A Stranger with a Bag

by Sylvia Townsend Warner

  But she was in Billerby, not Moscow. On the outskirts of Billerby, and just about to turn round and walk back towards the Wesleyan chapel, the post office, the vacant shop that was for sale, the aged person coughing. An aged person coughing. That, too, lay ahead of her.

  A light sprang up on the dark. A dazzle of headlights rushed towards her, creating vast shapes of roadside elms and overthrowing them, devouring night, perspective, space. She fluttered into its path like a moth. The Bristol swerved, braked, swung round on a skid, came to a stop across the road. Leo ran to where she stood motionless, with her mouth open.

  ‘Damn you, Belinda, you fool!’

  ‘Why are you here? Why can’t I have a moment’s peace? Go away!’

  ‘I’d like to wring your neck.’

  ‘Wring it then! Do something positive for a change.’

  ‘Tripping out into the road like that. Do you realize I nearly killed you?’

  ‘I wish you had! I wish you had!’

  They clung together and shouted recriminations in each other’s face. The driver of an approaching bus slowed down, and sounded his horn. As they ignored it, he stopped.

  ‘Of course I did it deliberately. I drove away, and I stayed away, because I was tired of being talked at, and made a butt of—and bored, bored, bored! Do you think I’ve got no sensibilities?’

  ‘Sensibilities? About as much as a rhinoceros.’

  ‘Rhinoceros yourself!’

  One by one, the party from the concert climbed out of the bus and walked cautiously towards this mysterious extra number.

  ‘A pretty pair of fools you looked, sitting there with the picnic basket! And there you sat … and there you sat ….’

  She broke into hysterical laughter. Leo cuffed her.

  ‘Here! I say, young man ….’

  They turned and saw the party from the concert gathering round them.

  ‘Oh, damn these people!’

  They ran to the car, leaped in, drove away. Several quick-witted voices exclaimed, ‘Take the number! Take the number!’ But the car went so fast, there wasn’t time.

  HAPPINESS

  ‘THE bathroom’s the awkwardest feature,’ said Mr. Naylor, of Elwes & Sons, house agents, ‘being situated on the ground floor. People don’t like ground-floor bathrooms. You might say, they just won’t hear of them.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. Yet …’ Lavinia Benton broke off.

  ‘I know what you were going to say, Mrs. Benton. You were going to say, Why not convert the dressing room upstairs, leaving the bathroom for what one might call a playroom, or a children’s lounge, or a study, if there happened to be no family. Once we’d got the bath out, it could be called ideal for that, being so inordinately large for a bathroom. But then the pipes would have to be carried upstairs. Think of the plumbing, Mrs. Benton! Prohibitive! No buyer would contemplate it, not for this class of residence—it isn’t as if this were one of those old oak jobs. And I understand you don’t want to let the estate in for any extra expense. So there we are, I’m afraid. Back where we started from!’

  Mr. Naylor had, in fact, scotched a snake that wasn’t there. Lavinia’s ‘Yet’ had been provoked by the reflection that an increasingly large acreage of southern England was occupied between 7.30 and 8.30 a.m. by people resignedly bathing on ground level. Not so resignedly, either, since there are always buyers for bungalows. Both Mr. Petherick, of Petherick, Petherick & Sampson, and Mr. Cox, of Ransom & Titters, had already explained that Aller Lodge, the late Miss Esther Jeudwine’s brick-built, two-storey residence in sound repair, would have been easy enough to sell if only it had been a bungalow. All a matter of social psychology, thought Lavinia who, as a columnist on superior Women’s Pages, was accustomed to making something out of not much; a mass apprehension of being surprised with no clothes on, which if not primitive, since primitive man had other and more pressing things to be surprised by, must certainly go a long way back, being later reinforced by class distinction—the wealthy are draped, the poor go bare—and Christianity’s insistence on modesty; for though a fakir can be venerable in a light handful of marigolds, an archdeacon can scarcely leave off his gaiters. In short, the discomposure of being surprised with no clothes on is, like the pleasurability of possessing a virgin, one of the things long taken for granted—and really even more of an idée reçue‚ being subscribed to by both sexes alike. Yet here was this mass apprehension, fortified by tradition, smoothed by acceptance, part of the British way of life, suddenly ceasing to function when brought into bungalows, where the hazards that might justify it—housebreakers, mad dogs, cars out of control, voyeurs, private detectives, almost anything, in fact, except the atom bomb—would be much more on the cards. But one must remember that bathrooms being so recent an introduction, public opinion could not have made up its mind about them yet, and was bound to be rather hypothetical.

