Author: Barbara Pym
Category: Humorous
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In the hall Helena signed a book for us and we went upstairs to the library where the tea party was to be held. Everard Bone, looking elegant and rather cross, was standing by the door.
‘I thought you were never coming,’ he said to Helena, and then nodded ‘good afternoon’ to Rocky and me in a cursory way.
‘I think we had better retire to a corner and observe the Learned Society,’ said Rocky, guiding me over to where a table was spread with cups and saucers and plates of food.
‘What a lot of strange-looking people,’ I whispered.
‘Nobody seems to be eating yet,’ Rocky observed, ‘but I think we had better station ourselves near the food. I dare say these types are little better than primitive peoples when it comes to eating.’
‘My dear sir, I fear we are even worse,’ said an elderly man with a large head, who was standing near us. ‘The so-called primitive peoples have an elaborate order and precedence in eating but I’m afraid that when we get started it’s every man for himself.’
‘The survival of the fittest?’ Rocky suggested.
‘Yes, perhaps that is it. I hope we shall remember our manners sufficiently to offer refreshment to the ladies first,’ continued the old man, with a little bow in my direction. ‘Ah, here is our excellent Miss Clovis with the teapot.’ He turned away and busied himself with cups and saucers.
‘Do you think he is going to bring some to us?’ I asked Rocky.
‘Well, after what he has just said I should think he will surely bring you a cup of tea.’
But we were wrong, for he quickly helped himself to tea, collected an assortment of sandwiches and cakes on a plate and retired to the opposite corner of the room. We watched other elderly and middle-aged men doing the same, though one was held back by an imperious woman’s voice calling ‘Now, Herbert, no milk for Miss Jellink, remember!’
Rocky and I joined in a general scramble and took our spoils to a convenient bookcase where we could put our cups down on a shelf.
‘These are quite obviously the books that nobody reads,’ said Rocky, studying their titles. ‘But it’s a comfort to know that they are here if you ever should want to read them. I’m sure I should find them more entertaining than the more up-to-date ones. Wild Beasts and their Ways; Five Years with the Congo Cannibals; With Camera and Pen in Northern Nigeria; Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia. I wish people still wrote books with titles like that. Nowadays I believe it simply isn’t done to show a photograph of “The Author with his Pygmy Friends”—we have become too depressingly scientific.’
‘You might write a book about your adventures in Italy,’ I suggested. ‘It might well have such a title.’
We amused ourselves by discussing the variations on this theme and while we were in the middle of our fantasies Everard and Helena came up to us and began to point out some of the more eminent persons present. The President was a tall mild-looking old man with a white wispy beard, in which some crumbly fragments of meringue had lodged themselves. In his younger days he had apparently written some rather startling pamphlets about the nature of the universe.
‘I believe his father turned him out of the house,’ said Everard. ‘You see, he was a Methodist Minister and when he found out that his son was a militant atheist I suppose it became awkward.’
‘That old man an atheist!’ I exclaimed, unable to believe that anyone who looked so mild and benevolent should be what always sounded such a very wicked and startling thing. ‘But he looks so unlike that. More like a bishop, really.’
‘Or an old-fashioned picture of God,’ suggested Rocky. ‘I like to imagine the scene in the Victorian household, the father’s wrath and the mother’s tears, those dreadful scenes at the breakfast table. And yet, what does it all matter now? In a few years’ time they will all be together in Heaven.’
‘Oh, darling,’ said Helena impatiently, ‘how ridiculous you are. Afterwards I’ll introduce you to some of the really worthwhile people here. Apfelbaum, Tyrell Todd, and Steinartz from Yale—the new generation.’
‘They sound delightful,’ said Rocky gravely.
‘I think we should be going in,’ said Everard. ‘The President seems to be moving.’
We now followed them into a room adjoining the library where a number of people were already sitting. I noticed that the front rows were basket chairs and that one or two elderly men and women had settled themselves comfortably. One old man wore a purple muffler wound round his neck; an old woman took a piece of multi-coloured knitting from a raffia bag and began to work on it.
