Civil to Strangers and Other Writings

by Barbara Pym

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Janie, ‘it’s money.’

  ‘How disappointing,’ said Mr Broome, making his first contribution to the evening’s conversation. ‘I thought it was going to be something much more exciting.’

  ‘Fancy not thinking money exciting,’ laughed Miss Gay, ‘but then you see so much of it every day.’

  ‘And I daresay it has no more influence on you for good or evil than the beautiful and permanent forms of Nature have on most of the Cumberland rustics,’ declared Adam.

  ‘I don’t think anybody ever gets tired of spending money,’ said Cassandra, seeing that Mr Broome was looking at Adam with an expression of alarm on his face, ‘but I expect you get tired of seeing it, and being surrounded by it every day.’

  ‘Well, yes, I do really,’ said Mr Broome gratefully, thankful that he was not after all required to carry on the conversation about Cumberland rustics. He was pleased at the idea of himself as a financial magnate, surrounded by piles of money, when in reality he was the most junior of all the clerks.

  ‘I don’t think it’s the whole secret of happiness,’ said Mr Gay slowly, thinking that although she was one of the nicest and most comfortable people he had ever met, Mrs Gower hadn’t got nearly as much money as some of the young women he had unsuccessfully wooed in his youth. ‘Although, as Pomfret puts it, “a genteel sufficiency” is almost a necessity if happiness is to be built on a lasting foundation.’

  ‘The eighteenth-century poets say some very sensible things,’ remarked Adam benevolently.

  ‘So does our great Hungarian poet also!’ interrupted Mr Tilos.

  ‘What is his name?’ asked Adam condescendingly. ‘I can’t say that I’ve heard anything about him.’

  ‘What! You have not heard of our Petöfi Sandor?’ Mr Tilos’s tone became so indignant that Cassandra instinctively moved nearer to Adam.

  ‘Well, after all, Hungary is a remote country to us and, unfortunately, very few English people know its language,’ she said, anxious to keep the peace. ‘You must remember that the average Englishman has not heard of very much outside his own country,’ she added, wondering how Adam would like being described as an ‘average Englishman’.

  Apparently he had not noticed for he went on to support what she had said by adding naïvely that his second book of poems sold only just over a hundred and fifty copies.

  This pronouncement silenced everybody, and shortly afterwards the party broke up, following the lead of Mrs Wilmot, who thought she had better go home before the wine made her feel any more sleepy.

  Adam and Cassandra offered to take Mrs Gower and Mrs Wilmot home in their car. Cassandra was glad to go. Somehow, she told herself, she hadn’t enjoyed the party very much, although there had been amusing moments. Could it be that she was disappointed because Mr Tilos had taken so little notice of her?

  Mrs Wilmot was not too sleepy to be pleased at hearing Mr Paladin offering to take Janie home.

  ‘It’s a beautiful night, and the walk will do us good,’ he explained to Mrs Wilmot, whom he had imagined raising objections.

  But she merely smiled, and said that there was a lovely moon. It was nice for young people to walk together in the moonlight, she thought, especially if the young people happened to be Janie and Mr Paladin. What was his Christian name? she wondered. Edward, or Edmund, she couldn’t remember which.

  Janie was still feeling quite bold, and they had not walked many yards before she took Mr Paladin’s arm. He made no attempt to free himself, as he had done when Miss Gay did the same thing. It seemed right and pleasant that they should walk arm-in-arm, and, as Mrs Wilmot had said, there was a lovely moon.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘Their colours burnish, and, by hope inspired,

  They brisk advance … ’

  ‘Now that the weather is so nice,’ said Adam to Cassandra one morning, ‘I think we ought to show Tilos some of the beauties of the countryside.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cassandra doubtfully. ‘When do you want to go?’

  ‘When? Oh, any time.’

  ‘How would tomorrow do, if it’s still fine?’

  ‘Of course when I say we it will probably be you,’ said Adam, ‘because I doubt if I shall be able to spare the time. I’m very busy, you know, and the man would much rather have you as a guide.’

  ‘But, Adam, I couldn’t possibly take him by myself, it wouldn’t be proper, and I don’t know all the legends and dates of things, and styles of architecture, and names of hills, and things like that.’

