Excellent Women (7 page)

One of the grey men looked up from his card-index and gave me a faint, as it were pitying, smile.

‘Does this happen every afternoon?’ I asked William.

‘Oh, yes, and every morning too. I couldn’t get through the day without my pigeons. I feel like one of those rather dreadful pictures of St. Francis—I’m sure you and Dora had one at school—but it’s a good feeling and one does so like to have that.’

I could not help smiling at the association of St. Francis with a civil servant, but I had not known about William’s fondness for pigeons and there was something unexpected and endearing about it. He seemed so completely absorbed in them, calling them by names, encouraging this one to come forward and telling that one not to be greedy, that I decided that he had forgotten all about me and it was time to go home.

‘I really ought to be going now,’ I said. ‘I must be keeping you from your work,’ I added, with no thought of irony until after I had said it.

William returned to his desk and opened a file. ‘You must come and see my new flat,’ he said, mentioning an address in Chelsea which seemed familiar.

I thanked him for my luncheon and walked away, carrying my bunch of mimosa down the bare corridors. Of course, I remembered as I waited for a bus, Everard Bone and his mother lived in that street, that was why the address had seemed familiar. What a good thing I had not said anything to William about Helena Napier and Everard Bone, though it was unlikely that he would know them.
My son is at a meeting of the Prehistoric Society.
… I heard again Mrs. Bone’s querulous voice and smiled to myself.

When I reached the front door of my house I saw Rocky Napier approaching from the other side of the street.

‘Mimosa!’
he exclaimed. ‘Why didn’t
I
think of that?’

‘I couldn’t resist it,’ I said. ‘It makes one think….’

‘Of Italy and the Riviera, of course.’

‘I’ve never been there,’ I reminded him; ‘it’s just that it seemed such a lovely day and I felt I wanted it.

‘Yes, that’s a better reason.’

We walked upstairs together. As we came to his door some impulse made me unwrap the flowers. I saw that the bunch divided easily into two branches. ‘Do have a piece,’ I said, ‘I should like you to.’

‘How sweet of you and how like you,’ he said easily. ‘Have you got anything nice for tea? I haven’t.’

‘I don’t think I have particularly;’ I said, my thoughts going inside my cake tin with a harlequin on the lid and remembering only a small wedge of sandwich cake there.

‘I know, let’s be daring and go
out
to tea.’

I stood holding the mimosa. ‘We must put this in water first.’

‘Yes, put it in our kitchen.’ He took it from me, filled a jug with water and put it on the draining-board.

We went out again to a cafe he knew, a place I had never discovered, where they had good cakes. But it hardly seemed to matter about the cakes. Perhaps it was because I had had a large and rather late luncheon, but I didn’t feel very hungry. He was so gay and amusing and he made me feel that I was gay and amusing too and some of the things I said were really quite witty.

It wasn’t till afterwards that I remembered the Wren officers. By that time it was evening and I was back in my own kitchen, wondering what to have for supper. I suddenly realised, too, that we had left all the mimosa in the Napiers’ kitchen. I could hardly go and ask him to give me back my half of it. Anyway, Helena had come in and I could hear them laughing together. I shouldn’t have gossiped to William in that naughty way, and in Lent, too. It served me right that I should have no mimosa to remind me of the spring day, but only a disturbed feeling which was most unlike me. There was a vase of catkins and twigs on the table in my sitting-room. ‘Oh, the kind of women who bring dry twigs into the house and expect leaves to come on them!’ Hadn’t Rocky said something like that at tea?

R
OCKY
returned my half of the mimosa next morning, when I was hurrying to go out to my work. It had lost its first fluffiness and looked like the café table decoration that William disliked. The spring weather had also gone and Rocky himself appeared in a dressing-gown with his hair ruffled. I felt too embarrassed to look at him and put my hand out through the half open kitchen door and took the mimosa quickly, putting it in the vase with the twigs and catkins.

On the bus I began thinking that William had been right and I was annoyed to have to admit it. Mimosa did lose its first freshness too quickly to be worth buying and I must not allow myself to have feelings, but must only observe the effects of other people’s.

