Growing Up

by Angela Thirkell

  Lydia stoutly said she did.

  “And yet,” continued Mr. Needham, “she’s working much harder than I ever worked in my life. It’s no good pretending that I’m a good enough chap for her. However,” said Mr. Needham with a tone of authority quite new to Lydia’s ears, “she’s been running round nursing and going to lectures about communal kitchens and State insurance and war damages and land settlement and lord knows what quite long enough. She’s got to settle down now and be my left hand,” said Mr. Needham, looking anxiously at Lydia to see if she understood the joke.

  “Of course, what’s the matter with you, Tommy, is that you’ve grown up,” said Lydia, gazing at him with candid, appraising eyes.

  Mr. Needham went bright pink.

  “By Jove, Lydia,” he said, “that’s it. I couldn’t think what was wrong. And most of us are now. Do you think Octavia is?”

  Lydia said she was sure of it.

  “Well then, it’s high time we did get married,” said Mr. Needham seriously. “I’d like to have a living first, but luckily I’ve got a bit of my own and Mrs. Crawley says the Dean is going to do something, so why wait? It’s time Octavia stopped thinking that the Barchester General is the beginning and end of everything. I shall see about it.”

  “Quite right, Tommy,” said Lydia approvingly.

  “What a right-hand man to have!” said Mr. Needham looking with real affection at his betrothed’s uninteresting face.

  “Left-hand woman, you mean,” said Lydia, thus showing that she had taken Mr. Needham’s point and giving him intense pleasure.

  While this conversation was going on, Leslie had hoped to talk to Colonel Winter, but the table had got out of control from the beginning, a state of things that can rarely be put right by peaceful methods. Old Lord Pomfret had stood no nonsense about it. If the couples at his dinner-table were not pairing off properly, he would call loudly down the table to the place where the trouble had begun, eye the unlucky talkers into submission with his fierce little eyes, and not resume his own conversation till every man and woman had turned in the right direction. But at a table of eight in war-time, especially a round table, one could not adopt this lordly control; at least Lady Waring did not feel like it and Sir Harry did not particularly notice, so long as he was happily engaged himself. So Leslie sat and thought her own thoughts, which were partly how she wished Aunt Harriet would stop talking to Colonel Winter so that he could turn to Miss Waring, partly that as Colonel Winter, or Philip, was so rude as to neglect her when it was really her turn to be talked to, she would really prefer not to talk to him at all; with a rider to the effect that he should feel this want of interest and be severely hurt by it.

  “I am glad to have met Dr. Crawley’s girl,” said Lady Waring to Philip. “The Crawleys are old acquaintances but I really haven’t kept count of their family and we rarely meet now. You know them well, don’t you?”

  Philip said he had seen a certain amount of them while he was at Southbridge School. He believed Octavia had done extremely well at the Barchester General and had some intention of taking up nursing professionally, though Mr. Needham’s return would probably alter that.

  “A much better plan to get married,” said Lady Waring. “She is a very intelligent young woman. She has all the latest rulings about the call-up of married women at her finger-tips. We do need someone with that civic kind of mind here. Our nearest Citizens’ Advice Bureau is at Winter Overcotes. The village women haven’t time to go there and probably be kept waiting in an office. Besides, the very competent woman who was in charge has been bullied into a factory and been replaced by a fool who goes entirely by routine and doesn’t understand the villagers.”

  Philip, who had never looked upon Octavia as anything but so dull that she practically didn’t exist, was interested.

  “It is much the same with the W.V.S.,” said Lady Waring. “Our nearest is at Shearings, just about as far away as Winter Overcotes, only in the opposite direction. We have an excellent head there, but as she has an old invalid mother and the Labour Exchange won’t allow her to have help more than three days in the week, she is having to give it up.”

  Philip sympathized very much with his hostess. If he had known her better, he would have noticed that any complaints she made were never for herself, though her way of living was doomed through enemies abroad and a spirit of change and meddling bureaucracy at home, but for the village, so patient and cheerful under rules and restrictions they could not understand, still looking to the Priory for advice and help.

