Less Than Angels Part 6

'Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight,' murmured Deirdre with brooding intensity, for the thought of Tom and Catherine and their cosy life together had suddenly come upon her.

'We must look out for your stories,' said Rhoda politely. She was a little disturbed by Catherine's conversation which was not quite what she had expected. Catherine, as if realizing this, began to praise the home-made cakes and soon they were comparing recipes quite happily, while Deirdre and Tom began a little conversation of their own about anthropological personalities. Mabel and Rhoda were each thinking what a nice girl Catherine was, and how glad they were that Deirdre had found a sensible woman friend who would probably do her a lot of good.

'They seem to be having tea out of doors too,' said Rhoda casually, with a gesture towards Alaric Lydgate's garden, and indeed a woman's voice, unusually loud and clear, was heard declaiming, almost like a station announcer, '... Ealing train, not stopping at South Kensington and Gloucester Road. Father Gemini was quite distracted-just think of it, he was carried right on to Earl's Court!'

'That's Miss Lydgate,' whispered Deirdre.

'He protested, but the train went on. It would not stop at Gloucester Road.'

'A Richmond train would have been safer,' said another loud female voice, belonging unmistakably to Miss Clovis. 'Or even Hounslow, though there is something about a Hounslow train that I don't like and I generally feel that a Wimbledon train should be avoided...'

'It was an experience,' said Father Gemini's milder voice, 'and I have learned a lesson by it. I shall take a bus in future.'

The men's voices were softer than the women's and the rest of the conversation was less easy to hear, especially as it was felt that the Swans could not really give themselves up to listening to all of it. Catherine asked about Alaric Lydgate and was given a rather highly coloured description by Rhoda.

'He walks in the garden at night, wearing an African mask,' she whispered, 'and n.o.body ever comes to see him, as far as I know, apart from his sister, that is. He seems to be a lonely kind of person.'

'I always think the loneliness of men is so sad,' said Catherine. 'Those advertis.e.m.e.nts you sometimes see from a man wanting a companion to go on holiday, in such respectable papers too, like the Church Tims. I can't really bear them.'

'Oh, come, Catty, lots of women are lonely too, far more than men,' said Tom with a touch of complacency.

'Yes, but that isn't so bad somehow. Loneliness can often be a kind of strength in women, possibly in men too, of course, but it doesn't seem to show itself so much.'

'Would you say that Mr. Lydgate had that kind of strength?' asked Mabel.

'It is an inner thing, really,' said Rhoda. 'One thinks of hermits ...' she paused, for perhaps one did not think of hermits in the suburbs.

'Oh, Mr. Lydgate's just a rather bad-tempered man who writes slas.h.i.+ng reviews of books,' said Deirdre impatiently. 'There's nothing n.o.ble or hermit-like about him.'

'Don't forget all those trunks of material he has in his attic,' said Tom. 'Wasn't that what Miss Clovis told us?'

'Yes, I suppose you ought to meet him,' said Deirdre.

'Oh, but I have met him,' said Tom. 'Europeans out there can hardly avoid running into each other.'

'And you never told me,' said Deirdre. 'I wasthinkig...'

'That you'd have to make love to him as Clovis suggested?' said Tom laughing.

'Wouldn't it be nice for you to renew your acquaintance?' said Rhoda hopefully. 'Perhaps if Mr. Mallow were to stand up, his head might be seen over the hedge.'

Tom stood up obediently, feeling rather ridiculous.

'Why, look, it's Mr. Mallow,' shouted Miss Clovis. 'Now Alaric, you two really must get together.'

Soon everybody was standing up and talking over the hedge. Tom and Alaric were like suspicious animals, eyeing each other doubtfully. Tom said that his thesis was nearly finished anyway, and that he didn't think he would be able to use any more material. Alaric hurried to point out that his notes dealt almost entirely with religion and material culture and would therefore be of very little use to anyone writing a thesis on social and political structure. The ladies talked among themselves and Father Gemini held himself aloof, then suddenly divested himself of two layers of his fusty black garments as if he were performing a strip-tease act.

Catherine, who had been observing Alaric closely and with the frank interest and curiosity which any new male acquaintance aroused in her, thought, why, he's rather attractive! So tall and rugged, and that rough-hewn face with its grim expression reminds me of those images from Easter Island, once seen in the British Museum. Poor old Easter Island man, bullied by his sister and her masterful friend-what things men have to put up with!