Rocky and I took our seats somewhere in the middle of the room on the harder chairs. The younger people sat here, girls with flowing hair and scarlet nails and youths with hair almost as flowing and corduroy trousers. I noticed one or two Americans, serious-looking young men with rimless glasses and open notebooks, and a group of Africans, talking in a strange language. There was a buzz of unintelligible conversation all around us.
‘What an interesting-looking lot of people,’ I said, ‘quite unlike anything I’m used to.’
‘You can understand people saying that it takes all sorts to make a world,’ said Rocky. ‘One wonders if quite so many sorts are necessary.’
‘It must be wonderful to have an interest in some learned subject,’ I said. ‘This seems to be a thing that old and young can enjoy equally.’
Rocky laughed. ‘I don’t think Helena or Everard would approve of that attitude. You make it sound like a game of golf. And remember, we aren’t here to enjoy ourselves. The paper will be long and the chairs hard. I think our ordeal is about to begin.’
The President had now risen to his feet and was introducing Helena and Everard in a vague little speech. It almost sounded as if he thought they were husband and wife, but he smiled so nicely through his wispy beard that nobody could possibly have taken offence. Everard and Helena sat to one side of him, while a stocky red-haired young man, who had been pointed out to us as the Secretary, took notes.
‘And now I will leave our young friends to tell their own tale,’ said the President. ‘Their paper is entitled . . .’ he fumbled with a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles and then read in a clear deliberate voice some words which conveyed so little to me at the time that I am afraid I have now forgotten them. Doubtless the title is recorded somewhere in the archives or minutes of the Learned Society.
I looked hopefully towards the lantern which stood at the back of the room, but it did not seem as if there were going to be any slides. The Americans’ pencils were poised over their notebooks, the elderly lady put down her knitting for a moment. Helena Napier stood up and began to speak. I can only say that she ‘began to speak’ for I very soon lost the thread of what she was saying and found myself looking round the room, studying my surroundings and companions.
The room was very high with a lincrusta ceiling and an elaborate mantelpiece of brawn-like marble. Long windows opened on to a balcony and through them I could just see the tender green of a newly unfolded tree in the square gardens. It seemed strange that we should all be sitting indoors on such a lovely day. But I must not look out of the window; this was a great occasion and I was a privileged person. It was certainly a pity that my lack of higher education made it impossible for me to concentrate on anything more difficult than a fairly straightforward sermon or committee meeting. Helena’s voice sounded so clear and competent that I was sure that what she was saying was of great value. Rocky must be very proud of her. I noticed the Americans writing furiously in their books. It was a pity I had not thought of reading up the subject a little; that would have been far more to the point than buying a new hat. It was humiliating to realise that everybody in the room but me understood and was able to take an intelligent interest in what Helena was saying. I fixed my eyes on her with a fresh determination to concentrate, but then my attention was distracted by the old lady with her knitting. I saw that the knitting drooped slackly from her hands and that her head was bowed forward on her breast. Then I saw it suddenly jerk up. She had
been asleep. This revelation gave me some comfort and I began looking round the room again, this time at the gold-lettered boards with the names of those who had won a particular medal or had been benefactors of the society in some way. I read down the list, fascinated. 1904—Herbert Franklin Crisp, 1905—Egfried Stummelbaum, 1906—Edward Ellis Darwin Rumble, 1907—Ethel Victoria Thorneycroft-Nollard . . . A woman, in 1907! What had she done to win this medal? What must she have been like? I imagined her in a long skirt, striding through the jungle, fearlessly questioning natives who had never before seen a white woman. A kind of Mary Kingsley, but perhaps even more remarkable in that she was an anthropologist, the kind of thing a woman would not naturally be, especially in 1907. Perhaps she was among the elderly people in the basket chairs, she might even be the one knitting and dozing. . . . I was so absorbed in my speculations that I did not notice that Helena had stopped speaking, until I was aware of Everard Bone standing up in her place and saying, as far as I could judge, very much the same sort of thing that Helena had already said. He spoke exceptionally well, hardly consulting his notes at all, and once or twice a ripple of laughter ran through the audience as if he had made a joke. I took this opportunity of studying him dispassionately, wondering what it was that made Helena’s eyes sparkle when his name was mentioned. He was certainly very clever and handsome, too, in his own way, but there was no warmth or charm about his personality. I began imagining him as a clergyman and decided that he would make a good one. His rather forbidding manner would be useful to him. I realised that one might love him secretly with no hope of encouragement, which can be very enjoyable for the young or inexperienced.
