An Unsuitable Attachment (12 page)

'How many are going?' asked Edwin. 'Surely not the whole parish?'

'No—regular communicants only, if you see what I mean,' said Sophia. 'That is, our own friends and the people who really do come to church regularly. Of course that means Sister Dew, and Ianthe Broome.' Her face brightened as she saw herself walking down the Spanish Steps with Ianthe.

'How did the idea originate?' Edwin asked.

'Oh it was one of Mark's sermons, in a sense. He said something like "Those of you who are familiar with the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome", and it turned out that hardly anybody was. So we thought we might make up a party from the parish and go to Rome.'

'Daisy has a friend living in Rome,' said Edwin, 'Nellie Musgrove—they were at school together. She teaches English and feeds the stray cats in the Forum.'

'Ah, what would these foreigners do without English ladies,' said Mark. 'And will you be able to leave somebody in charge of the animals?' he asked Edwin.

'Oh yes, Jim Mangold is shaping very well and I'm thinking of getting another assistant to do clerical work, keep the records and that sort of thing.'

'Yes, a girl would like that kind of work,' said Sophia, wishing that Penelope could take the job.

'I had thought of getting a young man,' said Edwin, 'though perhaps in a way it's hardly a job for a man. One feels that anything to do with card indexes is more in a woman's line.'

'You mean it's slightly degrading?' said Sophia.

'Oh no,' Edwin protested. 'A card index may be a noble thing, especially if it has to do with animals.'

Mark watched them arguing with a faint smile on his face.

'Yes, it could be noble work,' Sophia agreed. 'Think of Sir Edwin Landseer's portraits of animals,' she added, perhaps irrelevantly.

Edwin did not apparently need to think of them and rose to go.

'Was Faustina not well then?' Mark asked.

'A little off her food—nothing to worry about, Edwin said.'

'Is it coley for supper?'

'No, darling—that's Faustina's. We're having halibut.'

'I should have thought it would be the other way round.'

'I feel you need something nice tonight,' said Sophia. 'Ianthe wasn't in church last Sunday,' she added. 'I hope she isn't ill.'

'You could go round and see her,' said Mark, 'or telephone.'

'Yes, but the telephone is downstairs and if she's in bed she would have to get out to answer it. I don't think Ianthe's the type of person to have a telephone by her bed,' Sophia mused. 'Not self-important enough, somehow. I think I'll go and call on her after supper.'

* * *

Sophia could see the light on in the hall as she came up to Ianthe's front door, but the front rooms were in darkness. She rang the bell and waited. There was silence, then the sound of footsteps coming downstairs. The door was opened and Rupert Stonebird stood before her, holding a hot water bottle in his hand.

'Oh . . .' they said together, staring at each other.

Sophia was the first to recover.

'I came to see Ianthe,' she said. 'I was worried because she wasn't in church on Sunday.'

'No, she's ill,' said Rupert almost eagerly. 'I called—quite unexpectedly—just before you came and found her in bed, so I'm filling her hot water bottle.'

'So I see,' said Sophia, unable to keep a note of indignation out of her tone, for it was most disquieting that the man she intended for her sister's husband should be discovered filling the hot water bottle of another woman. Besides, filling hot water bottles was not man's work—fetching coal, sawing wood, even opening a bottle of wine would have been suitable occupations for Rupert to be discovered in, but not this.

'You should have taken the cover off before you filled it,' she went on, taking the bottle, almost snatching it, out of Rupert's hand. 'Look, it's all wet.'

'Yes, the water spluttered up,' he said unhappily, uncomfortable with the new fierce Sophia. After all it hadn't been his fault that Ianthe was in bed with 'flu. He had called to ask her advice about the small dinner party he intended to give in the next week or so. He had been dismayed, almost horrified, when she had opened the front door a crack and displayed herself pale and ill and obviously in need of cherishing. He had not expected it of her and wished he could have gone away quickly without even asking if there was anything he could do for her.

Ianthe was also dismayed, for she had expected Sophia or some other female member of St Basil's congregation to be on the doorstep. And when she had seen a man's shape she had thought for one wild moment that Mervyn or even John had called with flowers. She did not know what to do with Rupert so she had asked him to refill her hot water bottle. After all, there was something almost like a brother about him and he was a near neighbour.

