Less Than Angels Part 10

'Yes, it does come out in some of those Edwardian memoirs,' said Catherine thoughtfully. 'But I can see that I was perhaps wrong. I'm afraid one doesn't always think whether one is doing the right thing at the time.'

There was a short silence and then Catherine went on, 'All this has been a bit like Traviata, don't you think? You coming to see me and begging me to give Tom up, but of course it's too late.'

'Traviata} Oh, I see.' Mrs. Beddoes seemed relieved and would indeed have welcomed a cosy talk about opera. Before the war they had always had a box at Covent Garden during the season. She remembered Traviata as one of the less boring ones. But she still had her duty to do, so she went on to ask Catherine where Tom was living now.

'He has taken a room in a flat with two other young anthropologists,' Catherine told her, 'not very far from here. It's near the railway, not very salubrious I'm afraid, but I think he'll be able to work better there. I can give you the address, or you could telephone him, of course.'

'Oh, I don't think I shall go to see Tom now. It was you I really wanted to see.'

'Had you hoped to make me see reason?' Catherine asked in her frank way. She even wondered whether Mrs. Beddoes had been prepared to offer her money, as in an Edwardian novel, and whether she could have brought herself to accept it. She almost believed that she could.

'Well, I wanted to tell Naomi, my sister, how he was,' said Mrs. Beddoes rather lamely, 'but that seems to be unnecessary now'. She stood up and arranged her furs round her shoulders. 'I have often asked Tom to visit us but he has always made some excuse. Now, I wonder . .she paused for a moment, and then her tone seemed to change on to a bright social note. 'I am giving a small dance for my daughter, Lalage, you may have seen the announcement in The Times. Do you think I could persuade Tom to come to it-and perhaps the friends he is lodging with, if they are nice young men?'

Catherine imagined the bored distaste or derisive laughter which might greet such an invitation. She had often wondered why it was that anthropologists seemed to explore only the lower strata of their own society. Perhaps it was a kind of hidden fear that they might prove unworthy in some way, for she was sure that the experience of a debutante dance in Belgravia would be as rewarding for them as any piece of native ceremonial.

'I'm not sure if they are dancing men,' she said uncertainly, 'but they are certainly very nice. There is no harm in them.'

Mrs. Beddoes hesitated over this doubtful recommendation. Perhaps even a hostess seeking young men for a dance demands something more positive than the a.s.surance that there is no harm in them. 'Are they tall?' she asked.

'Digby is very tall-over six feet, I should say. Mark is of medium height, perhaps a little shorter than Tom,'

'Well, that sounds ideal,' Mrs. Beddoes put on her gloves and then suddenly said in a confidential tone, 'My dear, there is this terrible difficulty of getting hold of enough suitable young men. The regular ones get so blase and often don't turn up at all, and poor Lalage is five foot eleven-girls seem to be enormous these days, don't they.'

'And to think that they grew up under the Labour Government and austerity,' said Catherine.

'Yes, that is strange,' Mrs. Beddoes looked troubled for a moment, 'But things are all right now' she added obscurely. 'Thank you, Miss Oliphant, for all your help. I shall tell Naomi how kind you have been. Perhaps I shall write a note to Tom,'

'The bus stop is a few yards down the road, or shall I get you a taxi?' Catherine asked.

'Well. . ,' Mrs. Beddoes smiled apologetically. 'I think a taxi, please. I'm rather tired and it will be getting on towards the rush hour now. They tell us not to use public transport between 4.30 and 6.30, don't they,'

So for the second time that day Catherine saw a member of Tom's family into a taxi. The day was coming to its end, and although it had been tiring and upsetting it had at least been full and that, she supposed, was all to the good. Pain, amus.e.m.e.nt, surprise, resignation, were all woven together into a kind of fabric whose colour and texture she could hardly visualize as yet. Something with little lumps on it, she thought, k.n.o.bs or knops as it said in the fashion magazines. The meeting with Tom's aunt had somehow pleased and comforted her; being without relations herself, she could, as it were, rejoice that others should have aunts, and now that there was nothing disgraceful about her relationship with Tom perhaps she might even visit his other aunt in her hotel in South Kensington.

But as evening approached she began to wish that somebody would telephone her and take her out to dinner. She thought of various men she knew but realized philosophically that it was unlikely that any of them would know of her plight and she was too proud to telephone. The best thing to do if you're lonely, she thought, is to seek out some other lonely person, but she could only think of Alaric Lydgate and somehow she did not feel that meeting him once at the garden fence was enough to justify a further advance on her side. And in any case, she told herself, she wasn't really lonely; it just felt rather strange not to have Tom there. But no more strange than when he had been away in Africa.

