I dressed rather carefully in preparation for my lunch with Mrs. Gray and my appearance called forth comments from Mrs. Bonner, who assumed that I was going to have lunch with ‘that good-looking man you spoke to after one of the Lent services’. She was disappointed when I was honest enough to admit that my companion was to be nobody more exciting than another woman.
‘I did hope it was that young man,’ she said. ‘I took a liking to him—what I saw, that is.’
‘Oh, he’s not at all the kind of person I like,’ I said quickly. ‘And he doesn’t like me either, which does make a difference, you know.’
Mrs. Bonner nodded mysteriously over her card-index. She was a great reader of fiction and I could imagine what she was thinking.
I was punctual at the restaurant and I had been waiting nearly ten minutes before Mrs. Gray arrived.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she smiled, and I heard myself murmuring politely that I had arrived too early, as if it were really my fault that she was late.
‘Where do you usually have lunch?’ she asked. ‘Or perhaps you go home to lunch as you only work in the mornings?’
‘Yes, I do sometimes—otherwise I go to Lyons or somewhere like that.’
‘Oh, dear, Lyons—I don’t think I could! Far too many people.’ She shuddered and began looking at the menu. ‘I think we should like a drink, don’t you? Shall we have some sherry?’
We drank our sherry and made rather stilted conversation about parish matters. When the food came Mrs. Gray ate very little, pushing it round her plate with her fork and then leaving it, which made me feel brutish, for I was hungry and had eaten everything.
‘I’m like the young ladies in Crome Yellow,’ she said, ‘although it isn’t so easy nowadays to go home and eat an enormous meal secretly. What was it they had? A huge ham, I know, but I don’t remember the other things.’
I did not really know what she was talking about and could only ask if she would like to order something else.
‘Oh, no, I’m afraid I have a very small appetite naturally. And then things haven’t been too easy, you know.’ She looked at me with a penetrating gaze that seemed to invite confidences.
It made me feel stiff and awkward as if I wanted to withdraw into my shell. But I felt that I had to say something, though I could produce nothing better than ‘No, I suppose they haven’t.’
At that moment the waiter came with some fruit salad.
‘I don’t suppose you have had an altogether easy life, either.’ Mrs. Gray continued.
‘Oh, well,’ I found myself saying in a brisk robust tone, ‘who has, if it comes to that?’ It began to seem a little absurd, two women in their early thirties, eating a good meal on a fine summer day and discussing the easiness or otherwise of their lives.
‘I haven’t been married, so perhaps that’s one source of happiness or unhappiness removed straight away.’
Mrs. Gray smiled. ‘Ah, yes, it isn’t always an unmixed blessing.’
‘One sees so many broken marriages,’ I began and then had to be honest with myself and add up the number of which I had a personal knowledge. I could not think of a single one, unless I counted the Napiers’ rather unstable arrangement, and I hoped that Mrs. Gray would not take me up on the point.
‘Yes, I suppose you would see a good deal of that sort of thing in your work,’ she agreed.
‘In my work?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘But I work for the Care of Aged Gentlewomen.’
‘Oh,’ she smiled, ‘I had an idea it was fallen women or something like that, though I suppose even a gentlewoman can fall. But now I come to think of it, Julian did tell me where you worked.’
She said the name casually but it was obvious that she had been waiting to bring it into the conversation. I imagined them talking about me and wondered what they had said.
‘Julian has asked me to marry him,’ she went on quickly. ‘I wanted you to be the first to know.’
‘Oh, but I think I did know, I mean I guessed,’ I said rather quickly and brightly. ‘I’m so glad.’
‘You’re glad? Oh, what a relief!’ She laughed and lit another cigarette.
‘Well, it seems a very good thing for both of you and I wish you every happiness,’ I mumbled, not feeling capable of explaining any further a gladness I did not really feel.
‘That really is sweet of you. I was so afraid . . . oh, but I know you’re not that kind of person.’
‘What were you afraid of?’ I asked.
‘Oh, that you’d disapprove. . . .’
‘A clergyman’s widow?’ I smiled. ‘How could I possibly disapprove?’