'I'll take that up to her,' said Sophia, hugging the bottle to her.

'Oh, good—then I'll go,' said Rupert in a relieved tone. 'She won't want too many visitors at a time. Would you explain to her then?'

'Yes, certainly.' Sophia went up the stairs and heard Rupert leave the house. 'May I come in?' she asked, pausing outside Ianthe's door.

'Oh, it's you, Sophia—how nice.'

Sophia noticed with mingled pity and satisfaction that Ianthe was looking extremely plain in her sickness, with red nose and eyes, pale lips, and straggling hair.

'My dear, you look wretched,' she said.

'Yes, I feel awful anyone seeing me like this,' said Ianthe faintly. 'But as it was only Rupert Stonebird it didn't seem to matter.'

Sophia went over to the bed and started to tidy it.

'If you'll sit in that chair for a minute, I'll remake your bed—then you'll be more comfortable,' she said. 'And then I'll get you something to eat or drink—have you had supper?'

'Well, no—I had a cup of tea. I was just thinking of heating up some soup when Rupert came.'

'Now you get back into bed and I'll go and get you something—are there some eggs in your kitchen?'

'Yes, I think so.'

'How long have you been like this?' Sophia asked.

'Well, I didn't get up Sunday, then I thought I'd better go in to work on Monday, but I came home early and I've been in bed ever since.'

'And today's Wednesday. What a pity I didn't know—Sister Dew could have looked in on you.'

'Oh, I don't think that would be necessary,' said Ianthe quickly.

'Perhaps a trained nurse isn't quite what one wants at a time like this,' Sophia agreed.

Ianthe lay back on her pillows.

Down in the neat little kitchen Sophia made an omelette, cut thin bread and butter and arranged the quarters of a peeled orange on a crown Derby plate. 'Nice things' Ianthe had and it was a pleasure to use them. Sophia also reflected with some satisfaction on the way she had spoken about Rupert—'only Rupert Stonebird', who 'didn't seem to matter'. Perhaps after all there was no need to fear that there might be anything between them. Rupert too had seemed glad to relinquish the hot water bottle and let her take over, though one never really knew what a man was feeling.

'We were talking about the trip to Rome just now,' said Sophia, going into Ianthe's room with the tray. 'It's only a few weeks away now. Just think of those lemon groves outside my aunt's villa in Ravello. You must see them!'

'No sooner do you get back than John chooses to go off,' said Mervyn peevishly on Ianthe's first day back after her illness. 'I suppose
he's
got flu now and I'm expected to manage as usual with only half of you here. Suppose I was to get ill, what would happen then?'

'I don't know,' said Ianthe meekly. 'We must hope it doesn't happen. But perhaps John's just late.'

'I suppose it could be that, though he isn't usually. Do you think he's satisfactory?' Mervyn lowered his voice, as if hoping that Ianthe might say something derogatory. 'His work, I mean.'

'Yes, I suppose he's all right,' said Ianthe reluctantly.

'I'm beginning to wonder if I wasn't a bit impetuous offering him the job just like that. But then that's what I'm like—you ask Mother. One day I bought six pomegranates on the way home—imagine it, six! We didn't know what to do with them. Of course Mother doesn't like anything with seeds, or anything foreign, come to that. She doesn't really like fruit at all.' He laughed. 'And another day I bought a hip bath in a junk shop—talk about Edwardian house parties . . .' Mervyn rambled on, but Ianthe was hardly conscious of what he was saying beyond feeling that he didn't seem to expect an answer.

At a quarter to eleven coffee was brought in, but there was still no sign of John.

'Perhaps he's too ill to get to a telephone,' said Mervyn in a satisfied tone—'that's what it is.'

'But in that case somebody ought to go and see him,' said Ianthe, remembering her own recent illness and how forlorn she had felt.

'Yes, there ought to be somebody to bring him soup and toast and cooling drinks. And to shake the crumbs out of the bed,' said Mervyn. 'How dreadfully uncomfortable it is to be ill when one lives alone. I have to go to a cocktail party at the Library Association this evening,' he went on, 'so I'm afraid
I
shan't be able to be the ministering angel. Mother doesn't like me to be late for the evening meal. When is Mothering Sunday, by the way?'

