No Fond Return of Love (4 page)

‘Yes, later,’ said Dulcie, ‘but I must do something about the plums. I’ve been worrying about them all the week-end.’

‘Oh, a garden’s a responsibility,’ sighed Miss Lord. ‘The fruits of the earth… Harvest festival soon. Will you be sending something along to the church?’ she asked deliberately.

The same question was asked every autumn and the same answer given, for Dulcie was not a regular churchgoer and Miss Lord was.

‘I don’t think so,’ Dulcie said, ‘but if you’d like to take anything, please do. Plums or apples, and flowers, of course.’

‘So kind of you, Miss Mainwaring. Of course we have no garden and one does like to do one’s bit. I suppose I could bake a loaf, but anything to do with
yeast
is so troublesome, isn’t it. One never knows… A year or two ago we did have a loaf in church, quite a beautiful thing, a fancy shape, plaited. But do you know,’ she lowered her voice, ‘it was made of
plaster
. I thought that very wrong. You couldn’t send a plaster loaf to the hospital, could you.’

‘I suppose not – it would indeed be a case of asking for bread and being given a stone.’

‘Well, Miss Mainwaring, it would be being given plaster, wouldn’t it. It was when we had the new vicar, the one who wanted us to call him Father – that, on top of the plaster loaf! Well, we com-plained to the Bishop, and could you blame us?’

‘No, change is a bad thing on the whole,’ said Dulcie. ‘You know that my niece Laurel is coming to live here soon, don’t you?’

‘Your sister’s eldest child? Yes, Miss Mainwaring, you did mention it. Which room is she to have?’

‘I thought the big back room would be best.’

‘The room Mrs Mainwaring had?’ asked Miss Lord in a hushed tone.

‘Yes, I think it’s better that it should be used again now. I thought we might do something about it the next time you come. We could put the big bed in the spare room and move in one of the divans; and then she will want a bookcase.’

‘All this reading,’ said Miss Lord. ‘I used to like a book occasionally, but I don’t get time for it now.’

‘I took my degree in English Literature,’ said Dulcie, almost to herself.

‘But what does it lead to, Miss Mainwaring?’

‘I don’t know exactly. Of course learning is an end in itself, and a subject like English Literature can give one a good deal of pleasure.’

‘Yes, I suppose it’s nice,’ said Miss Lord doubtfully.

‘One can always teach,’ Dulcie went on, ‘or get some other kind of job.’

‘Like you do, Miss Mainwaring, with all those cards and bits of paper spread out on the floor.’ Miss Lord laughed, a light derisive laugh.

Dulcie felt humbled and went on in silence picking out the over-ripe plums from the not so ripe.

‘I think I’ll stew these for this evening,’ she said. ‘I’ll put them on now.’

As she worked, Dulcie planned Laurel’s room. The old blue velvet curtains were rather drab and faded, though they kept out the draughts in winter and the room seemed cosy when they were drawn. Perhaps a modern print would be gayer and more suitable for a young girl… What dreary thoughts to have on a fine afternoon, she told herself, ashamed even of the language in which they had framed themselves. It must be the contact with poor Miss Lord or the thought of herself as an aunt responsible for a niece. Laurel’s mother, Dulcie’s sister Charlotte, lived in Dorset, where her husband Robin was headmaster of a grammar school and curator of the local museum in his spare time. Laurel was the eldest of their three children and had just left school. Dulcie imagined herself trying to cope with the mysterious moods of adolescence, lying awake worrying when Laurel was out late. She was not looking forward to it very much, but it seemed inevitable that the girl should come to live with her. She could hardly have stayed in digs or a hostel when she had an aunt in London, or so Charlotte thought.

Through the trees and the fence at the end of the garden Dulcie could see her neighbour, Mrs Beltane, sitting in a flowery dress in a flowery canvas chair from Harrods, watching her hose watering the lawn with its special spray attachment. She was an elegant blue-haired, stiffly-moving woman of about sixty, who imagined herself to have seen better days. At least, this was the implication, for she had let the top floor of her house as a flat to a Brazilian gentleman, a diplomat admittedly, and she never tired of reminding people that of course she would never have done such a thing in ‘the old days’.

