Less Than Angels Part 15

'Let's hope it will be a nice day tomorrow,' said Digby, conscious that he was being ba.n.a.l but feeling that any other kind of talk would be too difficult.

He awoke next morning feeling rather smug as if he alone had been responsible for the brightness of the day.

'This sunshine will make everyone feel better,' he declared, as he and Mark cooked breakfast in the kitchen.

'Digby, what is this coming out in you, this hearty manner in the early morning?' said Mark irritably. 'I feel it should be nipped in the bud.'

'I was thinking of Deirdre and Catherine, really. It won't affect us. Do you think the air terminal is more romantic than a railway station?' Digby asked, as they approached the looming grey bulk of the building.

'Yes, I suppose so, because one imagines longer and more fantastic journeys, and there is the possibility that the plane might crash,' said Mark in a detached tone. 'And people are going to the uttermost ends of the earth, perhaps for years.'

'I shouldn't stress that aspect of it before Catherine and Deirdre,' said Digby. 'It might upset them.'

'I almost wish they weren't coming,' said Tom. 'I really prefer to slip away quietly without anyone knowing it.' He was a little distracted with last-minute things left undone, and was still wearing his raincoat and carrying his brief-case; it would be some hours yet before he could discard these characteristic insignia of his calling. ' Oh, look, there they are.'

'They seemed to have arrived together,' said Mark. 'Both staking a claim at the last minute. Well, my dears, I hope you are feeling equal to this,' he greeted them.

Deirdre, who had been feeling for some days past as if she had been dealt a heavy blow in the pit of the stomach, had been unable to eat breakfast at all. Catherine had managed toast and even a boiled egg-not of course a fried egg-of which she felt slightly ashamed, but she told herself that Tom's going back was different for her this time, and that it was fitting that it should be distinguished from the other times, even if only by the eating of a larger breakfast.

'We were wondering which was the more romantic, this building or a great railway terminus,' said Digby to Catherine, 'and we decided that this was.'

'Yes, in a way, but it's all more streamlined and hygienic, isn't it. Almost like the difference between a cremation and an old-fashioned funeral.' said Catherine, talking rather fast and drawing Mark and Digby away so that Tom and Deirdre could have a little time together. 'But we musn't make it too gloomy for Tom. After all he is glad to be going back.'

'You look tired,' said Deirdre, saying to Tom the words she had imagined herself saying, for indeed he did look tired.

'And didjou sleep well?' he asked almost formally.

'Oh, no. I didn't know birds started to sing so early, even at this time of year.' She had woken at dawn crying, and the memory of it now constricted her throat so that she could hardly speak, and had to turn her face away from him. He took her hand, but un.o.btrusively as if he did not want Catherine to see.

'We've time for a cup of coffee,' said Digby sensibly. 'That might be a good idea.'

They sat drinking and talking until a disembodied female voice announced that the pa.s.sengers for that particular flight should take their places in the bus to go to the airport.

Tom's travelling companions-a number of smartly dressed African business men, a dried-up-looking elderly man and woman and a few other more nondescript persons-were already climbing into the bus. Except for the Africans, there was really nothing unusual or remarkable about any of them. But at the last minute, just as Tom himself was about to get in, a party of four black-clad priests came hurrying towards the bus.

'Now be sure and tell Father O'Halloran and Father Kinsella that I was asking for them,' called out a strong Irish voice belonging to another priest who was seeing them off.

'We will too,' said one of them.

'And you have the Limerick Times with the account of the hurling? That way I'll be after saving the postage,' he chuckled. 'A grand match it was, a grand match, do you be sure and tell Father Kinsella ...'

'Well, old boy,' said Digby, grasping Tom by the hand and feeling as if he were acting the part of an Englishman seeing off a friend, 'all the best.'

Mark shook hands too. Then Catherine stretched up and kissed Tom lightly on the cheek but he seized her in his arms and embraced her more warmly. He then did the same to Deirdre, seeming to make no difference between them.

Surely he ought to have made some distinction? thought Mark in his detached way. And does one kiss girls in public like that? Only if one comes from Tom's stratum of society; ours is so much more inhibited when it comes to questions of love and s.e.x.

'Look,' said Catherine in her brightest tone, 'Tom is sitting by one of the priests. I feel he'll be all right now.'

They all waved and the bus drove away. Digby and Mark would then have gone home, but the women wanted to watch it out of sight so they all stood there rather stiffly as if they were at some kind of military ceremony.

'He hasn't really gone yet,' said Deirdre in a stifled voice, 'not really gone, that's what makes it worse.'

'No, I suppose there's about an hour and a half before he will actually rise into the air,' said Mark.

'But in a way he will have gone the moment he left us,' Deirdre persisted. 'His thoughts will be fixed on the future and we shall be the past.'

