Less Than Angels (18 page)

Deirdre found herself resenting this slightly patronizing air. Phyllis seemed to be able to bring out a side of Tom that she herself had never seen, gay and flirtatious, the last person one would imagine brooding over a thesis. Oh, blessed ignorance of anthropology, she thought rather bitterly, yet feeling that this might not be the whole answer. Bernard never
looked
at another woman, she told herself defiantly, like an outraged Edwardian dowrager. In spite of everything she smiled.

‘Sweetie, what’s your private joke?’ said Tom in a low voice.

‘I was watching you being flirtatious,’ she said happily.

‘Yes, isn’t it odd, I find I can still do it,’ said Tom. ‘I hear Alaric Lydgate is expected. Isn’t that his voice in the hall?’

Alaric came into the room, looking sombre and a little uncertain of himself.

Rhoda fussed round him and then said in a loud bright voice, ‘You will have to be careful what you write, Tom. Mr. Lydgate was in Africa for
eleven years?
She gave the last words a curious and slightly drunken emphasis. It had been naughty of Malcolm to refill her glass when she wasn’t looking. Especially now that Father Tulliver had come into the room, wearing a black suit of the finest and smoothest clerical material which seemed to give point to the expression ‘the cloth’.

He accepted a glass of Malcolm’s cocktail and then drew Rhoda aside into a place by the window, where he began talking to her in a low intimate tone. Like so many clergymen he had of necessity acquired that easy confidence in dealing with unmarried middle-aged women which is not often granted to the layman.

‘It was so good of you to respond to my appeal,’ he said. ‘I
knew
it would not fall on deaf ears. I said to myself, ” Either Miss Wellcome or Mrs. Swan will help me out “.’

‘I felt it was the least I could do,’ said Rhoda. ‘I do hope Mrs. Tulliver is making good progress.’

‘Excellent, thank you. She is gaining strength every day. It was really her idea that I should put that little note in the magazine. Perhaps it would not have come well from the pulpit,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘ but something had to be done. I hadn’t a clean alb left and I’m not much of a hand at laundering,’ he laughed, with the confidence of one who has never tried and does not intend to. ‘You have a good drying ground at the back of the house, I suppose?’

‘Yes, I shall hang the albs in the yard,’ Rhoda pronounced solemnly. ‘Of course we don’t hang washing in the garden
itself.
It wouldn’t do here. People wouldn’t like it; although our neighbour Mrs. Lovell isn’t always guiltless in that respect.’

‘Oh, certainly, I understand that some garments might not look well in a garden, but something of an ecclesiastical nature, surely that might be condoned?’

‘The Lovells are not churchpeople,’ Rhoda declared. ‘I doubt if they would realize that the washing was of an—er—ecclesiastical nature.’ She had found the last two words rather difficult to pronounce and hoped that Father Tulliver hadn’t noticed. It was a good thing, she felt, that her sister Mabel should appear at this moment and summon the party to the dining-room.

The problem of food had been difficult, for both Mabel and Rhoda had the rather old-fashioned idea that the presence of a clergyman at their table called for a bird of some kind. Cold chickens had seemed the obvious choice, but Deirdre had upset their plans by declaring one morning that you couldn’t possibly give chicken to people who had lived in Africa because they ate practically nothing else there and would think it so dull. Therefore a selection of more exotic cold meats had been provided to go with Father Tulliver’s chickens and the artistic salads which Rhoda had made.

‘Now I suppose you Africanists won’t want chicken,’ said Malcolm breezily, the carving implements poised in his hands.

‘What
do
people eat in Africa?’ asked Mabel earnestly.

‘The Hadzapi tribe will eat anything that is edible except for the hyena,’ declared Alaric precisely.

‘Oh, well…’ Mabel spread out her hands in a hopeless little gesture.

‘The butcher wouldn’t offer you hyena, anyway,’ giggled Phyllis.

‘Most African tribes are very fond of meat when they can get it,’ said Tom.

‘Yes, and many of them relish even putrescent meat,’ said Alaric solemnly.

‘Do they understand the principles of cooking as we know it?’ asked Rhoda.

