Excellent Women (16 page)

Helena laughed, but when we reached her sitting-room she exclaimed angrily, ‘But my chairs have gone! Really, this is too bad. And the desk too! Mildred, why did you let them go?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said meekly. ‘Rocky gave me a list of the furniture that was to go and I just followed his instructions.’

‘Oh, you were always on his side!’ she burst out. ‘Anyway, those chairs were a wedding present to both of us. He had no right to take them.’

Yes, it is difficult, when something is given as a wedding present,’ I said. But how could people foresee the separation of a happy pair and always give presents that could if necessary be easily divided? Surely that was too cynical a view for even the most embittered giver to take of marriage?

Helena darted here and there in the flat, missing objects which she claimed as hers. ‘Mildred, you’ll have to write to him,’ she declared, sitting down in the one armchair that was left.

‘I write to him? Wouldn’t it be better if you did?’

‘Oh, I certainly couldn’t do it myself. You know him and he might take more notice of a letter from you. Otherwise I might ask Esther Clovis to do it, or even Everard.’

‘Oh, I don’t think you should ask
him,’
I burst out, suddenly remembering that I had never had the opportunity of telling Helena, as he had bidden me to, that he did not love her. But it hardly seemed to matter now. ‘Anyway,’ I went on, ‘he’s at a conference of the Prehistoric Society in Derbyshire, so it wouldn’t be much use.’

‘Oh,
that,’
said Helena impatiently. ‘I can’t think why he bothers with archaeology. All this dabbling won’t get him anywhere.’

‘I shouldn’t have thought he dabbled,’ I said. ‘He gives me the impression of being a very definite kind of person.’

‘How do you mean?’ asked Helena suspiciously.

‘Well, he knows what he wants or doesn’t want,’ I floundered. ‘I should think he has—er—very high principles.’

‘Oh, he doesn’t believe in divorce, if that’s what you mean,’ said Helena in a light tone. ‘And naturally he imagined that if I quarrelled with Rocky I should go rushing to him. That’s why he went to Derbyshire, of course.’

I was a little taken aback at her summing-up of the position and must have shown it in my face, for she laughed and said, ‘Oh, yes, men are very simple and obvious in some ways, you know. They generally react in the way one would expect and it is often rather a cowardly way. I should think Everard was most alarmed when he heard that Rocky and I weren’t getting on very well. He doesn’t really care twopence about prehistory, you know. He always uses the society as an excuse, just because I don’t happen to be a member myself.’

This seemed to me rather a waste of a subscription and there was something altogether comic about the thought of a man hiding from a woman behind a cloak of prehistory.

‘I met his mother,’ I said, hoping to change the subject. ‘She seems rather odd.’

‘Yes, she is odd, but then people’s mothers usually are, don’t you think?’ said Helena. ‘I suppose there’s really no reason why Everard and I should ever meet again, except at the Society. It would be more dramatic, really, if we didn’t for about ten years, and then we should be like the pair in that sonnet that people always think of when they part from somebody,

Be it not seen in either of our brows,
That we one jot of former love retain.’

‘I dare say you wouldn’t still love a person after ten years,’ I suggested, ‘so you wouldn’t retain one jot of former love, anyway, and that would spoil the excitement of the meeting.’

‘Yes, one would have nothing to conceal and would probably wonder how one could ever have felt anything at all. It would be better if I forgot all about Everard, I suppose, since he obviously doesn’t intend to have anything more to do with me.’

‘Yes, of course, it would. But forgetting isn’t very easy,’ I said doubtfully.

‘I suppose you have perhaps had to forget somebody too?’ asked Helena, equally doubtful.

‘Oh, yes,’ I said cheerfully, thinking of Bernard Hatherley, but unwilling to bring such a poor thing out into the open after so many years. ‘I suppose everybody does at some time in their lives.’

‘I was wondering if you were rather fond of Rocky,’ said Helena, with what seemed to me unsuitable frankness. ‘People do fall in love with him, you know.’

‘Oh, you mean the Wren officers?’ I said, with an attempt at laughter.

‘Yes, they certainly did, but that was only to be expected. Rocky looked so fine in his uniform and was kind to them at parties and danced with them all in turn. But you have seen him much more as he really is. And I know he likes you very much. He has said so several times.’

