Civil to Strangers

by Barbara Pym

  At Paddington I settled into a comfortable sort of lethargy in the carriage, which I had to myself, but after a while I decided that I would like some tea, so I struggled through the swaying corridors to the restaurant car. The train had just drawn into Leamington as I was about to pour the tea and I was grateful for the stop. In the silence I heard a woman’s voice raised above the general murmur of conversation.

  ‘Now, Julian, you see I was right. We could have stayed in our compartment and then walked comfortably along the platform, instead of struggling along the corridor.’

  Mildred Boulding strode through the restaurant car looking for a table for two, followed by her brother, who stopped beside me with an exclamation.

  ‘Miss Swan, how nice!’ I was disconcerted that he recognized me so easily in my disguise. ‘And in nurse’s uniform too. Do you mind if we join you?’ He raised his voice and called to his sister. ‘Mildred! There are two places here – with Miss Swan.’ I wished he would not speak so loudly. Now everyone in the car would know that I was Miss Swan, though I hoped that it would not convey anything to them.

  ‘You will be surprised to see us on the train, Miss Swan,’ said Mildred Boulding, settling herself more comfortably, ‘but I persuaded Julian that we should come. Even if we cannot be there for the funeral, there may be something that Julian can do for Lady Harringey’s family.’

  ‘There’s not much I can do in general, except criticize the choice of hymns and inspect the messages on the wreaths,’ said Julian rather frivolously. ‘Still Mildred insisted that we should come.’ He smiled at me in a conspiratorial manner to which I could not help responding.

  At Shrewsbury the Bouldings and I changed to the little local train for Champing Parva, which seemed to stop at every station. Unfortunately we had to rely on hearing the names of the stations called out in unintelligible country accents, since, because of the Emergency, the station signboards had all been taken down, so that they could not help the enemy.

  After an endless series of stops, Mildred voiced all our anxieties. ‘We must surely be there by now, we must ask someone.’ So at the next station she put her head out of the window and hailed a porter in an imperious tone.

  ‘My good man, how far is it to Champing Parva?’

  He regarded her with malicious pleasure.

  ‘You’ve passed it, m’m,’ he said. ‘Three stations back. Up Callow, that’s where you are now.’

  We climbed out of the train quickly, just as it was about to move off. Mildred began to blame Julian for our misfortune, which I felt was very unfair. He, however, seemed unperturbed.

  ‘It is a pleasant evening for a walk,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ his sister snapped. But the old porter insisted that there was no train back to Champing Parva until nine twenty, and he was very vague about the possibility of a car. Something about no petrol and the Home Guard and road blocks – it was all very confused.

  ‘Isn’t there anyone we could telephone?’ I asked, but the old porter told us with some satisfaction that the telephone wasn’t working, and hadn’t been all day.

  ‘How far is Champing Parva?’ Julian asked him.

  ‘’Bout nine miles. But you might get a lift.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Julian. ‘Anything’s better than hanging about here.’

  ‘Bear left outside the station,’ said the old man. ‘Then after about a mile you’ll come to a crossroads. Take another left turn and go straight on from there.’

  Leaving our luggage to be sent on (I thought nervously of Hugh’s aunt’s beautiful dressing case), we proceeded at a brisk pace and soon left the village behind us. It was a lovely evening and the road was lined with tall grasses, foxgloves and purple vetch. Julian and I walked together, chatting easily as if we were old friends, while Mildred kept up a continuous grumbling behind us.

  We came to the crossroads and saw that we were on a main road where it seemed more possible that we might get a lift. There was the sound of a car behind us and a long, black, sleek vehicle passed and drew up a little ahead of us. We hurried up to it and the window was wound down and a pleasant voice enquired, ‘Can I give you a lift? I’m going to Champing Parva.’ It was Mark Kennicot.

  Fortunately both Julian and Mildred were tall people and I had been standing behind them. I remembered Hugh had said that I looked quite different from the back in my Red Cross uniform. Perhaps he hadn’t seen my face.

  Mildred was talking to him. ‘You really are a Good Samaritan!’ she exclaimed. ‘Most kind,’ Julian added. I said nothing but climbed into the back of the car with Julian, while Mildred sat in the front beside Mark Kennicot. She was chatting away about Lady Harringey’s funeral.

