Authors: Barbara Pym
‘It does seem an odd use for Latin,’ said Miss Clovis thoughtfully, ‘to avoid giving offence to those who probably cannot understand it anyway. I suppose Greek could be used too.’
‘Indeed, it has been. My own study of certain unusual relationships in a primitive society had a good deal of Greek in it, and I believe it
was
Greek to a good many people. Did I not give you an offprint?-1911 or 1912 I think it was published.’
‘No, you didn’t.’ It seemed unnecessary to point out that she would have been only eight or nine years old at the time.
‘Oh, then I will—I believe I still have a few left. Now to business. I shall write to Minnie and do the best I can. Perhaps dinner and a theatre, or a box at Covent Garden; she is fond of opera, I know.’
‘There is a fine production of
Aida
in the repertoire this season,’ suggested Miss Clovis.
‘
Not
that, I think. Nothing with negroes or dark-skinned peoples in it; we should try to keep her mind off such things for the moment.
Madame Butterfly
, also, might suggest unsuitable behaviour on the part of anthropologists in the field …’ Professor Mainwaring seemed to be enjoying himself now, picking out suitable and unsuitable operas and Miss Clovis had to bring him back to reality rather sharply, ‘We ought to do something about the Foresight grants,’ she said.
‘Oh, that is all under control. You notice that Minnie wants to pay us another visit here? We must try to make a particularly good impression. Now that little room on the first floor—it seemed father bare when I looked into it the other day, not
quite
worthy, I felt.’
‘It
is
bare,’ said Miss Clovis shortly. ‘There is nothing in it at all except for that antler hat-stand you gave us.’
‘Do you find that visitors leave their hats on it?’ asked the Professor in an interested tone. ‘I have noticed that many young anthropologists don’t seem to wear hats. Perhaps they like to feel the breeze in their hair.
Rolling along
On the Tongchidderongtong’
he sang gaily. ‘There is a river of that name, somewhere in the Sudan, if I remember rightly. Now what about this horsehair sofa? You don’t really need it here, it would fill up a good deal of space and no doubt you have an odd table and one or two chairs you could spare. I have a splendid mahogany sideboard at home, an ugly piece but the wood is very fine.’
‘Well, I hardly think a sideboard would be suitable here.’
‘No, perhaps not, visitors might expect us to fill it. It’s just that we don’t want dear Minnie to feel that we have squandered her money by taking a larger house than is necessary.’
‘I will arrange the room somehow,’ said Miss Clovis. ‘And now
what
about the research grants? I have had the applications for some time now.’
‘And I have been meditating on them. I thought it would be pleasant to invite the candidates down to my house one weekend, to stay, you know. I thought it might bring out something more than the conventional type of interview.’
‘It might indeed,’ said Miss Clovis a little doubtfully. After he had gone she decided to get the sofa moved there and then, while she still remembered it, and went to the library to see whether there were any strong-looking young men reading there. She rejected Brandon Pirbright and Jean-Pierre le Rossignol as being too elegandy dressed to move furniture, and a small nervous-looking clergyman was obviously too fragile for the task. Those two solid young Englishmen, Mark Penfold and Digby Fox, were the obvious choice. She beckoned to them mysteriously. They looked rather startled and hesitated for a moment, but at last one pushed the other forward and they went to the door together.
‘How would you like to move some furniture?’ asked Miss Clovis in a jolly tone.
Fortunately the honest answer did not spring immediately to their lips, and Digby even managed to murmur that they would be delighted. So it was that they found themselves struggling with the awkward bulk of the horsehair sofa down a narrow flight of stairs.
‘Do you think this will do instead of that other little scheme of ours?’ panted Mark, as they rested on a difficult corner.
‘What scheme?’
‘You know, the lunch.’
‘Oh, that. Well, it might, but I think the lunch would somehow drive it home better, don’t you? When people have eaten food you’ve paid for they’re under a certain obligation to you, after all.’
‘Are they? Then it’s a pity girl friends don’t realize that a little more often,’ said Mark bitterly.
‘You sound as if you were always taking girls out and buying meals for them. I shouldn’t think it’s happened within living memory, has it?’
‘Let’s not get off the point. Will you ask Miss Clovis, or shall I?’
‘Both together, that would be the thing.’