I sat down at my table and began going grimly through a card-index of names and addresses. Edith Bankes-Tolliver, 118 Montgomery Square … that was quite near me. I wondered if she came to our church. Perhaps Julian would know her…. I really ought to make a list of the distressed gentlewomen in our district and try to visit them. Most of them lived alone and it was quite likely that I might be able to do some shopping for them or read to them or even just sit and let them talk…. I was deep in thoughts of the good works I was going to immerse myself in, when Mrs. Bonner came into the room and reminded me that it was Wednesday and that we had arranged to go to the lunchtime service at St. Ermin’s. This meant that we had to hurry over our lunch—unlike yesterday’s meal, it could not, I felt, be called luncheon—which we had at a self-service cafeteria near the church. Our trays rattled along on a moving belt at a terrifying speed, so that at the end of it all I found myself, bewildered and resentful, holding a tray full of things I would never have chosen had I had time to think about it, and without a saucer for my coffee. Mrs. Bonner, who always came to such places, had done much better and began explaining to me where I had gone wrong.

‘You get the saucer
after
you’ve taken a roll, if you have one. I generally don’t as we are told not to waste bread, and
before
you get the hot dish,’ she said, as we stood with our trays looking for two vacant places.

‘Oh, that must be where I went wrong,’ I said, looking down at the bullet-hard roll which I was sure I was going to waste. ‘I think one ought to be allowed a trial run-through first, a sort of dress rehearsal.’

Mrs. Bonner laughed heartily at the idea and at that moment saw two places at a table with two Indian gentlemen. ‘I shouldn’t go here if I were
alone,’
she whispered before we sat down, ‘you never know, do you, but I think it’s all right if you have somebody with you.’

Our companions certainly looked harmless enough and were evidently students of some kind, as they appeared to be discussing examination results. I listened fascinated to their staccato voices and the way they kept calling each other ‘old boy’. They took no notice of us whatsoever and I do not think Mrs. Bonner need have feared even if she had been alone.

We settled ourselves and our food at the table and I paused for a moment to draw breath before eating. The room was enormous, like something in a nightmare, one could hardly see from one end of it to the other, and as far as the eye could see was dotted with tables which were all full. In addition, a file of people moved in through a door at one end and formed a long line, fenced off from the main part of the room by a brass rail.

Time like an ever-rolling stream

Bears all its sons away..

I said, more to myself than to Mrs. Bonner. ‘This place gives me a hopeless kind of feeling.’

‘Oh, it’s quite cheap and the food isn’t bad if you don’t come here too often,’ she said, cheerfully down-to-earth as always. ‘It’s useful if you’re in a hurry.’

‘One wouldn’t believe there could be so many people,’ I said, ‘and one must love them all.’ These are our neighbours, I thought, looking round at the clerks and students and typists and elderly eccentrics, bent over their dishes and newspapers.

‘Hurry up, dear,’ said Mrs. Bonner briskly, ‘it’s twenty past already.’

The Indians had left us by now so I ventured to tell her what I had been thinking.

She looked up from her chocolate trifle, rather shocked. ‘Oh, I don’t think the Commandment is meant to be taken as literally as that,’ she said sensibly. ‘We really ought to be going, you know, or we shan’t get a good seat. You know how crowded the church gets.’

We managed to find places rather near the back and Mrs. Bonner expressed doubts as to whether we should be able to hear—the man last week had mumbled rather. Today the preacher was to be Archdeacon Hoccleve, a name that was unknown to me, and I guessed that he would be some old country clergyman who would certainly mumble. But I was completely wrong. He was an elderly man, certainly, but of a handsome and dignified appearance and his voice was strong and dramatic. His sermon too was equally unexpected. Hitherto the Lenten series had followed a more or less discernible course, but Archdeacon Hoccleve departed completely from the pattern by preaching about the Judgment Day. It was altogether a most peculiar sermon, full of long quotations from the more obscure English poets, and although the subject may in itself have been a suitable one for Lent, its matter and the manner of its delivery occasioned dismay and bewilderment rather than any more suitable feelings. It was also much longer than the sermons usually were, so that some of the office workers, who no doubt had stringent lunch hours, could be seen creeping out before it was finished.