  Lavinia became aware that Mr. Naylor was observing her with sympathy, but at the same time giving little coughs. Of course. The poor man wanted to go.

  ‘Well, goodbye, Mr. Naylor. And thank you for being so helpful. I’m afraid it’s a bad lookout, but I’m sure you’ll do your best.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said, and his voice, being more sincere than hers, sounded less sanguine.

  She was almost sorry to see him go, he was so much the nicest of them, and the only one to show the slightest comprehension of the fix she was in. Nothing could have been more straightforward than Cousin Esther’s will. Her legacies were proportionate to her estate and left a proper margin for expenses. A short list of remembrance gifts—and she had kept it up to date—was pinned to the will itself. She wished for a funeral service without hymns. She willed her house and personal property, other than the items specified in the attached list, to be sold and the proceeds to form a trust fund for the education of her great-great-nieces, Emily and Jemima Jeudwine, any residue to be divided between them when they reached the age of twenty-one (they were twins); and she appointed Hugh Dickenson Jeudwine and Lavinia Benton as her executors. Unfortunately, Hugh had died of his injuries a few hours after the car crash in which his great-aunt had been killed, and the house which was to provide the mainstay of the trust for Hugh’s three-year-old daughters was proving unsellable.

  During the four months of her executorship Lavinia’s snatched visits to Aller Lodge, at first so nostalgic and so executive, had become heartless and vacant. The two servants, a married couple named Mullins, had received their legacies and gone off to let lodgings in Felixstowe; the cat, Dollop, had gone with them. The gifts had been dispatched; the best of the furniture, china and books had gone to the auction rooms in the county town, the silver, the Dutch flower paintings and the collection of clocks to Sotheby’s. Remarking that this was no era for fish kettles (thereby providing Lavinia with the germ of half a column about the effects of broadcasting in Mandarin English to English listeners who with their native genius for phrase-making would seize on some devitalized term like ‘era’ and burnish it into a new arrestingness), the local second-hand dealer had removed several miscellaneous vanloads. What remained was just enough to emphasize that the house needed considerable repair and total redecoration.

  Being so empty, it seemed brimful of the noise of the traffic speeding past its ironwork railings and the laurel hedge that protected the long narrow garden. ‘All those laurels, too,’ Mr. Petherick had commented. ‘Who’s going to keep up laurels nowadays? Laurels are O-U-T Out!’

  Yet on Lavinia’s visits to Cousin Esther she had never noticed the noise of traffic. During the day, they had so much to say to each other; and Lavinia’s bedroom was at the back, looking straight into the pear tree.

  ‘Well, child, here we are, all ready for a nice long talk. Sit down, dear. Have you brought any parlour work?’

  ‘My petit point.’

  ‘Let me look at it. H’m. Not too bad, not too bad. Is this the same panel you brought last time? Oh, well, no doubt you’ve got other things to do in London. Now tell
me the latest nonsense.’

  ‘Red flannel nightdresses, with long sleeves, high necks and crochet lace edgings.’

  ‘We had featherstitching. Far more practical, and didn’t rag out in the wash.’ If Lavinia had cited starched ruffs, ankle-length pantalettes or tiffany aprons as being the latest nonsenses it would turn out that Cousin Esther had worn them, with improvements. ‘Will you have a cigar?’

  ‘Not till after dinner, thank you.’

  The cigars had begun when Lavinia decided to leave her husband and earn her own living, and they were Cousin Esther’s idea. ‘You aren’t shocked, are you, at my taking a job?’ Lavinia had asked. Since childhood, Cousin Esther’s approval had been her fortress. And Cousin Esther had said, ‘Shocked, dear? Why should I be? Now you can give up those trivial little cigarettes and smoke cigars. I’ve always liked George Sand. Charming woman, and so capable. But keep to cigars, duckie; you aren’t made for de Mussets.’

  Now there was only the noise of traffic, for Cousin Esther was in her grave, and the Boulle clock and the clock that played Partant pour la Syrie were ticking at Sotheby’s; and the house—the only house where Lavinia smoked cigars—was for sale and no one would buy it.

  A section of the noise stopped at the gate. The doorbell rang. A possible buyer? But it was Mr. Naylor back again, back with something in his jaws: his expression plainly said so.

