by Barbara Pym
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but a whimper.
The walls had closed round him again. There was no escape.
XI. Love in the British Museum
Nobody was surprised on a sunny May morning when Francis Cleveland announced at breakfast that he was going up to the British Museum that day to do some work on his book. It was not in the least unusual for him to go up to the British Museum. He did not think it necessary to add that he was taking Barbara Bird with him. Nobody would be surprised at that either. She was an intelligent girl and would be able to help him with various references that needed to be verified. His pupils had been helping him with his book for the past twenty years; it was really quite a wonder that it had not been finished before now.
‘For goodness’ sake give yourself a good lunch and tea, dear,’ Margaret Cleveland had said. ‘I don’t know if they still have that depressing tea-room, but don’t go there. I believe there are some quite good little restaurants in Bloomsbury.’
Francis had said rather shortly that he had no intention of going to the British Museum tea-room. He wished Margaret wouldn’t fuss him so. The fact that she meant it kindly made him feel a little guilty, as if he were deceiving her about something, when really he was doing nothing of the kind. He was simply not mentioning Barbara, that was all. As nobody would think anything of it there was no need to mention it, he told himself rather defiantly.
He and Barbara had caught an early train from Oxford to Paddington, but as it was such a lovely morning they had first of all gone into Hyde Park and sat there for some time. This was very disappointing for Edward Killigrew, who also happened to be going up to the British Museum that day. He had seen them get into the train at Oxford, but at Paddington he had lost sight of them, and when he got to the Museum there was no sign of them in the Reading Room. He had quite assumed that this was where they would be going and had been unable to concentrate on his work all morning for wondering where they could be. Towards lunchtime all sorts of wild ideas came into his head and he was really a little disappointed to see them come into the Reading Room shortly before two o’clock. They sat down and appeared to be working quite hard, and at four they got up and went out. Edward Killigrew followed them. He was curious to see where they were going to have tea. Perhaps he might get near them and hear what they talked about.
But instead of going out of the Museum they turned to look at the autographs and manuscripts. Edward padded along behind them until he managed to get quite close. He was glad that he was wearing his shoes with crepe rubber soles. He had found them very useful in the Bodleian and had been able to approach people and hear many interesting conversations without being seen or heard himself. He was afraid that he had missed something here, as he had been rather a long way behind them, but when he got nearer he heard that she was only talking about the book they were looking at.
‘Milton’s commonplace book,’ she said in a rapt tone. ‘Just to think of Milton himself writing in it! This must be his handwriting.’ She bent lower over the glass case and peered down into it.
Edward Killigrew drew the curtain aside from an adjoining case and stood gazing at a letter from Lord Byron to his solicitor. This was dull, he thought, definitely dull. Mother had thought there might be something between these two. He had certainly expected something more interesting than a young woman going into raptures over Milton’s commonplace book.
‘I think it’s so wonderful to see things like this,’ she said. ‘It gives me an indescribable feeling, so that I can hardly keep from crying. I know it’s very silly, really.’
Edward Killigrew agreed that it was certainly very silly, but Francis Cleveland seemed to think otherwise.
‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not silly at all. It’s just how you would feel. Oh, Barbara, I love you,’ he said suddenly. ‘I love you!’
There was a rapt silence. Edward Killigrew held himself very still, hardly daring to breathe. If they turned round now they would see him. But even so he had heard; those words could not be unsaid, that was the main point. He waited eagerly for her reply but the girl’s voice was very low and the noise of somebody passing made it impossible to hear what she said. But luck was still with him, for after a moment or two Francis Cleveland said quite distinctly, ‘And you love me too, don’t you?’ and Barbara’s voice was not too low for Edward Killigrew to catch her ‘Yes.’
Trembling with excitement, he padded swiftly away and out to get some tea. He found himself walking rapidly along without knowing where he was going. He stopped to think for a moment and then decided that he would give himself a treat and go to the big Lyons’ Corner House. Mother always liked going there. He would have some splendid news for her when he got home tonight. Things in the library had been very dull lately, even the little feuds among staff and readers seemed to have died down. Fine weather was better for romances than for quarrels.
Edward ordered a pot of tea, a plate of cakes and something called a ‘Beano’, which he decided would fit the occasion very well. The orchestra began to play a rumba. He felt happier than he had felt for a long time. There had been nothing like this since that disgraceful affair of old Mr. Pringle and the underground bookstore.
Barbara and Francis remained as if rooted to the spot, still staring at Milton’s commonplace book. For a time they were silent, and then Barbara said uncertainly, ‘I think I should like some tea.’ When they were sitting down drinking tea, everything would be all right. They would become real people, themselves, again. Everything seemed unreal in this great building. Milton couldn’t really have written in the book they had been looking at, just as Francis couldn’t really have said those words and she have agreed with them. She felt rather funny, almost as if she were going to faint.
‘Let’s go out,’ she said, drawing the curtain neatly across the glass case.
‘Yes, we must talk,’ he said. ‘Where can we talk?’
‘Here’s a café,’ said Barbara.
