Less Than Angels

by Barbara Pym

  She sat on the bus, almost contented, looking out of the windows. It passed the Law Courts and she noted with interest the little groups of people standing there, the wronged wife with a sensible-looking woman friend, the knot of relatives embittered over a disputed will. Then the bus stopped by a travel agency, its windows full of bright tempting posters. Spain, Portugal, Italy—dangerous, romantic, un-English: then Norway and Sweden-so clean and healthy: then France—which was just France, and Lourdes—a Pilgrimage by Luxury Coach. The bus moved away, leaving Catherine puzzling over this last announcement. A pilgrimage by luxury coach seemed a contradiction in terms. The bus gathered speed now, and they rushed past a church where a large poster announced what she hastily read as HOLY GHOST FATHERS—GRAND CENTENARY DANCE. But could it really have been this? Coming after the luxury pilgrimage, it was disturbing; the foundations of life seemed to be slipping. Am I imagining it, or is my mind unhinged by grief? she wondered. The bus began to crawl now, stopping at stops where nobody got on or off and waiting for the traffic lights to turn red; then it hurried again so that when she started to go down the stairs to get off it was like a perilously rocking ship and she nearly fell in her high-heeled shoes.

  Nothing had happened since she went away. The rooms were tidy as she had left them. She took off her shoes and filled the kettle, then went to the window and stood looking out.

  She had been there some time before she became conscious of a woman walking rather slowly along the opposite side of the street, peering at the houses as if looking for a particular number. When she saw Catherine she stopped and made as if to cross the road. Catherine drew back into the shadow of the curtain. A minute or so later her door bell rang. When she opened the door she found the woman she had seen waiting outside. She was in the middle fifties, well-dressed and good-looking, but with a worried, nervous expression and manner.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she began. ‘I wonder if you could tell me whether Mr. Mallow is in?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, he isn’t here,’ said Catherine, very much taken aback.

  ‘Oh, I see. Well.. ,’ the woman hesitated.

  ‘I wonder if I could help you?’

  ‘Are you Miss Oliphant, by any chance?’

  ‘Yes, I am. Won’t you come in?’

  ‘It was really you I wanted to see, in a way.’

  ‘Oh, do come in, then. I was just making some tea. I dare say you’d like some?’

  ‘Thank you, that’s very kind.’

  They walked up the stairs together and Catherine indicated her front door. ‘My flat is in there.’

  ‘You will wonder what I have come for,’ said the woman.

  ‘Well, yes,’ Catherine smiled. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever met before, have we?’

  ‘No.’ She paused and seemed to take a deep breath. ‘You see,’ she declared. ‘I am Tom Mallow’s aunt.’

  Catherine’s first instinct was to burst out laughing. She wondered why there was something slightly absurd about aunts; perhaps it was because one thought of them as c’ear, comfortable creatures, somehow lacking in dignity and prestige.

  ‘Oh, yes, he told me about you,’ Catherine ventured.

  ‘I am Mrs. Beddoes. I live in Belgravia,’ she explained.

  ‘Yes, of course, I should have guessed that.’ Tom’s other aunt, his father’s eldest sister, was a spinster who lived in a hotel in South Kensington. Clearly Mrs. Beddoes was the superior one—Belgravia and the married state had raised her up.

  Tea was made and Catherine produced bread-and-butter and a plate of biscuits. She had no cake, especially not at a time like this, she told herself. Nobody could expect it.

  Mrs. Beddoes complimented her on her china. She seemed surprised to find that it was so nice, ‘Oh, dear, it’s all such a pity,’ she burst out. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be sitting here drinking your tea.’

  ‘I have plenty, and you must have needed a cup—it’s such a hot tiring afternoon. Do have a biscuit. I hope you like Bourbons. They always remind me of exiled European royalty, and that’s one of those sad but comforting thoughts that one likes to have. Do you suppose they sit around in their villas at Estoril eating Bourbon biscuits?’

  Mrs. Beddoes threw Catherine a startled glance but took a biscuit.

