An Unsuitable Attachment (25 page)

Ianthe felt a little shaken by the encounter and was glad when Rupert suggested that they should leave.

'I'm sorry about that,' he said. 'Esther evidently thought you were going into the field—she's so keen you know.'

'Has she been often herself?'

'Oh, never—but she likes to direct others, and to see that the right people get together.' He hurried over these last words, afraid that Ianthe might take fright and leave him, and suggested that as it was now the rush hour they should take a taxi home. Perhaps she would come and have a glass of sherry at his house?

Leaning back in the taxi Ianthe realized that she was tired and one of her shoes was hurting. Her unhappiness, pushed away for a couple of hours, also came back to her.

'Tired?' said Rupert, in a sympathetic tone, laying his hand on her arm.

'No, not really,' she said politely. 'I enjoyed it very much, though I suppose one's feet get a bit tired standing about in one's best shoes,' she added, trying to make a joke of it.

'Take them off then,' he said.

'Oh, I couldn't!' she said, sounding genuinely shocked.

'Well, you can when we get home.'

Rupert had a pleasant little terrace at the back of his house, something rather better than a yard, where he had put a seat under an old vine which grew against the south wall of the house.

'What would you like?' he asked. 'Sherry, gin and something—or Cinzano, perhaps, to remind you of Italy?'

'No, not that,' she said. 'Sherry would be nicer.'

'Did you enjoy Italy?' he asked. 'I haven't really heard much about it from you.'

He came and sat beside her, stretching his arm along the back of the seat so that it almost touched her shoulders.

'Yes, it was lovely.' Imperceptibly she drew herself a little away from him.

'You were lucky to see Ravello and Amalfi—I believe it's very lovely there and Sophia's company must have been delightful.'

'Yes, delightful,' Ianthe said mechanically. There was a silence and then she went on, 'Sophia's rather—well, I don't quite know how to put it.'

'Strange, were you going to say?'

'Yes—one thinks one knows her and then suddenly one seems not to at all.'

'But isn't everybody like that to some extent?'

'I suppose so, in a way,' said Ianthe uneasily, thinking of John. 'It's that cat, too.'

'Ah, yes, Faustina—isn't that her name? I was trying to remember it when I was at the vicarage the other day.'

'Sophia brings it into everything, the cat.
She,
I suppose I should say, not
it.'

'I feel Sophia knows about life,' Rupert went on.

'You mean living in this poor parish and being married to a clergyman—yes, I suppose she would know about life.'

'Yes, that would be the conventional view of course—that a woman in those circumstances would know about life, but I meant something a little different.' Rupert frowned with the effort of trying to explain himself. 'Something that the pessimistic Victorians had, not the women, the men. Perhaps I was thinking of Matthew Arnold.'

'Oh?' Ianthe looked puzzled and uncomprehending, but he did not see her face and went on, 'I think she sometimes feels that there is neither joy nor love nor light …'

'But she is devoted to Mark,' said Ianthe almost sharply, 'anyone can see that.' And how did Rupert know all this about Sophia? Ianthe wondered. Was it because he was an anthropologist and used to studying people? Yet anthropologists did not seem to do exactly that; it would be difficult to imagine, say, Gervase Fairfax, talking in this way. Had Rupert talked to Sophia about such things, then? It seemed unlikely that he had ever had the opportunity.

'I think the feeling would go beyond a happy marriage,' said Rupert. 'I suppose we all experience it sometimes.'

'I don't think one should feel like that about life,' said Ianthe, a little shocked. 'A clergyman's wife certainly shouldn't anyway.'

Poor Sophia, Rupert thought, breaking the silence by refilling Ianthe's glass, to be classified in this way. Ianthe seemed to be very much the canon's daughter this afternoon.

'Well, don't let's talk any more about it,' he said, 'when it's so pleasant being here. I think Esther Clovis has decided to bring us together. I rather like the idea, don't you?'

'I couldn't be a statistician,' said Ianthe unhappily.

'I should hope not—I should hate you to be that. I like you too much as you are,' he said affectionately, moving his arm so that it tightened around her shoulders and drew her closer to him. There was now no doubt that he was about to kiss her.