This was very little consolation to me and the whole subject of the conversation was a most uncomfortable one, I felt.

‘Perhaps I had better get down to writing that letter about the furniture,’ I said firmly. ‘If you could give me a list of things you want sent back, I might start it tonight.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Helena stood up, ‘that would be a great help. I wonder if your vicar would take me out for a drink? He did say that I was to let him know if there was anything he could do for me, didn’t he?’

‘I’m not sure that was quite the kind of thing he meant,’ I said, ‘though if he takes Rocky to have a drink I don’t see why he shouldn’t take you. But I rather think tonight is his boys’ club night.’

A
LIST
of furniture is not a good beginning to a letter, though I dare say a clever person with a fantastic turn of mind could transform even a laundry list into a poem.

I sat for a long time at my desk, unable to put pen to paper, idly turning the pages of a notebook in which I kept accounts and made shopping lists. How fascinating they would have been, had they been mediaeval shopping lists! I thought. But perhaps there was matter for poetry in them, with their many uncertainties and question marks. ‘Rations, green veg., soap flakes, stamps,’ seemed reasonable enough and easily explained, but why ‘red ribbon?’ What could I have wanted red ribbon for? Some daring idea for retrimming an old hat, perhaps; if so it had been stillborn, for I knew that I had never bought any and that it was unlikely anyway that I should wear a hat trimmed with red ribbon. As for ‘egg poacher?’—that was an unfulfilled dream or ambition to buy one of those utensils that produce a neat artificial-looking poached egg. But I had never bought it and it seemed likely that on the rare occasions when I had a fresh egg to poach I should continue to delve for it in the bubbling water where the white separated from the yolk and waved about like a sea anemone. Sometimes I had noted down places or shops to visit. I came across the name of a well-known Roman Catholic bookshop, also with a question mark. I do not think I had ever bought anything there, but I remembered going into it at Christmas, when the basement, with its brightly coloured plaster figures, seemed to offer a peaceful refuge from the shopping crowds.

I went on turning the pages until I was reduced to studying old gas and electricity bills, but I knew that I could not brood over such trivia indefinitely and at last, after several false starts, I managed to produce some kind of a letter, beginning ‘Dear Rocky’, stating the facts and giving the list of furniture and ending ‘I hope you are settling down well. Yours ever, Mildred.’ The ending had cost me more anxious thought than was justified by the result, but I believed that ‘yours ever’ was the correct way to finish a friendly letter to a person for whom one was supposed to have no particular feelings. I dare say there would have been no harm in sending my love, but I could not bring myself to do this.

Rocky’s answer, when it came, was characteristic and had obviously cost him no anxious thought at all.

‘Dearest M.,’ he wrote, ‘Helena is quite wrong about all this and the things I have taken are definitely
MINE
. A
S
for the
Blue Casserole,
I admit that she bought it, but only to replace one of mine which Everard Bone broke. So let’s have no more of this nonsense.

‘I hope you are well and that the church is flourishing, also Father Malory—ought I to write Fr.? All those Sundays after Trinity must be tedious but I suppose there will come an end sometime!

‘You must come and see me some time and (if fine) I will give you lunch in my wild garden with an amusing wine.

‘In haste and with lots of love,

‘R.’

I brooded over this letter with pleasure and sadness, but after I had learned its contents nearly by heart the chief impression that remained was one of surprise. I could not imagine Everard Bone breaking a casserole! It was a silly trivial thing, but every time I thought of it I smiled, sometimes when I was by myself in a street or in a bus.

As I had expected, Helena received the letter with indignation and decided that she would have no further communication with her husband but would go home and stay with her mother in Devonshire. I had not expected that she would behave in this conventional way and somehow liked her better for it. So it seemed that my part in the unhappy affair was at an end, and I could only hope that something would occur to make them come to their senses. I began to think that if I went to see Rocky I might be able to bring them together again; I saw myself playing a rather noble part, stepping into the background when they were reunited and going quietly away to make a cup of tea or do some washing or ironing. But although Rocky had said that I must go and see him some time, he had not suggested any definite date and I did not like to invite myself.

