No Fond Return of Love (16 page)

In the kitchen Miss Lord was sitting at the table, polishing some little glass dishes.

‘Dainty, aren’t they,’ she said. ‘Just the thing for the sweet. That orange mousse will look lovely in them. Oh, Miss Dace, your shawl! It must’ve dipped in the soup. Give it to me and I’ll wash the fringe.’

Viola returned to the dining-room.

‘… Easter in Tuscany,’ she heard Aylwin say.

‘How I should love to go to Italy!’ Laurel sighed.

After the mousse they had cheese and a bottle of her father’s port, which Dulcie had found in the cellar and decanted into one of the decanters which had stood empty on the sideboard since his death.

‘I suppose we should leave the gentlemen to it,’ she said, in her naive way.

‘No, we will help you to clear the table,’ said Aylwin, getting up.

‘I’d really rather you went into the drawing-room and then I will bring the coffee in there,’ said Dulcie.

Aylwin, Viola and Laurel did this, but Maurice stayed behind.

‘I remember where some of these things go,’ he said, opening a drawer and putting the table mats into it.

‘Can they still go in the same place after all this time;’ said Dulcie.

‘It doesn’t seem so long to me, now that I’m here again,’ said Maurice. ‘I’ve been putting mats away in spirit so many times.’

‘What
are
you talking about?’ Dulcie frowned, trying to find room for another dish on the trolley.

He came up to her and put his arms around her. She stood there without moving, the dish still in her hand, but his nearness was disturbing and she turned her head away when he made as if to kiss her.

‘Oh, Dulcie, perhaps it was a mistake, our breaking it off like that!’

Perhaps
? she said to herself. He might have sounded a little more sure. After all, it was he who had done the breaking – he who had said that he was unworthy of her love. Did he now consider that he
was
worthy? Or that her own standard was less high?

‘It was all for the best,’ she said stiffly. ‘We shouldn’t have been happy together.’

‘Not then, perhaps. But now it might be different

‘It’s too late now.’

‘You mean there’s somebody else. This Dr Forbes? Aylwin ‘ he said mockingly.

Dulcie smiled at the idea. She remembered ‘Some problems of an editor’ and herself rushing forward with the smelling salts; then her researches in the public library and the dark walk to Neville Forbes’s church.

‘I shall never marry now,’ she said.

‘Oh, come Miss Mainwaring, I wouldn’t say that,’ Miss Lord’s voice rang out in the hall. ‘Oh, I
beg
your pardon,’ she said, backing out of the doorway. ‘I didn’t realize you had anybody with you. I thought you were just talking to Miss Dace. I shouldn’t like you to think that I was eavesdropping in any shape or form.’

‘That’s all right, Miss Lord,’ said Dulcie, feeling for her embarrassment but not knowing what to say to improve matters.

‘There you are,’ said Maurice, when Miss Lord had left the room. ‘Quite hopeless, aren’t you.’

Dulcie smiled, but there was really no pleasure in feeling that he might be persuaded to come back to her. She had only to encourage the idea to lose him again, and the second loss might well be more painful than the first.

‘There are plenty of girls,’ she began, not really wanting him to agree that there were, but of course he did.

‘It’s only that you’re different, somehow,’ he added.

Yes, she thought, older and duller and with the added interest of being somebody to be won back again.

‘The others will be wondering if they’re ever going to get any coffee,’ she said, hurrying out to the kitchen.

Maurice went back to the drawing-room, where Aylwin had started his little dissertation, postponed before dinner, on what he called ‘the neo-metaphysicals’, but only Viola seemed to be listening, and now the arrival of the coffee interrupted him yet again.

Dulcie had been wanting to ask him about his brother Neville, and now, with the anxieties of the meal safely behind her, she found the courage to begin.

‘By the way,’ she said casually, ‘haven’t you a brother who’s a clergyman?’

‘I
have
a brother in Holy Orders, certainly,’ he said rather reluctantly.