'Only where he is concerned,' said Digby. 'We are still ourselves, you know.'

He had taken her arm and was attending to her with great kindness and solicitude. Catherine was glad to see this and made no attempt to take upon herself the role of comforter, which is often regarded as a kind of female monopoly though it can be admirably filled by the right kind of man.

'Good-bye, Catherine,' said Deirdre absently. 'We must meet some time for lunch or you must come home to tea or supper.'

'I'd love to,' said Catherine, seeing the greyness of these future meals through Deirdre's eyes. She did not particularly want to be left alone with Mark and for him to feel under any obligation to buy her a drink or a meal and was relieved when he excused himself, saying that he was lunching with the girl he had met at Tom's aunt's dance.

Catherine got on to the first bus that came and let it take her where it would. Her thoughts seemed to be in three layers. On the top layer she was saying over to herself like a chant two lines of verse which often, though for no apparent reason, came into her mind at moments of stress or emotional upheaval What was he doing., the great G.o.d Pan, Down in the reeds by the river ...

It was a jingle, perhaps with some long forgotten comic significance, but it persisted, over and over again like a bluebottle buzzing in a closed room. The middle layer was a preoccupation with a series of beauty articles she was writing for one of her magazines. Having dealt with the problem of acquiring a good sun tan and then bleaching away its last traces, she was now thinking of winter beauty treatments, getting the arms and shoulders nice for New Year parties, softening those rough elbows. Try sitting with your elbows cupped in halves of lemon, she thought derisively, advice she would never have dreamed of following herself. And on the shoulders try cuc.u.mber peel, one of grandmother's recipes for whitening the skin. Underneath all this, in the bottom layer of her thoughts, was a dark and confused sadness about Tom which she did not attempt to bring out and a.n.a.lyse.

She got off the bus and entered a large restaurant with a n.o.ble foyer thronged with people, none of them seeming to know which direction they were going in. They wandered, bewildered, rudderless, in need not only of someone to tell them which of the many separate cafes would supply their immediate material wants, but of a guide to the deeper or higher things of life. While a glance at the menus displayed or a word with an attendant would supply the former, who was to fulfil the latter? The anthropologist, laying bare the structure of society, or the writer of romantic fiction, covering it up? Perhaps neither, Catherine thought. And why should she a.s.sume that these people, temporarily confused and wandering, were in greater need of guidance than she was herself?

She pa.s.sed counters laden with chocolates and dishes of brilliant hors-d'oeuvres, and walked out of another door. What was he doing, the great G.o.d Pan ... and still Tom wouldn't quite have left the country. She ought to be in some church, praying for his safety.

In common with many people who are not regular churchgoers, Catherine sometimes felt the need to enter a church at special times, but she did not know of any in this area and wandered for quite a long time before she came upon one that seemed 'suitable'. Unsuitable ones she regarded as those with a bright welcoming message outside and presumably a light and unsympathetic interior. The one she eventually chose seemed to her just right, with its mysterious dimness pierced by a red light hanging before an altar in a side chapel, and its lingering fragrance of incense. She thought it must be a Roman Catholic church, especially as there was a little table with candles on it, some of which had already been lit, standing in front of a statue. Attached to the table was a box with a slit in it, presumably for money. But what did one pay? she wondered. She looked in her purse and found a shilling, which seemed about right, then placed a candle in one of the little holders and lit it. At first the flame was very feeble but then suddenly it seemed to shoot up and burn brightly. Obviously this was a good omen, though she was not sure of what. She knelt for a moment in one of the pews, making up prayers in the rather stilted language she remembered from childhood. Was it necessary always to address G.o.d as 'Thou' and to use such archaic grammatical forms? she wondered, deeply conscious of her ignorance in these matters. Perhaps she had come to a stage in her life when she should begin going to church and then she might learn. After a while it seemed easier just to sit and let some kind of peace flow over her and she did this for some minutes, until she heard a movement outside the door. She stood up quickly and made her way out, fearful of being pounced upon by a dark swift-moving figure in ca.s.sock and biretta, who might ask her what she was doing there. But the voices, when they came, were women's voices, and the s.n.a.t.c.h of conversation she heard was not really very alarming, showing as it did the universal concern of women for men.

'... will wear himself out. If only he would let Father Amis take the early Ma.s.s sometimes. The trouble is that one can do so little oneself, one feels so helpless.'

Two middle-aged women came out of a door, one of them carrying a small electric bowl fire. They glanced at Catherine with friendly but restrained curiosity.

'Can we help you at all?' asked one of them pleasandy. 'Father Summerhayes will be here soon, if you want to see him.'

'Oh, no, thank you,' said Catherine quickly. 'I was only just...' she had been going to say 'looking round' as if she were in a shop but stopped herself in time. What had she been doing? Lighting a candle for Tom or for herself? Anyway, nothing that these good women would be able to help her with.