It was the middle of August now, a difficult time in the church. There were, as Rocky had pointed out, all those Sundays after Trinity; even the highest church could not escape them and it was sometimes difficult to remember whether we were at Trinity eight, nine or ten. Then too, Julian Malory was away, leaving Father Greatorex in charge, and we were like a rudderless ship. There was no sermon on Sunday mornings and little things seemed to go wrong—sparks came out of the censer and alarmed some of the older members of the congregation; one of the little acolytes tripped over his too long cassock and fell down the steps, causing the others to dissolve into giggles. One Sunday Teddy Lemon went to Margate for the week-end, and Mr. Conybeare, looking like an angry bird, was called up out of the congregation to act as Master of Ceremonies. It was the organist’s holiday too, and although Sister Blatt made a valiant attempt to take his place those peculiarly unnerving noises that only a church organ can produce would keep bursting out.

Julian and Winifred had gone on holiday with Allegra Gray to a farm in Somerset. I could not help feeling that they were an ill-assorted trio, but perhaps Julian had not thought it quite proper to go on a holiday alone with his fiancée and there was always the problem of what to do with Winifred. I could have offered to go somewhere with her myself had I not been pledged to go away with Dora Caldicote in September, as I did every year. I began to look forward to my holiday as never before. I felt that I needed to get away from all the problems—mostly other people’s—with which I had been worried in the last few months. If I could look at them from a distance they might solve themselves. Helena would forget about the furniture, Allegra Gray would turn out to be the perfect wife for Julian, Winifred would marry or enter a religious community. Even the woodworms in the back of Rocky’s desk would be destroyed and their ravages arrested by the application of that remedy Mrs. Bone had been talking about.

One day towards the end of August I was coming out of my office at one o’clock when I saw Everard Bone standing looking in a shop window some distance away. My immediate reaction was one of irritation. What was he doing? If he wanted to see me, why couldn’t he telephone and arrange a meeting in a normal way? I remembered the last time we had met, I in my old cotton dress and no stockings, with Cardinal Newman and a loaf in my string bag. Today I was at least wearing a respectable dress and had no domestic shopping with me. I had planned to hurry home and finish a dress I was making for my holiday, so, imagining that he had not seen me, I turned and walked briskly in the opposite direction. I heard the sound of somebody running after me but I did not look round. Then my name was called and I had to stop and feign surprise.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ I said ungraciously.

‘Yes, I’ve been waiting for you. I hoped you would have lunch with me.’

‘Why didn’t you write or telephone, then?’

Well, it didn’t occur to me till this morning. I’ve been away, you see. A little archaeological tour in the Dordogne.’

‘Have you been hiding in a cave?’ I asked.

‘I have been in some caves, certainly,’ he replied. ‘But I don’t know why you should think I have been hiding.’

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ I said, feeling rather ashamed. ‘I was only making a kind of joke. I thought anthropology was your subject anyway.’

‘Yes, but it all links up, you know. Archaeology seems to fit in better with a holiday.’

‘There are stone circles in Brittany, aren’t there?’ I began, trying to show an intelligent interest. ‘And then of course there’s always Stonehenge.’ I remembered that my father had been interested in Stonehenge, and I seemed to see us all sitting round the dinner-table, my mother and father, a curate—I could not remember which curate—and a canon and his wife. We were having a conversation about Stonehenge and suddenly all the lights had gone out. The curate had let out a cry of alarm but the canon’s voice went on without a tremor—I could hear it now -just as if nothing had happened. My mother got up and fussed with candles and the canon went on explaining his theory of how the great stones had been carried to Salisbury Plain. It was an impressive performance and had been rewarded, or so it seemed to me, by a bishopric not long afterwards. Thinking about it after all these years, I smiled.

‘Yes, there’s always Stonehenge,’ said Everard rather stiffly.

We walked on in silence until we came to an area where there were restaurants.

‘You haven’t said in so many words that you will have lunch with me,’ said Everard, ‘but as we seem to be going in the right direction I assume that you will.’

‘Oh, well, I suppose so,’ I said indifferently and then realised that I was not behaving very well. It seemed too late to apologise and I felt resentful towards him for bringing out the worst in me, but I made some attempt: ‘You must think me very impolite,’ I said, ‘but the worst side of me seems to be coming out today. It does seem to have been coming out more lately.’

‘I expect you are upset at all this happening,’ he said.

‘Yes, I suppose I might make that excuse. It is upsetting when things happen to friends.’

We went into a restaurant and were shown to a table. It was not until we were sitting down that I realised that it was the restaurant where I had had lunch with William Caldicote in the spring.

