Civil to Strangers

by Barbara Pym

  ‘What on earth are you wearing?’ he asked crossly.

  She was dressed in the navy uniform of a Red Cross Commandant, but her black-stockinged legs ended, unexpectedly, in frivolous pink mules trimmed with ostrich feathers.

  ‘They wanted me to be in this Red Cross affair,’ she said, ‘and I couldn’t very well refuse. Not that they will let me do anything. Agnes Grote and Nurse Stebbings run the whole thing. But it means that they can have meetings here and things,’ she said vaguely. She looked down at her feet. ‘I had to get some horrid heavy black shoes to go with the uniform, but they were so uncomfortable that as soon as I got home I took them off.’

  She slip-slopped up the stairs in front of him, humming. ‘“South of the Border,”’ she sang softly, ‘“down Mexico way.”’ She would change out of this drab uniform and put on her coral red dinner dress, something bright and cheerful for when she went to say good night to the children.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘I don’t quite see what a clergyman has to do with comforts for the troops,’ said Canon Palfrey, as they were getting ready to go to the party at Malories. ‘Surely it means knitted garments and that kind of thing.’

  ‘Well, I daresay, but there are always spiritual comforts,’ said Jane doubtfully. ‘Do I look the complete country vicar’s wife?’ she asked, searching among a tangle of beads in her jewel box. ‘I had some Woolworth pearls somewhere. They might add something to this dress.’ She rummaged unsuccessfully and then pushed the box into the drawer and stood up. ‘Oh, well, I don’t suppose anyone would have been deceived – still, a string of good pearls – I suppose they might have been left over from my girlhood.’

  Flora was in her room, looking with satisfaction at her deep Burgundy red nails which she was waving about as they were not quite dry. Jane came in to hurry her along.

  ‘Oh, Mother, you can’t wear those shoes and stockings!’ she exclaimed.

  Jane looked down at her lisle stockings and comfortable boat-like shoes. ‘Nobody’s going to look at my feet and legs,’ she said. ‘I really can’t be bothered to change them and it’s a cold night. You’ll wear your rubber boots to go in, dear?’ she suggested hopefully, glancing at Flora’s thin sandals.

  ‘Oh no! It looks so awful arriving with one’s shoes in a bag!’

  ‘I expect Agnes and Connie will be wearing theirs,’ continued Jane. ‘Agnes was telling me about some she saw in Pontings’ catalogue, zipping up to the knees …’

  ‘Oh, Mother!’ said Flora in disgust.

  When they got outside they found that it was a perfectly dry evening, so Jane felt that Flora had really got the better of her.

  ‘I wonder if there will be any young people there,’ said Jane optimistically. ‘Oh, look!’ She plucked at her husband’s sleeve. ‘Isn’t that Michael Randolph and Beatrice Wyatt? You know there is something … Are we all going to the party!’ she called out to them in a loud clear voice.

  ‘Surely,’ said Michael, ‘nobody can be going anywhere else this evening.’

  ‘Michael has just been telling me a piece of news,’ said Beatrice in a rather shaky voice. ‘He’s probably going to be a chaplain in the Army.’

  ‘I was going to tell you, sir,’ said Michael to Canon Palfrey, ‘but I’ve only just heard from them this afternoon.’

  ‘And I was the first one to be told,’ said Beatrice, still sounding confused, for the telling of this piece of news was not the only thing which the Palfreys had interrupted.

  ‘It’s been quite a day,’ Michael said laughing. ‘Do you know what amazing sight met my eyes when I went to Beatrice’s house this evening?’

  ‘Do tell us,’ Jane said with interest.

  ‘Mrs Wyatt. Sitting downstairs in the drawing room! It’s the first time she has been downstairs for three years!’

  ‘I really must come to see her,’ Jane said, from force of habit, and then, realizing what Michael had said, added in amazement, ‘How marvellous! You must be so pleased.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I am,’ said Beatrice. ‘It’s Miss Stoat who has done it really. She has been a splendid companion to Mother and has been encouraging her to get up a bit every day.’

