Civil to Strangers

by Barbara Pym

  ‘Wasn’t it you who drove a couple up to London this morning?’ he asked, making a wild guess as to the destination.

  ‘Well,’ the man said, and his manner was truculent, ‘what if I did? It’s a hire car, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s awfully important,’ I said, and described Harriet as well as I could. The man listened impassively, and then to my delight, I saw Hugh press a pound note into his hand, just as they do in detective stories. The man’s manner softened.

  ‘Yes, I did take a lady like that, and a gentleman, to London. Druids Avenue, Maida Vale, number 35. Just got back. That’s why I’m a bit late, taking Mr Lonks up to the British Museum. I’d better get on,’ he added as furious mutterings came from the back of the car.

  As they drove away, I looked at Hugh.

  ‘I think I can find it.’

  ‘You’re going up to London, then?’ I was amused to detect a note of admiration in his voice.

  ‘Oh, yes, I must find Harriet.’

  When we reached the station I fetched my case, which seemed to be intact, and walked on to the platform.

  ‘Where will you stay in London?’ Hugh asked. ‘In case I need to get in touch with you.’

  ‘I’ll stay at the Jeremy Hotel, near the British Museum, in Bedford Square. I always used to go there with Father and they know me there. Do take care of yourself – at the Kennicots’, I mean.’

  ‘I’ll be very careful,’ he said. ‘Actually, I’ll be up in town tomorrow seeing a friend of my father’s who’s looking for a private secretary – I’ll give you lunch, if you like. My train gets into Paddington at ten forty-five – see you there.’

  For a moment I thought of Angela and wondered if he would indeed remember. But this would be Adventure and not mere Romance. I leaned out of the window as the train moved off, and he waved until we were out of sight.

  When we arrived at Paddington I was feeling dazed. I had slept for a while on the journey and on waking found the whole situation a little unreal. I pulled myself together and thought. Maida Vale was not far from Paddington, so I would take a bus. For some reason I felt I couldn’t trust a taxi. The bus swayed down Praed Street and up the Edgware Road.

  Maida Vale is wide and somehow noble, I always think, in spite of the decaying grandeur of some of the houses. Now, with ruins from the bombing here and there, the nobility seemed accentuated, as if the ruins were those of ancient Greece or Rome. I got off the bus at the nearest stop to Druids Avenue, or so the conductress told me, and walked slowly, since my suitcase was becoming heavy and more unwieldy.

  Druids Avenue was a dusty street with children, who ought to have been in bed long ago, playing hopscotch on the pavement. As I approached number 35 I saw a little group of people on the pavement. The house was indeed number 35. I spoke to a woman in an overall.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Oh, the poor soul, such a dreadful thing. One of those Austrian ladies.’ The woman looked upset but excited and she was obviously longing to pour out the whole story. ‘They found her with her head in the gas oven. Her friend that lived with her had gone away, you see, so no one found her in time. There’s nobody else that lives there now, except them two. No wonder nobody found her until that lady and gentleman came in the big black car.’

  I looked at the house again. In the window was a notice which said ‘DRESSMAKING. Hilde Nussbaum and Gertrude Linksett. Tailormades and Alterations Done at Moderate Prices’.

  ‘Are they still there?’ I asked the woman. ‘The people who came in the car.’

  ‘Oh, no, they left about half an hour ago.’ The woman stopped and regarded me closely. ‘You’ll be Miss Swan,’ she said.

  I felt a moment’s panic and then she went on, ‘The lady in the car described you, but you’ve got your hair done different to what she said, so I didn’t recognize you at first. She said to give you this note if you turned up.’ The woman produced from her overall pocket a piece of folded paper. It was a page torn from a pocket diary. Looking round me to see that I was not being observed by anyone who looked like an Enemy, I unfolded it.

  Dearest Cassie – So sorry about this. Oxford was a mistake, hope you managed all right. If all is still OK get the papers to Sir Gervase Harringey – nobody else! Don’t worry about me. H.

  I fumbled in my bag and found some coins which I gave to the woman, thanking her rather incoherently.

  ‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’ She looked at me curiously, but the sight of the police coming out of the house with a covered stretcher attracted her attention and I was able to slip away.

  I felt very tired when I finally reached the gloomy but respectable classical portico of the Jeremy Hotel. I was also a little apprehensive about getting a room, arriving as I was so late at night. But a hastily invented story about urgent family business seemed to convince old Mr Bridges, who had known me for so many years, and he found me a small but comfortable room at the back of the hotel.

  ‘I know you always liked a quiet room, Miss Swan,’ he said.

  In my room I put my suitcase down gratefully. It was too late to find Sir Gervase tonight. Tomorrow would have to be soon enough.

  I thought about poor Miss Linksett. No wonder she had not been at the Kennicots’. But what was her connection with them? And Frau Nussbaum? It all seemed so difficult and not the kind of thing my upbringing had equipped me to deal with. Worn out with all these problems I eventually fell into an uneasy sleep.

  Next morning I woke at seven o’clock, feeling very much more my old self. I got out of bed and drew back the stuffy blackout curtains. It looked as if it was going to be a hot summer’s day. I must not, I thought, present myself at Sir Gervase Harringey’s house too soon. I had looked him up in a volume of Who’s Who last night. Fortunately, the Jeremy was the sort of hotel which had such volumes in its lounge. Sir Gervase lived in Eaton Square. About nine o’clock would be a good time, I thought, before he left there. But perhaps he slept at the Foreign Office. I seemed to remember a picture in some magazine – Picture Post, I think it was – of the office of some Minister of the Crown, with a camp bed by the desk. But that had been at the beginning of the war when people were doing things more feverishly and ostentatiously than they were now. So I thought it would be best to go to Eaton Square.

  In the dining room I made a good breakfast. Meals had been very erratic these last few days and I couldn’t be sure that lunch would follow breakfast. I decided to leave my suitcase at the hotel and went up to my room to take out the papers. I removed them from behind Bishop Moberley and cast about me for a safe place to keep them while I transported them to Sir Gervase. Fortunately I had brought my ration book with me, so I slipped out of the hotel and bought a tube of glue from the stationer’s nearby. I put the papers between the middle pages of the ration book and stuck them together. I hoped I would be able to get the papers out without tearing the ration coupons because it would be awkward trying to explain to the girl at the Food Office what had happened.

  I took the tube to Piccadilly, planning to change there for Hyde Park Corner. As I sat rocking in the train with all the people going to work, I clutched my handbag to me and thought that soon now I would be free of all responsibility for these papers. I looked around at the other passengers and then I had a dreadful shock. At the far end of the carriage were two women. One of them was Edith Kennicot and the other, sitting beyond her, seemed to be Frau Nussbaum – her face was hidden but I could see her feet and large legs in their shiny artificial silk stockings and the imitation pigskin handbag resting on her lap. I shrank back in my seat, trying to hide myself behind the paper of the man sitting beside me. The next station was Piccadilly and I made a rush for the door, squashing myself, as best I could, between the other people getting out.

  I rushed along the passages and on to the other platform and just managed to fling myself into another train going in the direction I wanted. It was only two stops and I hurried out of Hyde Park Corner station. I co
uld not see them behind me, and surely they would not dare to do anything with other people about. So I walked as calmly as I could down Grosvenor Crescent in the direction of Eaton Square. As I crossed the road to go into the square I looked round to see if there were any cars approaching and to my horror I saw them coming up behind me. There was no one else about, the square was quite empty. I simply took to my heels and ran. I had got halfway round the square and had a terrible stitch in my side. Clearly I could not go on like this much longer. I looked at the great houses as I passed and suddenly I saw number 175.

  175 Eaton Square was a number that used to be engraved on my memory, for it was here that Adrian lived. Although we had hardly met at all since our youthful romance, I had followed every step of his career with a consuming interest and, indeed, sometimes when I had been in London I had come to walk past the house, just to look at it, to see what the curtains were like and what flowers he had in his window boxes.

