by Barbara Pym
Prudence smiled. It had been Peter and Philip and henry at one time or another. Not to mention Laurence and Giles.
‘You ought to get married,’ said Eleanor sensibly. ‘That would settle you.’ She hitched up her tweed skirt and stretched out her legs, clad in lisle stockings, to the warmth of the gas-fire, which Prudence, who wore only a thin dress, had thought necessary on this warm evening. ‘Look at my awful stockings. I didn’t have time to change after golf. I suppose I’ll never get a man if I don’t take more trouble with myself,’ Eleanor went on, but she spoke comfortably and without regret, thinking of her flat in Westminster, so convenient for the Ministry, her week-end golf, concerts and theatres with women friends, in the best seats and with a good supper afterwards. Prue could have this kind of life if she wanted it; one couldn’t go on having romantic love affairs indefinitely. One had to settle down sooner or later into the comfortable spinster or the contented or bored wife.
‘We were going on holiday together,’ said Prudence, perhaps not very truthfully. ‘Now I suppose I shan’t go anywhere.’
‘Come to Spain with me, end of September,’ said Eleanor brisk and practical. ‘Even if you got bored with my company, you’d get some decent food and sunbathing. It would do you good — you must have a holiday, you know. Besides, you might meet some handsome Senor.’
Prudence smiled and thanked her, saying she would think about it and let her know. People were being so kind to her. Dear Jane and dear Eleanor, what would one do without the sympathy of other women?
The next day was Sunday, and Prudence woke up in tears.
She supposed that she must have been crying in her sleep, before the consciousness of what had happened came beating down upon her. Her life was blank and the summer seemed to have gone. She lay listening to a church bell ringing and the rain pattering on the leaves in the square, wishing that she had the consolations of religion to help her. Now, at ten minutes to eight, she thought, Anglo-Catholic women with unpowdered faces and pale lips would be hurrying out to Early Service, without even the comfort of a cup of tea inside them. And at about nine o’clock or a little before, they would come back, happy and serene, to enjoy a larger breakfast than usual and the Sunday papers. The Romans, too, would slip into a convenient Mass at nine-thirty or some late and sensible time, and feel that they had done their duty for the day. Perhaps that would be the best kind of faith to have. Prudence imagined herself on holiday in Spain, a black lace mantilla draped over her hair, hurrying into some dark Cathedral. Perhaps she could do something about it even now. She remembered a poster by the Church she passed every day on her way to the bus. TALKS ON THE CATHOLIC FAITH FOR NON-CATHOLICS, BY FATHER KEOGH. Tuesday evenings, at 8. But then she imagined herself sitting on a hard, uncomfortable chair after a day’s work, listening to a lecture by a raw Irish peasant that was phrased for people less intelligent than herself. Better, surely, to go along to Farm Street and be instructed by a calm pale Jesuit who would know the answers to all one’s doubts. Then, in the street where she did her shopping there was the Chapel, with a notice outside which said: ALL WELCOME. The minister, the Rev. Bernard Tabb, had the letters B.D., B.sc. after his name. The fact that he was a Bachelor of Science might give a particular authority to his sermons, Prudence always felt; he might quite possibly know all the answers, grapple boldly with doubt and overcome it because he knew the best and worst of both worlds. He might even tackle evolution and the atomic bomb and make sense of it all. But of course, she thought, echoing Fabian’s sentiments as he walked in the village, one just couldn’t go to Chapel; one just didn’t. Nor even to those exotic religious meetings advertised on the back of the New Statesman, which always seemed to take place in Bayswater.
These thoughts gave her strength enough to get up from her bed and make herself a pot of tea and some toast. As she lay back against her pale green pillows she could see her reflection in the looking-glass on the wall opposite. She was not quite at her best at this hour, but rather appealing in her plainness, sipping her favourite Lapsang Souchong, at ten and sixpence a pound, out of a fragile white-and-gold cup.
“When she had finished her breakfast and read the Sunday papers, she took up a volume of George Herbert’s poems which Jane had once given to her. The book opened at a poem called Hope, and she read:
I gave to Hope a watch of mine; but he
An anchor gave to me.
