‘Mildred, darling . . . how wonderful to see you!’
I was quite unprepared for Rocky’s effusive greeting and embrace. I was unprepared for his appearance at all at that moment, for I had had no answer to the letter I had written to him some time ago, and I had begun to think that I had offended him by my well-meaning efforts to bring him and Helena together again. It is a known fact that people like clergymen’s daughters, excellent women in their way, sometimes rush in where the less worthy might fear to tread.
‘Hullo, Rocky,’ was all I could say.
‘You don’t seem very pleased to see me.’
‘Oh, I am, but it’s so unexpected. . . .’
‘Surely nice things always are?’ He stood looking at me, confidently charming. I noticed that he was holding a bunch of chrysanthemums.
‘These are for you,’ he said, thrusting them at me. I saw that the stems had been broken very roughly and that they were not tied together at all.
‘Are they out of your garden?’ I asked.
‘Yes; I snatched them as I was hurrying for the train.’
Somehow they seemed a little less desirable now. He had not chosen them, had not gone into a shop for that purpose, they had just happened to be there. If he had gone into a shop and chosen them . . . I pulled myself up and told myself to stop these ridiculous thoughts, wondering why it is that we can never stop trying to analyse the motives of people who have no personal interest in us, in the vain hope of finding that perhaps they may have just a little after all.
‘Helena said that I must bring you some flowers and these happened to be in the garden,’ he went on, leaving me in no doubt at all.
‘Thank you, they’re lovely,’ I said. ‘Is Helena with you, then?’
‘Yes, of course. After getting your letter, I wrote to her and we met.’
‘I hope you didn’t think it interfering of me?’
‘Of course not. I know how you love contriving things,’ he smiled. ‘Births, deaths, marriages and all the rest of it.’
Perhaps I did love it as I always seemed to get involved in them, I thought with resignation; perhaps I really enjoyed other people’s lives more than my own.
We were standing in one of our usual talking places, the entrance to my kitchen. I could feel Rocky looking at me very intently. I raised my eyes to meet his.
‘Mildred?’
‘Yes?’
‘I was hoping . . .’
‘What were you hoping?’
‘That you might suggest making a cup of tea. You know how you always make a cup of tea on “occasions”. That’s one of the things I remember most about you, and surely this is an “occasion”?’
So he did remember me like that after all—a woman who was always making cups of tea. Well, there was nothing to be done about it now but to make one.
‘Oh, certainly,’ I said. ‘And anyway it is nearly teatime, I mean, the conventional hour for drinking tea.’
‘You never came down to visit me at my cottage. Why?’
‘Well, you didn’t ask me.’
‘Oh, but people mustn’t wait to be asked. Other people came.’
‘Did any of the Wren officers come?’ Had they had luncheon in the wild garden with a bottle of some amusing little wine? I was very much afraid that they might have done.
‘Wren officers?’ Rocky looked puzzled for a moment and then laughed. ‘Oh, yes, one or two. But of course they weren’t in their uniforms, so one regarded them as human beings. Oh, lots of people came. I was very social. Had you imagined me there all alone?’
‘I don’t know, really. I didn’t think.’ I was unwilling to remember or to tell him how I had imagined him. ‘Of course, men don’t tend to be alone, do they? I think we talked about it before some time.’
‘Oh, surely! Haven’t we tired the sun with talking on every possible subject?’
The tea was made now and it was as strong as it had been weak on the day Helena had left him. I wondered why it was that tea could vary so, even when one followed exactly the same method in making it. Could the emotional state of the maker have something to do with it?
We sat in silence for a while, brooding over our strong tea, and then I began to ask him about the furniture which had been moved and whether he was going to have it all brought back again.
‘Oh, no, we have decided to settle in the country,’ he said. ‘We don’t really like this place very much.’
‘No; I suppose the associations . . .’
‘The rest of the stuff can quite easily be packed up and sent after us, can’t it?’
‘Oh, yes, that can easily be arranged,’ I said in a consciously bright tone. ‘I wonder who will take your flat?’
‘Somebody respectable, I hope, as you have to share the bathroom. Couldn’t you advertise in the Church Times for a couple of Anglo-Catholic ladies? That’s really what you want.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ I hoped I did not show how depressed I felt at the idea of this future. But then I remembered that it was not within my power to decide who the new tenants should be. The landlord would arrange that, though I supposed that had I known anyone in need of a flat I could put in a word for them.
‘What news?’ asked Rocky, taking the last chocolate biscuit. ‘Has anything exciting happened in the parish?’