They looked into it. There was one other couple sitting in a corner, while two waitresses leaned against a counter spread with home-made cakes and jams.
‘It’s too quiet here,’ said Francis abruptly, taking her arm and leading her out again. ‘We must find somewhere else, some large place where people won’t hear every word we’re saying.’
‘There’s Lyons’,’ suggested Barbara doubtfully.
‘Oh, yes, that will do.’
It would have been even more interesting for Edward Killigrew if he could have continued to hear their conversation, but as it was he considered himself to be most fortunate to have noticed them coming in and sitting at a table in the opposite corner of the great room. This would be something else to tell Mother. He went on happily eating his ‘Beano’, which turned out to be a poached egg on baked beans, unaware that at that precise moment Francis Cleveland was asking Barbara Bird what they were going to do about it.
‘What can we do?’ she said, dealing rather inefficiently with the tea. ‘There isn’t anything we can do.’ She was feeling more normal now, although still a little dazed, as if she had just woken out of a dream.
‘But… ‘ Francis went on stirring his tea, into which he had forgotten to put sugar. ‘We love each other. I love you and you love me too, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Barbara doubtfully, ‘I do, only …’ How could she explain to him what her love was like? That although it was a love stronger than death, it wasn’t the kind of love one did anything about? On the contrary, doing nothing about it was one of its chief characteristics, because if one did anything it would be different—it might even disappear altogether.
‘Aren’t you sure then?’ he asked.
‘Oh, yes … ‘ she said uncertainly. She dug her fork into a cake and it broke into little pieces. She chased the hard bits unhappily round her plate.
‘Poor little Barbara,’ he said, ‘don’t look so unhappy. We’ll find a way,’ he said confidently, he who had never in his life f
ound any way of doing anything except postponing evil days and unpleasant duties. If there was any way-finding to be done, it was always Margaret who did it. It would perhaps be asking too much even of her to find a way out of this.
‘We seem to have got a carriage to ourselves,’ he said hopefully, as they got into the train at Paddington.
But he had spoken too soon, for at the last moment an old, birdlike man hurried in and sat nodding in a corner over his evening paper. Every now and then he darted an enquiring glance at Francis and Barbara, huddled miserably in the opposite corner, as if he were waiting for some sort of entertainment to begin. But they must have been a great disappointment to him, for they sat in silence, occupied with their thoughts.
What was to be done? Francis wondered. Obviously something would have to be done now that they had declared their love for each other. Barbara would expect something more than a declaration and would hardly be content to go on as before. He found himself getting quite agitated and thinking of wild, improbable things like divorce and remarriage. Perhaps a little house in one of the remoter Oxford suburbs… . They wouldn’t have much money, but Barbara was probably a domesticated girl and in any case it was natural for women to do housework. And yet, what a depressing prospect it was for a man getting on in years who was used to having every comfort! He didn’t think he wanted anything like that; he was really so comfortable as he was. He looked at Barbara. She was supposedly reading, but it was many minutes since her hand had turned a page. Perhaps she would be able to find a way out, he thought hopefully. Women were better than men at things like that.
How awful, thought Barbara, that it should come to this! Was it her fault? Had she been wrong to see him so often? She looked back over their past association and decided that she had perhaps been at fault. That evening last term when he had sent the flowers—she ought to have been warned by that; she ought to have seen what was coming. Oh, why had she said that she loved him? She had been so surprised by his declaration that the truth had come out before she had had time to think what was the wisest thing to do. And now everything had gone wrong. Her beautiful love which had given her so much happiness would be turned into a sordid intrigue. Unless they could somehow forget about this afternoon, she thought hopefully, and go on as they had been before in those happy days which now seemed so far away.
Suddenly the old man leaned forward and said confidentially, ‘I think I will go and wash my hands,’ and with that he got up and left Francis and Barbara gaping after him, still trying to think of a suitable reply.
As soon as the old man had made up his mind as to the probable direction of the lavatory and finished hovering in the corridor, Francis turned to Barbara and said, rather dramatically, ‘Thank God we’re alone at last!’
‘Yes, but only for a little while,’ she said, with an anxious glance towards the door.
‘Barbara, darling,’ he said, edging nearer to her and putting his arms around her.
‘Don’t, he’ll be coming back,’ she said, carefully straightening her hat, which he had knocked crooked. She hated to be untidied in any way.
‘Oh, what does that matter! I want to kiss you,’ he said, feeling rather pleased with himself.
Barbara turned away. She found herself staring at the upholstery and wondering why it was so bright and glaring, not a warm, dull red as it usually was, but an ugly fawn with great sinister, sprawling flowers.
She knew exactly how she ought to feel, for she was well read in our greater and lesser English poets, but the unfortunate fact was that she did not really like being kissed at all. There had been one young man in her first term, and they had got on so well together, until, one Sunday evening when they had been walking by the river, he had suddenly seized her in his arms. She had been terribly distressed, and they had walked all the way back arguing miserably about intelligent platonic friendships. ‘Man and woman created He them, Barbara,’ the young man had said pompously, but all she could say was ‘Yes, John, I know. But I only want to be friends …‘ after which she had run weeping into her college and a beautiful friendship between two intelligent people had been broken up. Since then there had been one or two casual kisses, which Barbara had endured simply because she felt that it was the only way of showing one’s gratitude for a good dinner or a pleasant evening at the theatre.
