An Unsuitable Attachment (8 page)

'Why, Father, it was Mother,' said Sister Dew oddly. 'You always did say that her fairies were the lightest you ever tasted.'

Mark and Sophia drew away together, feeling themselves to be excluded. 'Old times and fairy cakes,' Sophia whispered, 'we can't compete.'

'A bond of fairies,' said Mark. 'Obviously a title for something. And people came from miles around, did they—well, things aren't quite what they were thirty years ago.'

'No, darling, but Mother and Lady Selvedge have come quite a long way—miles, really—and those two young men talking to Ianthe are strangers, and I dare say Mr Stonebird will look in,' said Sophia comfortingly. 'Penelope will be so disappointed if he doesn't.'

'Why, does she like him particularly?'

Sophia sighed but did not answer, for on such an occasion as this there wasn't really time to go into whether Penelope particularly liked Rupert Stonebird or not or to embark on the sort of explanation that a man couldn't be expected to understand.

***

If I were to go in
now,
thought Rupert, I should attract far more attention than if I'd gone earlier. The whole thing must be nearly over—hardly anything on the stalls—nothing to eat—people looking surreptitiously at their watches wondering if they were at all justified in slipping away home. Perhaps, though, he might stroll out in the direction of the church hall, to see if people were coming out, then he would feel that he had made some kind of effort. If he met anyone he could say, with perfect truthfulness, that he had been absorbed in correcting students' essays and had not realized the time until it was after five o'clock. It was disquieting, though, the way he seemed to have to make these excuses to himself, as if his conscience which he had, so he thought at the age of sixteen, successfully buried, had suddenly reawakened to plague him, not about the fundamentals of belief and morality but about such comparative trivialities as whether or not one should attend the church bazaar. Was it to be like this from now onwards? he wondered apprehensively.

He opened his front door, walked out and crossed the road. He had nearly reached the church when he saw a group of people approaching him. Miss Broome—Ianthe—the vicar's sister-in-law—Prudence, Jenny, was it?—or one of those fashionable names that often seemed so unsuitable for their bearers—and two men whom he had not seen before. It must obviously be too late to go to the bazaar now, he thought with relief as he came face to face with the group, but he found himself trotting out the excuse about correcting papers and not noticing the time before anyone had had the chance to comment on his non-attendance.

'We did rather wonder what had happened to you,' said Ianthe.

Only somebody as naive and unworldly as Ianthe could have come out with such a disconcertingly honest statement, thought Penelope, who had of course wondered even more.

'Ianthe has invited us in to have a glass of sherry,' she said, hoping that Ianthe would invite Rupert too.

'Yes—would you like to join us? It isn't worth your while going to the hall now. They were packing up the stalls when we left,' said Ianthe. 'Oh, I'm sorry, you don't know Mervyn Cantrell and John Challow, do you. We all work together.'

'Well, I'm only a sort of stooge,' said John. 'Mervyn and Ianthe are the clever ones.'

They turned towards Ianthe's gate and went into the house. It was pleasantly warm in the little hall, Rupert thought, noticing the red glow of a paraffin heater, almost like a sanctuary lamp or the lamp that was said to have burnt clear in Tullia's tomb, for close on fifteen hundred years. He must set about getting something like that himself. There was a coal fire in the sitting room and when Ianthe had drawn the curtains to shut out the November evening everybody agreed with John when he exclaimed how 'cosy' it was. Really there was no other word for it, though only he or Mervyn could have said it.

'And there's that lovely Pembroke table,' said Mervyn, bending down to examine it.

John and Rupert sat down rather stiffly, not quite liking to roam about the room appraising the furniture and objects, as Mervyn was doing.

Ianthe and Penelope went upstairs to take off their coats. Penelope was interested to see Ianthe's bedroom, which was at the back of the house, looking over the garden. Here as in the rest of the house, the furniture was good and well cared for. The hangings were rather chintzy and old-fashioned. The dressing table held only a silver-backed brush, comb and mirror and two trinket boxes, with an old-fashioned flowered china tree for holding rings placed in one corner. No cosmetics of any kind were visible. The bed looked neat, smooth and austere, and the books on the table beside it had dark sober covers and were obviously devotional books and anthologies of poetry. It was a typical English gentlewoman's bedroom, Penelope thought, in boringly good taste. There was something chilling and virginal about it.