Mrs. Bonner was disgusted. ‘That talk about the
Dies Irae,’
she said, ‘that’s Roman Catholic, you know. It ought not to be allowed here. Not that he seemed very High in other ways, though. I couldn’t make him out at all. Some of the things he said were really quite abusive.’

We were by now at the church door, moving slowly out. I had been so absorbed and astonished by the sermon that I had forgotten to look for Everard Bone and I now saw that he was standing almost beside me. I remembered my resolution to try to think well of him and to make some friendly advance if the opportunity should arise. I felt that there could never be a better one than the extraordinary sermon we had just heard.

‘Good afternoon,’ I said quietly; ‘what did you think of the sermon?’

He looked down at me with a puzzled expression and then his rather austere features softened into a smile. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I was so busy trying to keep myself from laughing that I was hardly able to take it in. I had always thought that grown-up people should have no difficulty in keeping their composure, but I know differently now.’

We were standing by ourselves, for Mrs. Bonner, seeing that I was talking to a man, had slipped tactfully away. But I knew that I should have to face her questionings, unspoken though they might be, at the office next day. For she was both inquisitive and romantic and could not bear that anyone under forty should remain unmarried.

Yes, it was certainly most unexpected,’ I said, liking him better for admitting to a human failing. ‘How is your paper getting on?’ I asked, trying to put an interested note into my voice.

‘Oh, we are giving it in two or three weeks’ time. I believe you wanted to come and hear it, but I shouldn’t advise you to. It will be frightfully dull.’

‘Oh, but I should like to hear it,’ I said, remembering that Rocky and I had been going to observe the anthropologists.

‘Well, Helena can get you an invitation,’ he said. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must hurry off. Perhaps I shall see you there.’

I felt that I had made a slight advance, that an infinitesimal amount of virtue had gone out of me, and although I did not really like him I did not feel so actively hostile to him as I had before. But how was it possible to compare him with Rocky? All the same, I told myself sternly, it would not do to go thinking about Rocky like this. Yesterday, with the unexpected spring weather and the wine at luncheon there had perhaps been some excuse; today there was none. The grey March day, the hurried unappetising meal and the alarming sermon made it more suitable that I should think of the stream of unattractive humanity in the cafeteria, the Judgment Day, even Everard Bone.

I decided to call in at the vicarage on my way home to see Winifred. It seemed a long time since I had had a talk with her and she would be interested to hear about the sermon.

I rang the bell and Mrs. Jubb came to the door. Miss Malory was upstairs with Mrs. Gray, helping her to get settled in. Perhaps I would like to go up to them?

I walked slowly upstairs, pausing on the first landing by the picture of the infant Samuel which hung in a dark corner and wondering if I should not turn back after all, for a talk with Winifred and Mrs. Gray was not quite the same as the talk with Winifred which I had intended. But I decided that as Mrs. Gray was coming to live at the vicarage I might just as well get to know her, so I went on and knocked at a door from behind which I heard voices.

‘Oh, it’s Miss Lathbury; how nice!’ Mrs. Gray herself opened the door. I looked beyond her into the room which Julian had been distempering not many weeks earlier. It was now attractively furnished and there was a coal fire burning in the grate. Winifred was crouching on the hearth-rug, tacking up the hem of a curtain.

‘Hasn’t Allegra made this room nice, Mildred?’ she said as I came in. ‘You’d never recognise it as being the same place.’

‘Well, Winifred has helped me so much,’ said Mrs. Gray. ‘You know what a lot there is to do when you move.’