  And then the table suddenly sorted itself and fell into pairs, and Lady Waring and Noel were able to talk about books, while Philip Winter at last found himself free for Leslie.

  They were both glad to meet again, but both a little afraid, for each had felt a sense of guilt since their last parting. It had practically been a row, Leslie thought to herself, a common sort of row, and it was perhaps not so much good manners as cowardice which had kept her from being much nastier to Colonel Winter than she was. Philip had inwardly accused himself of being not merely impatient but brutal to a girl who had only just got over a bad illness. Each was anxious to make amends: neither was quite ready to apologize. However, they found neutral ground in discussing Mrs. Spender, whose meteor apparition had profoundly impressed them both.

  “I thought people like that only happened in books,” said Leslie, “but it all goes to show that authors don’t really exaggerate anything.”

  Philip said he found himself that the older he got the more he realized that everyone in Dickens, without exception, was a real person, and quite a lot of them were among his friends.

  “Am I like one, Colonel Winter?” said Leslie. “I would love to be a Dickens person. Perhaps Mrs. Jellyby, only not so sweet-natured.”

  And why I said Colonel Winter instead of Philip I don’t know, she thought. Of course he will think it’s a snub because he was so rude, for he was rude, though I really didn’t mind.

  Philip, concluding that the use of Christian names had been going a step too far in Miss Waring’s opinion, said kindly that he thought her work must be on the whole more really important than Borrioboola-Gha. And from this their talk meandered very pleasantly on, though no form of address was used by either, for it is a peculiarity of Christian names that if they are used by arrangement they can produce an almost unbearable sense of embarrassment. “Now, you must call me Dolly” is a challenge, to which the only answer is, “Then you must say Gladys”; after which Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Brown are taken extremely self-conscious, use the unwonted names once or twice fervently, haven’t the courage to go back to Mrs., and say “you” to each other for the rest of their lives.

  It is true that christian-naming is so common as to have almost done away with the use of surnames, especially we regret to say, among men, but among the older generation the formality of title is less easily set aside, as Lydia with unusual perception had noted in the case of Lady Waring. In ordering Philip and Leslie to drop the prefix she had but done what anyone would do with contemporaries, probably thinking, if she did think about it, that she had eased their path. And indeed she would have eased it, or they would quite possibly have dropped into first names of themselves before long, had not each been touched in the heart by the other. To say Philip or Leslie offhand was to each, though they were not consciously aware of it, a faint impropriety, a pulling open of rose-petals which might hurt the rose, a digging up of a plant to see how it was growing. When they thought of each other, which they were apt to do at most odd moments, it was not by name at all. The friendly vision was a personality without a label; which anyone who has been very fond of a member of the opposite sex, without any openly expressed liking, will understand.

  After dinner the men had a delightful time. Sir Harry, who had produced one of his last half-dozen of port for his guest, asked Mr. Needham to come up near him, not without a little anxiety as to whether it was too much to ask a one-armed man to move up a place. He watched with pl
easure Mr. Needham’s enjoyment of a wine of which Sir Harry was glad to see he was almost worthy. He gave Mr. Needham much valuable information about the South African War, India in 1915, the war in 1916–18, and the subsequent decay of everything, and courteously asked his guest to tell him about Libya, a vagueness of phrase which gave the young military chaplain full scope to speak about his men and what a splendid lot they were. By incredible good luck he had been quite near Sir Harry’s old regiment and though all the names were new, Sir Harry rejoiced to hear that even in those damned contraptions, by which he meant tanks, the 408th had not abated one whit of its reputation for dash and endurance. And what was more, he found in Mr. Needham a staunch though modest opponent of the Bishop and all his ways.

  “We might as well finish the bottle, Needham,” said Sir Harry, glancing with a slight prick of conscience at Colonel Winter and Major Merton, deep in shop of the modern army, and deciding that his need was greater than theirs. “I’m sorry about your arm, my boy. Very sorry.”

  “It is a bit of bad luck, sir,” said Mr. Needham candidly. “I don’t suppose I’ll be able to play football again, and certainly I can’t row. I shall miss that most.”