‘Oh, yes, a good many of them do,’ said Alaric. ‘In some very primitive societies, though, they would just fling the unskinned carcase on the fire and hope for the best,’

‘Yes, like that film of the Australian aborigines we saw at the Anthropology Club,’ said Deirdre. ‘They flung a kangaroo on the fire and cooked it like that,’

‘Now who would like some potato salad?’ said Rhoda, feeling that there was something a little unappetizing about the conversation. She had imagined that the presence of what she thought of as clever people would bring about some subtle change in the usual small talk. The sentences would be like bright jugglers’ balls, spinning through the air and being deftly caught and thrown up again. But she saw now that conversation could also be compared to a series of incongruous objects, scrubbing-brushes, dish-cloths, knives, being flung or hurtling rather than spinning, which were sometimes not caught at all but fell to the ground with resounding thuds. In the haze brought about by Malcolm’s cocktail, she saw the little dark-skinned aborigines, swinging the kangaroo by its legs and hurling it on to the fire. Certainly she had to admit that the conversation was
different
from what it usually was and perhaps that was the best that could be expected.

‘Have you published anything yet?’ Alaric asked Tom abruptly.

‘No, but I have a few articles nearly finished.’ Tom’s tone was evasive and he seemed as if he would like to change the subject.

‘I suppose you’ll be sending them somewhere soon,’ said Alaric, and then went on to name one or two journals much respected in the anthropological world.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Tom indifferently.

‘The editors will rewrite them—you must be prepared for that, they are quite unscrupulous you know. Even
I
have trouble with them sometimes.’

‘I should like to read some of your articles, Mr. Lydgate,’ said Rhoda. ‘Do you think I should enjoy them?’

Alaric laughed shortly. ‘I’m afraid one doesn’t look for enjoyment in our field,’ he said.

‘Of course one does get a certain amount from pointing out other people’s mistakes,’ said Tom. ‘That’s a recognized sport.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Alaric quite genially. ‘It reminds me of the ideal hobby for retired anthropologists. Can you guess what it is?’

Nobodv could.

‘Apiculture,’ he said, enjoying their puzzled expressions.

‘Bee-keeping,’ said Father Tulliver slowly. ‘Well, it is healthy and interesting, profitable too, I suppose.’

‘Bees in the bonnet,’ said Phyllis in her bright little voice. ‘Is that it?’

‘You’re quite right, that
is
what I meant.’

‘Have you hives at the bottom of your garden, Mr. Lydgate?’ asked Mabel politely. ‘That would be an ideal spot.’

The sentence fell with a thud amid general laughter and then there was a pause and Father Tulliver asked Alaric a question about missions.

‘Oddly enough,’ he said thoughtfully, as if it were a matter of surprise to him or even some kind of oversight on somebody’s part, ‘I have not had the call to the Mission Field. I have felt, wrongly perhaps, though I cannot judge that, that my work lay here.’

‘Oh, you couldn’t leave us, Father, not when you’ve got everything so nice, the services and all that,’ said Rhoda confusedly. ‘Whatever should we do?’

‘It might be just what you needed,’ said Father Tulliver on a stern note. ‘It might prove a testing time—to show what you were made of.’

Rhoda, thinking of the heavy wash she was about to undertake for him, felt that he was being a little unfair. Surely he could not feel that
she
had been found wanting in any way?

‘Of course we come of a missionary family,’ said Alaric, ‘and my sister had the call, at least I suppose it was that. She went out as a missionary originally but found that she was more interested in tongues than in souls. Perhaps the devil stepped in there.’

‘But surely a missionary ought to learn the language of the people he is seeking to evangelize,’ protested Father Tulliver. ‘I should say that the study of linguistics was an admirable thing.’

‘We met your sister that afternoon when we were having tea in the garden, didn’t we?’ said Rhoda.

‘Yes, I remember. And wasn’t there another young woman with you that afternoon—with dark hair and wearing a yellow dress? Miss Oliphant, I think you said her name was.’ Alaric spoke rather quickly as if he regretted having raised the subject.

‘Oh, yes, Catherine Oliphant,’ said Mabel. ‘Deirdre, we could have asked her to come tonight. I wish I’d thought of it.’

‘Well, it would have made the numbers wrong,’ said Deirdre in confusion.

‘We could have asked Bernard to put that right.’

Deirdre broke into nervous laughter.

‘Poor old Bernard,’ said Phyllis. ‘Tom, you’ve quite put Bernard’s nose out of joint, I’m afraid. But I expect you’re used to doing that, what with all the glamour of darkest Africa about you.’

