Less Than Angels (15 page)

Father Gemini, who had been cowering quietly out of sight in a book-lined alcove, ran across the room. The other readers, pleased to be interrupted in their studies, sat back expectantly.

Meanwhile Tom had led Deirdre into the little room where Mark and Digby had recently put the horsehair sofa. The room now contained a small coffee-table, stained with the rings of wet cups, two straight-backed chairs, a bookcase full of old foreign periodicals, and a model African village, laid out on top of a packing-case which was covered with an orange tablecloth. On the mantelpiece stood a vase of pink daisy-like flowers.

‘I’ve found this funny little room,’ Tom said. ‘ I was looking for the Gents and walked in here by mistake. I can’t imagine what it’s for.’

‘Perhaps for having private conversations in,’ Deirdre suggested, ‘I mean for Miss Lydgate and Father Gemini and people like that.’

‘Not our kind, perhaps,’ said Tom. ‘Shall we sit on this sofa?’

They sat down. Tom took hold of Deirdre’s hand. It lay in his without moving, like a dead bird, he thought, conscious that this was just the kind of thing Catherine might have said.

‘I don’t think we ought to hold hands here,’ said Deirdre rather anxiously.

‘No, perhaps not, but we will just the same. I wanted to tell you that next week or thereabouts I’m going to get a room in the flat where Mark and Digby live.’ ‘Oh, but what will Catherine do?’ ‘Well, she’ll be as she was before we met, I suppose.’

‘Surely not quite that?*

‘No, perhaps not quite. I meant she’ll live by herself as she used to. She was always quite happy you know, she’s a very solitary person, really.’

‘Yes, she may have been, but now perhaps she’ll be just lonely, and I couldn’t bear that. Though, she did say—don’t you remember—that the loneliness of men was so much worse than the loneliness of women?’ Deirdre looked up at Tom, distressed and puzzled, hoping for reassurance.

Tom thought with irritation, how like Catherine to say a thing like that, for surely the loneliness of a woman abandoned by her lover is the worst of all? She probably hadn’t been thinking of that and of course it
wasn’t
that.
She
had driven
him
away, really, when it came to the point, and so far he hadn’t even done his packing. Perhaps he wouldn’t go after all. Suddenly it all seemed unbearably complicated.

Deirdre, noticing how the bright sun showed up the lines of strain and weariness round his eyes and mouth, put her hand gently on his arm and said, ‘Perhaps you’re right. After all Catherine isn’t so very young, and she has lots of interests and her writing.’

Tom’s face cleared, ‘Ah, yes,’ he said with an air of relief, ‘she has her writing. Of course she isn’t really a very
good
writer.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Deirdre with unusual firmness. ‘When people write, they feel they’re doing something creative and worth while and that’s supposed to make up for everything else. Perhaps she doesn’t really care about anything but that.’

‘No, I don’t think she does,’ said Tom more comfortably. ‘All the same, I
shall
worry about her a little.’

‘Oh, naturally,’ said Deirdre, feeling it a little unfair that to the worry of Tom’s thesis should now be added the worry of Catherine, abandoned and perhaps lonely. ‘But she’s such a strong character.’

‘Yes, she’s certainly that,’ Tom agreed.

‘What did you say to her?’

‘I didn’t have to say much. She guessed that I might want to make a change,’ he frowned over these last words, for he had not meant to commit himself when he really had no idea what he did intend to do except to move away from Catherine’s flat. ‘She saw us in the restaurant.’

At this point voices were heard outside the door, the loud ringing tones of Professor Mainwaring and Miss Clovis, and a soft rather fluttery woman’s voice which could not be identified.

The door opened. Deirdre and Tom moved quickly away from each other.

‘Now here is the little room we use for—ah, I see it is already being used for just that purpose.’ Professor Mainwaring stood beaming in the doorway, his silvery beard glinting in the sun. Beside him stood Mrs. Foresight, in pink and mauve flowered crepe-de-chine and a straw hat trimmed with sweet peas; just behind them hovered Miss Clovis, in one of her better-looking grey flannel suits.

Tom and Deirdre, feeling a little foolish, stood up.

‘Two of our younger readers,’ said Professor Mainwaring, turning to Mrs. Foresight. ‘ We felt that we needed a small room where anthropologists—and linguists too—could discuss points that cropped up in connection with their work. You would hardly believe what problems
do
crop up where two or three anthropologists are gathered together. Isn’t that so, Mallow?’