'Next Sunday,' said Ianthe.

'Do remind me to get something for Mother before then—a potted plant or something growing. I suppose it's too late for cyclamen so it'll have to be tulips or daffs—which do you think?'

'I always like daffodils growing in a pot,' said Ianthe, 'then you can watch them coming out.'

'And then dying,' said Mervyn.

'Yes, but you don't think that when you see them in bud,' Ianthe protested. 'What is John's address?' she asked, a flutter of nervousness starting up inside her.

'You mean
you'd
go? Oh, that is kind—much better than a visit from me. Women know what to do when you're ill.' Mervyn took out his diary and looked in the back. 'The address is 28 Montgomery Square, SW1. But don't let the SW1 deceive you. It's Pimlico, not Knightsbridge or Belgravia. Should you take some Beecham's powders along, do you think? Or will a cooling hand on the brow be enough?'

Ianthe, who had been thinking in terms of daffodils and lemon barley water, had not seen herself being so practical. And on the bus to Victoria she began to wish she had not been quite so rash in offering to visit John. Supposing he were not ill at all? It was surely—the words came in the tone of voice her mother would have used—'most unsuitable', and it seemed especially so when the bus passed the block of flats where she and her mother had lived. Ianthe was surprised not to feel the usual pang of nostalgia as she glanced down towards Westminster Cathedral. Instead she found herself remembering things she had disliked about the flat—the row of closed doors in the long dark passage, the kitchen looking out on to a brick wall, the occasional stiflingly hot summer evening when she had longed to be in the country. How much nicer her own house was. She realized that she was feeling almost excited, as if she were going on an adventurous journey into unknown country.

Montgomery Square turned out to be in that part of Pimlico which has not yet become fashionable again, though some of the houses at one end appeared to be newly painted. Ianthe remembered as she walked along looking for number 28 that her dressmaker had lived very near here, but somehow, after she had made one or two mourning dresses for her after her mother had died, Ianthe had lost touch with her. Today she happened to be wearing the dress of violet-coloured wool which was the last thing Miss Statham had made for her—drifts of its full skirt could be seen at the front of her grey squirrel coat.

'Oh, Miss Broome, that dress—I'd know that colour anywhere. And how are you, my dear?'

Ianthe was disconcerted to find the little dressmaker at her side, peering up into her face. If this rather delicate visit to John were to be carried out it must be done immediately, before her courage failed. She didn't feel she had the strength to face an interruption now.

'I'm quite well, thank you,' she said, 'but I'm on my way to visit a friend who is ill.'

'A friend who is ill . . .' Miss Statham took her words and repeated them so that they sounded like a line from a Victorian poem. She looked down at Ianthe's basket with the bunch of daffodils and bottle of lemon barley water. 'Someone in bed?' she asked.

'Yes, someone in bed.'
That
sounded more like the title of a modern television play, Ianthe thought. And would he be in bed? She supposed it was quite likely that he would be.

Now she was at the door of number 28, which had not been repainted, but still Miss Statham lingered.

'This is a lodging house, Miss Broome,' she explained. 'Are you sure you've got the number right? I think it's mostly Indians and commercial travellers here.'

'Yes, my friend lives here,' said Ianthe firmly, feeling almost tempted to add that he
was
an Indian commercial traveller.

'Poor soul, she
will
be glad to see you,' said Miss Statham. 'You'll let me know if there's any work I can do for you, won't you, Miss Broome. Skirts have gone so much shorter—you'd hardly believe the hems I've taken up. Almost above the knees, some. Deaconess Blatt too.' She chuckled reminiscently. 'So nice to have run into you like this.'

Ianthe promised that she should make her a summer dress and with this managed to get rid of her. She mounted the steps to the front door of the house and stood looking for the right bell to ring. There were two windows on either side of the door with elaborately patterned lace curtains. Perhaps in one of these rooms John lay and tossed on a bed of fever. Ianthe rang what seemed to be the ground floor bell.

Let the door be opened by somebody ordinary and undemanding, she prayed, some comfortable woman who will ask no questions.

Perhaps the clergyman who eventually did open the door might have been included in this category, surprised though she was to see him. Ordinary, undemanding, comfortable—though perhaps he should not be, a clergyman was sometimes all these.