  ‘Mrs. Benton, I’ve had an idea. I was thinking about those laurels as I drove along, what a job it would be to keep them trimmed. “Another handicap” I said to myself. Handicap! Why, it’s the main feature, though I didn’t realize it until one of our own “FOR SALE” boards caught my eye, just outside Beck St. Mary’s, “AMPLE FRONTAGE” Ample frontage! If ever there was ample frontage, we’ve got it here. So I turned straight round and came back. And here I am.’

  ‘In time for a cup of tea‚’ she said. ‘I’m just making myself one. Do sit down. I won’t be a moment.’

  She knew and she did not know. What she unequivocally knew was that unless she kept a firm hand on herself, she was going to be silly.

  When she carried in the tray, the French windows had been opened and Mr. Naylor was walking up the garden, looking pleased as Adam. He came in, rubbing his hands, flowing with kindheartedness.

  ‘Yes, Mrs. Benton, it’s perfect; couldn’t be better. You can forget about that bathroom now. All we’ve got to do is to apply for a building permit. And you’ll get it, never fear. All this end of Long Monkton is scheduled for development, now that we’re getting the bypass. Yes, you’ll soon be out of your troubles. I’ve been pacing it. There’s ample room for two.’

  ‘Two?’ she said, holding on to the teapot.

  ‘Two bungalows,’ said Mr. Naylor, as though he were promising oranges to a child—to a Victorian child in a pinafore, to whom oranges meant oranges. Two bungalows. Two families bathing in confidence in Cousin Esther’s garden.

  ‘Two bungalows?’

  ‘With garages. Up as soon as winking,’ said Mr. Naylor. ‘And double the money you were hoping to get for the place as it is.’

  Double the money. And if not double the thankfulness of Hugh’s widow—who whatever she might be about to receive would retain a bleak unthankfulness—a possible ten-percent abatement in her conviction that because poor Hughie wasn’t there to stand up for his children Lavinia would sell the house to the first comer who offered sixpence for it.

  ‘Which I’m not likely to get, you think?’

  ‘To be honest with you, which would always be my wish, not in a month of Sundays.’

  A flimsy hope brushed her.

  ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think I could afford to build.’

  ‘Build? Heaven forbid! Why, they’d ruin you. No, no, what you’ve got to do is to sell as building land. Once you’ve got the permit through, it’ll sell before we can say “knife”.’

  Two rather tipsy butterflies that had been feasting in the buddleia chased each other in through the French window and chased each other out again. Mr. Naylor and me saying ‘knife’, she thought.

  ‘Two bungalows,’ she repeated.

  ‘Or it might be three,’ said Mr. Naylor, wooing her with three oranges, since only a couple appeared to have fallen rather flat with this lady. ‘Yes, that’s quite a possibility. For the right sort of buyer, someone with enterprise and enough labour, would think nothing of demolishing the house and putting the third bungalow here, where we are sitting. He could use a lot of the bricks; the lead on the roof alone would be worth a fortune. You could ask according, and get it.’

  ‘But the pear tree!’

  ‘True, that’s an item. These old trees, their roots get everywhere. But half an hour with a bulldozer—you’d be surprised. Isn’t that the front door?’

  The lady dotted with mink carried an order to view from Ransom & Titters. ‘Sweet old place, isn’t it?’ she remarked. ‘Georgian all over. I never tire of Georgian. It’s got so much character.’

  ‘I’m afraid this is Victorian.’

  ‘Oh! Then why does it look so Georgian? I suppose it was an imitation.’

  She was so plainly no buyer that Lavinia did not even feel the adulterous embarrassment of being interrupted while drinking tea with one house agent by the client of another. Mr. Naylor was not embarrassed, either. Combining tact with business, he returned to the garden and paced it more scrupulously. The dotted lady was scrupulous, too. Before she left, she had gone into every room, opened every closet, asked every question, saying in the tone of one worn out by bestowing benefits, ‘Really? Quite quaint!’

  Mr. Naylor said chivalrously that with ladies of that kind it was hard to tell. Something might come of her.

  ‘Horrible woman!’ said Lavinia. By contrast, Mr. Naylor seemed such a bosom friend that she allowed her voice to express some of the dejection she felt. If he felt that dejection was a poor response to the happy issue he had opened before her, he did not show it. He remembered something he must be getting along to, thanked her for the tea, said he would leave her to think it over. In the morning, all she would have to do would be to give him a tinkle. He would bring the application forms and see to the rest.

