Jane and Prudence

by Barbara Pym

Perhaps it was because it took her back to her college days, when love, even if sometimes unrequited or otherwise unsatisfactory, tended to be so under romantic circumstances, or in the idyllic surroundings of ancient stone walls, rivers, gardens, and even the reading-rooms of the great libraries.

Could one love an Arthur? Jane wondered. Well, all things were possible.

When they got settled in the new parish she would ask her to stay, not just for a weekend, but for a nice long time. New surroundings and new people would do much for her and there might even be work she could do, satisfying work with her hands, digging, agriculture, something in the open air. But a glance at Prudence’s small, useless-looking hands with their long red nails convinced her that this would hardly be suitable. Not agriculture then, but a widower, that was how it would have to be.

Her death came as a great shock to him—he had almost forgotten her existence.

He is one for the grand gesture and has no time for niggling details.’

‘Tea not ready yet?’ he said, in the way men do, not pausing to consider that some woman may at that very moment be pouring the water into the pot.

‘I’m in the Executor and Trustee Department at the moment,’ said Mr. Oliver. ‘How that must put you in mind of your own mortality!’ said Jane,

She had a natural distrust of good-looking men, though they seemed to offer a challenge which she was never unwilling to accept.

She had a theory that this was why he tended to make love to women—because he couldn’t really think of much to say to them

‘Better gathering than usual,’ said Miss Bird; ‘quite a few critics.’ ‘Such mild-looking men,’ said Jane, seeing one of them taking his seat rather near the front. ‘Perhaps they compensate themselves for their gentle appearance by dipping their pens in vitriol.’

But once outside the magic circle the writers became their lonely selves, pondering on poems, observing their fellow men ruthlessly, putting people they knew into novels; no wonder they were without friends.

Prudence’s flat was in the kind of block where Jane imagined people might be found dead, though she had never said this to Prudence herself; it seemed rather a macabre fancy and not one to be confided to an unmarried woman living alone.

If it is true that men only want one thing, Jane asked herself, is it perhaps just to be left to themselves with their soap animals or some other harmless little trifle?

She had been feeling that things were pretty desperate if one found oneself talking about and almost quoting Matthew Arnold to comparative strangers, though anything was better than having to pretend you had winter and summer curtains when you had just curtains.

Geography and garlic don’t seem to go together somehow.

A beautiful wife would have been too much for Fabian, for one handsome person is enough in a marriage, if there is to be any beauty at all.

Prue could have this kind of life if she wanted it; one couldn’t go on having romantic love affairs indefinitely. One had to settle down sooner or later into the comfortable spinster or the contented or bored wife.

Yes, I suppose I’m getting to the age when one doesn’t realise how often one says the same thing and doesn’t really care,’ said Jane complacently. ‘I suppose it’s one of the compensations of growing older.’

But of course, she remembered, that was why women were so wonderful; it was their love and imagination that transformed these unremarkable beings. For most men, when one came to think of it, were undistinguished to look at, if not positively ugly. Fabian was an exception, and perhaps love affairs with handsome men tended to be less stable because so much less sympathy and imagination were needed on the woman’s part?

She would go without tea, as a kind of penance for all the times she had failed as a vicar’s wife. Also, by catching a train now, she would avoid the rush-hour.