Civil to Strangers

by Barbara Pym

  It was a young, cheerful voice and I turned round, grateful that I was to have company. I saw a dark young man, with the air of an undergraduate, wearing a neat Sunday suit. He smiled engagingly. ‘My name’s Hugh Fordyce. I’m at Balliol.’

  ‘I am Cassandra Swan.’ We shook hands rather formally.

  We had now reached the front door and Hugh was tugging confidently at an old-fashioned bell-pull. Through the frosted glass door patterned with stars I caught a glimpse of a hall paved with coloured tiles. We were shown into a room full of people and I was glad to be in his company. It made me feel quite affectionate towards this young man I had only just met.

  I could see no sign of Harriet, but a tall, fair woman came towards us.

  ‘You must be Miss Linksett,’ she said. ‘I’m Edith Kennicot, my husband Mark has been looking forward to meeting you so much.’ She indicated a good-looking man with a beard who was standing with his back to the fireplace, holding forth to some young women and an Indian student who were sitting on a sofa.

  I took a cup of tea and looked about me. Now that I had time to take in the occupants of the room, I saw that it was simply a typical Sunday afternoon Oxford tea-party. The food seemed of a higher standard than the usual wartime teas that I had become used to, but everything else seemed perfectly normal. I wondered why Hugh was there. It seemed a very dull way for such a charming young man to be spending a Sunday afternoon. He seemed to be making a good tea. Perhaps that was why he had come.

  Gradually the conversation petered out and the guests began to leave. When Hugh left, he smiled at me in a friendly fashion and I had an impulse to run out after him. But Harriet had obviously wanted me to come here so I felt I had to see it through. Though what it was I could not imagine. When only the Kennicots were left, Edith Kennicot leaned forward and said, ‘We were relieved to see you, Miss Linksett. The woman Jekyll has disappeared and we have not been able to find her. When you turned up we knew that it was all right.’

  ‘Yes,’ said her husband, ‘Von Lebens is in Oxford now and will be going up to London tomorrow. All we need is your contribution – those papers – and then the whole thing is complete.’

  I sat there, my knees shaking. My thoughts were wild and confused, but I knew one thing, I had come to the wrong place. This was The Enemy. What was I to do? What had Harriet meant me to do? I tried to pull myself together.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘There seems to be some mistake, my name isn’t Linksett – it’s Sinclair, Connie Sinclair. Miss Cavendish passed on your invitation to me. She must have confused our names.’ I attempted a laugh. ‘She has been very confused and vague since her sister died.’

  ‘We seem to have made the mistake,’ Mark Kennicot said. ‘You must have wondered what we were talking about.’

  I laughed nervously again. ‘Yes, I was rather muddled.’

  The fact that they made no comment about Miss Cavendish and her sister, obviously invented on the spur of the moment, made me realize that they suspected me. Well, they wouldn’t find anything. Thank goodness I hadn’t kept the papers on me. I would try to appear as stupid and simple as possible, which would not be difficult, considering how much in the dark I actually was.

  ‘I really must go now,’ I said.

  Edith Kennicot rose and for one wonderful moment I thought that I was going to get away with it.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘But before you go, do come and look at my cactus plants – I believe I heard you saying how interested you were in the ones in this room. Those I have upstairs are even more rare.’ She led the way up the staircase. For a moment I was tempted to rush to the front door and try to escape, but I knew that it would be locked and that my only hope was to appear to act naturally.

  On the first landing there was a broad window-sill covered with spiky, prickly plants.

  ‘How magnificent!’ I said enthusiastically.

  ‘They are rather unusual,’ Edith Kennicot said. ‘I keep the really special ones in the bathroom – the warmth, you know, most beneficial.’ She led me into a room on the right. It was a lofty room, more like a chapel than a bathroom, I thought, with high Gothic windows decorated with red and blue glass. There was, indeed, a bath, encased in mahogany, with old-fashioned brass taps. A lot of cleaning, I thought, especially in wartime with servants hard to get.