Then an old Prayer-book I did present;
And he an optic sent.
With that I gave a vial full of tears;
But he, a few green ears.
Ah, loiterer! I’ll no more, no more I’ll bring;
I did expect a ring.
It puzzled and disturbed her and she lay quietly for some time, trying to think out what it meant. Yet she was comforted too and it reminded her of Jane and Nicholas, Morning Prayer and Matins and Evensong in a damp country church with pews, and dusty red hassocks. No light oak chairs, incense or neat leather kneelers. Perhaps the Anglican way was the best after all. It was the way she had been brought up in. Should she perhaps go up to see her mother in Herefordshire and revisit the scenes of her childhood? The idea was attractive, but then she saw how it would be: the wet green garden, her mother and her friends all looking sadly older, playing their afternoon bridge, their eager eyes full of the questions they did not quite like to ask. Why didn’t she come and see her mother more often? What did she do in London? What was her work with Dr. Grampian? Why wasn’t she married yet?
Lunch was a rather sad meal, hardly up to Prudence’s usual standard. She had not the heart even to cook the small chicken she had bought for herself. Afterwards she tried to read a novel and. fell asleep for a while, but at three o’clock she woke and there seemed to be nothing to do but to lie brooding in her chair, looking at the few letters Fabian had written to her, until it was time to make a cup of tea. Now the Lapsang Souchong tasted smoky and bitter, rather like disinfectant, she thought. As if she were putting an end to herself with Lysol.
At five o’clock the telephone rang. Prudence supposed it might be Jane, anxious to know how she was getting through the day, but when she picked up the receiver and a man’s voice answered the thought leapt into her mind that of course it was Fabian. The whole thing had been a terrible mistake, a bad dream.
Her illusion was shattered in a second and the voice announced that it was Geoffrey Manifold, and asked how she was.
‘Oh, all right, thank you,’ said Prudence, very much taken aback.
‘After tea on Sunday is always such a depressing time,’ he went on. ‘I was just wondering if you were free and would like to come out to dinner and perhaps see a film?’
‘That’s very sweet of you. I think perhaps I should.’
‘Good. Then I’ll call for you at half-past six.’
How kind of him! It gave Prudence a warm feeling to realise that perhaps he had been thinking of her to-day when she had been so unhappy. ‘Mr. Manifold is so good to his aunt.’ For the first time that day she felt like laughing, and went quickly to change and decorate her face and finger-nails. Then she set out drinks on a tray and waited for him to come.
They were both a little shy at first. They had not met out of working hours before, and his neat dark suit looked less familiar than the plaid shirt and corduroy trousers which Prudence had expected.
He looked round the Regency elegance of Prudence’s sitting-room with a half-nervous, half-scornful expression on his face.
‘Just the sort of place you ought to live in,’ he said at last. ‘Very Vogue and all that. Not quite my cup of tea, I’m afraid.’
I’m not asking you to live with me, thought Prudence angrily; merely to have a drink. ‘What would you like?’ she asked, indicating her collection of bottles. ‘And don’t say you prefer beer, because I haven’t any.’
He smiled. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I was rather rude about your flat. After all, I’m supposed to be here to comfort you, aren’t I?’
�
��To comfort me?’ asked Prudence rather indignantly. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I thought your heart was broken,’ he said looking into his glass of gin. ‘Never mind; it will pass.’
‘How do you know it will?’
‘Oh, I’m always having trouble with my girl-friends,’ he said lightly.
Prudence felt a little stab of jealousy. How ridiculous this was! She wanted to ask in a formal tone ‘And have you many girl-friends at the moment?’ but pride held her back. How dared anyone be unkind to him! she thought fiercely.
‘Where would you like to have dinner?’ he asked rather stiffly.
As usual on the occasions when this question was put to her Prudence was unable to think of anywhere except Claridge’s or Lyons, neither of which seemed really suitable. But in the end it seemed that Geoffrey knew of a quiet place in Soho where the food wasn’t bad.
They were sitting studying the menu when a man at the next table came up to them and gazing intently at them with his bright beady eyes, said in a low voice, ‘I do not recommend the pâté here tonight, but the bouillabaisse is excellent. An odd thing that — Ifelt I couldn’t bear you to order the pâté.’