  ‘Is there a comfortable hotel at Champing Parva?’ Julian asked.

  ‘The Lamb is quite good, I believe,’ Mark Kennicot said.

  ‘We had to leave our luggage at Up Callow,’ Julian continued. ‘They promised to send it on, but I am rather doubtful if it will arrive tonight. What do you think, Miss Swan, are you more optimistic?’

  I held my breath and was sure that I saw Mark Kennicot stiffen, but he made no comment. Just then we were overtaken by a heavy army lorry and he stretched out his hand to adjust his driving mirror. When he had done so I saw that my face was reflected in the mirror and I knew then that he recognized me.

  When we drew up at the hotel Mildred went in to see about accommodation and Mark Kennicot drew Julian to one side and appeared to be talking earnestly to him. For some reason I felt sure that he was telling Julian that I had escaped from a mental home and that he was a doctor come to fetch me back, or some such story to get me in his power again. I must admit that I was not thinking rationally and I panicked. I noticed a bicycle leaning against the wall of the hotel and while their backs were turned I wheeled it swiftly and silently round the corner and set off on it as fast as I could pedal. As soon as I had done it I realized that it was a foolish mistake but I pedalled on. I thought if I doubled back along the side streets of the village they might lose sight of me. I took a turning to the left by a little wool shop and was looking out for another turning to take when I saw to my horror that it was a cul-de-sac. The street ended in a large redbrick building I hoped might offer me some shelter and when I got up to it I saw to my relief that there was a bicycle rack full of bicycles. I slipped mine among them and hurried into the building by a side door. As I went in I saw the long black car hesitating at the turning into the road.

  I found myself in a bare corridor smelling of polish and antiseptic. A plaque on the wall informed me that this was the Great Champing and District Hospital and that the foundation stone had been laid in 1924 by Lady Harringey.

  I nearly laughed at my good fortune. My Red Cross uniform would excite comparatively little comment here. I came upon an open door and looked into a room full of women, several of whom were in uniforms exactly like mine. I hurried in as unobtrusively as I could and joined them. There were rows of chairs across the room and charts on the walls showing the circulation of the blood. Some of the chairs were occupied but most of the people were crowded at one end of the room. I joined them and saw that they were watching a demonstration of hospital bed-making and sheet-changing.

  The lecturer was a middle-aged woman in a nurse’s white cap and apron, whose stocky figure and determined manner reminded me of my friend Agnes Liversidge – suddenly a comfort at a time like this. The ‘patient’ lying on the bed was a pleasant-faced woman of my own age, with blonde hair hanging in wisps round her rosy face.

  ‘Now then,’ said the nurse, ‘we’ll try it again. Who’ll be the patient this time? How about you, Miss – er –’ Her eyes rested on me.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said and stepped forward quickly and took off my cap and my coat. I got on to the bed and turned on to my left side so that my face was not visible to anyone coming through the door. It was just as well that I did so for hardly had two ladies, whom the nurse addressed as Miss Hope and Miss Angus, begun
to draw back the sheets, than there was a disturbance near the door and I felt sure that Mark Kennicot had come into the room. I listened to what followed with a beating heart, pressing my face into the pillow. But I need not have worried. Nurse Dallow, for such was her name, was more than a match for him.

  ‘I really cannot have all these interruptions,’ she declared in a loud ringing tone. ‘I have already told you that your sister is not here. We are having a Home Nursing Class and I should be obliged if you will kindly leave us to get on with our work.’

  ‘I am very sorry,’ said Mark Kennicot in a creditably meek voice. ‘I thought I saw her come in here.’

  ‘Well you were mistaken,’ said Nurse Dallow firmly. ‘Now, Miss Hope and Miss Angus,’ she went on, dismissing him, ‘you don’t seem very sure where to begin. Tell them, somebody, what to do first.’