Rhoda felt that they had definitely 'made progress', though it was obvious that Alaric was not a socially 'easy' person. 'I suppose we shall really get to know him one of these days,' she said rather wistfully, when the parties had returned to their respective tea tables. She saw again the odd scene on the other side of the hedge, the tall brother and sister, stocky Miss Clovis, and Father Gemini with his wispy beard, suddenly taking off his clothes in that disconcerting way. She had noticed too the primitive tea, the uncut loaf, the b.u.t.ter still in its paper, and the pot of jam. Surely Mrs. Skinner could have left things more ready than that? Later, when it was beginning to get dark, and Rhoda was sitting at the window in her room, she saw the remains of the tea still there on the little bamboo table, looking strangely forlorn. Why had n.o.body taken the things in? she wondered. She had heard Miss Lydgate and Miss Clovis and Father Gemini leaving earlier, but what was he doing now? In her imagination she entered Alaric Lydgate's study.

He sat at his desk, doing nothing. It would have been a good time to start writing up some of the material in his tin trunks, for he had no book to review at the moment, but he lacked the energy to go upstairs and do anything about it. Instead he found himself thinking about the tea-party next door, the two girls and the young man, and the older women in their pretty light dresses, so different from Esther Clovis and his sister Gertrude, dowdily dressed and full of anthropological gossip and interfering suggestions. Why had he not asked them round to have a drink? Because he didn't do things like that-presumably that was why. It was too hot to hide in a mask this evening and he felt defenceless, as if people pa.s.sing could look in through the window and see him sitting there idle. His hand strayed to the side of his desk where he had hung the publication lists of various learned societies and inst.i.tutes, and also the wine-lists of one or two stores. He would read from each according to his mood, to refresh himself in different ways. At this moment, with the dusk falling, there was something distasteful and galling about the outpourings of anthropological works by others, so he turned to a wine-list and soothed himself with the magical name, Deidesbeimer Kennpfad Riesling Auslese ... per bottle 67,'6. That seemed to go with the girls in the garden, the voices and laughter floating over the hedge. He could find no wine appropriate to his own ungracious tea, and his sister and Father Gemini demonstrating something they called "breathy voice'to each other.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

As the summer went on Esther Clovis began to feel that it was high time Professor Mainwaring did something about awarding the research grants from the Foresight fund. There was a slight air of irregularity about the whole thing and she sometimes found herself wondering whether there was really enough money for the purpose. The vagueness and untidiness of the arrangement was displeasing to her and as she sat at the research centre, waiting for the Professor to arrive, she determined to get some definite information from him. While she waited she turned over some of the application forms and began to feel an unaccustomed tenderness towards the young applicants which she found rather disturbing. The details of their education seemed pathetic, the outlines of their proposed research pitiful. She had never felt like this before; it seemed to date from that day when she had been sorting out her offprints and remembered poor Hermann Obst and the episode in the Spanish garden. It occurred to her to wonder whether her friend Gertrude had ever experienced a tender human feeling. One evening they had squabbled about who should get supper ready, and Esther had found herself saying that she didn't care tuppence about aspirated 'k', *t', and 'b', an interesting feature of the language Gertrude happened to be studying at that moment. Of course they had made it up, in their gruff way, but it had happened and that was the surprising thing.

Professor Mainwaring came into the room waving a letter in his hand. He was elegantly dressed in a lightweight suit of American design and his beard was newly trimmed.

'What do you think about this?' he asked. 'What is it? Ah, I see, a letter from Minnie Foresight. Is she getting anxious about her money?*

'No, it isn't quite that. She has taken exception to an article Fairfax has written in one of the learned journals. I sent it to her because that number had an account of our little party in it,' 'Really?' Miss Clovis looked puzzled. 'I wonder which article it can have been? I can't remember any tiling that could have offended her,'

'Oh, it is nothing personal-it is just that she considers Fairfax's article obscene,'

'Obscene?'Miss Clovis spat out the word indignantly. 'But it's a perfectly straightforward account of the initiation ceremonies of the tribe he studied-the seclusion of the boys and girls in the bush-the coming forth-the dancing, and the licence allowed in certain forms of behaviour, with a rough translation of the songs they sing .. ,'

'Evidently Fairfax's translation was too rough,' chuckled Professor Mainwaring. ' We must remember that our patroness is not an anthropologist.' 'What does she say?'

Professor Mainwaring handed over the letter, and Miss Clovis read such phrases as ' deeply distressed ', 'most shocking ', 'unpleasant details'.

'Well, she obviously has no idea how important it is that every detail should be known,' said Miss Clovis bluntly.

'Quite, but I do feel that Fairfax has perhaps been a little over-italous on this occasion. And what a pity he is such a poor Latinist!'

"There seem to be some Latin phrases here,' said Miss Clovis, turning the pages of the article.