But this was different, or it ought to be different. She and Francis really loved each other—they had said so in the British Museum. Naturally she must want him to kiss her. Of course he was her tutor; that may have had something to do with it. It seemed odd to be kissing one’s tutor, whether one was in love with him or not. And the setting was not very romantic—that might be why she had these curious doubts. A hurried kiss, snatched in a railway carriage … there was something essentially sordid about railway carriages: one imagined the kinds of things one read about in the papers; to be kissed in a railway carriage was really quite the reverse of romantic. It hardly occurred to her that another reason why the whole thing seemed odd and somehow wrong might be because Francis was a married man. Barbara had unconventional ideas about morality and had often discussed such matters with her friends over coffee and Ovaltine far into the night and early morning.
‘Well, well… .’ Francis released her and wondered what he should say now. It was so long since anything like this had happened to him. But, fortunately perhaps, the old man chose this moment to come back and there followed one of those unreal conversations, this one being about the washing arrangements in English trains, the small, hard, non-lathering pieces of soap, the shortage of towels, the water that gushed forth in a boiling or icy stream or refused to gush at all, the smuts in the basin.
Barbara’s thoughts went round in miserable circles, until she almost began to wish that she had never seen Francis Cleveland but had gone to old Miss Gantillon in her house in Norham Road and had calm, boring tutorials with no emotional complications.
‘Is this Oxford?’ asked the old man as the train slowed down.
‘Oh, yes, this is Oxford,’ said Barbara, forcing a smile. ‘We’re very punctual.’
‘The Home of Lost Causes, that’s what they call it, I believe,’ he said conversationally.
‘Yes, they do,’ said Barbara politely.
‘When I was a child Matthew Arnold came to our house to tea,’ said the old man. ‘An Inspector of Schools!’ He shook his head and went shuffling out into the corridor, still muttering.
‘May I see you back to your college?’ said Francis.
‘Yes, if you like,’ said Barbara. After all, it could hardly make any difference now.
They sat rather apart in the taxi and did not speak for a long time. As they approached Barbara’s college, Francis said, ‘Don’t worry, everything will be all right.’
Barbara turned to him but found that she couldn’t say anything. She felt a sudden impulse to cry on his shoulder, but that wouldn’t do at all; nor was it what she really wanted. She felt that she must get to the seclusion of her room, where she could think things out in a familiar cloistered atmosphere that was nothing like a railway carriage or the British Museum.
‘Good-bye,’ she said, getting out of the taxi quickly. ‘Thank you for a nice day.’
The tears were already starting into her eyes as she ran up the drive, and before she had reached her room she was openly crying. Miss Kingley, the Classics tutor, commented drily on the fact to Miss Borage, the Bursar. It was so unlike Miss Bird.
Francis Cleveland spent the evening in his own drawing-room and somehow it had never seemed so comfortable as it did now, when he supposed he ought really to be thinking of that little love-nest in one of the remoter Oxford suburbs, with Barbara doing all the housework. They wouldn’t have such large rooms or such comfortable chairs as these, he thought, and where was he going to keep all his books?
‘Francis, you’re looking so odd,’ said Margaret, glancing up from her novel. ‘Have you got indigestion?’
‘I don’t think so,’ he answer
ed shortly.
‘Then it must be the effect of the British Museum,’ she said.
That was exactly it, thought Francis, suddenly blaming it all on the British Museum. Everyone knew that libraries had an unnatural atmosphere which made people behave oddly. He felt that he had somehow made a mess of things this afternoon. But of course he was not used to dealing with situations like this; he had had no practice. He had wasted his time sitting in libraries, doing research about things that were no good to anybody. He thought of his companions in the Bodleian: Arnold Penge, Edward Killigrew, Professor Lopping… . They wouldn’t have done any better either. Probably not as well. This reflection was some consolation to him, and he began to feel quite pleased with himself.
There was no need to do anything about it, he decided. They could just go on as they were. He was sure that it was not at all unusual for tutors and their pupils to declare their love for each other. He began to rack his brains for instances, but although he could not think of any at that moment, he was not discouraged. There was no harm in going on with Barbara just as before; that would be very nice. And, after all, it wasn’t as if anybody else knew about what had happened this afternoon. They had managed to keep it all so very secret.
XII. Conversation in a Tool Shed
‘I hope my mother will know the right sort of thing to say,’ said Simon uneasily. ‘She isn’t really used to opening church garden parties.’
‘We are very fortunate in having persuaded your mother to come,’ said Miss Doggett rather stiffly. It seemed unnecessary to add that Lady Beddoes would of course know the right sort of thing to say. Ambassadors’ widows who lived in Belgravia were surely equal to any occasion; a church garden party was something they would take very easily in their stride. She was surprised that Simon should seem doubtful.