'Oh, you've got a little statue or something in your garden,' she said, going over to the window. 'It's too dark now to see exactly what it is but it looks rather sweet.'

'Yes, it's a kind of cherub. It was here when I came,' said Ianthe.

'Perhaps it's significant or prophetic,' said Penelope.

'Yes, perhaps. I hope it means that I'm going to settle down happily in this house.'

Penelope hadn't exactly meant that. She had been thinking of the three men downstairs, though perhaps one could hardly count John as being in the running. Perhaps one could hardly count Mervyn either, which left only Rupert. And
that
, of course, was unthinkable. Yet they did live near to each other, so there might be danger.

'Your sister and brother-in-law have been so kind to me,' Ianthe went on. 'I really feel at home in the parish.'

'I know Sophia is glad to have you here,' said Penelope. 'She meets so few people of her own sort. If only Mark had taken St Ermin's when it was offered to him.'

'Would she have been happier, do you think? I mean, if her husband had taken the living only for
her
sake?' Ianthe asked.

'No, of course you're right. I suppose a wife should consider her husband's work before her own happiness,' Penelope agreed, for like many modern young women she had the right old-fashioned ideas about men and their work.

'Well, we must be getting downstairs or those poor men will think they're never going to get that glass of sherry,' said Ianthe more lightly.

She really is perfect in this setting, Rupert thought, as she came into the room. Surely Landor's lines about Ianthe ought to have come into his head if he could have remembered them.

'Let me do that for you,' he said, for it did not seem fitting for her to be pouring out drinks.

'I'm afraid sherry is all I have,' she apologized. 'I hope everybody likes it.'

John, who had hoped there might be some gin, jumped up and began to hand round glasses. 'What shall we drink to?' he asked, when everybody had been served.

There was a moment's silence—perhaps of embarrassment, as if too much of an 'occasion' were being made of it.

A rather strange collection of men and women, thought Rupert with an anthropologist's detachment, none of whom really know each other but between whom waves and currents of feeling are already beginning to pass. What, indeed, could they drink to?

Then Mervyn came to the rescue. 'Why, to the success of St Basil's bazaar,' he said. 'That's surely the obvious toast.'

As Christmas approached and the weather became colder, Faustina assumed her pear-shaped winter body and spent the evenings curled up in her basket by the boiler in the kitchen, while Sophia stirred various mixtures stiff with fruit and nuts and laced with brandy.

A week before Christmas she was icing the cake one evening when Mark came in with a letter in his hand.

'I've been thinking,' he said, 'we ought to ask Ianthe Broome's uncle to preach some time. I'd thought of a course of Lenten addresses.'

'A course?' said Sophia. 'Isn't that rather rash? We don't know what he's like yet—wouldn't it be better to ask him for an odd Sunday first before we let ourselves in for a
course
of sermons?'

'I should imagine he must be all right,' said Mark.

'You mean because he's Ianthe's uncle?' said Sophia. 'And because he's a canon's brother-in-law? How far can the influence of a canon be expected to extend?'

'Well, I've written the letter now,' said Mark. 'And if he isn't much good it will be better for us. I never see why people should expect
interesting
preachers in Lent.'

'No, of course—humble fare with no meat and sermons of the same kind,' said Sophia.

'Ought Faustina to be licking out that bowl?' asked Mark.

'Yes, there's a bit of almond paste in it and she likes that. I'm just going to give her some milk.'

'Is this all you're putting on the Christmas cake this year?' asked Mark, picking up a rather battered-looking plaster Father Christmas.

'Yes, I forgot to buy new decorations.'

'People have robins and holly and Yule logs,' said Mark. 'I'm sure Sister Dew does.'

'No doubt—and we have our solitary Father Christmas left over from several years ago.' Sophia placed him in the middle of the cake which was covered with white icing forked up into ridges.

'He looks like King Lear in the snow, deserted by his daughters,' said Mark. 'But many old people are lonely and neglected at Christmas, so our cake decoration won't be so inappropriate after all. It should put us in mind of the old people in our own parish.'