'Yes, he knows ad hoc and even primus inter pares-that much he will have imbibed at his red brick university.' Here the Balliol man in the Professor could not help coming out and showing itself for a moment. 'He is not an Oxford man, you know, or even a Cambridge man. Everything that has offended poor Minnie could have been put into Latin and she would have been quite satisfied. Some women have a great veneration for the cla.s.sical tongues. Yes,' Professor Mainwaring plucked at his beard and paced round the room, ' the Latin of Petronius Arbiter or another of the great Silver Latin poets .. ,' He gave an extravagant sigh, as if his thoughts were back in those elegant days of decadence. 'I could have turned this very prettily into Latin if only Fairfax had consulted me, but of course he did not. I'm afraid it would not have occurred to him to do so. Gervasc is a dear boy, but humility is not one of his virtues.'

'It does seem an odd use for Latin,' said Miss Clovis thoughtfully, 'to avoid giving offence to those who probably cannot understand it anyway. I suppose Greek could be used too.'

'Indeed, it has been. My own study of certain unusual relations.h.i.+ps in a primitive society had a good deal of Greek in it, and I believe it was Greek to a good many people. Did I not give you an offprint?-1911 or 1912 I think it was published.'

'No, you didn't.' It seemed unnecessary to point out that she would have been only eight or nine years old at the time.

'Oh, then I will-I believe I still have a few left. Now to business. I shall write to Minnie and do the best I can. Perhaps dinner and a theatre, or a box at Covent Garden; she is fond of opera, I know.'

'There is a fine production of Aida in the repertoire this season,' suggested Miss Clovis.

'Not that, I think. Nothing with negroes or dark-skinned peoples in it; we should try to keep her mind off such things for the moment. Madame b.u.t.terfly, also, might suggest unsuitable behaviour on the part of anthropologists in the field ...' Professor Mainwaring seemed to be enjoying himself now, picking out suitable and unsuitable operas and Miss Clovis had to bring him back to reality rather sharply, 'We ought to do something about the Foresight grants,' she said.

'Oh, that is all under control. You notice that Minnie wants to pay us another visit here? We must try to make a particularly good impression. Now that little room on the first floor-it seemed father bare when I looked into it the other day, not quite worthy, I felt.'

'It is bare,' said Miss Clovis shortly. 'There is nothing in it at all except for that antler hat-stand you gave us.'

'Do you find that visitors leave their hats on it?' asked the Professor in an interested tone. 'I have noticed that many young anthropologists don't seem to wear hats. Perhaps they like to feel the breeze in their hair.

Rolling along On the Tongchidderongtong' he sang gaily. 'There is a river of that name, somewhere in the Sudan, if I remember rightly. Now what about this horsehair sofa? You don't really need it here, it would fill up a good deal of s.p.a.ce and no doubt you have an odd table and one or two chairs you could spare. I have a splendid mahogany sideboard at home, an ugly piece but the wood is very fine.'

'Well, I hardly think a sideboard would be suitable here.'

'No, perhaps not, visitors might expect us to fill it. It's just that we don't want dear Minnie to feel that we have squandered her money by taking a larger house than is necessary.'

'I will arrange the room somehow,' said Miss Clovis. 'And now what about the research grants? I have had the applications for some time now.'

'And I have been meditating on them. I thought it would be pleasant to invite the candidates down to my house one weekend, to stay, you know. I thought it might bring out something more than the conventional type of interview.'

'It might indeed,' said Miss Clovis a little doubtfully. After he had gone she decided to get the sofa moved there and then, while she still remembered it, and went to the library to see whether there were any strong-looking young men reading there. She rejected Brandon Pirbright and Jean-Pierre le Rossignol as being too elegandy dressed to move furniture, and a small nervous-looking clergyman was obviously too fragile for the task. Those two solid young Englishmen, Mark Penfold and Digby Fox, were the obvious choice. She beckoned to them mysteriously. They looked rather startled and hesitated for a moment, but at last one pushed the other forward and they went to the door together.

'How would you like to move some furniture?' asked Miss Clovis in a jolly tone.

Fortunately the honest answer did not spring immediately to their lips, and Digby even managed to murmur that they would be delighted. So it was that they found themselves struggling with the awkward bulk of the horsehair sofa down a narrow flight of stairs.

'Do you think this will do instead of that other little scheme of ours?' panted Mark, as they rested on a difficult corner.

'What scheme?'

'You know, the lunch.'

'Oh, that. Well, it might, but I think the lunch would somehow drive it home better, don't you? When people have eaten food you've paid for they're under a certain obligation to you, after all.'