'The church is always open for private prayer,' said the other woman. 'We did have to lock it at one time because a valuable carpet was stolen, but now we arrange for somebody to be here so that it can be open all the time.'

'Well, thank you, I shall remember that,' said Catherine, managing a suitable sentence. Then, smiling at them, she hurried out of the door, nearly colliding in her haste with a dark swift-moving figure in ca.s.sock and biretta.

'Hullo, Miss DewsburyP he called out. 'Still keeping up the good work?'

He had gone before Catherine could disillusion him. She walked away, smiling to herself, amused and disconcerted to feel that she could so easily be mistaken for a church worker. Was there a place for her there, perhaps? She imagined herself worrying over Father Summerhayes, who had not, from her brief glimpse of him, looked at all worn out. But of course there would be more to it than that, even she knew something of what it would involve and she did not feel she could face it yet. Like one of the saints-she couldn't remember which it had been-but it seemed an irreverent comparison and she pushed it quickly away.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

It was a cold sparkling Sat.u.r.day morning in early November when Professor Mainwaring and Miss Clovis stood in the morning-room of his house in the country, watching the candidates for the Foresight research grants coming up the drive.

'Well, they have surmounted the first obstacle,' declared Professor Mainwaring, smiling and tweaking at his beard.

'And what was that?' asked Miss Clovis, trying to remember whether there was a water jump in the lane or savage dogs to be overcome at the gates.

'They have come on the train I told them to take,' he chuckled.

'That can't have been very difficult. It doesn't show much intelligence on their part to have caught the train.'

'Ah, perhaps not, but there was a catch in it. Only the front portion of the train comes here. The rear portion goes in quite another direction!' His voice ended up on its highest note and he stood rubbing his hands. 'I deliberately omitted to give them that information.'

'Then I suppose the ticket collector must have told them when he punched their tickets.'

'You think so?' Professor Mainwaring sounded disappointed. 'But I have known many-and anthropologists among them-who have taken the wrong turning, as it were.'

The drive was long and straight, so that the four candidates, Mark and Digby with the two young women Primrose Cutbush and Vanessa Eaves, had been visible for some time.

Professor Mainwaring looked at the pretty French clock on the mantelpiece. 'It seems as if they have walked from the station, and that's the best part of a mile, carrying their luggage, too. How very little they have brought,' he commented. 'The ladies are carrying their own-that is a good sign. I should not feel inclined to offer a research grant to a lady who expected a man to bear her burdens for her. In my young days it was different, of course; things are so very much changed now. I should hardly have been surprised to see the young ladies carrying the young men's luggage. I see that they are wearing their raincoats.' He moved across the room and tapped at a small barometer. 'Well, perhaps they are wise. There may be some rain and they have come prepared.'

'They have no overcoats, that's why they are wearing raincoats,' said Miss Clovis sharply, noting that Felix was evidently in one of his rather tiresome rambling moods this morning. It was certainly cold enough to be wearing overcoats; could it be that they were unable to afford them? She had also seen that Digby Fox was wearing what looked like hand-knitted gloves and the sight had disturbed her with its pathos.

'This is a week-end they will remember,' declared the Professor. 'I think a gla.s.s of sherry in here, first, and then luncheon. Henry will announce it, of course. They will appreciate that little piece of ceremonial.'

'We are getting very near now,' said Mark. 'I can see Esther and Felix standing at a window watching us.'

'Isn't the house romantic-looking,' said Vanessa. 'A n.o.ble piley the term really seems to be justified here.'

'It's much too big for one person to live in,' said Primrose. 'It could be turned into a school or a home for unmarried mothers.'

'What things you think of, dear,' said Mark, giggling.

'I think it's hideous,' said Digby bluntly. "Those red gothic turrets and lancet windows or whatever they are.' He wished that Deirdre could have come too, but she was as yet too young to apply for a research grant. In the weeks that had pa.s.sed since Tom's going, he had seen her as often as he judged to be politic, guessing that she would not appreciate too much of his company at this stage. He had sometimes observed her from a distance, sitting alone in the college canteen, reading a blue air letter which could only be from Tom. Sometimes the letter looked as if it were falling apart at the folds, which made him think that she must be reading the same letter over and over again and wonder whether Tom wasn't writing to her as often as he should. He longed to ask her and to comfort her and even to rush out to Africa with a horse-whip should it be necessary. He was experiencing that difficult stage of love which seems to consist only of patient waiting, but his nature was better suited to it than some would have been.

'Do we ring the bell?, asked Primrose blundy. 'Or will they come running out to meet us?'

'I suppose we pull this,' said Mark. 'Look, it's a friar's head and you pull out the tongue.'

'What a quaint ideal' said Vanessa. 'Did dear old Felix think of that himself, I wonder? No, I suppose the house is older than he is. What a loud pealing! Iwonder who will come?'