  I cast a hasty glance behind me. My pursuers, obviously even less active than I was, had not yet turned the corner of the square and I was therefore hidden from them. I ran up the steps into the portico and was about to ring the bell when I saw that the door was open. Without hesitating I went inside.

  There is something unnerving about the silence of a strange house, especially a strange house you have rushed into without invitation and which, for all you know, may be hostile to you. As I stood there Adrian came out of a door on the left, obviously the library.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked sharply. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I wanted to see Sir Gervase Harringey,’ I stammered. He obviously didn’t recognize me, though he still looked so very like the Adrian I had known. But then, he was only fifty-eight, the prime of life for a man. I couldn’t bring myself to reveal who I was and our former acquaintance, especially since a neat grey-haired woman had come out of the library and was standing there with a notebook poised, obviously his secretary. She stepped forward eagerly.

  ‘Oh dear, people do sometimes mistake the numbers. Sir Gervase is at number 195, quite confusing really.’

  I stammered my apologies, saying to Adrian how sorry I was to disturb him when I knew how busy he must be. At that a charming, rather weary smile crossed his face, and I saw once again the Adrian I had known. Since I was obviously and unmistakably a respectable gentlewoman who had made an embarrassing mistake, he set out to be charming to me.

  ‘It really is of no consequence,’ he said, smiling once more. ‘A perfectly natural mistake. Miss Dyer will point out the house to you. Now, if you will excuse me.’ One more smile and he was gone. I stared after him. Was this the man whose memory I had cherished for so long? This blank, wooden personality with only a certain facile charm, which could be switched on and off as required? My thoughts were interrupted by Miss Dyer.

  ‘Were you wanting to see Sir Gervase personally?’ she was asking.

  ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘Oh dear, well, I’m afraid he’s out of London. Sir Adrian was supposed to be seeing him today but the meeting had to be cancelled because Sir Gervase has to go to his mother’s funeral. There’s a bit about it in The Times.’ She picked up the paper from the hall table. ‘Yes, here you are.’

  The paragraph read: ‘The funeral of Florence, Lady Harringey will take place at St Michael’s, Champing Parva today, Tuesday June 3rd at 2.30 P.M…. Train leaving Paddington at 10.00 will be met at Champing Parva station …’

  ‘She was ninety years old,’ said Miss Dyer solemnly.

  ‘How splendid,’ I said feebly. ‘Where is Champing Parva?’

  ‘It’s in Shropshire.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said anxiously, ‘I really do have to see Sir Gervase urgently – I must try to get to Paddington to catch the ten o’clock train.’

  ‘I don’t think you will be in time,’ said Miss Dyer, ‘it’s a quarter to already. Perhaps if you could get a taxi … ’ She swept me up and by some miracle of efficiency seemed to materialize a taxi outside the door. I thanked her incoherently and, without even looking to see if Miss Kennicot and Frau Nussbaum were anywhere in sight, urged the driver to make all speed to Paddington.

  Alas, when I arrived, the train had already left. I felt near to tears of frustration and despair, so I went into the Refreshment Room and got myself a cup of tea. I sat at the green tiled table, waiting for the hot, bitter tea to cool a little and staring at the stained glass window with its motif of birds and grapes. I drained my cup of tea to the dregs, swallowing a mouthful of leaves, which seemed to emphasize my weariness. I went gloomily out to enquire about the next train to Champing Parva. The ticket collector on the platform the train would go from was talking to two people, a tall, stooping clergyman and a woman, as tall as he, evidently his sister. I was able to gather from their conversation that they too had intended to go to Champing Parva for Lady Harringey’s funeral and that there was not another train until two o’clock that afternoon.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, attaching myself to them. ‘Is that the next train to Champing Parva you are talking about? I have just missed the last one myself.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the woman, ‘it really is most provoking. Now we shall miss the funeral. It will look so peculiar in the papers,’ she turned to address her brother with some acerbity, ‘to announce that Father Boulding and Miss Boulding regret that they were unavoidably prevented from attending, when we’ve told everyone that we are going.’

  ‘Well, Mildred,’ said her brother, ‘there is no need to announce our stupidity to the world!’