I agreed, noting to myself that they were now ‘Allegra’ and ‘Winifred’ to each other, and being surprised and, I was forced to admit, a little irritated. ‘Moving is certainly a business,’ I observed tritely, ‘but you seem to have everything beautifully arranged.’ I remembered that I had not helped Helena Napier with the hems of her curtains when she moved in. I had merely peered through the banisters at her furniture being taken in and had only offered to help when it seemed almost certain that there would be nothing for me to do. What a much nicer character Winifred was then! And yet perhaps the circumstances were a little different. One could hardly offer to help complete strangers, especially when they were as independent as Helena Napier. ‘Can’t I help with the curtains?’ I asked.

‘Well, that would be most kind.’ The words hardly seemed to be out of my mouth before Mrs. Gray had picked up another pile of curtains which were to be shortened along the line of the pins. I was a little dismayed, as we often are when our offers of help are taken at their face value, and I set to work rather grimly, especially as Mrs. Gray herself was not doing anything at all. She was sitting gracefully in an arm-chair, stroking back her hair which was arranged at the back of her head in a kind of Grecian knot. This style, together with her pale oval face and rather vague graceful air, made her appear like a heroine in an Edwardian novel. There was something slightly unreal about her.

‘I’m afraid I’m not very good at sewing,’ she said, as if in explanation of her idleness, ‘but I can at least be making a cup of tea. I do hope you can stay, Miss Lathbury?’

‘Thank you, I should like to.’

She went out of the room and I could hear her filling a kettle and collecting china. I also heard a step on the stairs and Julian’s voice saying ‘May I come up? I can hear the attractive rattle of tea things. I hope I’m not too late?’

He did not come straight into the room where we were, but stayed to talk to Mrs. Gray in the kitchen. Winifred and I sat with our curtains, not speaking. I could feel that we were both wanting to talk about Mrs. Gray, but that was naturally quite impossible at that moment.

‘One of these curtains seems a little longer than the other,’ I remarked in a loud, stilted tone. ‘I wonder if they were hung up or just measured with a tape? You often find when you come to hang them that there’s some inequality in the length.’

Julian came into the room carrying a tray with crockery, bread-and-butter, jam and a cake. Mrs. Gray followed with the tea.

‘Isn’t it fun, just like a picnic,’ said Winifred from her seat on the hearth-rug.

‘I really ought not to be eating your jam, Mrs. Gray,’ I protested in the way one did in those days. ‘I like plain bread-and-butter just as well, really I do.’

‘Oh, please have some of this,’ she said. ‘It isn’t really my ration, it was a present from Father Greatorex.’

‘What, does Greatorex make jam?’ asked Julian. ‘I never knew he had such accomplishments.’

‘Oh, no,’ Mrs. Gray laughed; ‘just imagine it, the poor old thing! This was made by his sister who lives in the country. It’s really delicious.’

‘How nice of him to give it to you,’ I said, ‘it’s certainly lovely jam.’

‘Oh, Allegra’s the sort of person people
want
to give things to,’ said Winifred enthusiastically. ‘Mildred, doesn’t this hearthrug look familiar to you?’

I glanced at it and then realised to my surprise that I had seen it somewhere before. In the vicaragc, surely, perhaps in Julian’s study?

‘Yes, it’s the one out of Julian’s study,’ said Winifred.

‘Terribly kind of him, wasn’t it?’ said Mrs. Gray. ‘I hadn’t got one suitable for this room and I just happened to be admiring it in Father Malory’s study, quite
innocently
of course, when he gave it to me!’

‘It looks much nicer in Mrs. Gray’s room than it did in my study,’ said Julian, ‘and anyway a rug isn’t really necessary in a study.’

I noted with interest that they were still ‘Mrs. Gray’ and ‘Father Malory’ to each other. ‘It certainly matches this carpet very well,’ I ventured.

‘Yes, but it matched Father Malory’s carpet too,’ said Mrs. Gray. ‘It was really very self-sacrificing of him to give it to me.’

Julian murmured a little in embarrassment.

‘Of course,’ went on Mrs. Gray in a clear voice as if she were making a speech, ‘I always feel that one
ought
to give men the opportunity for self-sacrifice; their natures are so much less noble than ours.’