  I turned from my contemplation of the bath to find Edith Kennicot standing behind me with a towel in her hand. With a quick movement she placed it over my mouth and nose. There was a sweet sickly smell. It must be chloroform.

  ‘Edith, you fool –’ a loud voice boomed like a foghorn, then the voices came and went, near and far away. I was nearly off now. I found I was looking at one of the stained glass motifs in the window. It looked more like a rosette now, the little ribbon rosette that Mr Ballance, our vicar, wore in his black hat. What did it mean? Something high-church. There floated before my eyes Miss Moberley’s long sheep’s face and pursed lips, saying, ‘Rather Romish, rather Romish … ’

  The next thing I knew was a cool hand pressed against my forehead and a blurred design of roses. Somebody was holding something for me to be sick into. Then I lost consciousness again. When I woke up, I felt almost normal and was able to note that there was still daylight coming through the window of the prettily furnished bedroom where I was lying on the bed. Beside the bed there was a small table with some photographs on it. One was of a woman whose face seemed somehow familiar, but I was too confused to remember where I could have seen her.

  Edith Kennicot was sitting on a chair leaning towards me. I shrank back, but her voice sounded anxious.

  ‘That was a nasty turn you had just now,’ she said. ‘We were so worried. I do hope you are feeling better now.’

  So concerned did she sound that I began to wonder if I hadn’t imagined the whole affair.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ve been so much trouble. I must go now. My friends will be anxious.’

  ‘Won’t you stay the night?’ Mrs Kennicot said. ‘It’s getting late. It’s nearly ten o’clock.’

  ‘Ten o’clock at night!’ I cried.

  ‘Yes, these light evenings are quite misleading.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and was relieved to find that I could stand up. ‘My friends will be worried.’

  ‘We could telephone,’ Mrs Kennicot said. ‘Indeed, we did try to find an address or number in your handbag, but we couldn’t find one.’

  With a rush of gratitude, I remembered that I had used my new handbag and had only put in it a clean handkerchief and a purse. That could not have told them much.

  ‘Let Mark take you back in the car,’ his wife was saying.

  ‘Oh, no,’ I protested, ‘it is not far and the air will do me good.’

  They made no attempt to detain me and I walked slowly away, resisting the temptation to look behind me until the house was out of sight. When I was sure that no one was following, I got a bus and returned to College. The portress who let me in looked at me suspiciously and when I caught sight of myself in a mirror I realized why. My hair was coming down at the back and my hat, which I had jammed hastily on my head as I came away, was on crooked. I looked thoroughly disreputable.

  I went hastily into my room to make sure that Bishop Moberley’s photograph was safe. It was still hidden among my clean handkerchiefs and when I took off the back the Russian papers were just as I had left them. But when I opened my handbag I noticed that the lining had been slit.

  I went to find Jessie expecting her to be worried about my long absence, but I should have remembered how vague she was. She had been busy preparing a lecture and had not even wondered why I had not come in to supper. We sat and drank cocoa together and I was glad of the Petit Beurre biscuits which she found in a tin. She didn’t ask me anything about my afternoon and evening. Instead, with that peculiar bitterness that scholars seemed to feel against each other, she complained about a man called Wrenn who had stolen, as she put it,
her version of a disputed line in an Anglo-Saxon text. It was obviously useless to confide my story to her.

  As I looked out of the window of my room I was reassured by the high walls round the garden, crowned with spikes, and felt safe. Temporarily safe, I told myself. I could hardly spend all my time in the sanctuary of a women’s college. Tomorrow I must set out on what I was already thinking of as my quest for Harriet.

  Just as I was falling asleep I remembered the photograph beside the bed with its teasing resemblance to somebody I had seen before. It was Mrs Nussbaum, the person who had pushed little Miss Gatty away from the toaster.

  Next morning I rang up Agatha to see if there had been any message from Harriet. But there was none. ‘A Mrs Nussbaum telephoned, though,’ she said, ‘to ask if you were away. I said that you would be back today. Was that right?’

  ‘Yes, perfectly, Agatha. Though I don’t think I will be back for a few days yet. I will let you know.’