  ‘There’s something rather good about Osborne biscuits too, don’t you think,’ Catherine went on. ‘Dull, solid and good—the Old Queen, I suppose. Were they named after the royal residence, do you think?’

  ‘I suppose they may have been,’ said Mrs. Beddoes unhappily.

  ‘But I must stop my frivolous talk,’ said Catherine, relenting. ‘You came to see me about something.’

  ‘Yes, I came here with a purpose.’ Mrs. Beddoes put down her cup and seemed to gather up her courage. ‘My sister, Tom’s mother, asked me to call on him and report on his circumstances.’ She lowered her voice and added, as if she were talking to a contemporary who was in no way concerned in the matter, ‘You see, we had heard that he was living in rather a poor part of London with some—er—young woman, and it did seem such a pity.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it would seem like that.’

  ‘He has been a great disappointment and worry to his family, you know. Taking up such a very odd career—we’ve never had such a thing in the family before. Going out to Africa and living in such a strange way…’

  ‘And living equally oddly in London,’ added Catherine sympathetically. ‘Believe me, I do feel for you. Perhaps that hasn’t happened before in your family, either?’

  ‘Well, of course, one does not—cannot—know about that,’ Mrs. Beddoes looked worried and Catherine remembered Tom telling her that she had a son about his own age. ‘You see, Miss Oliphant, the whole thing is rather a surprise. You are not at all what I expected,’

  ‘No, I dare say not. But women who live with men without being married to them aren’t necessarily very glamorous, you know. They can be faded and worried-looking, their hands can be roughened with housework and stained with peeling vegetables . . ,’ Catherine, looked down at her own, which were in this state. She had tried to keep them hidden during her luncheon with the editor, for she had not had time to improve them or put on nail-varnish.

  ‘Yes, we had naturally envisaged.. ,’ Mrs. Beddoes stopped, either because she was surprised at herself for producing such a curious word or because she did not like to say just what they had envisaged.

  Catherine decided that it was perhaps unfair to let her go floundering on like this, so she refilled her cup and said in a friendly tone, ‘Well, it hardly seems to matter now. Tom isn’t living here any more. He left this morning,’

  Mrs. Beddoes appeared confused, as indeed she was. Uppermost in her mind was a feeling of natural and understandable disappointment. The young woman seemed to be almost respectable and there was nothing in it, or no longer anything in it, after all. Then she noticed Catherine’s swollen eyelids and had the feeling that she was intruding on a private grief and that it was concerned with her nephew. It was difficult to know what to say next.

  ‘You sent him away?’ she ventured.

  ‘Not exactly—though women always like to think that they have taken the initiative in ending a love affair. But I may as well be honest. I think he waited to go.’

  ‘My dear, I am sorry, believe me when I say that. But it was very wrong of you, you know, to live with him without being married. Don’t you realize that?’

  Catherine smiled. ‘I see you are thinking the very worst.’

  Mrs. Beddoes seemed uncomfortable again, and took up her furs and gazed into the bright glass eyes of the little animals’ heads, as if they might help her.

  ‘Well, one does usually think something of the kind, surely,’ she said, on the defensive now.

  ‘Yes, of course women do think the worst of each other, perhaps because only they can know what they are capable of. Men are regarded as being not quite responsible for their actions. Besides, they have other and more important things on their minds. Did
you know that Tom was writing a thesis, for his Ph.D.?’

  ‘How splendid,’ said Mrs. Beddoes uncomprehendingly. ‘He was always a clever boy. But he’s been very naughty—I don’t myself think that there should be different codes of behaviour for men and women, though of course that view was held, and in the highest circles.’

  ‘Yes, it does come out in some of those Edwardian memoirs,’ said Catherine thoughtfully. ‘But I can see that I was perhaps wrong. I’m afraid one doesn’t always think whether one is doing the right thing at the time.’

  There was a short silence and then Catherine went on, ‘All this has been a bit like Traviata, don’t you think? You coming to see me and begging me to give Tom up, but of course it’s too late.’

  ‘Traviata} Oh, I see.’ Mrs. Beddoes seemed relieved and would indeed have welcomed a cosy talk about opera. Before the war they had always had a box at Covent Garden during the season. She remembered Traviata as one of the less boring ones. But she still had her duty to do, so she went on to ask Catherine where Tom was living now.