Tom agreed that it was so.

‘I’m sure Mrs. Foresight would be interested to know what you have been discussing,’ Professor Mainwaring went on.

‘Housing, mostly,’ said Tom smoothly. He turned to Mrs. Foresight with his charming smile. ‘When a man wants to take another wife he has to build her a separate hut, you know.’

‘How very sensible,’ said Mrs. Foresight, fixing him with her round blue eyes. ‘But I expect you have seen some very dreadful things
out there
,’ she breathed hopefully.

‘Well, I suppose they might be thought dreadful by the non-specialist,’ said Tom soothingly, ‘but we have to be detached, you know,’

‘And no expression of disgust, astonishment or amusement must show on the face of the investigator,’ recited Miss Clovis, who had once read this in an anthropologists’ manual.

‘I’m mainly interested in problems of local government, land tenure and that sort of thing,’ said Tom, ‘so I concentrate on those.’

Disappointment and relief showed themselves on Mrs. Foresight’s pink babyish face. ‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘I’m sure this young man wouldn’t be likely to write the kind of article that that nasty Professor Fairfax wrote in the magazine you sent me, would he?’ she asked, turning to Professor Mainwaring.

‘Oh, dear me, no!’ laughed the Professor merrily, giving his beard a sharp tweak. ‘ Mallow is doing valuable work which the Administration is finding most useful.
When
he publishes anything’—the quizzical look he threw at Tom took away the slight sting in his words—‘you can be sure it will be a model of dullness,
quite
unreadable, I should imagine.’

Tom gave an uncertain laugh.

‘And what is this young lady doing?’

Deirdre went rather pink and murmured that she was just a student, still reading for her degree.

‘And do you hope to go out and work among natives?’ Mrs. Foresight asked.

‘I don’t know, really, I expect so.’

‘A woman can be a great help out there,’ said Professor Mainwaring. ‘Many workers have found a wife a most useful asset, particularly if she has had the right kind of education.’

‘And a man needs love and companionship wherever he is,’ said Mrs. Foresight, a little reproachfully, seeming to address Miss Clovis whom she judged to be out of sympathy with this view.

‘I did not have that,’ said Professor Mainwaring in a rather high tone. ‘I wonder if my work has suffered from the lack of it?’

‘Oh, Professor, I’m sure many women must have been fond of you I’ said Mrs. Foresight in a playful, flirtatious manner. If she had been carrying a fan she would surely have tapped his arm with it.

‘Well, I think I can say that I have had my share of affection,’ he mused, seeming to be unconscious of his audience.

‘I expect Mrs. Foresight would like to see some of the applications for the Fellowships,’ said Miss Clovis rathei sharply. ‘Time is getting on, you know.’

‘Ah, and how it is!’ said Professor Mainwaring with a great gusty laugh, and, waving his hand in a friendly gesture to the young people, he escorted Mrs. Foresight and Miss Clovis out of the room.

‘Excellent, my dear Esther,’ he beamed, when Mrs. Foresight was washing her hands, ‘ to have those two in there, deep in discussion. A most happy touch, I could see that Minnie was deeply impressed. Mallow is very sound, you know,’ he added, as if Tom were a fruit suitable for bottling, though it is doubtful if he would have recognized the analogy. ‘Ah, my dear Minnie, now what do you say to a little luncheon? You’ve had a tiring morning, but I hope you haven’t been disappointed with what you have seen of our work here?’

‘No, indeed, I’ve been
most
impressed. And that charming young couple, so obviously in love, well, the girl, anyway. Perhaps women show it more than men. Romance among all these books—however much education of women there is, you can’t keep it out, can you… .’ Her blue eyes bulged sentimentally.

‘Is your chauffeur waiting down below, Mrs. Foresight, or did you tell him to call back for you?’ broke in Miss Clovis.

‘Oh, I expect he’s waiting,’ said Mrs. Foresight in the vague but confident tone of one who never has to worry about getdng to places or to rely on the uncertainties of public transport. ‘Will you be joining us for lunch, Miss Clovis?’

‘No, I am really much too busy,’ said Miss Clovis, who had not been invited.