  As George Waring had been a keen oarsman in his school days, this led to more sympathetic talk, and when Sir Harry discovered that Tom Oldmeadow, who played Rugger for England, was his guest’s uncle, and had been at Southbridge School of which he was a governor, his satisfaction knew no bounds, and if he could have made Mr. Needham a bishop on the spot, he would undoubtedly have done so.

  In the drawing-room, by another piece of unprecedented good luck, Leslie and Octavia, though without much in common in normal life, at once conceived a respect for each other as organizers. Leslie admired in Octavia a thoroughness and capacity for taking pains which almost excused her dullness. Octavia, though she took very little interest in Leslie, did realise that she was an excellent business woman and respected her accordingly. Each felt that the other, though not her style, would be an excellent person to work with, pains-taking and above all reliable.

  Lydia, talking in a desultory way with Lady Waring and knitting socks which she hoped to be able to send to Colin, considered with much interest this blossoming of Octavia. It gradually came over her that Octavia was exactly like a clergyman’s wife. Not, it is true, like Mrs. Miller, or Mrs. Crawley, or Mrs. Tompion at Little Misfit, or any other clergy-wife whom she personally knew, but as it were a symbol of all the excellent qualities required in that position, with a larger amount of push and perhaps a smaller amount of charm; certainly dressed for the part. As she considered these things a light suddenly burst upon her. When she had, across the dinner-table, studied Octavia’s dress and appearance, she had found it vaguely familiar without being able to place it. It now occurred to her that the person Octavia most resembled, in dress and general atmosphere, was the Bishop’s wife, which so interested her, as betokening future eminence for Tommy, that she could hardly wait to tell Noel. Still, wait she did, where Miss Lydia Keith would probably have announced her discovery in a loud voice to anyone handy.

  The arrival of the gentlemen was followed by quite dull though agreeable general conversation, during which Sir Harry, as was his wont, suddenly fell fast asleep sitting up. His wife said that he sometimes did it on purpose because he knew how handsome he looked, but it is more probable that it was the result of domestic selfishness in an otherwise very unselfish man.

  Selina coming in announced Dr. Ford on a half-sob.

  “Anyone ill, eh?” said Sir Harry, waking as suddenly as he had fallen asleep and in full possession of his faculties.

  “No, Harry. You know what Dr. Ford is like,” said Lady Waring, for as Dr. Ford had petrol to visit various hospitals and convalescent homes in the district, had no home ties, enjoyed society and took no notice at all of the black-out, he was as apt as not to turn up anywhere within twenty miles of High Rising for a friendly chat, thus driving sisters and matrons nearly mad by the irregularity of his hours, though as a bachelor doctor they otherwise adored him.

  “Not too late, I hope,” said Dr. Ford after a general greeting. “I couldn’t get over to the hospital till after dinner. I was at Barchester all day. That man Jenks,” said Dr. Ford, whose memory for patients and their names was prodigious, “is making a nice recovery. Sister Macheath said she had never seen Sir Abel operate better. I thought you’d be glad to know. No, Octavia, I am not going to tell you all about it. You’ll get it from Macheath when you go back.”

  Leslie said she must tell Selina, as Private Jenks was rather a friend of hers.

  “I’ve told her,” said Dr. Ford. “It’s a pleasure, profesionally speaking, to tell that woman anything. I never saw anyone who turned on the waterworks with such ease and showed it so little. I’d like to do an article for the B.M.J. about her,” said Dr. Ford, who was always trying to storm that periodical but had so far never succeeded; this failure being attributed by him to a conspiracy to keep him out, but by Mrs. George Knox, who had very affectionately refused to marry him years ago, to his abominable handwriting and his refusal to let her type his manuscript. “I’ve got a message for you, Lady Waring, from Mrs. Morland. Matron said you had asked her about doing a talk for the men.”

  “I did suggest it,” said Lady Waring, “and she was so nice about it, but didn’t see how she could get over.”