  Somehow, this morning I felt fit and well and ready for anything. I felt I might be almost anywhere and was quite exhilarated at the prospect of further adventures.

  I told Jessie that I was going home and took my suitcase and left it at the Left Luggage Office at the station. I decided to leave Bishop Moberley’s photograph in it. The papers would be safer there than hidden on my person.

  I was walking down Broad Street not quite knowing what to do next when I saw a bearded man who, for a moment, I thought was Mark Kennicot. It was not him, but the jolt that it gave me reminded me that I did not want to be seen and recognized by any inhabitant of Gladstone Lodge, since I was not at all certain that I had succeeded in disarming their suspicions.

  I stopped and looked at my reflection in a tailor’s window, mirrored against a background of dark suitings. I looked perfectly ordinary, just like any other rather dowdy woman of uncertain middle age, but to me I was my own self and even my appearance was unlike that of other people. It is not easy to disguise yourself in wartime. I couldn’t buy any new clothes because I didn’t have my clothing coupons on me. But, I decided, I could go to a hairdresser and smarten myself up a bit. I could have my face made up and varnish on my nails and I could buy a new hat without coupons.

  In the hairdresser’s I felt just like Meg in Little Women as the girl applied the coralline salve to my lips and a little rouge to my cheeks.

  ‘Oh, madam, what an improvement!’ said the girl, when she had worked upon me for some time and was holding up a mirror so that I could see the back of my hair, now elegantly curled. I had to agree that I looked smarter, younger even, although I was not altogether sure that it was an improvement.

  By the time I had got my new hat, prudently carrying away the old one in a paper bag, it was after twelve and I was hungry. It is a very odd feeling to be in disguise – you feel inwardly the same, but the consciousness that you look different makes you feel that you cannot still be yourself. As I walked into Fullers to have some coffee and whatever food they were offering, I felt that everyone must be staring at me. But the waitress, a tired elderly woman, treated me as all waitresses seem to, with a mixture of kindness and condescension, so my manner must still have been the same even if I did look different. As I was sitting in the window slowly drinking my coffee and occasionally glancing down into the street I suddenly saw a familiar figure hurrying along the other side of the street with a tall white-haired man. It was Harriet. I tried to call out, but embarrassment meant that only a thin sound emerged, which was obviously not audible to her. I rushed outside and into the street just in time to see her getting into a car which sped away towards the Woodstock Road. I stood irresolute on the pavement and then suddenly remembered that I had dashed out without paying my bill. I went in and found the waitress, mumbling some excuse about trying to catch a friend, but she seemed totally unsurprised and incurious. I went out into the street feeling very depressed. If only I could have spoken to Harriet. Indeed, if only I could speak to someone. But there was no one in Oxford to whom I could tell my story.

  Suddenly I remembered the young man at the tea-party and how I had somehow felt comfortable in his company. He might do, I thought. Of course, he appeared to know the Kennicots, so I should have to go carefully, but I couldn’t really believe that he was mixed up in anything sinister. There was something about him that reminded me of Adrian, when he had been an undergraduate. I felt I could trust him.

  I turned into Balliol and asked the porter for the number of Mr Fordyce’s rooms. I wandered around the dark Gothic quadrangles looking for staircase 25 and after venturing into a building that was obviously the chapel, although it smelt of cooking, I found it and knocked.

  Hugh opened the door and I saw that he was working at a table surrounded by tottering piles of books. His face broke into a welcoming smile.

  ‘How good of you to come and see me,’ he said. ‘I was just going mad with my weekly essay – you cannot imagine how welcome an interruption you are! Now let’s have tea. I know it’s a bit early – I do hope you’re not one of those people who won’t have it before four o’clock.’ Babbling cheerfully in this fashion, he led me into the room and sat me down in an armchair.

  I was slightly dashed for a moment. ‘Did you recognize me, then?’ I asked. ‘I’m supposed to look different. I thought I had disguised myself!’

  He laughed delightedly. ‘Why on earth should you want to disguise yourself? Let me see. Your hair’s different and you are wearing make-up and that is a different hat – rather frivolous, perhaps a new one? You see how observant I am!’