  ‘You can make them up. Ring him up and suggest tomorrow, about twelve. Say we’ll call for him in the car. I may come if I feel like it.’

  After hesitating a little, Cassandra went to the telephone and asked for Mr Tilos’s number. When Mr Tilos heard her voice he was delighted and relieved. What if Cassandra hadn’t minded being ignored at the party? He had just been thinking of renewing his attack by rushing to The Grotto with more lilies. Cassandra’s voice sounded cordial. It would be so nice if he could come. Mr Tilos was well satisfied.

  The day they had chosen for their expedition was bright and sunny. At first Adam had raised some objections but Cassandra managed to persuade him that the air would do him good. As she had anticipated, Cassandra sat demurely in the back of the car with the picnic basket.

  ‘I thought we’d go to Milton Amble,’ said Adam. ‘We’ll see most of the pleasantest villages that way. We can go through Boulderstones and perhaps make a loop through Down Callow and that other place, I can’t remember the name but it’s charming. Quite typical too. You’ve nothing like it in Hungary,’ he declared, with a positiveness which was all the more startling as he had never visited that country and knew absolutely nothing about its villages. ‘You’ll find the houses rather mixed,’ he went on. Like a tap turned on, thought Cassandra, who was sure poor Mr Tilos wasn’t understanding half of what he was saying.

  ‘Now we must find a place to have lunch,’ Adam said when they arrived on the outskirts of the village of Milton Amble. After a great deal of argument between Adam and Cassandra and some unheeded suggestions from Mr Tilos, a suitable grassy place was found and Cassandra spread the cloth and laid out the rugs for the picnic. She busied herself ministering to their needs, offering them sandwiches and pieces of veal and ham pie and filling their glasses with beer.

  ‘“Unsavoury food perhaps to spiritual natures”,’ she said gaily to her husband, interrupting his dissertation on Milton, of whom Mr Tilos had apparently never heard, but Adam took no notice of her. It was Mr Tilos who kept glancing in her direction and smiling secret smiles at her. Cassandra wished he wouldn’t stare, as she found it difficult to be continually avoiding his glance. It annoyed her that Adam should sit there so calmly reciting Lycidas, completely unaware that Mr Tilos wasn’t listening to a word he was saying.

  It would serve Adam right if she went off with Mr Tilos. Cassandra amused herself by toying with this idea for a few moments, but then decided that it was impracticable, for apart from any moral considerations there was the important fact that she had no desire to go anywhere with Mr Tilos. But to run away alone, to go for a holiday by herself, that was a very different matter. People could see too much of each other, she thought. Change, that was the secret. What if she were to go away by herself for three weeks?

  ‘Cassandra,’ said Adam, ‘isn’t there anything more to eat? I’m still hungry.’

  ‘Of course, dear, look in the basket.’ Cassandra’s calm voice gave no hint of the plans she was making.

  ‘Oh to live always in the open air,’ said Adam, stretching himself luxuriously on the grass and lighting a cigarette, ‘to have no cares, not to have to worry about tomorrow … ’

  ‘And to have no cigarettes, and not to know where the next meal’s coming from, and to have to sleep on damp grass or prickly bracken,’ laughed Cassandra.

  ‘Cassandra, you have no imagination, no poetry,’ said Adam in a displeased voice.

  ‘A woman does not need to
have such things, it is enough that she is beautiful,’ said Mr Tilos, solemnly gazing at Cassandra.

  Cassandra looked to see how Adam was taking this remark, but he was stretching and yawning and saying that he had eaten too much and thought he might just have a little nap.

  ‘Do you want to go to sleep too?’ she asked Mr Tilos.

  ‘I? Why no.’

  ‘Then let’s go for a walk, I feel energetic. Adam,’ she said loudly, for his eyes were already closed, ‘we’re going for a walk.’

  ‘Very well,’ he replied drowsily. ‘Meet me by the car at three o’clock.’

  Mr Tilos gave Cassandra a boyish grin as they walked away from Adam. He was filled with excitement and anticipation at being alone with her. He took her arm and was pleased to notice that she made no attempt to disengage herself.

  ‘Let us find a nice place to sit down,’ he said, when they were out of Adam’s hearing.

