. ‘Or they may even use it,’ she added.

  Mrs Gower agreed doubtfully. ‘Yes, I suppose they may,’ she said. ‘My late husband used to like keeping to old ways. That’s why we always slept in that four-poster bed. It was supposed to have belonged to Bishop Percy, the Reliques one, you know. But we always used to find it so hot in summer that my husband usually slept in his dressing-room.’

  Cassandra was rather taken aback by this intimate glimpse of the late Professor and Mrs Gower’s married life, and did not quite know what to say.

  ‘Shall we be seeing you at Mr Gay’s on Friday night?’ asked Mrs Gower.

  ‘Oh, yes, I hope so,’ said Cassandra, ‘and Adam too.’

  When she got home she found out by tactful enquiries that Adam had been in his room all morning and had not rung for anything. She walked upstairs quietly, and could hear him droning some tune of his own composition.

  When she went in with the peaches and grapes Adam was lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling.

  ‘I knew you must be awake because I heard you singing,’ said Cassandra. ‘Look what I’ve brought for you.’

  ‘Oh, my dear, how nice!’

  ‘Are you better?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just about the same, I think.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll be well enough to go to Mr Gay’s party on Friday?’ asked Cassandra.

  ‘Why, of course,’ said Adam shortly. ‘You talk as if I were really ill.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘While through their cheerful

  band the rural talk,

  The rural scandal, and the rural jest,

  Fly harmless, to deceive the

  Tedious time … ’

  Mr Philip Gay lived by the church, in a large gloomy house called Alameda. He was a bachelor, between fifty and sixty years old, and a disappointed man. As a youth he had not fitted himself for any career, as it had been his intention, from the time he was old enough to know about such things, to make a profitable marriage. He had been convinced that his good looks, which were of the guardsman type, would be enough to win for him any woman he might choose to woo. But unfortunately his efforts had not met with success. It is probable that his proposals lacked the assurances of love and devotion which every young woman expects at such a time, for being of a cold nature Mr Gay had never fallen in love, nor was he clever at acting what he did not feel. If the young women he pursued were sensible as well as rich they had seen what he was after, and had given him to understand that his attentions were unwelcome. None of these rich young women had ever fallen in love with him, in spite of his long eyelashes and handsome, if wooden, features. Nor had he ever had the good fortune to meet a woman who was rich and anxious to get a husband
at any price. His later attempts to marry wealthy widows had been no more successful, for those he met seemed to have reached an age when they could no longer be bothered with husbands. As the years went on he still hoped, but lately he had become resigned to what he imagined was a life of genteel poverty.

  He spent most of his time pottering about in his conservatory and garden. In the evenings he read novels and sometimes a little poetry, generally Dryden or Pomfret. He was especially fond of Pomfret, although he could never agree with that poet that it was unwise to aspire to riches in excess. It had been one of his happiest dreams, an eligible woman with riches in excess, but now it seemed to have little chance of coming true.

  With Mr Gay lived his niece, Miss Angela Gay. She was the daughter of his brother, who had married a Frenchwoman. Both her parents had died while she was a child and Mr Gay, as her only remaining relative, had reluctantly assumed responsibility for her. Apart from their relationship there was another bond between them. They were both disappointed people. For Angela Gay was thirty and still unmarried. She was a small dark woman with a very coy manner, who would have been pretty if the expression of her face had not been so discontented. She disliked Cassandra Marsh-Gibbon more than anyone else in the world, and had once imagined herself secretly in love with Adam, although she was ready to fall in love with any man who came her way.

  Mr Gay and his niece occasionally gave an evening party. Perhaps they were still hoping that there was a rich woman or an eligible husband in the town whom they had somehow missed in their search. Certainly there was more hope for Angela than for her uncle, as a new curate had just come to Up Callow. He was twenty-six years old and unmarried, and Miss Gay had seized upon him almost as soon as he had arrived. Ever since then he had been contriving to avoid her.