She lay in bed, sleepless, wondering if he were comfortably setded, but she mustn't be fussy and ring up too soon. She wished she had a 'nice book', something that would take her out of herself, but the bookshelf by her bed wasn't very encouraging, and only made her think what very strange books people gave as Confirmation presents. Obviously, she thought, noting the little leather-bound volumes, they were chosen for their size and colour. Browning, Housman's Shropshire Lad, the EJdbaiyat of Omar Khayyam-surely the gay or despairing pagan sentiments of these authors were dangerous to a young girl embarking on her religious life? The only real book of devotion she had, suitably enough from her headmistress, told her that we are strangers and pilgrims here and must endure the heart's banishment, and she felt that she knew that anyway.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Tom opened his eyes reluctantly. He had been dreaming that he was back in Africa, but when he woke up and found where he really was he turned over on his side again and lay staring at the wall, distempered a rather dirty cream, on which the sun was shining brightly. Too bright to last, he thought gloomily, and closed his eyes again. Outside a train rattled by.

The night before, Mark and Digby had thought he needed cheering up and taking out of himself; they had spent a manly evening drinking beer, whose effects are not always particularly cheering. His life had started on its new lap now; no Catherine, a little Deirdre and a great deal of work. It was not the kind of life that made him leap out of bed eagerly in the mornings. He supposed it was too much to expect Mark or Digby to make tea and bring it to him, as a woman would have done, so he eventually crept into the kitchen and started to make it himself. Mark and Digby soon joined him, the latter singing an air from La Boheme, because, as he put it, the light-hearted squalor of their lives reminded him irresistibly of that opera. Tom and Mark were more taciturn, not approving of music in the early morning, and being unable to sing anyway. There was plenty of milk and cornflakes, not quite enough bread and only two eggs, but they made themselves some kind of a breakfast and then left to do a good day's work in various libraries. It was vacation time now and there were no seminars or cla.s.ses.

Tom had arranged that Deirdre should not visit him until he had got properly settled in, whatever that might entail, and so it was not until nearly a week later that she saw his new room for the first time.

'Shall we meet some grim landlady on the stairs?' she asked, as they approached the house with its peeling pillars.

'No, she doesn't live on the premises, luckily. There are just the three flats occupied by students of various kinds. Ours is on the first floor.'

'No pictures of highland cattle,' she said quickly, when they were inside the narrow hall of the flat.

Tom, feeling her need for rea.s.surance, put his arm round her shoulders. 'What have you done to your hair?' he asked. 'It looks like a chrysanthemum.'

'I had it cut. Don't you like it?'

'Yes, of course, don't look so worried.' He opened a door. 'Well, here it is, the small back room or whatever we call it.'

'It is rather small, but very comfortable, I should think.' Deirdre had run over to the window to hide her dismay at the general impression of meanness and shabbiness which had overwhelmed her on entering. 'And you can see the trains from the window. That's awfully continental, somehow,' Her eyes, level with his, looked appealingly at him. He, used to looking down at Catherine, found it difficult to meet her glance and turned away to fumble with some gla.s.ses and a dark-looking bottle.

'Let's have a drink,' he said.

'Oh, yes, lovely!'

Lovely was perhaps not quite the word, she realized, as she sipped the cold sour red wine. It tasted most peculiar, as if it had gone off or something, but she wasn't sure if wine could go off. I must learn to enjoy drinking, she thought rather desperately, or at least the kind of things these people seem to enjoy, beer and funny kinds of wine. For the shameful thing was that she did like the drinks Bernard and her brother Malcolm bought for her-gin and orange or rather sweet dark sherry-the kind of drinks 'nice' suburban men regarded as being suitable for women, she thought scornfully.

'Catherine seems to be all right,' said Tom, relief sounding in his tone. 'Quite cheerful, in fact,'

'Oh, I'm glad. Has Mark or Digby seen her?'

'No, I rang her up this morning,'

'Why? Had you left something behind?'

He could hear the unconscious reproach in her voice and feel it in her eyes, intently fixed on him, so he said rather irritably, 'No, but I wanted to know how she was. I can't never hear or see anything of her again, you know.'

'Of course not-I didn't mean to be unreasonable. She's such a sweet person, I want to see her again myself, if she wants to see me.'

There was silence. Deirdre had been walking about the room, for there seemed to be nowhere to sit down except the bed which, after a quick nervous glance, she had rejected for some reason not quite clear to her.

'I haven't arranged my books properly yet, as you can see,' said Tom, indicating the confusion of the shelves and the two chairs littered with papers.

Deirdre knelt down by the shelves, holding her gla.s.s in both hands. Women so often find themselves examining a man's books, trying to find something intelligent to say about them, and even at nineteen Deirdre was beginning to get her share of it.

'I see you've got that book on Social Structure,' she said. 'It's supposed to be very new and exciting, isn't it?'

'Oh, perhaps, but I don't think we want to discuss it now, do we?' he said gently, taking the book out of her hands.