‘I do hope you
won’t
go to the Mission Field, Father,’ said Rhoda, seeming to be brought back to the subject by the phrase Phyllis had used. ‘I really feel quite worried at the thought of it,’

‘Of course we don’t want Father Tulliver to go,’ said Malcolm, ‘but we ought not to stand in his way if he feels he ought to. You know that hymn.’

‘
O’er heathen lands afar
,
Thick darkness broodethyet’

said Mabel.

‘I expect that’s why the darkness
is
so thick, because our dear Father Tulliver hasn’t had a chance to dispel it,’ burst out Rhoda impulsively.

How silly Rhoda is, thought Deirdre, almost as if she were interested in Father Tulliver in a flirtatious way. She was as yet too young to have learned that women of her aunt’s age could still be interested in men; she would have many years to go before the rather dreadful suspicion came to her that one probably never does cease to be interested.

‘Well, I expect I shall find plenty of work to do here,’ said Father Tulliver, feeling that Malcolm’s words were almost forcing him to hurry to the U.M.C.A. headquarters. ‘And ot course there is Beatrice to consider.’

‘Ah, yes, poor Mrs. Tulliver. We were wondering if we could send some flowers or fruit to the nursing-home,’ said Mabel.

The talk seemed to quieten down now and was sustained on a more comfortable parochial level until the end of the meal. Alaric found himself with Father Tulliver and the two older women, while the young people went into the garden.

‘You should take Tom to see the river,’ said Malcolm rather pointedly. ‘It’s really the chief attraction of the neighbourhood. I expect he’d like a walk.’

‘I suppose they wanted to be alone,’ said Deirdre apologetically, as she and Tom made their way towards the tow-path.

‘That seems fair enough. I like your brother-he’s a capital fellow—as they say in Victorian novels,’ Tom added quickly, for it was a favourite phrase of Catherine’s and seemed to need explanation.

‘I can’t imagine you reading Victorian novels,’ said Deirdre doubtfully.

‘No, I don’t much. And here
is
the river, just at the bottom of the road. Isn’t that convenient?’

‘Well, it’s nice for the Boat Race, but it isn’t really a very pretty stretch of river. Would you like to walk along a little way?’

‘Yes, let’s do that.’

They walked in silence over the thick tufty grass, Deirdre a little in front of Tom as if she were showing him the way. It was beginning to get dark now and lights were showing over the other side of the water, giving a romantic continental atmosphere.

This is the place where the young men and women walk at night and are allowed a certain amount of licence, thought Tom in his detached anthropologist’s way. He pulled Deirdre towards him and almost ceremonially led her to a seat under some elderberry trees, covered with sickly-smelling creamy flowers.

‘I do love you so much,’ she said. ‘But women aren’t supposed to say that to men, are they?’

‘I don’t see why not.’ Tom had quite often had it said to him and had never been able to see why women had this almost superstitious fear of expressing their feelings in words. It made no difference in the long run, though it could sometimes be a little disturbing in the early stages of an affair, and of course they might well consider it unwise to show their hands so early in the game.

‘Because it might not be—reciprocal.’ She frowned over the technical term she had used but could feel him smiling in the dark.

‘I shouldn’t worry about that, if I were you.’

‘I suppose it’s like that French saying or whatever it is, about there being one who kisses and one who leans the cheek to be kissed,’

‘Let me set your mind at rest then,’

She was really very sweet, he thought, uncomplicated and honest; being with her took him back years and reminded him of Elaine, his first girl friend, whom he had known at home when he was eighteen. Catherine, being older, had already been too much of a personality in her own right, always wanting to make him conform to her idea of what he ought to be.

‘I suppose we ought to go back now,’ said Deirdre, sensing that he had somehow gone away from her.

‘Let’s stay a little longer,’ he said, smoothing her rough chrysanthemum-cut hair. ‘Aren’t you enjoying it?’

‘Oh
 
yes
.. ,’

The last time she had been kissed by the river was when she was with Bernard after her first meeting with Tom, she remembered. Poor Bernard, supposing he were to come along now. But it was usually in the daytime that she saw him here, coaching the sports club eight, riding his bicycle and shouting the esoteric rowing language through a megaphone.

The smell of the elder flowers reminded Tom of his childhood. There had been a bush in the garden, he supposed. Proust, he thought, that’s what Catherine would say.