Prudence and Geoffrey thanked him in a rather embarrassed way.
‘Oh, it is such an anxious moment,’ he said, ‘that first glance at the menu, will there be anything at all that one can eat? Then felt I like some watcher of the skies, on first looking into Chapman’s Homer, you know. … I always feel that if I can do anything for my fellow diners…
‘Mr. Caldicote,’ said a waiter, approaching with a bottle, ‘I think you will find this sufficiently chambré now, sir.’
‘Ah, Henry, you naughty man! You’ve just plunged it into a bowl of hot water, I know….’
‘Oh, Mr. Caldicote, sir …’ They both laughed.
‘A not entirely unworthy little Beaujolais,’ said the strange man, and, waving his hand in a friendly manner, he returned to his table.
‘Well, now,’ said Geoffrey, ‘I wonder if we dare eat anything after that?’
‘Is there anything at all that we can eat?’ laughed Prudence.
She was surprised to find that she was quite hungry, and enjoyed her roast duck and red wine. ‘You know,’ she said, after a while, ‘I’m not sure that I really want to go to a film. Would you mind if we didn’t?’
‘Not at all. I only suggested it because one can’t expect a girl to be satisfied with nothing more than one’s company as an evening’s entertainment.’
‘That was nice of you,’ said Prudence. ‘So many men think one should be delighted with just that.’ But perhaps the girl-friends expected more?
‘There is a new film at the Academy,’ said Geoffrey.
‘Le something de Monsieur something,’ said Prudence.
‘I expect it begins in a fog on a quay and a ship is hooting somewhere.’
‘And a girl in a mackintosh and a beret is standing in a doorway.’
‘And then she and a man who emerges out of the fog go into a cafe full of that tinny French music.’
‘And a little later on there’s the room with the iron bedstead and the girl in her petticoat… .’
‘So we’ve really seen the film,’ said Geoffrey.
‘Talking of France, have you planned your holiday yet?’ she asked. ‘All that grim walking and no lazing in the sun drinking?’
‘Yes. I’ve arranged it all. What about yours?’
‘I’m probably going to Spain with a friend,’ said Prudence rather mysteriously. Again she saw herself slipping into Mass with a black lace mantilla arranged becomingly over her hair.
‘I shall be very near Spain. Perhaps we may even meet? I may see you sitting drinking on the terrace of a luxury hotel while I walk by with my rucksack.’
‘And I’ll invite you to share a bottle of wine with me!’ Prudence laughed. It was all most unsuitable, she told herself. Fabian barely cold in his grave, and here she was laughing with Geoffrey Manifold, of all people. Whatever would Jane say?
Jane would hardly have known what to say, but when she rang Prudence’s flat at about nine o’clock, she was rather disturbed to get no reply.
‘Whatever happens, one always imagines that people will listen to the nine o’clock news,’ she said. ‘I do hope Prue is all right.’ A dreadful picture came to her of gas-ovens and over-doses of drugs, and of how she had always thought the block of flats where Prudence lived the kind of place one might be found dead in. ‘Oh, Nicholas, you don’t think she would do anything foolish, do you?’
‘Oh, but she is always doing foolish things,’ he said mildly.
‘Yes, but you don’t think she would do anything to herself, do you?’
‘Certainly not, darling. Prudence is much too fond of herself for there to be any danger of that.’
‘I know. I expect she’s having dinner with Dr. Grampian!’ said Jane suddenly. ‘That’s why she wasn’t in. What a terrible week this has been, everything going wrong like this. Thank goodness we are to have our holiday soon. I only hope your locum doesn’t fail.’
‘Well, I shan’t know if he does, and we shall certainly be too far away to be able to do anything about it,’ said Nicholas comfortably.
‘They’ll all be waiting there,’ said Jane, warming to the subject. ‘Eleven o’clock will strike. There will be agitated whisperings among the congregation and then a hurried consultation between the churchwardens. I suppose Mr. Mortlake and Mr. Whiting would be able to take some kind of a service?’
