Muriel Spark - The Girls of Slender Means

"I think we had better drop the subject of religion," Jarvie said, as if in conclusion of an argument long in progress. Collie said, "I thought we had dropped it. What a lovely day for Richmond!"

Selina slouched elegantly in her chair, untouched by the threat of becoming a spinster, as she would never be that sort of spinster, anyway. Jane recalled the beginning of the religious quarrel overheard on all floors, since it had taken place in the echoing wash-room on the second landing. Collie had at first accused Jarvie of failing to clean the sink after using it to wash up her dishes of stuff, which she surreptitiously cooked on her gas-ring where only kettles were lawfully permitted. Then, ashamed of her outburst, Collie had more loudly accused Jarvie of putting spiritual obstacles in her path "just when you know I'm growing in grace." Jarvie had then said something scornful about the Baptists as opposed to the true spirit of the Gospels. This religious row, with elaborations, had now lasted more than two weeks but the women were doing their best to conceal it. Collie now said to Jarvie, "Are you going to waste your coffee with the milk in it?" This was a moral rebuke, for milk was on the ration. Jarvie turned, smoothed, patted and pulled straight the gloves on her lap and breathed in and out. Jane wanted to tear off her clothes and run naked into the street, screaming. Collie looked with disapproval at Jane's bare fat knees.

Greggie, who had very little patience with the two other elder members, had been winning her way with Felix, and had enquired what went on "up there, next door," meaning in the hotel, the top floor of which the American Intelligence was using, the lower floors being strangely empty and forgotten by the requisitioners.

"Ah, you'd be surprised, ma'am," Felix said.

Greggie said she must show the men round the garden before they set off for Richmond. The fact that Greggie did practically all the gardening detracted from its comfort for the rest of the girls. Only the youngest and happiest girls could feel justified in using it to sit about in, as it was so much Greggie's toiled-at garden. Only the youngest and happiest could walk on the grass with comfort; they were not greatly given to scruples and consideration for others, by virtue of their unblighted spirits.

Nicholas had noticed a handsome bright-cheeked fair-haired girl standing, drinking down her coffee fairly quickly. She left the room with graceful speed when she had drunk her coffee.

Jane said, "That's Joanna Childe who does elocution."

Later, in the garden, while Greggie was conducting her tour, they heard Joanna's voice. Greggie was displaying her various particular items, rare plants reared from stolen cuttings, these being the only objects that Greggie would ever think of stealing. She boasted, like a true gardening woman, of her thefts and methods of acquiring snips of other people's rare plants. The sound of Joanna's afternoon pupil lilted down from her room.

Nicholas said, "The voice is coming from up there, now. Last time, it came from the ground floor."

"She uses her own room at week-ends when the recreation room is used a lot. We're very proud of Joanna."

Joanna's voice followed her pupil's.

Greggie said, "This hollow shouldn't be there. It's where the bomb dropped. It just missed the house."

"Were you in the house at the time?" said Felix.

"I was," said Greggie. "I was in bed. Next moment I was on the floor. All the windows were broken. And it's my suspicion there was a second bomb that didn't go off. I'm almost sure I saw it drop as I picked myself up off the floor. But the disposal squad found only the one bomb and removed it. Anyway, if there's a second it must have died a natural death by now. I'm talking about the year 1942."

Felix said, with his curious irrelevancy, "My wife Gareth talks of coming over here with UNRRA. I wonder if she could put up at your club in transit for a week or two? I have to be back and forth, myself. She would be lonely in London."

"It would have been lying underneath the hydrangeas on the right if I was correct," Greggie said.

_The sea of faith__

_Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore__

_Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.__

_But now I only hear__

_Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,__

_Retreating, to the breath__

_Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear__

_And naked shingles of the world.__

"We'd better be on our way to Richmond," Felix said.

"We're awfully proud of Joanna," said Greggie.

"A fine reader."

"No, she recites from memory. But her pupils read, of course. It's elocution."

Selina gracefully knocked some garden mud off her wedge shoes on the stone step, and the party moved inside.

The girls went to get ready. The men disappeared into the dark little downstairs cloak-room.

"That is a fine poem," said Felix, for Joanna's voices were here, too, and the lesson had moved to _Kubla Khan__.

Nicholas almost said, "She is orgiastical in her feeling for poetry. I can hear it in her voice," but refrained in case the Colonel should say "Really?" and he should go on to say, "Poetry takes the place of sex for her, I think."

"Really? She looked sexually fine to me."

Which conversation did not take place, and Nicholas kept it for his notebooks.

They waited in the hall till the girls came down. Nicholas read the notice-board, advertising secondhand clothes for sale, or in exchange for clothing coupons. Felix stood back, a refrainer from such intrusions on the girls' private business, but tolerant of the other man's curiosity. He said, "Here they come."

The number and variety of muted noises-off were considerable. Laughter went on behind the folded doors of the first-floor dormitory. Someone was shovelling coal in the cellar, having left open the green baize door which led to those quarters. The telephone desk within the office rang distantly shrill with boy-friends, and various corresponding buzzes on the landings summoned the girls to talk. The sun broke through as the forecast had promised.

_Weave a circle round him thrice,__

_And close your eyes with holy dread,__

_For he on honey-dew hath fed,__

_And drunk the milk of Paradise.__

6

"Dear Dylan Thomas," wrote Jane.

Downstairs, Nancy Riddle, who had finished her elocution lesson, was attempting to discuss with Joanna Childe the common eventualities arising from being a clergyman's daughter.

"My father's always in a filthy temper on Sundays. Is yours?"

"No, he's rather too occupied."

"Father goes on about the Prayer Book. I must say, I agree with him there. It's out of date."

"Oh, I think the Prayer Book's wonderful," said Joanna. She had the Book of Common Prayer practically by heart, including the Psalms-especially the Psalms-which her father repeated daily at Matins and Evensong in the frequently empty church. In former years at the rectory Joanna had attended these services every day, and had made the responses from her pew, as it might be on "Day 13," when her father would stand in his lofty meekness, robed in white over black, to read:

_Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered:__ whereupon without waiting for pause Joanna would respond:

_let them also that hate him flee before him__.

The father continued:

_Like as the smoke vanisheth, so shall thou drive__

_them away:__

And Joanna came in swiftly:

_and like as wax melteth at the fire, so let the__

_ungodly perish at the presence of God.__

And so on had circled the Psalms, from Day 1 to Day 31 of the months, morning and evening, in peace and war; and often the first curate, and then the second curate, took over the office, uttering as it seemed to the empty pews, but by faith to the congregations of the angels, the Englishly rendered intentions of the sweet singer of Israel.