'Oh, no! Please, no,' she cried out in agitation.

'I was only going to kiss you, Ianthe; surely . . .'

'But I'd rather you didn't, please.'

'Don't you like me at all, then?' he asked, feeling very foolish.

'Yes, of course I do. But I'm in love with somebody else,' she said simply. The effect of this flat statement was devastating, for it was the last thing Rupert had expected. Then he saw her eyes were full of tears which were beginning to course slowly down her cheeks. So for the second time within not much more than a month he—the meekest and kindest of men—had made a woman cry.

'But who can you be in love with,' he said stupidly, as if that could make any difference.

'Nobody you know.'

'Oh. And does he love you?'

'I don't know,' she said miserably.

'My dear. I'm sorry—of course I never guessed. I'll take you home.'

'It's only across the road,' she said, trying to smile. 'I've behaved so stupidly and you've been so kind—I did enjoy the afternoon. It's all hopeless anyway,' she sobbed.

Rupert took her arm in a brotherly way and they walked in silence the few yards to her front door. Some married man, he thought, probably a clergyman with a wife in a mental home, or was that being too melodramatic and old-fashioned?

Such a nice couple they made, Sister Dew thought, seeing him return alone to his house. She wondered if she should take him one of the steak and kidney pies she had baked that morning, but then—with unusual delicacy—judged it to be not quite the moment. And of course there was no question of taking one to Miss Broome—one did not take cooked food to lone women in the same way as to lone men.

Yet, had she but known it, Rupert would have welcomed a gesture of such solid kindness at that moment, for he felt depressed and at a loose end with the whole of the evening before him. He went to his study automatically and settled himself down with a new journal of linguistic articles, thinking that it would 'take him out of himself, which in a sense it did. The examples cited in one article—'I eat meat, I beat the child, I do not eat toad'—conjured up a drab picture of life in a primitive tribe in all its brutal simplicity. Only in a word-list from a more sophisticated area did a more civilized, and therefore more depressing, picture emerge—'pyorrhea, beard, maternal aunt' he read gloomily. Perhaps it would be best if he let Esther Clovis find him a suitable wife after all.

***

In her house Ianthe made a determined effort to pull herself together, as her upbringing and training told her that she should. She bathed her eyes and face in cold water, changed into a cotton dress and comfortable sandals, and went into the garden. She did not fling herself down on the grass as Penelope might have done, but lay in a deckchair with her eyes closed. If only she could have loved Rupert Stonebird! Could she not even now, by some effort of the will, turn her thoughts towards him and make herself care for him? It would be much easier to love Rupert than to love Mervyn, she thought.

Being in the garden she did not hear the front-door bell ring the first time and had John not been persistent enough to ring several times she might have lain in her deckchair wondering if she could love Rupert while John crept unnoticed away from the house. But he had come all this way to see her and to pay back the money which—to his horror—he had suddenly remembered she had lent him when he was ill. All that time ago—whatever must she think! And when the money had been handed over and refused and handed over again, there were other things to be talked about, misunderstandings to be cleared up, and—at last—mutual love to be declared and brought out into the open.

'But when I came back after my holiday,' Ianthe said at last, 'I thought . . .'

'Oh, that was all Mervyn's fault,' John interrupted her quickly, 'something he said—almost as if he wanted to marry you himself and as if you'd given him to understand that you wouldn't be unwilling. And then he went on about our different backgrounds—you know how catty he can be.'

What did it matter now! thought Ianthe in her happiness.

'Take an apostle spoon,' Edwin Pettigrew had said, in that calm way that inspired so much confidence, making it all sound so easy. And certainly one would have thought that a vicarage was the one place where one could be sure of finding plenty of apostle spoons. Trying to hold Faustina firmly under one arm, Sophia rummaged in the silver drawer but could not find one. Then she remembered the coffee spoons that had been a wedding present and were kept in a satin-lined case. Surely those were apostle spoons? They looked something like them, but then she realized that they were miniature replicas of the coronation anointing spoon—not so unsuitable, really, for with a jerk of her head Faustina sent the spoonful of liquid paraffin running down her face and brindled front so that she had, in a sense, anointed herself with oil.