Dulcie was a little discouraged by his cautious tone and tried to remember quickly whether it was possible that she could know about this by legitimate means, as it were. Then she was back in the cloakroom of the learned society with the washbasin cluttered up with flowers for an invalid and heard again the tall woman saying that she had been curious to see Aylwin Forbes because he happened to be ‘our vicar’s brother’. So it was all right to know about Neville and quite unnecessary to reveal that she had made a special journey to the public library to look him up in
Crockford
.

‘Somebody told me at the conference last summer,’ she explained ‘and I have an uncle and aunt who live quite near his church. I happened to go past it once.’ ‘Happened to go past’ could describe any sort of manoeuvre, really: she wasn’t telling a lie in describing it in those words.

‘We don’t see much of each other,’ said Aylwin. ‘Just because somebody is one’s brother it doesn’t necessarily mean that one finds him particularly congenial.’

‘Blood isn’t always thicker than water, then,’ said Maurice.

‘Well, it’s hardly a question of that,’ said Aylwin a little testily.

‘And just because he is a clergyman it doesn’t necessarily mean that one should pretend to feel more than one does,’ said Viola, as if she were rising in Aylwin’s defence.

‘No, of course not. Perhaps one expects more of the clergy than of other men, but really he has been rather troublesome lately. My mother and I have had a good deal to put up with.’

‘Ah, your mother,’ said Dulcie, hoping for more. She pictured a rather conventional kind of mother, elderly, of course, with white hair, and lace at her throat. But were mothers like this nowadays? Anyway, old Mrs Forbes was somewhere in the West Country, putting up with a good deal from the Rev. Neville Forbes. It was an unusual picture, but the details were blurred. And now Aylwin had changed the subject and they were somehow back at the neo-metaphysicals again. Dulcie, while appearing to listen, was going over in her mind the various ways in which a clergyman son might be ‘rather troublesome’. The possibilities were infinite, and not all of them could be discussed in the present company. It seemed that she would have to go to his church again; this time it would probably be better to attend a service …

Soon after this the party began to break up. Maurice, it seemed, lived in Highgate now, and had a long journey. Aylwin found himself resenting the way he took his hostess’s hand in both of his, as if he had some special claim on her, but was glad that he appeared to ignore Laurel almost completely.

‘My
dear
Dulcie,’ Maurice murmured, ‘so very sweet of you. A
lovely
evening…’

So her name was Dulcie. Aylwin registered this fact for the first time, and when he came to say goodbye he made a point of using it, not to be outdone by the younger man.

‘Thank you, Dulcie,’ he said, ‘for a most delightful evening. And a memorable dinner.’

Dulcie hardly knew what to say, so surprised and pleased was she at his use of her Christian name. And yet there was nothing so very special about it, when they were all on quite friendly terms. It was just the contrast with the chilly ‘Miss Mainwaring’ that delighted her. She wondered when she would dare to call him ‘Aylwin’.

EVERY morning now Laurel drew back her curtains as if she were flinging open the shutters on to a prospect of the Bay of Naples or some soaring mountain peak in Switzerland instead ofjust-the dripping February trees of Quince Square. Life was what one called ‘intoxicating’, from this moment of waking, through all the stages of getting up and making her own breakfast on the little concealed cooker, to the final rush to the bus stop, sometimes in company with one of the other inhabitants of the house. These consisted of various other young girls, like Marian and herself, two Africans who were studying at the London School of Economics, a young man who worked in a bank and did morris dancing in his spare time, a young actor and his friend who were always pressing their suits in the ironing room downstairs, and one or two as yet unidentified young men who wore bowler hats and looked rather alike, so that Laurel thought there might be any number of them or only one.

Aylwin Forbes, watching from an upper window of his house, had once seen Laurel leaving the hostel, and after that he often found himself at the window at about that time. He decided against a chance morning encounter at the bus stop, however. He was not at his best in the mornings and would, he thought, be totally incapable of making sparkling conversation with the young girls who, this year, were dressed in bright shaggy coats and sweaters which made them look like delicious furry animals.