  Still fending it off, she went through the house, opening doors and windows. The lady who adored Georgian had a Georgian insensibility to stinks, and her perfume resounded like a cornet. There was the bedroom, the defrauded bedroom in which Cousin Esther had not died. Everything had gone wrong at the last; the house had been robbed of its due.

  ‘I might as well say Done,’ she said to herself, at last. ‘Say Done, and say Goodbye.’

  Goodbye is a thing best said out-of-doors. She went out, and walked up and down the long flower border, being careful not to glance towards the house, to which the opened windows gave a curious air of animation, of a party-being held. She looked at the flowers; she noticed the strong growth of late summer weeds. The jobbing gardener she had hired to give the place a tidy-up was not thorough like Mullins. Never mind, never mind! The flowers did not seem to mind, either; the zinnias, the hollyhocks, the velvety dahlias looked exceptionally sumptuous and thriving. One must admit that flowers prefer the company of weeds to the company of a weeder. Their loyalty is to the vegetable kingdom; they are delighted to get away from the fostering, censuring, interfering guardianship of man. All at once, a dahlia shed its petals. She realized that for the last ten minutes she had not been looking at the flowers; she had not even been conscious of them, she had been exploiting them, spinning a true observation into another whimsical paragraph. Never mind, never mind! Come to that, Mullins would have sent them to the flower show. No wonder they felt more at home with their weeds.

  Slowly, with hanging head, she walked across the lawn towards the pear tree. It was an old tree. It was said to have been there before Aller Lodge was built; it was already tall and thick-limbed when Cousin Esther arrived, and none could name it. Its fruit, a dark obsidian green, smooth-rinded, narrow, almost cylindrical, ripened very late and kept throughout th
e winter. Being so old, the pear tree was also rather fitful and cranky. In the spring of last year it had bloomed so abundantly, so triumphantly, that Cousin Esther had telegraphed to her to come and see it. This year, so Mullins reported when she came for the funeral, there had been a very poor show of bloom and no bees. She laid her hand on its rough bark. ‘I have sold you,’ she said. At the sound of her words, tears of shame started painfully from her eyes. Shaking her head to free her cheeks of them, she looked up and saw something white. It was a cluster of pear blossoms, newly, perfectly unfolded.

  It was startling—she need not let it be more. It was the whim of an old tree, and in fact she had seen other such blossomings in other Augusts. To hear a cuckoo would have been much more remarkable. The blossoms’ extreme whiteness enforced the sudden presence of dusk. She must go in and shut those windows before dewfall. She sat down on the plank bench that encircled the trunk of the tree. Suppose she bought the house? She could not afford to; she didn’t really want to. Suppose she bought the house? Not from sentiment, not from piety, not from resentment of bungalows, but for her own pleasure. She would keep her old bedroom, of course, smelling the pear blossom in the early morning, sharing bees with it, hearing a pear fall, and another pear fall, as she lay under the eiderdown on the first frosty night, and thinking how, first thing in the morning, she would go down and hunt for them in the long grass. After a time—there need be no hurry about it—Cousin Esther’s bedroom would become her spare room, and Emily and Jemima, who by then would be old enough to go visiting without their mother, would sleep there, feeling grand in a grown-up bed, as she had felt, and supported by a night light, as she had been. The traffic would not disturb them—besides, by then the bypass would have taken most of it away; the laurel hedge would be a boundary again. She would repaint the white seat. At night she would go round, locking up the house, turning the familiar, heavy, infallible keys, and afterwards she would lie in the ground-floor bathroom, hearing the owls hooting, and looking at the map of Europe, which fortunately even the reluctant fish-kettle remover had refused to take away. If she bought the house, she would buy other things, too. She would buy an inkpot, a penholder, a packet of steel nibs—and never touch her typewriter again. There should be no more clever slavery. To be on the safe side, she would not even keep a diary, and ‘LAVINIA BENTON’ would vanish from the printed page until it made its curt farewell appearance in the deaths column. Till then, she would be Mrs. Benton, an ageing English lady with a winter hat and a summer hat, who sometimes went to church, who sometimes smoked a cigar after dinner, who sat reading by candlelight because it is more restful for the eyes, or for some such decorous reason. The candlelight would be known because its glow would be seen through the gap in the curtains; no one would know the exquisite pleasure she would find in the smell of sweet wax, lingering on into the next morning. No one would know, since she would not speak of it.