  ‘I shall certainly send a note to The Times,’ she said firmly. ‘People will assuredly notice if we are not there. After all Lady Harringey always attended our church when she was in London, and you often used to hear her confession.’

  I must have looked somewhat surprised for Julian Boulding said, ‘I am the Rector of St Cyprian’s, Eaton Square. My church is rather what you might call High. Were you going to the funeral, Miss – er?’

  ‘Swan,’ I said, ‘Cassandra Swan. Yes, I was, I suppose, in a way.’

  ‘Perhaps we could hire a car, or go by charabanc,’ he said.

  ‘Impossible,’ his sister snapped. ‘It’s much too far, we would never get there in time.’

  ‘Then short of hiring an aeroplane, there seems little that we can do. It would be exciting to arrive there by aeroplane, don’t you think so, Miss Swan?’ he enquired, turning to me with a rather pleasant smile. I had the feeling that he had somehow taken a fancy to me.

  I laughed. ‘Yes, it would be fun!’

  A crowd of people getting off the Oxford train came surging along the platform near to us and I heard a voice calling, it seemed to me in relief, ‘Miss Swan!’ and there was Hugh. I hastily excused myself to the Bouldings and drew Hugh to one side where we could talk undisturbed.

  ‘What did you find out at Gladstone Lodge?’ I asked eagerly.

  Hugh seemed unwontedly subdued.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ he said dejectedly. ‘There was no one there, the house was all shut up.’

  ‘I thought it might be,’ I said and explained how I had seen Edith Kennicot – indeed had been pursued by her. Hugh appeared rather put out by the fact that I had succeeded where he had failed. Had I succeeded, I asked myself? Certainly I still had the papers, and that was something.

  I told Hugh I was going to Champing Parva to try to find Sir Gervase, and I feared the Kennicots would be there too. I half-hoped that he might insist – as Adrian would have done – that he would go instead, but all he said was, ‘Look here, we really must disguise you properly this time – to give us a bit more chance with the Kennicots. Now, my aunt’s more or less your height and build. She lives in Bayswater and is in the Red Cross. We’ll borrow her uniform for you. Come on.’ He swept me off in a taxi.

  At an expensive-looking block of flats we took the lift to the top floor. The door was opened by an elderly maid.

  ‘Oh, Mr Hugh,’ she cried, ‘Mrs Fordyce has gone out to lunch
.’

  ‘That’s all right, Richards,’ he said, patting her shoulder. ‘We’ve only come to collect Aunt Bea’s Red Cross uniform that she’s lending to this lady.’

  As Richards bustled off to look for the uniform I said to Hugh, ‘But won’t your aunt need the uniform?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. She only wears it when she’s going to have her photograph taken for the Tatler.’

  ‘I think Miss Swan had better change here,’ Hugh said when the maid came back with the uniform.

  I was shown into a luxurious bedroom. I had an impression of pink satin and white furniture and very soft, shaggy rugs. Feeling rather foolish, I changed into the uniform and the long dark blue coat and little cap to match. Then I called to Hugh.

  ‘I suppose I look quite different now.’

  ‘You look very nice,’ he said quickly. ‘You’ll need something to put your own things into. Here, take this dressing case.’

  He took down an elegant cream leather case and started to pack my things into it. I reflected that this ruthlessness with other people’s property was rather a good sign in a budding politician.

  Hugh insisted on our having lunch at the Ritz, a place I would never have dared to enter, feeling I had no clothes worthy of such grandeur; but a Red Cross uniform always looks right in any circumstances. Outside he found a taxi with the air of someone who expects to do so.

  ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to see this man. It’s terribly important for me.’

  I realized that for Hugh even Adventure must take second place to his career. I thought of Angela and wondered if she was in a position to help him too. Otherwise there seemed little hope for her. He really was very like Adrian. He put me in the taxi and paid the driver, for which I was grateful since my money was fast diminishing.

  ‘You will take care, won’t you?’ he said, and once more gave me that charming smile. As the taxi moved off he was already turning into St James’s Street.