The coming of spring found him in a state of indecision about everything. His book was finished but he had not yet started a new piece of work. The thought of Marjorie still nagged at his conscience – it was at this time of year that they had first met – but he made no attempt to visit the house in Deodar Grove. He imagined his mother-in-law vigorously washing the net curtains and turning the house upside down with spring cleaning. Perhaps Marjorie would be helping her, or giving tea to that organist he had met on the doorstep on the afternoon of the jumble sale. His thoughts turned quickly away from her; it was she who must make the next move. As for the other woman in his life – if somebody who is making an index for one’s book can be so described – he was relieved to think of her living with that nice Dulcie Mainwaring, and felt that he need not worry about her any more. The index was finished, she had been fulsomely thanked in the foreword, and that was that.

Having decided against a chance morning encounter with Laurel, Aylwin began to wonder whether a chance evening encounter might not be arranged. The days were drawing out now and he could easily be walking round the square in the twilight at about the time the young girls were coming home. For the first time in his life he began to wish that he was an animal-lover, that he had a dog who needed to be taken out for an evening walk. A vigorous, bounding animal, from whom the girls might need to be protected, might be the best, and he imagined himself apologizing for Nigger’s or Rover’s – he had conventional ideas of dogs’ names – muddy paws soiling one of the fluffy coats. Or, again, a smaller animal, one who might be petted and exclaimed over, should also be considered. But then, advantageous though the possession of a dog might be, what was he going to do with it when he was not using it to walk round the square? He disliked animals in the house and it was too much to expect the servants to have it with them all the time. The only solution would be to ask that nice Dulcie Mainwaring to look after it, but then the animal would be too inaccessible to be available when it was needed.

As it happened there was no need even to consider getting a dog. The encounter took place quite naturally one evening when Aylwin himself was returning from his publishers and Laurel from her secretarial college. They found themselves getting off the same bus, with Laurel’s friend Marian, and the three of them walked into Quince Square together.

Laurel introduced Marian rather confusedly. They had enjoyed several jokes about Aylwin, as women, even the youngest, will about men, and an unexpected meeting with him was somewhat unnerving.

‘You were just going home,’ he said rather lamely. He, in his turn, found Marian somewhat unnerving – such a sharp little face above the fluffy orange coat, a contrast to Laurel’s gentleness. ‘Have you had a good day?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ they answered politely.

‘Have you?’ asked Laurel, aware that any kind of comparison of their ‘days’ must sound ridiculous. It was beyond her to imagine what his would be like.

‘I always think one needs a drink at this time,’ he said, as they approached his front door.

‘A drink?’ said Marian in a surprised tone, and Aylwin realized that they were so much younger than he was that they could have hardly any points of contact between them. Their gay, birdlike little days would not
need
drinks at the end of them, like some kind of restorative, as the days of grown-up people like himself did. Really, one could sympathize with those elderly ladies who kept brandy in the house for ‘medicinal’ purposes only.

‘Well, a drink is sometimes nice,’ said Laurel, a little apprehen-sively.

‘Will you excuse me, Dr Forbes? I have a date this evening and must hurry and change.’ Marian’s little pointed toes and stiletto heels, so precariously supporting the fluffy orange bundle of her body, were away and into the door of the hostel before either Laurel or Aylwin realized what had happened.

‘Then perhaps – ‘ Aylwin turned to Laurel and smiled – ‘you would like to come and have a drink with me – if you aren’t doing anything better?’

Poor lonely man, Laurel thought with a rush of pity, using to herself the words he had not dared to utter himself for fear of ridicule. Would they go to a pub or to his house? she wondered. Presumably his house, as it was so near.

‘I should like to very much,’ she said.

‘My house is just opposite. I had been hoping I might see you some time. And how is your aunt?’

‘Aunt Dulcie?’ she asked in a rather surprised tone. ‘Oh, very well, I think. She usually is. I don’t see so much of her now, of course.’

They were going in through the shiny painted door and climbing flights of stairs softly carpeted in red. Dark oil paintings, sinister because the subjects were not easily discernible, adorned the walls. Aylwin went on ahead and flung open a door.

‘My library,’ he said.

There were certainly a great many books, the kind that looked as if they might be a false facade, swinging back to reveal a cocktail cabinet. Laurel peered at them, more for something to do than from any particular interest; the bindings were beautiful but the titles meant nothing to her.

‘Very obscure English poets,’ said Aylwin apologetically. ‘The sort of things I’ve spent my life studying.’