  I gathered that Mark Kennicot must have gone for a buzz of conversation started up of which I heard only snatches. ‘A horrid man,’ somebody said. ‘Most unpleasant for her … ’ Nurse Dallow clapped her hands and called their attention back to the matter in hand. I lay silent and unprotesting while I was rolled backwards and forwards by the heavy hands of Miss Hope and Miss Angus, two strapping young women by whom I should not have cared to be nursed. At last, when the sheet was changed, Nurse Dallow consulted a small watch pinned to her bosom and declared that the lecture was at an end. ‘Friday at the same time,’ she said. ‘Don’t forget.’

  The crowd began to disperse, leaving me lying on the bed, stranded like a fish, on the shore. Where could I go now, I wondered. It must be getting late and my courage was beginning to fail me. I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. Nurse Dallow approached me.

  ‘You’re coming back with me,’ she said in firm but kindly tones. ‘You look quite done up. Such a nasty experience with that dreadful man.’

  I stared at her in astonishment.

  ‘As if I would believe that you had escaped from a mental home,’ she snorted contemptuously. ‘Why, I could tell the moment I saw you that a lady like you wouldn’t be related to a man like him!’

  This rather obscure remark somehow gave me confidence to get to my feet and murmur gratefully that it was very kind of her.

  ‘You come back and have some supper with Lucy and me – that’s my sister,’ she explained. ‘And then you can tell us all about it.’

  I followed her meekly from the hospital and out into the now empty street. I looked cautiously about me, but there was no one in sight. Nurse Dallow stopped outside the little wool shop that I had noticed on my way in. Over the door it said ‘Lucy Dallow’ in neat lettering. She went into an entry beside the shop and let us in by the back door.

  Lucy Dallow, a smaller, meeker version of her sister, was friendly and welcoming, and didn’t seem particularly surprised that her sister had brought a complete stranger home to supper.

  ‘This lady,’ said Nurse Dallow impressively, ‘has had a very nasty experience.’

  ‘My name is Swan,’ I said, ‘Cassandra Swan. And I am most grateful … ’

  ‘Supper first,’ said Nurse Dallow firmly.

  I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed a supper more than those fried potatoes and bacon, with bread and butter and a great many cups of good strong tea. And then Lucy leapt to her feet and said that there was that bit of gooseberry tart left. So we had that, too, with some custard and more cups of tea. I certainly felt a different person after it.

  Looking at the two women I knew instinctively that I could trust them with my story, so I began at the beginning and poured out my adventures of the past few days. When I had finished, Lucy’s eyes were round as saucers and she made little tut-tutting noises and murmured, ‘Well, I never!’ at intervals.

  Nurse Dallow pursed her lips and said vehemently, ‘There! I knew he was up to no good. I never did trust men with beards!’

  ‘Oh, but, May,’ cried her sister, ‘what about the vicar’s father-in-law? He’s got a beard.’

  ‘Oh, yes, but he’s an old man, so that doesn’t count. So,’ she said, turning to me, ‘you’re in the Secret Service then?’

  ‘Not really,’ I replied, rather taken with this description of myself. ‘I am doing that sort of work at present, I suppose, but usually I just live at home in the village – quite near Oxford – and do ARP and canteen work.’

  Sister Dallow seemed to feel that this made me practically one of the family and said, ‘Now we must help you to get those papers to Sir Gervase.’

  ‘Is the house far away?’

  ‘About half a mile,’ said Lucy, ‘but there’s a very long winding drive, which must be almost another half mile.’

  I shuddered at the thought of the long drive, probably dark and shadowed with trees and shrubs, behind which who knows what might lurk. I should have to walk boldly, perhaps run, humming ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ to drive away the powers of darkness in the shape of Mark Kennicot.

  ‘We must think of a plan,’ said Nurse Dallow. ‘After what happened you can’t go alone.’

  I sat there, content for the moment to have somebody else do my thinking for me.

  ‘I know,’ she exclaimed, ‘the tandem!’

  ‘You mean a bicycle?’

  ‘Yes, you and I will ride it, Miss Swan. Come along, the sooner we get those papers to Sir Gervase the better.’

  We went out into the hall and put on our hats and coats and Nurse Dallow slung her civilian respirator case over her shoulder and slipped on an arm-band with the words Civil Defence on it. ‘You never know,’ she said obscurely.