She smiled too. It seemed wrong that we should be smiling about her being a clergyman’s widow.
‘You and Julian will be admirably suited to each other,’ I said more seriously.
‘I think you’re marvellous,’ she said. ‘And you really don’t mind?’
‘Mind?’ I said, laughing, but then I stopped laughing because I suddenly realised what it was that she was trying to say. She was trying to tell me how glad and relieved she was that I didn’t mind too much when I must surely have wanted to marry Julian myself.
‘Oh, no, of course I don’t mind,’ I said. ‘We have always been good friends, but there’s never been any question of anything else, anything more than friendship.’
‘Julian thought perhaps . . .’ She hesitated.
‘He thought that I loved him?’ I exclaimed, in rather too loud a voice, I am afraid, for I noticed a woman at a nearby table making an amused comment to her companion. ‘But what made him think that?’
‘Oh, well, I suppose there would have been nothing extraordinary in it if you had,’ said Mrs. Gray slightly on the defensive.
‘You mean it would be quite the usual thing? Yes, I suppose it might very well have been.’
How stupid I had been not to see it like that, for it had not occurred to me that anyone might think I was in love with Julian. But there it was, the old obvious situation, presentable unmarried clergyman and woman interested in good works—had everyone seen it like that? Julian himself? Winifred? Sister Blatt? Mr. Mallett and Mr. Conybeare? Of course, I thought, trying to be completely honest with myself, there had been a time when I first met him when I had wondered whether there might ever be anything between us, but I had so soon realised that it was impossible that I had never given it another thought.
‘Oh, I hope you weren’t worrying about that,’ I said in a hearty sort of way to cover my confusion.
‘No, not worrying exactly. I’m afraid people in love are rather selfish and perhaps don’t consider other people’s feelings as much as they ought.’
‘Certainly not when they fall in love with other people’s husbands and wives,’ I said.
Mrs. Gray laughed. ‘There you are,’ she said, ‘one does see these broken marriages.’
‘Winifred will be delighted at your news,’ I said.
‘Oh, yes, dear Winifred,’ Mrs. Gray sighed. ‘There’s a bit of a problem there.’
‘A problem? How?’
‘Well, where is she going to live when we’re married, poor soul?’
‘Oh, I’m sure Julian would want her to stay at the vicarage. They are devoted to each other. She could have the flat you’ve been living in,’ I suggested, becoming practical.
‘Poor dear, she is rather irritating, though. But I know you’re very fond of her.’
Fond of her? Yes, of course I was, but I could see only too well that she might be a very irritating person to live with.
‘That’s why I was wondering,’ Mrs. Gray began and then hesitated. ‘No, perhaps I couldn’t ask it, really.’
‘You mean you think that she might live with me?’ I blurted out.
‘Yes, don’t you think it would be a splendid idea? You get on well, and she’s so fond of you. Besides, you haven’t any other ties, have you?’
The room seemed suddenly very hot and I saw Mrs. Gray’s face rather too close to mine, her eyes wide open and penetrating, her teeth small and pointed, her skin a smooth apricot colour.
‘I don’t think I could do that,’ I said, gathering up my bag and gloves, for I felt trapped and longed to get away.
‘Oh, do think about it, Mildred. There’s a dear. I know you are one.’
‘No, I’m not,’ I said ungraciously, for nobody really likes to be called a dear. There is something so very faint and dull about it.
The waiter was hovering near us with a bill, which Mrs. Gray picked up quickly from the table. I fumbled in my purse and handed her some silver, but she closed my hand firmly on it and I was forced to put it back.
‘The very least I can do is to pay for your lunch,’ she said.
‘Does Julian know this? About Winifred, I mean?’ I asked.
‘Heavens, no. I think it’s much better to keep men in the dark about one’s plans, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ I said uncertainly, feeling myself at a disadvantage in never having been in the position to keep a man in the dark about anything.
‘I’m sure you and Winifred would get on frightfully well together,’ said Mrs. Gray persuasively.
‘She could live with Father Greatorex,’ I suggested frivolously.