When Everard had finished, the President, who looked as if he too had been dozing, got up and made a kindly speech. ‘And now, I am sure there are many points you are eager to discuss,’ he went on, ‘who is—ah—going to start the ball rolling?’
There was the usual embarrassed silence, nobody liking to be first. Some chairs scraped on the floor and a woman sitting along our row pushed past us and went out. She was carrying a string-bag, containing a newspaper-wrapped bundle from which a fish’s tail protruded. Helena smiled nervously. Everard took off his horn-rimmed spectacles and covered his eyes with his hand.
‘Ah, Dr. Apfelbaum—first in the field,’ said the President in a relieved voice and everybody sat back in their chairs and looked up expectantly. How dreadful it would have been, I thought, if nobody had wanted to ask a question.
Dr. Apfelbaum was a stocky man of Teutonic appearance. What he said was quite unintelligible to me, both from its content and because of his very marked foreign accent, but Everard dealt with him very competently. Now that the ball was rolling, other speakers followed in quick succession. In fact, they were jumping up and down like Jacks-in-the-boxes, hardly waiting for each other to finish. It seemed that they had all ‘done’ some particular tribe or area and could furnish parallels or contradictions from their own experience.
‘I shall just let it flow over me,’ said Rocky, but this was not always possible. There was, at one point, a sharp exchange between Dr. Apfelbaum and a stout dark-haired woman, and an apparently irrelevant question from the old man in the purple muffler provoked hearty laughter.
‘No ceremonial devouring of human flesh?’ he repeated in a disappointed tone, and sat down, shaking his head and muttering.
At last the meeting appeared to be at an end. Helena took Rocky away and began to introduce him to various people. I stood rather awkwardly by the door, wondering whether I ought to go home now or whether it would seem discourteous not to thank Helena and Everard for inviting me. The people round me seemed to have settled down into little groups, many of which were carrying on learned discussions.
‘Well, what did you think of it? I’m afraid you must have been very bored?’
Everard Bone had broken away from a group of Americans and was standing by my side. I was grateful to him for rescuing me though I could think of no conversation beyond a polite murmur and was quite sure that he was wanting to get back to discussing his paper with people who were able to.
‘I think I must be going home now,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much for asking me.’
‘Oh, I expect we shall be going somewhere for dinner,’ he said vaguely. ‘You may as well come too.’
‘Well, I haven’t really anything to eat at home,’ I began, but then stopped as I realised that a dreary revelation of the state of one’s larder was hardly the way to respond to an invitation to dinner. ‘I should like to join you if I may.’
‘I wish they’d hurry up,’ said Everard, looking over to where Helena and Rocky were talking to a group of people.
‘They are just like everybody else, really,’ I said, half to myself. ‘That old woman knitting, she went to sleep.’
‘That was the President’s wife,’ said Everard, ‘she always does.’
‘Did she work with him in the field?’ I asked.
‘Good Heavens, no! She knows nothing at all about anthropology.’
‘Didn’t she even do the index or the proof-reading for one of his books? You know what it often says in a preface or dedication—“To my wife, who undertook the arduous duty of proof-reading” or making the index.’
‘She may have done that. After all, it’s what wives are for.’ He suddenly smiled and I remembered my Lenten resolution to try to like him. It was getting a little easier but I felt that at any moment I might have a setback.