  After the first few moments when I felt the pedals going rather too fast for me, I soon got into the rhythm and we went spinning along in fine style out of the village, since the road was slightly downhill. We must have looked a peculiar sight, the two of us in nurses’ uniform pedalling along on a tandem. Indeed, when we passed a group of soldiers one of them called out, ‘Hello gorgeous!’ and some of the others started to sing ‘Daisy, Daisy’.

  ‘They’re really very cheeky,’ said Nurse Dallow, ‘especially when there are a lot of them all together.’ But I got the impression that she wasn’t really annoyed, but even rather flattered.

  ‘Now then,’ she continued, ‘here’s the drive.’

  We passed through the open gateway. The iron gates had gone for salvage but the gateposts remained, crowned with a pair of urns.

  We pedalled briskly up the drive which was as dark and frightening as I had imagined it, and I was very glad indeed that I was perched up behind Nurse Dallow on a tandem and not walking on foot and alone. Suddenly we heard voices round a bend in the drive and there were Julian and Mildred, trailing wearily, still engaged in argument.

  ‘I cannot feel that we will be very welcome at this hour,’ Julian was saying, ‘but we shall feel that we have done our duty. Personally, I feel that we have exceeded it.’

  Nurse Dallow rang her bell and they started and jumped aside.

  ‘Miss Swan, and on a tandem!’ Julian cried. ‘The long walk has been worthwhile after all!’

  ‘We are on urgent business and can’t stop!’ Nurse Dallow called out and swept on, leaving them staring in bewilderment.

  A few minutes later we reached the house. It was a large and imposing building, with a great many classical pillars giving it an impressive frontage. Nurse Dallow leaned the tandem against one of these.

  ‘I’ll wait for you here,’ she said, suddenly seeming diffident when confronted by the local gentry.

  I felt rather nervous myself as I approached the massive front door and rang the bell. There was a sudden confused noise of barking and scuffling and the door opened to reveal a youngish woman dressed in black restraining with some difficulty several lively dogs.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said in a pleasant voice, ‘they’re a bit out of hand today.’

  ‘I am so very sorry to bother you at such a time,’ I said, ‘but I have to see Sir Gervase on urgent business.’

  She laughed. ‘Ge
rvase’s business always is urgent. Do come in, so that I can let this lot loose.’

  I stepped inside as she closed the door and the dogs went rushing off back into the large pillared hall.

  ‘Gervase is in his study. This way.’

  She led me up a curved staircase, opened an elaborately carved door, put her head round it and said casually, ‘One of your urgent callers, Gervase.’

  I felt feverishly in my handbag to make sure that the ration book was still there and went into the room.

  Sir Gervase rose to his feet. He was shorter than he seemed in his photographs, but then I suppose people often are.

  ‘Good evening,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry to have come at such an awkward time … ’

  ‘Not at all, Miss – er—’

  ‘Swan. Cassandra Swan.’

  ‘Ah.’ Sir Gervase looked puzzled, as if he had expected to hear a name more familiar to him. ‘I suppose you are one of Grampian’s lot.’

  ‘I’m not anybody’s lot,’ I replied. I was rather taken aback by my own boldness. ‘I got into this all quite by accident.’

  I tried to explain how it had all come about, but Sir Gervase did not seem to be listening very carefully.

  I prised open the centre pages of my ration book and took out the papers.

  ‘Did you hide them in there?’ he asked curiously. He glanced at them and put them to one side with some other papers. It was all over. I felt a twinge of disappointment, even of resentment, that the papers which had given me so much pain and trouble should be put away like that, hardly even mentioned.

  ‘Are they important?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, yes, Miss – er – Swan. Very important. I must tell Grampian that you did a splendid job … ’

  ‘But I’m not … ’ It seemed too difficult to explain. Then something occurred to me. ‘But the man Kennicot – what about him?’

  ‘Oh, I expect Grampian’s lot will see to it – not my pigeon.’

  ‘But he’s here, in the neighbourhood … ’ I felt I must make Sir Gervase understand and I leaned forward urgently, but his face was swaying oddly and seemed to come and go and suddenly everything was black and I knew no more.