At this point, as may often happen when two people are carrying a heavy and unwieldy object, the young men dissolved into helpless laughter, so that they were forced to sit down on the stairs with the sofa stuck between them.
‘It would probably have been easier upside down,’ said Digby weakly. ‘Look, it’s to go in this little room. I wonder why?’
‘I
don’t think it’s our business to speculate,’ said Mark primly. ‘ Shall we tidy ourselves up a bit and then go and ask Miss Clovis?’
They approached her door rather nervously and seemed to fall through it both together.
‘We were wondering if you would have lunch with us one day, Miss Clovis,’ said Mark in an indistinct hurrying tone.
‘Yes, we were wondering,’ Digby added.
‘Lunch? But how nice,’ said Miss Clovis.
‘When would you be free?’ Digby asked.
‘Why, today, and now,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘No time like the present! It’s nearly half past twelve.’
‘Oh, that’s fine,’ said Mark, wondering if Digby had any money on him. They had not imagined that she would accept their invitation so promptly; indeed, they had felt that a little nearer the time of the board to decide the Foresight grants would have been more appropriate.
As they went out into the street, the tall gaunt figure of Miss Lydgate was seen approaching on the other side. She waved and called out to them so that they were forced to stop until she could cross the street.
‘Come and join the party, Gertrude,’ said Miss Clovis. ‘We are going to have lunch.’
Mark and Digby looked at each other in consternation. This was not at all what they had planned.
‘I have nearly a pound,’ muttered Digby.
‘I’ve only three shillings,’ said Mark. ‘I dare say we can manage between us. Where would you like to go, îfiss Clovis?’ he asked, raising his voice. ‘Have you a favourite restaurant near here?’
‘Let me see now,’ Miss Clovis seemed to be considering the matter in an ominously thoughtful way, ‘there are so many places. Somewhere where we shall get plenty to eat, of course. What do you think, Gertrude?’
‘This place is rather good,’ she said, stopping outside a reasonably modest-looking restaurant which had a menu up outside. Reading it, Digby noticed with relief that some of the prices were modest too. He hoped Mark would have the sense to order Chipolata Sausage Toad (2,‘2) or Braised Tripe (2,’-) and not go off the deep end with Steak and Chips (5,‘6). He supposed Clovis and Lydgate would want that; they looked like the kind of women who would eat red meat, he thought resentfully.
Inside, the restaurant was full of business men who were joking with the waitresses. Mark cunningly chose a table served by a particularly pretty girl, in case, he thought vaguely, there was any difficulty about the bill. She might let them go away and bring the money back later.- He could leave his watch as security.
‘Now,’ said Miss Clovis, a little too quickly for Digby, who had been going to say the same thing, ‘ what are we all going to have?’
‘I expect you’d like some soup or hors-d’ceuvres first, wouldn’t you?’ suggested Mark smoothly.
‘Well, I don’t know, really. What ar
tyou
going to have?’ She turned to Mark who had been studying the menu intently. He had done even better than Digby and had discovered, right at the bottom, Macaroni Cheese (1,‘9). ‘I don’t eat meat or fish,’ he said, ‘so my choice won’t be very helpful.’
Digby looked a little surprised.
‘Are you a vegetarian?’ asked Miss Lydgate in an interested tone. ‘I have great sympathy with those who are, though I am not one myself.’
‘No, not exactly,’ mumbled Mark. ‘I have eaten meat. I am not what you’d call a big eater, really.’
f
Oh, we are,’ said Miss Clovis cheerfully. ‘I think I should like the steak and chips and perhaps another vegetable too, runner beans, I think.’
‘Yes, so will I,’ said Miss Lydgate. ‘What is the secret of making CHIPS?’ Her normally loud voice seemed to have increased in volume so that it could be heard throughout the restaurant. ‘Potatoes are OVAL or ROUND. Chips are RECTANGULAR. I don’t see at all how it is done.’
‘I think you cut the potatoes in thick slices and then into strips,’ said Digby. ‘I have watched my mother do it.’
‘So that is it. I must remember that—first in thick slices, then in strips. Now what arejou going to eat?’
‘Oh, braised tripe for me,’ said Digby hurrying over the words distastefullv.