Sophia let out a cry of exasperation as the cat jumped to the ground and stalked away. Who would ever have thought that a miniature anointing spoon could have contained so much, she asked herself, for her hands and the front of her skirt seemed to be covered with liquid paraffin. It was not the best moment for the front-door bell to ring, but those who live in vicarages are used to people calling at awkward times. Sophia rubbed her skirt and hands with a towel and composed her face into the patient sympathetic mask she wore when confronted with one of her husband's black parishioners wanting to know about getting married or having a child baptized.

But her expression changed when she saw an elderly clergyman and a woman—both total strangers to her—standing on the doorstep. Ah, people to see Mark, she thought with relief; they did not look as if they would be troublesome in any way.

'I'm afraid my husband's out at the moment,' she said, 'but I'm expecting him back any time now. Perhaps you'd like to wait for him?'

'Mrs Ainger, it is really you we want to see,' said the woman. 'I think you know my niece, Ianthe Broome.'

'Ianthe? Yes, of course—do come in,' said Sophia, for now she was beginning to realize who they were. The memory of the Lenten addresses on those cold Wednesday evenings came back to her. Even today, when the weather was warm, the woman was wearing a light fur coat, summer ermine, Sophia believed it was. Could it be that Ianthe's uncle and aunt had come to 'call' in a rather splendid Edwardian way? And had there been nobody at home, would Mrs Burdon have left one of her own cards and two of her husband's? One of them might even have been turned down at the corner for some mysterious reason which Sophia had now forgotten.

'I was just going to make tea,' she said, showing them into the drawing room.

'Well, thank you—a cup of tea will certainly make things easier,' said Bertha Burdon, rather to Sophia's surprise, for surely that was the kind of thing one thought rather than said?

'What my wife means is that it will make it easier to discuss this worrying business,' said Randolph Burdon hastily.

'Of course I meant that,' said Bertha sharply. 'Mrs Ainger would think me very discourteous if I had meant anything else.'

Fortunately Sophia had made a cake that morning and it looked almost as good as one of Sister Dew's. She made the tea, deciding that Earl Grey would be appropriate just as wines are on various occasions, and cut some thin brown bread and butter. It was only when she was wondering whether they would prefer strawberry jam or quince jelly that it occurred to her to wonder what 'this worrying business' could be. Had something happened to Ianthe that she didn't know about? Sophia went back into the drawing room with the tea-tray feeling rather apprehensive.

'I hope Ianthe is all right?' she said.

'Then you haven't heard?' 'Bertha asked.

'No.' What could it be? Sophia wondered. Something to do with a man, perhaps, though that seemed unlike Ianthe. But what was it she had said at Ravello about being in love with somebody? Sophia had hardly taken it seriously at the time.

'She has announced her intention of marrying,' said Randolph. 'Ah, is that quince jelly, I see? How delicious!'

'A most unfortunate choice,' Bertha continued, obviously irritated by her husband's allowing himself to be diverted by the quince jelly. 'The man is several years younger than she is and inferior to her socially.'

'Then it must be the young man from the library?' Sophia asked. Her feelings on hearing the news were mixed; surprise and disappointment that Ianthe should be acting out of character—disregarding the advice she had been given at Ravello—and relief that she had not chosen to marry Rupert Stonebird.

'You know him, then?' asked Bertha sharply.

'Not really—he came to our Christmas bazaar but I can't remember much about him.'

'From what Ianthe tells me he doesn't sound at all what one would have wished for her.'

Sophia refilled the tea cups. 'I don't quite see what
I
can do,' she said at last, Ianthe is old enough to know what she's doing.'

'You could tell her what a mistake she is making—she would respect your opinion,' said Bertha.

'But do people respect each other's opinions in cases like this, unless they happen to agree with their own?' Sophia protested. People have been doing this from time immemorial, she thought, advising each other to marry or not to marry and how often does it do any good. Indeed, she began to wonder uneasily if it had been her advice to Ianthe not to marry that had decided her to take this step. 'I had a conversation with Ianthe when we were in Italy,' she said, 'and we certainly did talk about marriage and that sort of thing.'