  Michael, whose private opinion it was that Miss Stoat had so exasperated Mrs Wyatt that she had been driven from her bed to the drawing room, smiled.

  He was feeling quietly happy. On his walk with Beatrice that evening, he had proposed to her at last. Indeed, he had just been given his answer when the Palfreys interrupted them. It had not been Yes, but it had not been No. Beatrice still saw herself as the spinster daughter looking after her invalid mother. But now the situation had improved. Given the continuing attention of Miss Stoat, there seemed to be no reason why Mrs Wyatt should not go out. Let her but take up afternoon bridge and all might yet be as he wanted it, thought Michael. To use the phrase so often employed by his favourite Victorian novelists, Beatrice had given him to understand that she cared.

  ‘I still don’t understand about this party,’ said Canon Palfrey rather plaintively. ‘Nobody has really explained to me what we are going to do.’

  ‘Some people are going to play bridge and some whist, and the proceeds from the tickets are going to buy wool for the working parties for knitting comforts for the troops,’ explained Flora patiently.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Canon Palfrey, shining his torch brightly among the laurels round the front door of Malories.

  ‘Now then!’ said a sharp female voice. ‘You really ought to have that torch covered with at least two thicknesses of tissue paper.’

  ‘Ah, Miss Grote,’ said the vicar, correctly identifying the author of this admonition. ‘And Miss Aspinall?’ he asked, looking round at the scurrying breathless figure behind her.

  ‘Agnes goes so fast,’ said Connie resentfully.

  They left their coats and galoshes with Rogers, who was, as she put it to the other maids, glad to see a bit of life about the place at last.

  ‘Come along,’ Agnes’s voice rang out, ‘we’re going to play bridge in the drawing room.’ Connie, who had been bustled along by Agnes before she had had time to tidy her hair properly, arranged the lace modesty vest that filled in the vee of her maroon wool dress. She noticed with some satisfaction that Agnes’s collar was half tucked in at the back.

  As they entered the drawing room she saw Lady Nollard smiling most graciously, apparently at her, so that everything else went out of her head. She at once left the others and made for the corner by the great fireplace where Lady Nollard was sitting in a large, regal armchair, her feet in their long, buckled Langtry shoes resting on a footstool.

  ‘Well, Miss Aspinall,’ she said condescendingly, ‘I hope you are in better health than I am. I have been quite poorly, you know. Yesterday I was prostrated by a sick headache …’

  ‘I think it’s liver,’ said Mandy in her clear voice. ‘I believe there are some pills you can take, but Eleanor won’t try them. Now, shall we draw for partners? Lyall is in the other room arranging the whist.’

  Connie was racked by indecision. She was not a good bridge player and enjoyed whist much more. But, on the other hand, Lady Wraye and Lady Nollard were here and Sir Lyall might only be arranging the whist. He might come and play bridge when he had got things settled …

  ‘Well, well,’ said Canon Palfrey. ‘We seem to have made up our table.’

  ‘I can’t think why you people don’t learn contract,’ said Agnes, who was already dealing. ‘Now then, Lady Wraye, you do play one club, don’t you?’

  Mandy swallowed nervously and picked up her cards. She was not happy at the idea of having Miss Grote as a partner. She thought enviously of her husband playing whist, and even of the vicar playing auction. ‘Oh yes,’ she said bravely. ‘I love one club.’

  Connie was playing with Jane Palfrey and two other women, one of them the wife of the local draper – ‘This war is a great equalizer,’ Lady Nollard had said, and her tones had not been those of approval. But they were pleasant women and nobody
minded when Connie dropped her cards so that her ace of diamonds fell face upwards and they had to deal them again.

  ‘Funny, wasn’t it, Mrs Palfrey,’ said Mrs Horrocks, who had been playing the hand, ‘how those spades went.’

  Jane, who had slipped off her shoes under the table and was now trying unsuccessfully to locate the left one, came to with a start.

  ‘How is your son getting on in the Army?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, very well. He’s putting in for a commission. He’s not far from here, though I’m not supposed to know where. But he comes home on twenty-four-hour leaves. It would be nice if he could be at the camp here next summer.’