‘Julian Malory has broken off his engagement,’ I said. ‘I think I told you that when I wrote.’
‘Oh, of course, the vicar, your vicar. But that’s splendid; now he can marry you. Isn’t that just what we wanted?’
‘If he had wanted to marry me he could have asked me before he met Mrs. Gray,’ I pointed out.
‘Oh, not necessarily. It often happens that a person is rejected or passed over and then their true worth is seen. I always think that must be very romantic.’
‘It could be romantic if you had been the person to do the rejecting, but one doesn’t like to be the person to have been rejected,’ I said uncertainly, feeling that I must be giving Rocky the impression that I really did want to marry Julian. ‘Anyway, there has never been any question of anything more than friendship between us.’
‘How dull. Perhaps you could marry the other one, the curate?’
I explained patiently that Father Greatorex was not really suitable, not the kind of person one would want to marry.
‘Let me stay as I am,’ I said. ‘I’m quite happy.’
‘Well, I don’t know. I still feel we ought to do something,’ said Rocky vaguely.
I got up and took the tea tray into the kitchen.
‘Have you seen our friend Everard Bone at all?’ Rocky called out.
Immediately he asked this, I realised that there had been a little nagging worry, an unhappiness, almost, at the back of my mind. Everard Bone and his meat. Of course it sounded ridiculous put like that and I decided that I would not mention it to Rocky. He would mock and not understand. It made me sad to realise that he would not understand, that perhaps he did not really understand anything about me.
‘I had lunch with him some time ago,’ I said. ‘He seemed very much as usual.’
‘I imagine he will be both relieved and disappointed when he knows that Helena and I have come together again,’ said Rocky complacently. ‘I think he found the situation a little alarming.’
‘It was rather awkward for him,’ I said. ‘Or it might have been.’
‘Poor Helena, it was one of those sudden irrational passions women get for people. She is completely disillusioned now. When he should have been near at hand to cherish her she found he had fled to a meeting of the Prehistoric Society in Derbyshire! Do you know how that happens?’
‘You mean being disillusioned? Yes, I think I can see how it could. Perhaps you meet a person and he quotes Matthew Arnold or some favourite poet to you in the churchyard, but naturally life can’t be all like that,’ I said rather wildly. ‘And he only did it because he felt it was expected of him. I mean, he isn’t really like that at all.’
‘It would certainly be difficult to live up to that, to quoting Matthew Arnold in churchyards,’ said Rocky. ‘But perhaps he was kind to you at a moment when you needed kindness—surely that’s worth something?’
‘Oh, yes, certainly it is.’ Once more, perhaps for the last time, I saw the Wren officers huddled together in an awkward little group on the terrace of the Admiral’s villa. Rocky’s kindness must surely have meant a great deal to them at that moment and perhaps some of them would never forget it as long as they lived.
Rocky stood up. ‘Well, thank you for my tea. Helena is coming back at the week-end. I must go and do some shopping at the Army and Navy Stores before they close. What are you doing this evening?’
‘I have to go to a meeting in the parish hall to decide about the Christmas bazaar.’
‘To decide about the Christmas bazaar,’ Rocky mimicked my tone. ‘Can I come too?’
‘I think it would bore you.’
‘Why do churches always have to be arranging bazaars and jumble sales? One would think that was the only reason for their existence.’
‘Our church is very short of money.’
‘Perhaps I should give it a donation as a kind of thank-offering,’ said Rocky lightly. ‘Though I should really prefer to give something more permanent. A stained-glass window—the Rockingham Napier window—I can see it, very red and blue. Or some money to buy the best quality incense?’
‘I’m sure that would be most acceptable.’
‘Well, perhaps I will. I must hurry now—goodbye!’
After he had gone I stood looking out of the window after him. I seemed to remember that I had done this before, and not so very long ago. But my thoughts on that occasion, though more melancholy had been somehow more pleasant. Now I felt flat and disappointed, as if he had failed to come up to my expectations. And yet, what had I really hoped for? Dull, solid friendship without charm? No, there was enough of that between women and women and even between men and women. Of course, if he had not been married . . . but this suggested a situation altogether too unreal to contemplate. In the first place, I should probably never have met him at all, and I should certainly not have enjoyed the privilege of preparing lunch for him on the day his wife left him or of making all those cups of tea on ‘occasions’. This thought led me to worry again about Everard and his meat and how I had refused to cook it for him, and it was a relief when the church clock struck and I realised that it was time to go to the meeting in the parish hall.