‘What exactly
has
happened?’ he asked casually.

‘Rocky is in the country and Helena has gone home to her mother in Devonshire.’

‘Oh, that is a relief,’ he said, taking up the menu and ordering lunch with rather less fuss than William did.

‘I don’t really know that one should have expected anything else. Women who quarrel with their husbands usually do go home to their mothers, if they have mothers.’

‘I certainly gave her no encouragement,’ said Everard, almost in a satisfied tone.

‘Oh, I’m sure you didn’t,’ I said, contemplating my
hors d’ouvres.
‘I can’t imagine you doing such a thing.’

‘Of course,’ he went on, with a note of warning in his tone, ‘I shall probably marry eventually.’

‘Yes, men usually do,’ I murmured.

‘The difficulty is to find a suitable person.’

‘Perhaps one shouldn’t try to find people deliberately like that,’ I suggested. ‘I mean, not set out to look for somebody to marry as if you were going to buy a saucepan or a casserole.’

‘You think it should just be left to chance? But then the person might be most unsuitable.’

The idea of choosing a husband or wife as one would a casserole had reminded me of Rocky’s letter and his allegation that Everard had broken one of his casseroles. I suppose a smile must have come on to my face, for he said, ‘You seem to find it amusing, the idea of marrying somebody suitable.’

‘I wasn’t really smiling at that. It was just that I couldn’t imagine you breaking a casserole.’

‘Oh, that,’ he said rather irritably. ‘Helena had put it in the oven to warm and when I took hold of it it was so hot that I dropped it.

‘Yes, I could imagine it happening in that way, with a perfectly reasonable explanation. It was a pity you didn’t use the oven cloth,’ I suggested.

‘But it had only been in the oven a few minutes. Besides, I don’t think there was an oven cloth.’

‘I always have mine hanging on a nail by the side of the cooker.”

‘Well, you’re a sensible person. It’s just the kind of thing you would have.’

Oh, dear, one was to be for ever cast down, I thought, brooding over the piece of fish on my plate. If I had been flattered by Everard’s invitation to lunch I was now put in my place as the kind of person who would have an oven cloth hanging on a nail by the side of the cooker.

‘Would you have married Helena if she had not been married already?’ I asked boldly.

‘Certainly not,’ he declared. ‘She is not at all the kind of person I should choose for my wife.’

‘What would she be like, that Not Impossible She?’ I asked.

‘Oh, a sensible sort of person,’ he said vaguely.

‘Somebody who would help you in your work?’ I suggested. ‘Somebody with a knowledge of anthropology who could correct proofs and make an index, rather like Miss Clovis, perhaps?’

‘Esther Clovis is certainly a very capable person,’ he said doubtfully. ‘An excellent woman altogether.’

You could consider marrying an excellent woman?’ I asked in amazement. ‘But they are not for marrying.’

You’re surely not suggesting that they are for the other things?’ he said, smiling.

That had certainly not occurred to me and I was annoyed to find myself embarrassed.

‘They are for being unmarried,’ I said, ‘and by that I mean a positive rather than a negative state.

‘Poor things, aren’t they allowed to have the normal feelings, then?’

‘Oh, yes, but nothing can be done about them.’

‘Of course I do respect and esteem Esther Clovis,’ Everard went on.

‘Oh, respect and esteem—such dry bones! I suppose one can really have such feelings for somebody but I should have thought one would almost dislike a person who inspired them. Anyway, Miss Clovis must be quite a lot older than you are, and then she looks so odd. She has hair like a dog.’

Everard laughed. ‘Yes, so she has.’

I now felt ashamed at having made him laugh by an unkind criticism of the excellent Miss Clovis, so I tried to change the subject by commenting on the other inhabitants of the restaurant in what I hoped was a more charitable way. But he would not agree with me that this woman was pretty or that one elegant, and we lapsed into an uncomfortable silence which was broken by a voice behind me saying my name.

It was William Caldicote.

I introduced him to Everard and then William took command of the conversation.

‘Thank goodness
some
of one’s friends are unfashionable enough to be in town in August,’ he said, ‘then one needn’t feel
quite
so ashamed, though I suppose nowadays women don’t feel that they must go about veiled and in dark glasses and sit in their houses behind drawn blinds.’