  The scout came in with the tea and he poured me a cup.

  ‘Are the Kennicots friends of yours?’ I asked warily.

  ‘You mean the people yesterday? Goodness, no. I went by mistake, but there were so many people there they didn’t seem to notice.’

  Indeed, the Kennicots had filled their drawing room with a motley collection of undergraduates, so that it was not surprising that one more young man would be accepted without comment.

  ‘But why there?’ I asked.

  ‘I was supposed to be going to Palmerston Lodge, not Gladstone! You know who lives at Palmerston Lodge?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’

  He mentioned a name high up in Government circles.

  ‘He’s the uncle of a friend of mine and we thought he might do something for me after the war – I want to go into the Diplomatic, when all this is over.’

  He seemed so genuine, but could I trust him?

  ‘Lovely as it is to see you,’ he was saying, ‘I have the feeling you came to tell me something. What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know if I can tell you … ’ I began.

  ‘My father is a Member of Parliament,’ he said with mock gravity, ‘if that’s any recommendation. And I’ll swear on anything you like.’ He was laughing. ‘On the Statesman’s Year Book,’ he said, picking up a heavy volume, ‘or that mystic badge you are wearing.’

  I glanced down at my lapel and saw that it was my WVS badge, which I always wear on my coat.

  ‘I’ll trust you,’ I said, deciding suddenly. And so I began – first of all with Harriet and then my own muddled experiences that seemed to get more muddled as I recounted them. ‘So you see,’ I finished up, ‘I’ve still got these papers. If only I could have spoken to Harriet, but she went so quickly – Goodness!’ I exclaimed, ‘perhaps she was being kidnapped!’

  ‘Perhaps she was.’ Hugh’s eyes were sparkling. ‘Fancy all this happening to you!’ His tone was frankly envious, and I realized, rather to my surprise, that he was now taking me seriously.

  ‘What shall I do?’ I instinctively turned to him for help. He looked so like Adrian that I felt it quite painful to realize that I was not the Cassandra Swan of thirty years ago.

  ‘I think you must go home and carry on as usual,’ he said gravely. ‘I will go to Gladstone Lodge and see what I can find out.’

  ‘Do you think you can?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘I usually manage to
find out anything I want to,’ he said with cheerful confidence. ‘Write down your address and I’ll get in touch with you when I have some news.’

  He tore a piece of paper off a letter which he had obviously just started, and I couldn’t help noticing that it began, ‘Darling Angela – I have been meaning to write for ages, but you know how it is … ’ I wanted to say: You must write another letter, she will be so disappointed. I could imagine her waiting, as I had waited for a letter from Adrian. But, of course, I couldn’t say anything, and young people seem to be so different these days.

  We walked down into the quadrangle planted with beetroot. I felt rather flat and disappointed now that my adventure seemed to be at an end. But it would be nice to be home again. Tomorrow was Tuesday and I would be at the canteen in the morning and after tea there was bandaging practice at the First Aid Post.

  We went out into the street and Hugh said that he would come with me to the station to see me safely on my train. It was a lovely evening and we walked down Beaumont Street. I looked up at the Randolph and remembered how I had had tea there with Mrs Moberley and her brother. In my mind I could hear his high-pitched voice telling us about there being no wash-basins in the Palace and all the water having to be brought up in brass cans. ‘And to think,’ he had said, his voice soaring with indignation, ‘that we are living in 1925!’

  Outside the Randolph a large black car was drawn up. I looked idly at it and suddenly the registration number seemed familiar: CYX 9935. It was, I felt sure, the car in which I had seen Harriet being driven away. I grasped Hugh’s arm and told him about the car.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘You can’t have seen it for more than a moment.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, feeling rather foolish. ‘I’m very good at noticing car numbers because I play a silly sort of game, adding up numbers to see if they are “propitious”, so I always notice them automatically.’

  ‘Right.’ Hugh went over to the car. An elderly man was sitting in the back fussing over some papers. As we reached the car a man in a chauffeur’s uniform came up and was about to get in when Hugh spoke to him.