' "Nice" he may be but his taste for Brand's Al Sauce — or is it HP?' — Mervyn examined the page more closely — 'does seem to be excessive. Why is it, I wonder, that when books have things spilt on them it is always bottled sauce or gravy of the thickest and most repellent kind rather than something utterly exquisite and delicious?'
'I suppose because the people who read sociological and political books don't eat exquisite and delicious food,' said Ianthe sensibly.
'Of course,' said Mervyn thoughtfully, 'it could just be a genuine tomato sauce from a dish of spaghetti or ravioli. Yet it is difficult to imagine anyone reading Talcott Parsons and manipulating spaghetti at the same time.' He closed it up, obviously delighted to have found a reasonable explanation.
'I'm glad the young man's name is cleared,' said Ianthe.
'She rather likes good-looking young men,' said Mervyn rather spitefully, turning to John. 'I once caught her letting one eat his sandwiches in the library which, as you know, is strictly forbidden.'
'It was such a cold day,' said Ianthe, 'and you're not allowed to eat in the Public Record Office, so I thought just for once . . .' She stopped, feeling that too much attention was being drawn to her and that they ought to be getting on with their work, especially as the Ash Wednesday service had made them late coming back from lunch.
During the afternoon she worked hard and realized almost with dismay that she was going home not to a comfortable evening by the fire but to yet another Lenten service at which her uncle was to be the preacher.
It was a relief to see Sophia standing in the window of the vicarage drawing room and beckoning her to come in. Ianthe was sure it must mean that her uncle had been unable to come — for some comparatively harmless reason — and that there was to be no service that evening.
But Sophia had something else to tell her.
'I feel I must show somebody the parcel I've just had,' she said, greeting Ianthe on the doorstep. 'I was so astonished that I've been waiting until people started to come to church so that I could show somebody and you're the first and most suitable. Come and see.'
Ianthe went into the drawing room which was in considerable disorder. Clothes were strewn on the sofa and chairs and Faustina was dragging a silver lamé belt along the carpet.
'Look!' said Sophia, with a gesture. 'Clothes — and from Lady Selvedge.'
'How generous of her! I suppose she knew you'd planned to have that big jumble sale after Easter.'
'But they're not jumble — they're for me! Look at this suit — it's a real Paris model with a mink collar.'
'Yes, so it is,' said Ianthe, stroking the fur. 'Did she say they were for you?'
'Yes, she wrote a little note. I suppose Mother had been telling her what a poor parish this is and what a pity Mark hadn't taken a more wealthy living. If only the clothes had been plainer and more suitable for the vicar's wife of such a poor parish,' Sophia lamented, holding up the lamé cocktail dress whose belt Faustina had now taken out into the hall. 'When should I ever wear this?'
Ianthe looked at it doubtfully.
'Yes, it is rather elaborate, isn't it, with that sequin trimming at the neck. Still you're about the same height, and they're obviously such good clothes.'
'Yes, like those wardrobes of titled ladies one used to see advertised,' Sophia agreed. 'Worn only once, or suddenly going abroad. I used to wonder about them. Perhaps somebody decided to enter a religious order just after she'd bought a whole new wardrobe ... I shall have to wear them obviously — it will teach me a rather curious and special kind of humility. People will think I've been terribly extravagant and I shan't be able to defend myself.'
'What will your husband think?' Ianthe asked tentatively.
'Mark? Oh, he probably won't notice. He is not of this world, you know, in some ways we're so far apart. I'm the sort of person who wants to do everything for the people I love and he is the sort of person who's self-sufficient, or seems to be . . .' she paused. 'Then there's Faustina.'
Faustina? Ianthe was puzzled for a moment. Oh the cat, she thought but, perhaps wisely, didn't say it. Instead she remarked that cats were usually considered to be particularly self-sufficient sort of animals.
'But they aren't always,' said Sophia. 'I feel sometimes that I can't reach Faustina as I've reached other cats. And somehow it's the same with Mark.'
'Oh dear,' Ianthe heard herself saying, feebly, she felt, but it was difficult to know how best to express her sympathy. She felt she wanted to shut herself away from life if this was what it was like. Yet Sophia was not usually the kind of person to say disturbing things. Wives shouldn't talk thus about their husbands, she thought resentfully, especially when they were clergy wives. Nor could one really compare a sacred and honourable estate like marriage to a relationship with a cat.
'I think I'll go into church,' Ianthe went on. 'It must be nearly time for the service to start.'
'Yes,' said Sophia, meekly now, 'it is time.' She bundled the clothes onto a chair, leaving Faustina burrowing into the middle of them. She sat humbly in the cold church, making some effort to get into the right mood for the service. God is content with little, she told herself, but sometimes we have so little that it is hardly worth the offering.
9
In February or March, when spring was waiting to burst out but the trees were still leafless and the earth grey and cold, Sophia used sometimes to pretend that she was in Italy — not necessarily in a beautiful or famous part but perhaps in some obscure little town in the Alban Hills or a dusty coastal village between Naples and Sorrento. Sometimes she walked in imagination in a Roman suburb, passing tall old houses with balconies and secret leafy gardens glimpsed through a gate in the wall. She would even extend her fancy into the shops she visited, seeing them as markets where she could choose a fish by the brightness of its eye, a chicken by its stiff yellow claws and plump breast, or pick out tangerines with the leaves still on them. If only one could apply the same tests to people, she thought, and of course in a way one did; but as life went on this kind of choice came to be a luxury — one took what came one's way. If the fish was fresh it was because it had been deep frozen within minutes of being caught and packed up to be bought by her goodness only knew how many months later for Mark's Lenten supper. He ate it cheerfully enough or sometimes abstractedly.
Mark came home one evening to find Edwin Pettigrew, the vet, drinking tea in the kitchen with Sophia.
'You could try a little minced veal,' he was saying. 'Lean veal, of course — not just scraps.'
Faustina was in her basket by the boiler, looking understandably complacent.
'Oh the best meat, of course,' said Sophia.
'Well, you know what they are,' said Edwin apologetically.
'Yes, and they can't let us know their wants,' said Sophia.
'Not in so many words perhaps,' said Mark, 'but they do manage somehow to make their wants known and perhaps even more persistently than we do.' He could smell fish cooking and wondered if it was Faustina's coley, then realized that in view of the conversation about the finest minced veal it was more likely to be something for themselves. All the same he rather hoped it wasn't coley, suitable Lenten fare though it might be.
'We were talking about the trip to Rome after Easter,' said Sophia, pouring out a cup of stewed tea for Mark. 'Edwin is hoping to be able to come, and of course Daisy will.'
'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 m
ake 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!'
10
'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 t
o 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.