‘Certainly. It is the ancient right and duty of the churchwardens to recite the Divine Office of Morning Prayer,’ said Nicholas. ‘I suppose they would be perfectly justified in exercising it.’
‘But wouldn’t the Bishop have to be consulted first?’
‘My dear Jane,’ said Nicholas, now with a tinge of exasperation in his tone, ‘I’m sure Mr. Boultbee of the Church Missionary Society will be perfectly reliable. There is no need to worry about it.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
THE CHURCH in the Cornish village where the Clevelands were spending their holiday was a little Higher than either Jane or Nicholas had been used to.
‘What a good thing you aren’t having to assist in any way,’ said Jane after they had attended the Sung Mass on their last Sunday morning.
‘There’s nothing to it, really,’ said Nicholas rather touchily.
‘One soon gets into the way of ritual.’
‘But supposing it had been sprung on you unexpectedly,’Jane persisted, ‘would you really have known what to do?’
‘A clergyman of the Church of England should be ready for every emergency, from Asperges and Incense to North End Position and Evening Communion.’
‘Ah, yes; our weakness and our glory,’ said Jane. ‘Was that what St. Paul meant about being all things to all men?’ she mused. ‘Of course, if we had had Mowbray’s Church Guide we could have seen that this was not quite on our level. I wonder if anybody has ever thought of compiling a guide of Low churches — putting “N” for North End Position and “E” for Evening Communion against them?’
‘People who want a Low church don’t usually have to search so hard as those who want Catholic Privileges,’ Nicholas pointed out.
‘I do wish Prue had decided to join us,’ said Jane. ‘I’m rather worried about her being in Spain. She says she’s never seen so many priests in her life.’
‘Well, there could hardly be much danger from them.’
‘No, perhaps not. But think of all those shops full of rosaries and statues. You know how impressionable she is. She also says that she has visited the birthplace of St. Ignatius Loyola, and that she had an English-speaking Jesuit all to herself to show her round.’
‘I think that a Jesuit would be even less likely “than an ordinary priest to fall for Prudence’s charms,’ said Nicholas reassuringly.
‘But don’t you see, it’s Prue falling for the charms of Rome that I’m afraid of,’ said Jane. ‘And that’s not t
he worst. Listen to this! “Geoffrey and I went to see a bullfight at Pamplona. We had to get up at four a.m., but it was well worth it.” Now who on earth is Geoffrey? I’ve never heard her mention him before. I quite understood that she was going with Eleanor Hitchens, and she’s such a very sensible, solid sort of person.’
‘She may have met this Geoffrey in Spain,’ suggested Nicholas. ‘Perhaps she and Eleanor quarrelled and separated, as people quite often do on holiday.’
‘Well, I do hope it really is all right. I shall be quite glad to be home and back to normal again.’
They arrived home on a Saturday evening to find the garden like a jungle and Mrs. Glaze welcoming them almost as if they had been Canon and Mrs. Pritchard, Jane felt.
‘Well, I am glad to see you back, madam, and the vicar too,’ she said warmly. ‘It’ll be a nice change, we all feel.’
‘A change?’ said Jane. ‘But Mr. Boultbee was only here for three Sundays. You can hardly have got tired of him in so short a time.’
‘It’s tired of Africa, we are,’ said Mrs. Glaze firmly. ‘Six sermons about Africa, we’ve had. It’s more than flesh and blood can stand, madam. I was really shocked at some of their customs.’ She paused, and then added in a brighter tone, ‘I’ve got some nice chops for your supper. I expect you’ll be ready for it. Mr. Driver is having chops too. Mrs. Arkright was going to braise them for him with some vegetables. It was a pity about him and Miss Bates.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Jane hurriedly. ‘I suppose it was. But of course there was nothing official, no engagement, you know.’
‘Well, they both tried hard in their different ways, Miss Bates and Miss Morrow, and Miss Morrow won. What Miss Morrow had, we shall never know. She may have stooped to ways that Miss Bates wouldn’t have dreamed of.’ Mrs. Glaze looked at Jane hopefully, but Jane was unable to throw any light on the matter. She felt she did not quite like to think of what Jessie might have done to get what she wanted. Perhaps she had been Fabian’s mistress? Well, they would never know that now.