  “Well, I can bring her when I come over on Thursday, just as I did with Stoke,” said Dr. Ford.

  Lady Waring said that would be delightful, but she didn’t know if the date was filled or not, and she had an idea that Captain Barclay, the one who married Amabel Marling’s girl who had lost her husband at Dunkirk, was coming to talk about dealing with high-explosive bombs.

  “That’s all right,” said Dr. Ford. “He can’t come. I got that from Matron last week, or I wouldn’t have bothered you and Mrs. Morland. Now, Miss Leslie, I’d like a word with you.”

  Accordingly he took Leslie away and after a brief absence brought her back, told her aunt she was a most fraudulent affair regarded as a patient, and departed.

  Leslie, who was feeling better every day, was in such spirits after Dr. Ford’s visit as rejoiced her uncle and aunt. She, Lydia, Philip and Mr. Needham began to talk, rather noisily, about what they would do after the war, while Octavia gave Lady Waring and Noel a short but informative lecture on Social Credit, not one word of which, as they found afterwards on comparing notes, had they understood or wished to understand, though much struck by the lecturer’s power of apparently making things clear, while Sir Harry read The Times.

  Mr. Needham’s hopes were definite enough; a living and to settle down with Octavia. And if he did not say that he wanted to help everyone less fortunate than himself, it was only because he took it for granted that everyone felt like that. Philip, when pressed, was at first diffident, but warming in Leslie’s good spirits gradually unfolded his old plan of a preparatory school.

  “I used to think I’d run a prep. school on as crank and anti-established-order lines as possible,” he said, “so that the boys would get it out of the system early and turn into good, dull, law-abiding Tories. But when I thought of the kind of parents I’d have to face with a school like that, I rather selfishly gave up the idea. Fathers with sparse beards and vegetarian shoes, and mothers with bobbed hair and square-necked dresses.”

  “And peers who are too self-conscious to use their titles,” said Lydia.

  “And peeresses who bring shame on their husbands by not using theirs,” said Leslie.

  “And all the daring parents of one peculiar child,” Noel, who had stopped listening to, or rather hearing Octavia for a few moments, threw in over his shoulder.

  There was then a brief but tense silence, as everyone had thought of some class of parent which ought not to be admitted, but was nervous of showing a decided opinion on any race, religion, or way of political thought, because unexpected passions suddenly rise so high when the world is in what Mrs. Brandon in an inspire
d moment had called the stock-pot.

  “And free-thinkers,” said Mr. Needham.

  This statement from a very loyal son of the Church who, in spite of saying by Jove, most deeply meant what he said, produced complete paralysis conversationally.

  Each member of the party was conscious of doing what Captain Hooper would have called a spot of free-thinking, but liked Mr. Needham so much that each would have subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles on the spot sooner than hurt his feelings. Philip, who was the oldest of them and very much more experienced, went on, almost ignoring the interlude on parents:

  “But now I think just a very ordinary school, for very ordinary boys, with very ordinary parents, to keep them ordinary. They will burst out and be peculiar soon enough, without any teaching, and meanwhile my whole effort shall be directed to making the holidays peaceful for their relations and sending them home with a respect for good manners.”

  Relieved from the slight strain, of which Mr. Needham had not been aware, they all plunged into plans for Philip’s future. Before long they had equipped him with a large house, abandoned by its owners yet in excellent repair, in the heart of the country yet extremely accessible, with a home farm that always earned its keep, where the boys would hold communion with cows (Lydia), poultry (Leslie), horses (Philip) and (suddenly contributed with a burst of real enthusiasm by Mr. Needham) pigs and manure heaps.

  “You’re right, Needham,” said Philip. “No education is complete that doesn’t include leaning over a pigsty gate on Sunday afternoon scratching the old sow’s back with a stick. Also, one could have roast sucking pig occasionally, a piece of old England which is fast disappearing. Has anyone ever had one?”

  There was a shamefaced silence.

  “Jasper did offer us one before the war when he still kept pigs,” said Leslie, “but it was the runt and had a very peculiar back, very long with a great dip in it, so we thought we’d better not.”