  ‘Well you can if you like,’ said Cassandra briskly, ‘but I’m going for a walk. I want to go into Milton Amble and see how they’re doing up the old cottages, and you might buy something for your house at the antique shop there.’

  They walked on for some time without speaking. Mr Tilos still had Cassandra by the arm, although as they came into the village she made some attempt to break away from him. It was quiet in the village and there was very little traffic, but suddenly a car came into sight. Cassandra gave one look at it and, pulling Mr Tilos with her, rushed into a shop they happened to be passing.

  ‘They’ve some charming hand-woven things in here,’ she said in some confusion. ‘Let’s look around, shall we?’

  Mr Tilos found himself forced to pretend an interest in a wooden loom at which a stout young woman in a blue smock was working. Cassandra went over to a table by the window and began to examine some scarves and lengths of home-spun material, peering out surreptitiously, waiting for the car to pass. When it came by she saw that she had been right, for in it was Mrs Gower and the driver was almost certainly Mr Gay. They went past slowly, but were obviously not stopping in the village. Cassandra was glad of this, for although there was nothing wrong in what she was doing, she thought it better that two respectable inhabitants of Up Callow should not see her walking arm-in-arm with Mr Tilos. She was certain that they had not seen her, because they had been too much interested in each other. How nice for two people of their years to find pleasure in each other’s company, thought Cassandra benevolently. She was glad the weather was nice for their drive.

  When the coast was clear Cassandra and Mr Tilos managed to slip out without attracting the attention of the woman at the loom. ‘I didn’t want to buy anything,’ explained Cassandra, ‘everything is so ruinously expensive, although they’re hand-woven.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Tilos, not wishing to make conversation about an occupation which he considered fit only for peasants. ‘Do you not feel tired?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘No, I’m still full of energy,’ said Cassandra, ‘but it will take us all our time to walk to the car. We’ve quite a long way to go.’

  ‘You know I admire you!’ declared Mr Tilos suddenly.

  ‘Hush! People will hear you,’ said Cassandra in agitation, for his voice was embarrassingly loud.

  ‘I would want all the world to know,’ he declared.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Cassandra firmly, thinking that it wouldn’t matter the whole world knowing as long as the people in Up Callow and thereabouts did not.

  They walked on, with Mr Tilos preserving a gloomy silence.

  ‘Here’s the car,’ said Cassandra with some relief. ‘Adam is putting the picnic basket in.’

  ‘Have you had a nice walk?’ he asked.

  ‘Lovely. Have you had a nice sleep?’

  ‘Yes. But only quite nice. The ground isn’t such a comfortable bed as I thought it would be. But all the same, about twenty more lines of the epic came to me.’

  ‘How lovely,’ she said and smiled to herself as she arranged the rugs in the back of the car.

  ‘Cassandra, what are you smiling at?’ asked Adam, for he had just been telling Mr Tilos about Milton’s three wives and he didn’t see anything particularly amusing about that.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Cassandra weakly. ‘I think it’s just been a funny day.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘Endeavouring by a thousand tricks to catch

  The cunning, conscious, half-averted glance

  Of their regardless charmer … ’

  ‘Mr Tilos seems to have dropped the Marsh-Gibbons,’ said Mrs Wilmot to her husband one morning.

  ‘What did you say, dear?’ The rector looked up from his paper.

  ‘Oh, I was only saying that Mr Tilos seems to have dropped the Marsh-Gibbons,’ said Mrs Wilmot, feeling silly at having to repeat her sentence.

  ‘Well, my dear, I don’t see how you can say that,’ declared the rector. ‘It is hardly in the power of a new resident like Mr Tilos to “drop” anyone of such standing as the Marsh-Gibbons.’

  ‘I am expecting Paladin,’ he added, getting up from the table. ‘I shall be in my study.’

  Mrs Wilmot began aimlessly piling the plates together. She was a little depressed this morning but her face brightened and she felt more cheerful when she saw Mr Paladin coming up the drive.