'Are they? Then it's a pity girl friends don't realize that a little more often,' said Mark bitterly.

'You sound as if you were always taking girls out and buying meals for them. I shouldn't think it's happened within living memory, has it?'

'Let's not get off the point. Will you ask Miss Clovis, or shall I?'

'Both together, that would be the thing.'

At this point, as may often happen when two people are carrying a heavy and unwieldy object, the young men dissolved into helpless laughter, so that they were forced to sit down on the stairs with the sofa stuck between them.

'It would probably have been easier upside down,' said Digby weakly. 'Look, it's to go in this little room. I wonder why?'

'I don't think it's our business to speculate,' said Mark primly. ' Shall we tidy ourselves up a bit and then go and ask Miss Clovis?'

They approached her door rather nervously and seemed to fall through it both together.

'We were wondering if you would have lunch with us one day, Miss Clovis,' said Mark in an indistinct hurrying tone.

'Yes, we were wondering,' Digby added.

'Lunch? But how nice,' said Miss Clovis.

'When would you be free?' Digby asked.

'Why, today, and now,' she said, looking at her watch. 'No time like the present! It's nearly half past twelve.'

'Oh, that's fine,' said Mark, wondering if Digby had any money on him. They had not imagined that she would accept their invitation so promptly; indeed, they had felt that a little nearer the time of the board to decide the Foresight grants would have been more appropriate.

As they went out into the street, the tall gaunt figure of Miss Lydgate was seen approaching on the other side. She waved and called out to them so that they were forced to stop until she could cross the street.

'Come and join the party, Gertrude,' said Miss Clovis. 'We are going to have lunch.'

Mark and Digby looked at each other in consternation. This was not at all what they had planned.

'I have nearly a pound,' muttered Digby.

'I've only three s.h.i.+llings,' said Mark. 'I dare say we can manage between us. Where would you like to go, ifiss Clovis?' he asked, raising his voice. 'Have you a favourite restaurant near here?'

'Let me see now,' Miss Clovis seemed to be considering the matter in an ominously thoughtful way, 'there are so many places. Somewhere where we shall get plenty to eat, of course. What do you think, Gertrude?'

'This place is rather good,' she said, stopping outside a reasonably modest-looking restaurant which had a menu up outside. Reading it, Digby noticed with relief that some of the prices were modest too. He hoped Mark would have the sense to order Chipolata Sausage Toad (2,'2) or Braised Tripe (2,'-) and not go off the deep end with Steak and Chips (5,'6). He supposed Clovis and Lydgate would want that; they looked like the kind of women who would eat red meat, he thought resentfully.

Inside, the restaurant was full of business men who were joking with the waitresses. Mark cunningly chose a table served by a particularly pretty girl, in case, he thought vaguely, there was any difficulty about the bill. She might let them go away and bring the money back later.- He could leave his watch as security.

'Now,' said Miss Clovis, a little too quickly for Digby, who had been going to say the same thing, ' what are we all going to have?'

'I expect you'd like some soup or hors-d'ceuvres first, wouldn't you?' suggested Mark smoothly.

'Well, I don't know, really. What artyou going to have?' She turned to Mark who had been studying the menu intently. He had done even better than Digby and had discovered, right at the bottom, Macaroni Cheese (1,'9). 'I don't eat meat or fish,' he said, 'so my choice won't be very helpful.'

Digby looked a little surprised.

'Are you a vegetarian?' asked Miss Lydgate in an interested tone. 'I have great sympathy with those who are, though I am not one myself.'

'No, not exactly,' mumbled Mark. 'I have eaten meat. I am not what you'd call a big eater, really.'

fOh, we are,' said Miss Clovis cheerfully. 'I think I should like the steak and chips and perhaps another vegetable too, runner beans, I think.'

'Yes, so will I,' said Miss Lydgate. 'What is the secret of making CHIPS?' Her normally loud voice seemed to have increased in volume so that it could be heard throughout the restaurant. 'Potatoes are OVAL or ROUND. Chips are RECTANGULAR. I don't see at all how it is done.'

'I think you cut the potatoes in thick slices and then into strips,' said Digby. 'I have watched my mother do it.'

'So that is it. I must remember that-first in thick slices, then in strips. Now what arejou going to eat?'

'Oh, braised tripe for me,' said Digby hurrying over the words distastefullv.

'Well, I really think you boys ought to have something more nouris.h.i.+ng after the hard work you had moving that sofa,' said Miss Clovis, 'bat I suppose you know best. Now, what about something to drink.'

'Oh, yes, what would you like?' asked Digby politely.

'Guinness is very strengthening, let's have that.'