  ‘He has taken a room in a flat with two other young anthropologists,’ Catherine told her, ‘not very far from here. It’s near the railway, not very salubrious I’m afraid, but I think he’ll be able to work better there. I can give you the address, or you could telephone him, of course.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think I shall go to see Tom now. It was you I really wanted to see.’

  ‘Had you hoped to make me see reason?’ Catherine asked in her frank way. She even wondered whether Mrs. Beddoes had been prepared to offer her money, as in an Edwardian novel, and whether she could have brought herself to accept it. She almost believed that she could.

  ‘Well, I wanted to tell Naomi, my sister, how he was,’ said Mrs. Beddoes rather lamely, ‘but that seems to be unnecessary now’. She stood up and arranged her furs round her shoulders. ‘I have often asked Tom to visit us but he has always made some excuse. Now, I wonder . .she paused for a moment, and then her tone seemed to change on to a bright social note. ‘I am giving a small dance for my daughter, Lalage, you may have seen the announcement in The Times. Do you think I could persuade Tom to come to it—and perhaps the friends he is lodging with, if they are nice young men?’

  Catherine imagined the bored distaste or derisive laughter which might greet such an invitation. She had often wondered why it was that anthropologists seemed to explore only the lower strata of their own society. Perhaps it was a kind of hidden fear that they might prove unworthy in some way, for she was sure that the experience of a debutante dance in Belgravia would be as rewarding for them as any piece of native ceremonial.

  ‘I’m not sure if they are dancing men,’ she said uncertainly, ‘but they are certainly very nice. There is no harm in them.’

  Mrs. Beddoes hesitated over this doubtful recommendation. Perhaps even a hostess seeking young men for a dance demands something more positive than the assurance that there is no harm in them. ‘Are they tall?’ she asked.

  ‘Digby is very tall—over six feet, I should say. Mark is of medium height, perhaps a little shorter than Tom,’

  ‘Well, that sounds ideal,’ Mrs. Beddoes put on her gloves and then suddenly said in a confidential tone, ‘My dear, there is this terrible difficulty of getting hold of enough suitable young men. The regular ones get so blasé and often don’t turn up at all, and poor Lalage is five foot eleven—girls seem to be enormous these days, don’t they.’

  ‘And to think that they grew up under the Labour Government and austerity,’ said Catherine.

  ‘Yes, that is strange,’ Mrs. Beddoes looked troubled for a moment, ‘But things are all right now’ she added obscurely. ‘Thank you, Miss Oliphant, for all your help. I shall tell Naomi how kind you have been. Perhaps I shall write a note to Tom,’

  ‘The bus stop is a few yards down the road, or shall I get you a taxi?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘Well. . ,’ Mrs. Beddoes smiled apologetically. ‘I think a taxi, please. I’m rather tired and it will be getting on towards the rush hour now. They tell us not to use public transport between 4.30 and 6.30, don’t they,’

  So for the second time that day Catherine saw a member of Tom’s family into a taxi. The day was coming to its end, and although it had been tiring and upsetting it had at least been full and that, she supposed, was all to the good. Pain, amusement, surprise, resignation, were all woven together into a kind of fabric whose colour and texture she could hardly visualize as yet. Something with little lumps on it, she thought, knobs or knops as it said in the fashion magazines. The meeting with Tom’s aunt had somehow pleased and comforted her; being without relations herself, she could, as it were, rejoice that others should have aunts, and now that there was nothing disgraceful about her relationship with Tom perhaps she might even visit his other aunt in her hotel in South Kensington.

  But as evening approached she began to wish that somebody would telephone her and take her out to dinner. She thought of various men she knew but realized philosophically that it was unlikely that any of them would know of her plight and she was too proud to telephone. The best thing to do if you’re lonely, she thought, is to seek out some other lonely person, but she could only think of Alaric Lydgate and somehow she did not feel that meeting him once at the garden fence was enough to justify a further advance on her side. And in any case, she told herself, she wasn’t really lonely; it just felt rather strange not to have Tom there. But no more strange than when he had been away in Africa.