Senhor MacBride-Pereira – for he was, like many Brazilians, of mixed nationality – was a nice person, Dulcie thought. He was in his late fifties, rather fat, with soft brown eyes and a delightful smile. He spoke English well and was steeped in English ways and conventions. ‘To be a foreigner is bad enough,’ he would lament, ‘and perhaps to be an American, too, but to be a Latin-American – that is really terrible!’

This afternoon he sat by Mrs Beltane, playing with Felix, the little grey poodle, and talking in his musical voice. Dulcie could not hear what he was saying, but occasionally Mrs Beltane’s silvery laugh was heard tinkling out. In spite of the come-down of having to take a lodger, she enjoyed his company: but there was no risk of scandal, for her two children Paul and Monica lived at home.

Dulcie crept to the fence with a dish of plums in her hand. She did not like to interrupt her neighbours too suddenly, but preferred to stand for a while pretending to tie up the dahlias, then, if they did not notice her, she would creep away with her dish.

‘Why, Miss Mainwaring,’ called out Mr; Beltane in a gracious tone, ‘how splendid your dahlias are!’

‘I was wondering if you’d like a few plums,’ said Dulcie.

‘Plums?’ Mrs Beltane sounded as puzzled as if she had been offered some rare tropical fruit. ‘But how kind. One can always do with
plums
.’

‘Are they Elvas plums?’ asked Senhor MacBride-Pereira.

‘Well, no, plums off this tree,’ said Dulcie, gesticulating vaguely. ‘I think they’re Victoria plums.’

‘Ah,
Victoria
plums,’ echoed Senhor MacBride-Pereira with deep satisfaction. ‘My grandfather was at Balmoral once. That was before he came to Sao Paulo, of course.’

Mrs Beltane had advanced towards the fence to receive the dish, which was an ordinary glass casserole.

‘They will look delightful on my Rockingham fruit plates,’ she said. ‘What beautiful ones they are! And how did you enjoy your conference?’

‘Oh, it was great fun!’ said Dulcie enthusiastically, and then began to wonder if it had been exactly that. ‘A lot of people doing the same kind of thing always find plenty to talk about,’ she explained, conscious that this was a dreary description.

‘I never remember what it is that you do, exactly,’ said Mrs Beltane graciously. ‘Some kind of secretarial work, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, you might call it that, really. I do odd jobs for people.’

‘And did you meet anyone nice at this conference?’ asked Mrs Beltane, her tone rising a little with expectancy.

‘There were some nice people there, and interesting people too,’ said Dulcie, wondering if the two qualifications could go together. ‘Aylwin Forbes,’ she said, pronouncing his name with conscious pleasure. ‘He’s very well known in certain circles,’ she added quickly, sensing Mrs Beltane’s boredom. ‘And a very attractive young woman called Viola Dace.’

‘Oh, I see. Dace. Isn’t that a kind of fish?’

‘I don’t know, perhaps it is. I haven’t ever had it.’

‘Not to eat, but I think it is a fish. Senhor MacBride-Pereira, isn’t dace a kind offish?’

He smiled and spread out his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘Perhaps it is eaten by Roman Catholics here?’ he suggested.

Dulcie felt a sense of unreality coming over her, as she often did when in conversation with her neighbours. It was one of their chief charms, their being so out of touch with everyday life and reminding her of England in the ‘twenties or Sao Paulo in the ‘nineties.

Later that evening Dulcie looked up Viola Dace in the telephone directory, but could not find her name. Then she looked up Aylwin Forbes. He lived in the Holland Park or Notting Hill area to judge by the address – 5 Quince Square, W.11. I might see him one day, Dulcie thought. She imagined herself in various places but could not exactly visualize the meeting. Perhaps, she told herself with a quicken-ing of excitement, it would have to be contrived. Women were often able to arrange things that men would have thought impossible.

ONE isn’t safe anywhere, thought Aylwin Forbes, turning his head away quickly. He had just spent a fruitless morning discussing his matrimonial affairs with his solicitor, and now this had happened.

And yet it had been a small harmless incident with no danger apparent in it. He had been walking through the Temple, and, attracted by the fine weather, had made a slight diversion into the gardens in front of Temple station which were now full of office workers enjoying their lunch hour in the sunshine. They sat crowded together on seats among the dahlias, reading books and newspapers, holding hands, talking, or doing nothing. Those who had found no seat lay sprawled on the grass, some prudently on newspapers or macintoshes, others not caring or asking themselves if the grass might be damp after yesterday’s rain. And among these last he had suddenly noticed Viola Dace, sitting upright, her hands clasped around her knees, her face raised to the sun. He had looked at her with curiosity before he recognized her, for his attention had been drawn to her feet in red canvas laced-up shoes, which he thought distinctly odd. That was why he had not realized at first who she was, for such a lapse of taste was not to be expected of the Viola he knew, though Vi or Violet might well have been capable ofit.