'Daisy Pettigrew is doing her usual food parcel scheme for the old age pensioners,' Sophia reminded him.

'Yes, and their cats will be looked after too—one only hopes Daisy won't put in more food for them than for the humans.'

Faustina looked up from her saucer, her dark face made all the more reproachful by its beard of milk.

***

In the library where Ianthe worked the approach of Christmas had made itself felt, though it would be too much to say that any particularly Christmas spirit or noticeable increase of goodwill could be discerned, even though Shirley had hung up a few coloured paper chains.

On the last day before the holiday Mervyn seemed more irritable than usual.

'Mother is a Spiritualist, you know,' he said to Ianthe, 'and somehow that doesn't seem to make our Christmas a particularly jolly one.'

'I suppose preoccupation with those who have—er—died isn't quite in accordance with the spirit of Christmas,' said Ianthe tentatively.

'No—and our relations and friends who have passed over seem to be a particularly dreary bunch. Perhaps it's the fault of the medium—she's a Miss Stylish and lives in Balham,
not
very promising, you'll agree,' said Mervyn sourly.

Ianthe never knew how to talk to him when he was in this sort of mood. She felt she could have done better than she did with her next remark.

'Balham,' she said, thoughtful yet desperate, 'that's on the Northern Line, isn't it.'

'Yes, my dear. It's black on the Underground map, so very suitable, I always think. Picture us arriving there on Boxing Day in time for tea by public transport, of course.'

Then, before Ianthe could comment further, he switched in his usual way to another subject.

'Now here's something wrong
again,'
he said, taking up a card. 'London colon—
not
semi-colon and
not
comma. I should have thought it wasn't too difficult for other people to get the details right occasionally. That doesn't seem too much to ask, does it? I can't see to
everything
myself.'

Ianthe and John were silent, feeling that no adequate answer could be made. In any case it was Shirley who had typed the card and she was in a higher or lower world that cared nothing for such trivia.

Just before five o'clock Mervyn came up to Ianthe carrying a wrapped bottle with a Christmas label tied round the neck. She produced from her shopping bag a box of crystallized fruits she had bought for him, and a mutual exchange took place.

'This is Madeira,' said Mervyn. 'It seems a suitable present for a respectable unmarried lady who might be visited by the clergy.'

Ianthe murmured her thanks.

'I don't think of Ianthe like that,' said John. '"A respectable unmarried lady"—that makes her sound old and dull.'

'Well, I am that,' said Ianthe, with the uncomfortable feeling that she was being a little coy.

'You're old compared with John,' said Mervyn a little too sharply.

'Yes, of course—quite a lot older,' said Ianthe, surprised at his tone.

'What does age matter,' said John gallantly.

'In some cases it does,' said Mervyn and then went out of the room.

'Oh dear,' said Ianthe. 'He's in a funny mood today, and I don't feel I've thanked him properly for his Christmas present.'

She was able to do this when he came back after having given Shirley her present.

'Three pairs of seamless mesh nylons in a shade called "Incatan",' he declared. 'How many of these girls who wear this colour have ever heard of the Incas of Peru?'

John looked at Ianthe and winked, a curiously old-fashioned gesture that made her want to laugh. Mervyn had his back to them and was getting a bottle of sherry and some glasses out of his private cupboard.

'A little drink before Christmas,' he announced.

After one glass Ianthe said she must go, as she had decided to visit Miss Grimes on the way home. She had bought some cigarettes for John and was wondering when she could give them to him. She had put on her hat and coat and was about to leave when he came up to her with two bunches of violets, so that she was able to press the cigarettes into his hand while taking the flowers from him.

Ianthe hurried down the library steps holding the flowers to her face. Their cold fresh scent and passionate yet mourning purple roused in her a feeling she could not explain. It was with a slight shock of coming back to reality that she remembered her resolution to visit Miss Grimes on her way home that evening, as part of her contribution to Christmas goodwill, a sort of 'good turn' done to somebody for whom one felt no affection. To love one's neighbour, she thought as she trudged resolutely up the Finchley Road, must surely often be an effort of the will rather than a pleasurable upsurging of emotion.