‘Well, I really think you boys ought to have something more nourishing after the hard work you had moving that sofa,’ said Miss Clovis, ‘bat I suppose you know best. Now, what about something to drink.’
‘Oh, yes, what would you like?’ asked Digby politely.
‘Guinness is very strengthening, let’s have that.’
‘I think I should prefer a glass of lemon squash,’ said Miss Lydgate.
This was a relief, if only a slight one, Digby felt, as he assured Miss Clovis that he and Mark never drank in the middle of the day.
‘I feel one shouldn’t go into learned sociétés or libraries smelling of drink,’ said Mark, at his most prim. ‘It might create the wrong impression.’
‘Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Miss Clovis, sipping her dark foamy drink. ‘I don’t suppose anyone would notice. Of course it’s all right for librarians to smell of drink,’ she added jovially.
‘Of course,’ said Digby enthusiastically. ‘But you see we are in a different position, more on show, as it were. We feel that we must be on our best behaviour.’
‘I am sure you are always well-behaved,’ said Miss Clovis with unusual warmth. ‘You were most helpful to me this morning.’
The young men looked pleased. They all finished their first course and ordered the next. Miss Clovis and Miss Lydgate had Apple Pie with Ice Cream; Mark and Digby declared that they were passionately fond of Jelly. Afterwards the ladies had coffee but the young men declined it.
‘It might keep us awake in Dr. Vere’s lecture,’ joked Digby.
‘Oh, that would never do!’ chortled Miss Clovis.
The bill was brought and Digby took out his pound note, but Miss Clovis pushed it back into his hand and snatched the bill from him.
‘I shouldn’t dream of letting you pay,’ she said indignandy. “This is to be our treat, isn’t it, Gertrude?’
‘Certainly,’ said Miss Lydgate. ‘Young men shouldn’t be expected to take middle-aged women out to lunch.’
‘Well, it’s very kind of you,’ said Digby, not quite knowing what attitude to take.'
‘We have had the pleasure of your company,’ said Mark with an effort. ‘But we really did mean to take you out,’ he added, thinking of the three shillings in his pocket.
They walked out into the street together. It appeared then that Miss Clovis and Miss Lydgate had some shopping to do, so that Mark and Digby were soon left alone.
‘Quite a new side of you came out today,’ said Digby, turning to his friend with a laugh. “The abstainer from drink and flesh foods. A rather noble character, I feel.’
‘Yes, things didn’t go quite as we’d meant them to, did they? Still, it wasn’t really our fault and I think we left quite a good general impression. I felt almost that a joking relationship had been established.’
‘Yes, there could be such a thing between a young man and a middle-aged woman, but it would need careful handling. I rather wish I had known beforehand that they were going to pay for the lunch, though.’
‘Yes, I don’t think I should have chosen macaroni cheese and jelly, if I’d known that.’
‘Well,’ said Digby, pausing outside the decorated glass door of a saloon bar, ‘we’ve still got the money we should have spent on our lunch if we’d had any.’
They were soon swallowed up into the warm smoky atmosphere, and decided, half an hour later, that perhaps it wasn’t worth going to Vere’s lecture after all.
Tom
, the bay leaf I’m putting in this
bœuf à
la mode
was plucked from a tree growing in the garden of Thomas Hardy’s birthplace,’ Catherine called from the kitchen. She did not really expect an answer and indeed none came from Tom, sitting hunched over his typewriter, so she went on, almost to herself, ‘I wonder if it’s
wrong
of me to use it for cooking? Perhaps I ought to have pressed it in
Jude
the Obscure
, or the poems, that would have been more suitable. Those sad couples he writes about seem to me a bit like us, sometimes. I wonder if, when I’m old, you’ll offer me the hand of friendship down life’s sunless hill, or whatever it was. Will you?’ she raised her voice.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, sweetie,’ said Tom in an abstracted tone.
Catherine turned back silently to her beef. Oh, what joy to get a real calf’s foot from the butcher, she thought, and not to have to cheat by putting in gelatine. The small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things, she decided, wondering how many writers and philosophers had said this before her, the trivial pleasures like cooking, one’s home, little poems especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard. Tom’s long absence abroad had turned her in upon herself and her own resources which had always been considerable. Their eighteen months apart had made them grow more like themselves, so that now they seemed almost more like strangers than when they had first met.