  Since the night of the Gays’ party she had begun to think of him as ‘dear Edmund’, and was already regarding him as a member of the family. Mrs Wilmot glowed with satisfaction as she imagined for her daughter that future of which she herself had been cheated. It was known that the Bishop thought very highly of Mr Paladin, and it was only a matter of time before he would start out on a brilliant ecclesiastical career. Janie had always been a good girl, and that she should fall in love with someone eminently suitable was only to be expected. Mrs Wilmot liked to think that her good upbringing had had something to do with this. She was a little inclined to forget that Janie was only nineteen, and that Mr Paladin was so far the most eligible suitor, indeed the only suitor of any kind, who had presented himself.

  In the study the rector was talking to Mr Paladin. His manner was almost that of the genial father-in-law, and yet it was not so marked as to be in any way frightening to a young man; he did not call Mr Paladin ‘my dear boy’, he was merely kinder and more interested than usual. ‘Your last week’s sermon was excellent,’ he said, ‘but don’t overwork yourself. Get out into the country sometimes. You can take the afternoon off when you’ve nothing important to do and I hope we’ll see you here for tea sometimes. The children will be home in July. You will see no happier family than ours anywhere. Marriage is a great blessing, and companionship with people of our own age with whom we have tastes in common is a happy preliminary to that state … ’ The rector paced about the room, flinging out stray sentences, while Mr Paladin stood and listened in respectful silence.

  ‘I know what it is to be young,’ continued the rector. ‘Yes, I know what it is to be young,’ he repeated, as if Mr Paladin might not believe him. ‘We want to be with young people when we are young. Janie is staying with her aunt, but she is coming back tomorrow. I am glad that you have become friends. I hope you will go into the country together now that the weather is so good. Janie is very interested in Nature,’ he added, and then went on hastily to talk of cricket, as if he had said rather more about Janie than he had intended.

  Mr Paladin now joined in the conversation, which took a more parochial turn, and shortly afterwards went away. Mrs Wilmot watched him out of a bedroom window; he saw her as he was mounting his bicycle, and waved his hand. He rode slowly into the town, smiling to himself, as people in love often do. The inhabitants of Up Callow were now quite used to seeing a smiling Mr Paladin. They smiled too, and there was not a single person who did not think that the young people were admirably suited to each other.

  Mr Paladin rode on. He knew he would have to write a sermon some time today, but the thought did not trouble him. Nowadays his sermons got written as if by m
agic, or even Divine Aid, thought Mr Paladin reverently, for whereas a month ago he had been continually thinking of sermons, his head was now filled with fragments of poetry and other thoughts more suitable and certainly more natural to a young man in love. He passed Miss Gay, but there was no embarrassment or sourness in the smiles they gave each other. Mr Paladin had forgotten his fear of her, and Miss Gay was happy in the knowledge that Mr Tilos had dropped in for tea yesterday, and was taking her to the cinema this evening. He had been most attentive during the last fortnight.

  Mr Tilos had not been near The Grotto since the day when Adam and Cassandra had taken him to see the countryside. He had thanked them very charmingly, but had refused their invitation to stay to dinner afterwards. He had been disappointed in Cassandra, for he had imagined her falling into his arms and telling him that her husband did not love her. Mr Tilos thought that perhaps he would not see her for a month. Then he would try again. In the meantime, as he did not care to stay in his half-furnished house all the time, he had taken to calling on Miss Gay.

  But he did not find it easy to forget Cassandra or to enjoy himself in Miss Gay’s company. Her dark complexion reminded him that Cassandra was delicately fair, her arch manner that his nymph of The Grotto was tantalizingly aloof. Miss Gay accepted his presents greedily and yet casually, as if they were only what was due to her. Cassandra had always been surprised and pleased. But he must not even see Cassandra, and so he was condemned to spend long hours sitting among the aspidistras with Miss Gay, or in the dark intimacy of the three shilling seats at the cinema.

  When they sat among the aspidistras they had long, tedious conversations, generally about Love. Miss Gay imagined that Love was making him tongue-tied and she would begin to make advances to him, which he rejected with great skill. If she ever hinted that he ought to be more demonstrative, he would make pretty little speeches about good things increasing in goodness if they were kept, and quote some Hungarian equivalent of ‘before, a joy proposed behind, a dream’, feeling desperately bored and unhappy, and smiling more and more stiffly, until his face felt as if it would crack.