  ‘Camp?’ asked Jane, startled.

  ‘Oh, yes, they’re going to have a summer camp in the fields – just beyond here.’ She waved her arm in the direction of the window. ‘We shall be quite jolly, shan’t we, with the soldiers in the district!’

  It would be fun for Flora, Jane thought. There might be some nice young men she could be friendly with. Soldiers coming to supper. Jane’s nimble mind leapt forward through the remaining months of winter and spring and she wondered what they could have to eat. She hoped that they might still be able to get the odd chicken – boiled, smothered with white sauce – or was that only for the clergy?

  ‘Oh, Sir Lyall is coming in here,’ breathed Connie. ‘I wonder whether he will play bridge.’

  He did not play bridge, but stood watching the tables, and when the break came for refreshments an admiring crowd gathered around him, asking questions about the progress of the war and begging for the inside story of Mr Hore-Belisha’s resignation, which had been announced that week. He was admirably non-committal about both topics, though he hinted at secret knowledge which he could not reveal in public.

  Agnes Grote declared firmly that Hitler couldn’t face a long war. She had read in the papers about somebody in a neutral country receiving a letter from a friend in Germany which had ‘we are starving’ written under the stamp.

  ‘But how did they know there would be something written under the stamp?’ asked Mandy.

  Sir Lyall volunteered the opinion that there might well be a revolution in the German Army by spring.

  ‘We shall see a lot of changes when the war is over,’ said Lady Nollard repressively. ‘Miss Aspinall, I wonder if you could kindly pass me that plate of queen cakes. I believe I can take something plain.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure a queen cake couldn’t do you any harm,’ Connie fluttered. ‘And these little lemon biscuits are delicious.’

  ‘Perhaps I will have one of those,’ said Lady Nollard graciously. ‘There is no cream in them, is there?’

  ‘Oh, no, they are quite plain. Perhaps they would be better than queen cakes. I mean,’ she suggested diffidently, ‘if you have not been well, currants might disagree with you.’

  Lady Nollard beamed and nodded. ‘Very thoughtful, Miss Aspinall. One does not come across thoughtfulness very much nowadays,’ she continued, ‘it seems to have gone out of fashion, like so many other little courtesies.’ She raised her voice and glanced balefully in the direction of her sister-in-law. But Mandy was laughing happily at one of Canon Palfrey’s simple jokes and Connie and Lady Nollard seemed isolated in another world where little courtesies were observed and relations were careful for one’s digestion.

  So Very Secret a spy novel

  Note on the Text

  This novel (227 pages) was begun in January 1940. A diary entry reads: ‘Writing notes for my spy novel, also began knitting stockings for the Balloon Barrage’, but she did not actually begin writing it until 1941.

  August 26th. About 3.25 the sirens went! So off on my bike feeling rather foolish in my tin hat. I think I must write my spy story.

  September 22nd. Did ironing and writing – the spy complications are difficult.

  September 29th. After tea I wrote – rather well. It varies but it gets on if I make myself do it.

  October 9th. It is getting rather involved and I don’t quite know what I’m driving at – that’s the worst of a plot.

  October 28th. Writing. I have done over 190 pages and really should be able to finish it now.

  October 30th. Did a lot of writing – over 200 pages now.

  November 4th. The novel is nearly finished.

  She seems to have finished it before she joined the Censorship in Bristol in December. From then until after the war Barbara wrote no more fiction.

  This was her only attempt at a different kind of novel, and she was not happy with the need for a strong plot. She obviously only really enjoyed creating the characters and incidents that would have been more at home in her other books. The idea of an Excellent Woman as the heroine of a thriller is not as incongruous as it might appear; the Excellent Woman, after all, always copes when those around her (especially Men) are failing to do so.

  So Very Secret

  It would be just like Harriet to say that flowers in the bedroom were unhealthy, I thought, as I stepped back to admire the arrangement of delphiniums on the table. I would find the vase put outside the door tonight.