The door opened and a manservant, hardly old or dignified enough to be called a butler, stood before them.

'Good morning. Will you kindly tell your master that the Foresight candidates have arrived?' said Vanessa, a.s.suming a grand manner.

'The Professor is in the morning-room,' said the manservant. 'Perhaps you would care to wait here a moment.'

They stood in the hall looking about them. The monastic motives were repeated here, with more friars' heads appearing in unexpected places, as bell-pulls and handles to the carved gothic doors.

'Is all this supposed to have any significance?' muttered Mark. 'I wonder if it gives any indication of the kind of hospitality we may expect?'

'Ah, so you have all come,' Professor Mainwaring emerged from a door, rubbing his hands. ' Henry will take your luggage to your rooms, which you shall see after luncheon. Now here is the cloakroom, no doubt you would like a wash after your long journey.*

Mark and Digby, who were not in the habit of washing their hands more than they considered absolutely necessary, which was not very often, and did not need the cloakroom for any other purpose, declined his offer, but the girls took advantage of it.

'Let us leave the ladies to powder their noses, then; I believe that is the correct expression,' chuckled the Professor. 'They should be able to find their way to the morning-room to join us in a gla.s.s of sherry-wine. The sound of our laughter will, I hope, point the way if they are at all doubtful,'

Mark and Digby followed him shrugging their shoulders and tapping their foreheads with significant gestures. The Prof, was evidently in what they regarded as one of his ga-ga moods today.

'Good morning,' said Miss Clovis, rising from her seat by the fire. 'Now do come and get warm. I'm afraid you must be cold after your journey,' A glance at Digby's hands had told her that they were red with cold in spite of the knitted gloves, and he looked as if he might be getting chilblains.

'Now, what has Henry seen fit to bring us?' mused Professor Mainwaring, retiring to a side table and lifting various decanters, like a priest at an altar, thought Mark dispa.s.sionately. 'The Tio Pepe-I wonder if you would find that too dry?-or the Amontillado? And what is this? Ah, yes, ginger wine, a non-alcoholic cordial, very warming to the vitals, I believe,'

'I should prefer the Tio Pepe,' said Mark boldly. 'I prefer a dry sherry,'

'I should like Amontillado, please,' said Digby, thinking he had better be different. There was, as far as he could see, no clue as to which they were supposed to choose. It was like one of those questionnaires which Catherine sometimes made up for her magazines, where you received marks for your answers and the total indicated the type of man you should marry or whether you were really well-groomed or would make a good wife.

It did occur to him that perhaps they ought to have chosen the ginger wine, as Primrose, who disliked alcohol, had done. Vanessa was very feminine and undecided and in the end asked the Professor to choose for her, which seemed to please him very much. But Digby felt that he and Mark could hardly have adopted this course.

'Miss Clovis and I have been drinking-ah -' he examined his gla.s.s and went on in a surprised tone, 'gin. I forget now why that was.'

'I don't like sherry very much,' said Miss Clovis brusquely.

'Yes, that was it. You prefer "mother's ruin", as they call it.'He went into laughter in which the young people joined a little doubtfully. It did not seem quite right to be joking about Miss Clovis.

At that moment the booming of a gong was heard and Henry appeared in the doorway. 'Luncheon is served,' he announced gravely.

'There need be no formality about going in to luncheon,' declared Professor Mainwaring. 'Perhaps Miss Clovis and I should lead the way to the table simply because we know where it is to be found.'

Digby appeared almost to choke as he drained the last drop of his sherry. Mark gave him a hearty thump on the back which hardly improved matters.

The dining-room was papered in deep crimson. On the walls were two or three oil-paintings which looked as if they might have been valuable, mainly because they were so very dark and old-looking; it was just possible to see that they were still-lifes of dead pheasants, hares, lobsters, and other raw materials of the kitchen. The round table was laid with a heavy white double damask cloth and well-cared-for silver and gla.s.s. An Edwardian epergne, filled with out-of-season fruits, stood in the centre.

'Now I wonder what Mrs. Bush has provided for us today,' said Professor Mainwaring in a confident tone. 'Ah, soup, that is a good beginning. And I see that we have Barbara to wait on us. She is good enough to come up from the village when I have guests,'

A tall awkward-looking girl with red hands began to serve the soup.

'My mother had a maid called Barbara,' said the Professor in a thoughtful tone.

There was a polite expectant silence round the table.

'She had a song of willow,' he continued, perhaps surprisingly, but Mark managed to catch the allusion, though he hardly knew what he was expected to do with it.

'Oth.e.l.lo,' he muttered.

A haunch of venison was brought on to a side table.

'During the last war,' the Professor went on, 'we had American troops stationed here in the village,'

Barbara put a hand up to her mouth to stifle a giggle.