  She lay in bed, sleepless, wondering if he were comfortably setded, but she mustn’t be fussy and ring up too soon. She wished she had a ‘nice book’, something that would take her out of herself, but the bookshelf by her bed wasn’t very encouraging, and only made her think what very strange books people gave as Confirmation presents. Obviously, she thought, noting the little leather-bound volumes, they were chosen for thèir size and colour. Browning, Housman’s Shropshire Lad, the EJdbaiyat of Omar Khayyam—surely the gay or despairing pagan sentiments of these authors were dangerous to a young girl embarking on her religious life? The only real book of devotion she had, suitably enough from her headmistress, told her that we are strangers and pilgrims here and must endure the heart’s banishment, and she felt that she knew that anyway.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Tom opened his eyes reluctantly. He had been dreaming that he was back in Africa, but when he woke up and found where he really was he turned over on his side again and lay staring at the wall, distempered a rather dirty cream, on which the sun was shining brightly. Too bright to last, he thought gloomily, and closed his eyes again. Outside a train rattled by.

  The night before, Mark and Digby had thought he needed cheering up and taking out of himself; they had spent a manly evening drinking beer, whose effects are not always particularly cheering. His life had started on its new lap now; no Catherine, a little Deirdre and a great deal of work. It was not the kind of life that made him leap out of bed eagerly in the mornings. He supposed it was too much to expect Mark or Digby to make tea and bring it to him, as a woman would have done, so he eventually crept into the kitchen and started to make it himself. Mark and Digby soon joined him, the latter singing an air from La Bohème, because, as he put it, the light-hearted squalor of their lives reminded him irresistibly of that opera. Tom and Mark were more taciturn, not approving of music in the early morning, and being unable to sing anyway. There was plenty of milk and cornflakes, not quite enough bread and only two eggs, but they made themselves some kind of a breakfast and then left to do a good day’s work in various libraries. It was vacation time now and there were no seminars or classes.

  Tom had arranged that Deirdre should not visit him until he had got properly settled in, whatever that might entail, and so it was not until nearly a week later that she saw his new room for the first time.

  ‘Shall we meet some grim landlady on the stairs?’ she asked, as they approached the house with its peeling pillars.

  ‘No, she doesn’t l
ive on the premises, luckily. There are just the three flats occupied by students of various kinds. Ours is on the first floor.’

  ‘No pictures of highland cattle,’ she said quickly, when they were inside the narrow hall of the flat.

  Tom, feeling her need for reassurance, put his arm round her shoulders. ‘What have you done to your hair?’ he asked. ‘It looks like a chrysanthemum.’

  ‘I had it cut. Don’t you like it?’

  ‘Yes, of course, don’t look so worried.’ He opened a door. ‘Well, here it is, the small back room or whatever we call it.’

  ‘It is rather small, but very comfortable, I should think.’ Deirdre had run over to the window to hide her dismay at the general impression of meanness and shabbiness which had overwhelmed her on entering. ‘And you can see the trains from the window. That’s awfully continental, somehow,’ Her eyes, level with his, looked appealingly at him. He, used to looking down at Catherine, found it difficult to meet her glance and turned away to fumble with some glasses and a dark-looking bottle.

  ‘Let’s have a drink,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yes, lovely!’

  Lovely was perhaps not quite the word, she realized, as she sipped the cold sour red wine. It tasted most peculiar, as if it had gone off or something, but she wasn’t sure if wine could go off. I must learn to enjoy drinking, she thought rather desperately, or at least the kind of things these people seem to enjoy, beer and funny kinds of wine. For the shameful thing was that she did like the drinks Bernard and her brother Malcolm bought for her-gin and orange or rather sweet dark sherry—the kind of drinks ‘nice’ suburban men regarded as being suitable for women, she thought scornfully.

  ‘Catherine seems to be all right,’ said Tom, relief sounding in his tone. ‘Quite cheerful, in fact,’

  ‘Oh, I’m glad. Has Mark or Digby seen her?’

  ‘No, I rang her up this morning,’