  I was putting the finishing touches to Harriet’s room when I caught sight of myself in the mirror and thought that anyone meeting me for the first time would know me immediately for what I am – Cassandra Swan, a country woman in early middle age, daughter of the former vicar and still living alone in the family home, quite comfortably off and reasonably happy. My life is filled up with the activities of a country village in wartime – Red Cross and canteen work, besides church brasses and flowers, relics of the time when I had been the vicar’s daughter and one of the most important women in the parish. Not that my place had been filled, for the new incumbent, Mr Ballance, a tall, ascetic and rather gloomy man, had told Agnes Liversidge that he believed in the celibacy of the clergy. And there were other things too – incense, sanctus bells and even confessions on Saturday afternoons. But I was always busy at the canteen then, cutting thick sandwiches, poaching eggs and serving tea from the big urns. Sometimes when there was a lull in the flow of soldiers, I felt sorry for Mr Ballance sitting all alone in a little box, waiting for people to come and confess. Father wouldn’t have liked it at all. I still thought of what father would have said, although he has been dead for five years.

  I looked again at my dowdy appearance in the mirror. When Harriet came tonight, I would wear my blue marocain and silk stockings, with my patent leather court shoes. I’d put vanishing cream and powder on my face. I might even wear that lipstick I bought in Oxford the last time I went shopping.

  But somehow, even when I had changed, I was not really satisfied with my appearance. My dress though ‘good’ was unfashionable, and my hair was dull, unlike Harriet’s elaborate arrangement of curls. But then, it had always been the same, ever since we had been at school together. Harriet had always been outstanding: a brilliant career at Oxford and then into the higher reaches of the Civil Service. Now, since the beginning of the war, she had been working in the Foreign Office and her job had been so secret that I sometimes wondered if she herself knew exactly what it was all about.

  The war had really made very little difference to my life. Our village was so dull that even our evacuees left us, although we think that we are almost a little town with our cinema and our hairdresser and our few shops. In 1939 a big militia camp was set up just outside the village, and that is where I help in the canteen.

  Harriet arrived at tea-time in her little car. When I saw her expensive tweeds I felt all wrong in my blue marocain, as if I had changed into evening dress too early. I had arranged a little supper party for Harriet’s first evening. I invited Agnes Liversidge and Miss Moberley, the sister of our late Bishop, both of whom Harriet knew from her previous visits. When they arrived they questioned Harriet about the progress of the war, though Miss Moberley was much more anxious to know about the bomb damage. She enquired eagerly about the more select districts of Belgravia and about Gorringes, her favourite London store. She had wanted to o
rder a new velvet bridge coatee and wished to make sure that the shop was not even now in ruins. Harriet waved her fork in the air.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘we now realize that the Finland affair was not an Imperialistic war. I think a great many people were misled at the time.’

  I nodded my head in agreement.

  ‘The vicar doesn’t care for the Russians,’ said Agnes, speaking as if they were a kind of wartime dish. ‘He was saying on Sunday that the Godless Rule of the Bolsheviks is very little better than the jackboot gangsterism of the Nazis.’

  ‘Did he really say that?’ said Miss Moberley. ‘Clergymen use such violent language now – one can hardly tell the difference between them and the politicians.’

  ‘There certainly ought to be a difference,’ said Agnes. ‘I must say I was rather surprised myself. Though I have never agreed with some of his practices … ’

  ‘Romish,’ said Miss Moberley, ‘decidedly Romish.’ She pursed her lips. ‘I don’t know what my brother the Bishop would have said. We always liked the Russians. As you know, we went on a visit to St Petersburg once. Of course the Revolution was dreadful – so bloody.’ She used the word with a solemn, literal reverence.

  ‘Most violent upheavals are bloody,’ said Harriet calmly.

  We all nodded wisely and then Agatha, my maid, brought in the cheese and biscuits and everyone was so delighted to see such a large piece that Russia was forgotten amid their cries of delight and astonishment.

  ‘I have never been offered more than my ration,’ said Agnes, cutting herself a generous portion, ‘but, even if I was, I don’t think I should accept it.’

  ‘I don’t think I have any choice,’ I said hastily. ‘The order comes every week and I never know what will be in it. It’s like a kind of lucky dip!’