‘Poor dears; I can just imagine them together. I wonder if there could be anything in that, or would it be quite impossible? What do women do if they don’t marry,’ she mused, as if she had no idea what it could be, having been married once herself and about to marry again.
‘Oh, they stay at home with an aged parent and do the flowers, or they used to, but now perhaps they have jobs and careers and live in bed-sitting-rooms or hostels. And then of course they become indispensable in the parish and some of them even go into religious communities.’
‘Oh, dear, you make it sound rather dreary.’ Mrs. Gray looked almost guilty. ‘I suppose you have to get back to your work now?’ she suggested, as if there were some connection, as indeed there may well have been, between me and dreariness.
‘Yes,’ I lied, ‘I have to go back there for a while. Thank you very much for my lunch.’
‘Oh, it was a pleasure. We must do it again some time.’
I walked away in the direction of my office and, when I had seen Mrs. Gray get on to a bus, went into a shop. I had a feeling that I must escape and longed to be lost in a crowd of busy women shopping, which was why I followed blindly the crowd of busy women shopping, which was why I followed blindly the crowd that surged in through the swinging doors of a large store. Some were hurrying, making for this or that department or counter, but others like myself seemed bewildered and aimless, pushed and buffeted as we stood not knowing which way to turn.
I strolled through a grove of dress materials and found myself at a counter piled with jars of face-cream and lipsticks. I suddenly remembered Allegra Gray’s smooth apricot-coloured face rather too close to mine and wondered what it was that she used to get such a striking effect. There was a mirror on the counter and I caught sight of my own face, colourless and worried-looking, the eyes large and rather frightened, the lips too pale. I did not feel that I could ever acquire a smooth apricot complexion but I could at least buy a new lipstick, I thought, consulting the shade-card. The colours had such peculiar names but at last I chose one that seemed right and began to turn over a pile of lipsticks in a bowl in an effort to find it. But the colour I had chosen was either very elusive or not there at all, and the girl behind the counter, who had been watching my scrabblings in a disinterested way, said at last, ‘What shade was it you wanted, dear?’
I was a little annoyed at being called ‘dear’, though it was perhaps more friendly than ‘madam’, suggesting as it did that I lacked the years and poise to merit the more dignified title.
‘It’s called Hawaiian Fire,’ I mumbled, feeling rather foolish, for it had not occurred to me that I should have to say it out loud.
‘Oh, Hawaiian Fire. It’s rather an orange red, dear,’ she said doubtfully, scrutinising my face. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it was quite your colour. Still, I think I’ve got one here.’ She took a box from behind the counter and began to look in it.
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter really,’ I said quickly. ‘Perhaps another colour would be better. What would you recommend?’
‘Well, dear, I don’t know, really.’ She looked at me blankly, as if no shade could really do anything for me. ‘Jungle Red is very popular—or Sea Coral, that’s a pretty shade, quite pale, you know.’
‘Thank you, but I think I will have Hawaiian Fire,’ I said obstinately, savouring the ludicrous words and the full depths of my shame.
I hurried away and found myself on an escalator. Hawaiian Fire, indeed! Nothing more unsuitable could possibly be imagined. I began to smile and only just stopped myself from laughing out loud by suddenly remembering Mrs. Gray and the engagement and the worry about poor Winifred. This made me proceed very soberly, floor by floor, stepping on and off the escalators until I reached the top floor where the Ladies’ Room was.
Inside it was a sobering sight indeed and one to put us all in mind of the futility of material things and of our own mortality. All flesh is but as grass . . . I thought, watching the women working at their faces with savage concentration, opening their mouths wide, biting and licking their lips, stabbing at their noses and chins with powder-puffs. Some, who had abandoned the struggle to keep up, sat in chairs, their bodies slumped down, the hands resting on their parcels. One woman lay on her couch, her hat and shoes off, her eyes closed. I tiptoed past her with my penny in my hand.
Later I went into the restaurant to have tea, where the women, with an occasional man looking strangely out of place, seemed braced up, their faces newly done, their spirits revived by tea. Many had the satisfaction of having done a good day’s shopping and would have something to gloat over when they got home. I had only my Hawaiian Fire and something not very interesting for supper.