‘God, how I want a drink!’ said Helena in her characteristic way. She and Rocky had now joined us.
‘I hope God is listening,’ said Rocky, ‘because I do too. I was very much afraid that those people were going to join us for dinner.’
‘I think you were rude to them,’ said Helena crossly, ‘otherwise they might have done and we could have had some interesting conversation for a change.’
‘Are there any of the conveniences of civilisation in this place?’ asked Rocky.
‘Yes, of course there are. Everard will show you. Perhaps you would like to come with me, Mildred?’ said Helena.
I followed her upstairs and into a room which had ‘Ladies’ printed on a card on the door. The first thing that caught my eye inside was a rolled-up Union Jack. This seemed a little out of place, as did the portraits of native chiefs which were stacked against the walls under the wash basins.
‘There isn’t nearly enough storage space here, as you may have gathered,’ explained Helena. ‘This room is the repository for any junk that can’t go anywhere else.’
‘It seems in character with the rest of the place,’ I remarked.
‘So does the fact that there is neither soap nor towel,’ said Helena. ‘We are at our most primitive here, but after all it is only the basic needs that have to be supplied.’
‘Well, that’s the main thing,’ I said feebly.
‘At least we don’t have a brooding old woman who expects you to drop sixpence into a saucer,’ said Helena. ‘I always think those women must see real drama, when you realise what scenes are enacted in ladies’ cloakrooms.’
‘Yes, I suppose things do go on there,’ I agreed. I remembered girlhood dances where one had stayed there too long, though never long enough to last out the dance for which one hadn’t a partner. I didn’t suppose Helena had ever known that, and yet it was in its way quite a deep experience.
‘It used to be worse, somehow, during the war,’ said Helena. ‘I remember once—oh, it was so depressing—there was just a dim blue bulb that made everything look ghastly and I was never going to see him any more. When I came out he was going to tell me that it was all over—you know the kind of thing, tears and whisky and then going out into that awful darkness.’
As I did not know I could only go on tidying my hair in a sympathetic silence. Helena came to the mirror and began doing something to her eyelashes with a little brush. ‘Everard seems to like you,’ she remarked carelessly.
‘Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t. I can never think of anyth
ing to say to him.’
‘You think Rocky is much more attractive, don’t you?’
‘Well, yes, I do think he is nicer,’ I said confusedly, for I was not used to discussing people in such terms. And yet I supposed that if I was honest with myself I should have to admit that ‘attractive’ was a better word than ‘nice’, and expressed my feeling about Rocky more accurately. But it was wrong to talk like this, and I wished Helena would stop or that I had gone home and left the three of them to have dinner together. ‘I suppose we’d better not keep them waiting too long,’ I said, in an attempt to stop the conversation from going any further.
‘Oh, it won’t do them any harm, but I could certainly do with a drink,’ said Helena. ‘Come along.’
I followed her downstairs, feeling like a dog or some inferior class of person.
The men were standing waiting for us in the hall. Whatever conversation they may have been having appeared to be at an end now, and they hurried us out rather unceremoniously leaving us to walk a little way behind them. I suppose they were too hungry and tired of waiting to think anything of it, but it did not seem a very good beginning to the evening.
Eventually we reached a restaurant and were shown to a table. Some drinks were ordered and one was handed to me. It was something very strong, made with gin, I think. I sipped cautiously while Rocky and Everard argued over the wine list. They were nearly as fussy as William, though in a different way, and I began to think that it would really be much easier if we just had water, though I lacked the courage to suggest it.
When the first course came, it turned out to be spaghetti of a particularly long and rubbery kind. Rocky showed me how to twist it round my fork but I found it very difficult to manage and it made conversation quite impossible. Perhaps long spaghetti is the kind of thing that ought to be eaten quite alone with nobody to watch one’s struggles. Surely many a romance must have been nipped in the bud by sitting opposite somebody eating spaghetti?
After that ordeal some meat was brought and the wine with it, and conversation started again. Rocky began to ask frivolous questions about the paper.