He hurried past her and into the station. As he sighed with relief and bought his ticket to South Kensington, he wondered what she had been doing there in such unlikely surroundings. Had she become a little eccentric, even unhinged, sitting on the grass in red canvas shoes with office workers, apparently worshipping the sun? Could it be for love of him that she did this strange thing? He looked around him, as if the faces of the people surging up the stairs from a train which had just come in might give him the answer. And among the faces, he saw one that was vaguely familiar. It was a fair pleasant face and the sight of it reminded him of that unfortunate lecture where he had made such an exhibition of himself. But he could not put a name to the face, and in a moment he had forgotten all about it and his thoughts had gone forward to the Victoria and Albert Museum where he planned to spend the afternoon.

Dulcie was half annoyed and half amused to find that the sight of him gave her a fluttery disturbed feeling in the pit of her stomach – what people called ‘butterflies’, she believed. He had looked preoccupied and a little worried, but then people usually did when they were caught unawares. She noticed that he had been carrying an
Evening Standard
, and it gave her an insight into his character to see that he was the kind of person who bought an evening paper at lunch-time, thus spoiling his evening’s pleasure, or so she thought. She might almost have spoken, but the encounter had been over so quickly. And what would she have said?

She had had a busy morning, shopping for curtain material for Laurel’s room and ordering a bookcase and desk to make the room more useful and attractive. But somehow it made her feel old and depressed to be doing this for a nearly grown-up niece. Then, at Oxford Circus, she had seen a new and particularly upsetting beggar selling matches; both legs were in irons and he was sitting on a little stool, hugging himself as if in pain. She had given him sixpence and walked quickly on, telling herself firmly that there was no need for this sort of thing now, with the Welfare State. But she still felt disturbed, even at the idea that he might be sitting by his television set later that evening, no longer hugging himself as if in pain. Such a way of earning one’s living seemed even more degrading than making indexes for other people’s bocks or doing bits of hack research in the British Museum and the Public Record Office. It was for the latter that she was bound this afternoon, and the chance sight of Aylwin Forbes made her feel, in an obscure and illogical way, that there was perhaps something in research after all. She decided to walk through the gardens in front of Temple station where there were always such lovely flowers.

Viola was still sitting in the sun. Just as Dulcie had felt that there was something in research after all, so Viola felt that there was something to be said for the unintellectual, even pagan, way of life – sun worship, nudism, even something really cranky. She opened her eyes and fixed them on her red canvas shoes, so ugly, really, but comfortable for walking about and looking at City churches, which was what she intended to do that afternoon. It was not the kind of occupation in which she was likely to meet anyone that she knew, so it didn’t matter what shoes she wore, or that her cotton dress would be crushed from sitting on the grass.

‘Why, hullo – surely it’s Viola Dace, isn’t it?’

Viola looked up suspiciously, not realizing who had spoken to her. Then she saw Dulcie standing over her, smiling, carrying a shopping-bag full of books and a brown-paper parcel.

‘What a good idea to sit here,’ she said, flopping down on the grass beside Viola, the books spilling out of her bag. ‘I think I’ll join you for a minute, if you don’t mind.’

Viola could hardly say that she did mind, but she was not particularly anxious to see Dulcie again. I am unlovable, she thought, and unfriendly. When some nice well-meaning woman comes up to me my instinct is to shrink away.

‘I was just going,’ she said ungraciously. ‘There’s no good place to lunch round here so I brought sandwiches and ate them in the open air with all the office workers.’ She laughed self-consciously, dissociating herself from them.

‘Poor things, I suppose they’ll have to hurry back soon,’ said Dulcie. ‘Now tell me what you’ve been doing since we last met.’

Viola shrank even further into her shell at this disconcerting question. What, indeed,
had
she been doing?

‘I’ve written a couple of articles,’ she lied, ‘and I’m thinking of writing a novel. It seems more worthwhile than doing research,’ she added provocatively.