‘Then perhaps we should go now,’ said Mrs. Foresight, sounding relieved. She had not really taken to Miss Clovis, who seemed to her hard and unwomanly, always breaking in on what promised to be a rather delightful conversation with Professor Mainwaring with some grimly practical suggestion.

Mrs. Foresight’s car, old-fashioned but of the best make and beautifully kept, was waiting in the street below. As they approached, the chauffeur stuffed the Communist newspaper he had been reading into his pocket, hurried to open the back door and, although it was a warm day, arranged a light rug over Mrs. Foresight’s knees. Professor Mainwaring took his seat beside her, and dangled before her the names of a few expensive restaurants for her consideration. But in the end she chose the Ladies Annexe of his club, which was a learned and exclusive one and seemed to her to be on the threshold of those fascinating and unexplored academic circles which her late husband, with all his wealth, had never been able to penetrate.

The car moved off and went along rather slowly, as cars so often must in London. Mark and Digby, walking on the pavement, noticed Professor Mainwaring reclining against the pearl-grey upholstery, his hand on a silken cord, and with a silver vase of carnations nodding at his side.

‘If he threw out a handful of coins, would you demean yourself by struggling for them in the road?’ asked Digby.

‘I don’t suppose there would be any struggle,’ said Mark. ‘English people are embarrassed at that sort of thing. Everybody would just look the other way and hurry on. We should have the field to ourselves.’

Tom’s
 going was a distressing business, both for Catherine and for Tom himself. Catherine had never quite under, stood why it was so much more painful to see a man in tears than a woman; it couldn’t only be because they were supposed to be the stronger sex. She had long ago learned that men could and did cry, but perhaps she had never recovered from the first shock of that knowledge or acquired any adequate way of dealing with the situation in the meantime. So must a mother feel when her son goes to school, she thought, and was immediately reminded of a song of childhood:

Going to school, the cab’s at the door
,

Mother is waiting to kiss me once more
;

Father looks sad and gives me a tip
,

Poor little Maty is pouting her
lip
.. .

So strong did this impression become that she found herself humming the tune as she walked from room to room, gathering up Tom’s possessions and helping him to pack them. She could no more prevent his going now than a mother could hold her child back from school.

They had spent a sleepless and unhappy night and in the morning Tom had said, with a sideways pleading glance at her, that he didn’t feel awfully well and thought he might have a temperature. Perhaps the little boy had hoped that he might awake with a rash, to be diagnosed as measles or chicken-pox, thought Catherine, hardening her heart.

‘You know I haven’t a thermometer,’ she said, ‘but if you’re
really
ill, of course you must stay in bed. I suppose we could unpack some of the things.’

‘No, I suppose I must be all right really.’ He glanced round the room. ‘It seems to look just the same, even with my things gone, doesn’t it.’

‘Well, it won’t look quite the same to me.’

‘Oh, Catty, don’t..

‘It will be tidier, for one thing.’

He smiled weakly. ‘ You’re so much braver than I am. I don’t believe you mind all this at all.’

‘I do mind. I was very fond of you, but we can’t both be in tears.’

‘Aren’t you still fond of me? No, I suppose I can’t expect that now—and you said I’d never really understood you.’

‘Oh, that doesn’t really matter—people make a lot too much of it. Who understands anybody, if it comes to that?’

‘We haven’t many interests in common.’

Catherine laughed. ‘No, I suppose we didn’t sit by the fire in the evenings doing fretwork or poring over our collections of butterflies.’

‘We mocked at each other’s work,’ said Tom rather hopelessly.

‘That may be, but it surely isn’t the point. You met Deirdre, that was what really mattered.’

‘Oh,
that:

‘Well, we can’t go into it now. We seem to have come to a parting of the ways, whatever the reason. Now look, I’ve mended all your socks and everything that could be washed is done. Are you going to get a taxi? I think you’ll have to. Shall I go out and find one? Everything seems to be ready now.’

Catherine hurried from the room, almost in tears, but she had managed to control herself by the time she came back to say that the taxi was waiting below.

‘What will you do now?’ Tom asked.

‘I’m having lunch with the editor of a magazine to whom I’m hoping to sell some articles, so I must get ready soon.’

‘I hope she gives you a good lunch.’

‘It’s a man.’

‘Do men edit women’s magazines—what an idea!’