After a few pleasurable moments Tom remembered that he had resolved to have no more complications in his life until after he had finished writing his thesis, and perhaps not even then. He had not left Catherine because he intended to embark on the same kind of relationship with Deirdre, whatever Catherine might have thought. He wondered whether it was a good thing or not to have accepted Deirdre's invitation to supper at her home this evening. Parents did not nowadays question young men about their intentions, but it was better when women were without kinship ties, like Catherine, he thought dispa.s.sionately, and then they could be rejected at will and without the likelihood of any awkward repercussions. But then, seeing that Deirdre's eyes had opened and were gazing at him with love, he was horrified at discovering such cynical cruelty in himself, he the tender-hearted, kind to animals, as Catherine always said, and sometimes even weeping at the cinema. He was very fond of Deirdre, but he pushed her away from him rather abruptly and said, 'Time we were going, isn't it?'

She was a little hurt at this sudden breaking-off, but he soon rea.s.sured her and managed to leave her with the impression that he needed understanding in some particularly subtle way, a thing she had never thought of with Bernard, who always appeared to be so dull and equable as to have nothing in him to understand.

'Do you mind the suburbs?' she asked, as they rode on the top of a bus towards her home. 'I think it's horrid here, and the people are so dreary.'

'People can be that anywhere,' he said, smiling at her, 'especially when you're young. I always found that when I lived at home.'

'But your home is a real country house,' she said.

'Yes, but falling into decay and not even old and beautiful enough to be historically interesting. My mother in the garden all day, my uncle crouching over his television set-not so very different from a suburban home, you see.'

'I suppose you always want what you haven't got,' said Deirdre, hurrying Tom past the Dulkes' house, for a quick furtive glance had revealed Mr. Dulke in his front garden apparently tying up some herbaceous plants.

'You shouldn't feel that,' he said. 'You've all the time in the world to get what you want and I hope you will get it.'

His words, with their air of chilly detachment, as if he could have no part in giving her what she wanted, saddened her, and it was almost a relief when they were swallowed up in the family circle and Malcolm was offering drinks.

'I'm so pleased,' said Rhoda, taking Deirdre aside. 'I've managed to persuade Mr. Lydgate to join us this evening.'

'How ever did you do it?' Deirdre asked.

'He came out into his garden this morning and I happened to be working in the herbaceous border-he was quite near the hedge, so I called out "Good morning I Isn't it a lovely day?", and then I said that the hot sun must remind him of Africa and he agreed that it did.'

'Well, I suppose he could hardly have said that it didn't.'

'No, though he did say that the African sun was even hotter and not so pleasant as this. Then I made a remark about it being nice to be able to have meals out of doors and then-well, I can't remember exactly how the conversation went on, but I seemed to find myself inviting him to supper this evening, and he seemed quite pleased to come. He even smiled through the leaves, I mean, I could see through a sort of gap that he was smiling, and then he came and looked over the top of the hedge, he's so tall, you see. And he's really quite good-looking when he smiles. And of course Father Tulliver is coming too, so it will be quite a party.' Rhoda paused, not so much to draw breath as to admire the arrangement of the room, the drinks set out on a little table and the big vases of mixed garden flowers at strategic points.

Deirdre's heart sank at the prospect of the evening in such an ill-a.s.sorted company, but she consoled herself by thinking that Tom might find the occasion interesting, though he did not seem to have Jean-Pierre's pa.s.sion for observing the ritual of English suburban life. All the same he seemed to have fitted himself very well into his surroundings and Deirdre could not help noticing, with a little stab of jealousy, how well he was getting on with Phyllis, her brother's fiancee.

'Doesn't Phyllis look sweet?' said Rhoda eagerly. 'That red and white dress is the one she made to go out with Malcolm on her birthday, you know. It was a b.u.t.terick pattern.'

'Yes, it's pretty,' Deirdre agreed without much enthusiasm, for Phyllis, being small and blonde with a vivacious manner, was all that Deirdre was not. What was more, she was wearing red shoes which Deirdre believed to be one of those things that men were said to like.

'Mr. Lydgate's got some terrifying African masks,' Phyllis was saying. 'I saw him wearing one in his garden one night. I nearly died, I was so frightened.'

'Ah, but they're worn to intimidate women,' said Tom in a teasing voice, 'that's the whole point.'

'Jolly good idea,' said Malcolm heartily. 'They need to be kept in their places.'

'Wherever that may be,' said Phyllis pertly.

'I'll soon show you that, my girl,' said Malcolm. He made as if to box her ears but she evaded him with a pretty gesture.

'Let me get you another drink,' said Tom gallantly. 'Now what was it that put this sparkle in your eye?'

'One of Malcolm's c.o.c.ktails-in the green jug over there,' said Phyllis, preening herself like a little bird. She smiled at Deirdre in a surprised way, as if meaning to show her that Tom was really much better than she'd expected.

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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s of Malcolm's c.o.c.ktail 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 p.r.o.nounce 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' b.a.l.l.s, 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 c.o.c.ktail, 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.