The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym Page 5

  Barbara, meanwhile, wrote to him from that hot summer of 1932 to tell him that she had been sunbathing naked. He retaliated by saying that he was writing to her naked. He was also hoping for some ‘alone-time’ during their week together in Oswestry. He went on a cruise around the Scottish fjords during the month of August, before heading to Shropshire in September. Barbara met him at the station in a summer frock and yellow jersey, feeling shy and very excited. She thought him twenty times better looking than in his photo. She took him back for tea and he was clearly a huge success with the Pym family.

  Barbara was proud of her charming, handsome boyfriend, with a first-class degree from Oxford and an aeroplane. She wrote in her journal: ‘Here follows a perfect week which must be recorded and remembered as about the best week of my life.’ They were glorious sunshine-filled days, full of long walks and picnics in beautiful, leafy Llangollen and the village of Llynclys. They had a drink at the White Lion pub and then found a secluded spot by the slate stone steps of Jacob’s Ladder, where they lay in the grass ‘half asleep with our faces close to each other for a long time. We laughed out of sheer happiness.’ They walked and kissed and when Pym ran down the hill, he gave her the name ‘Atalanta’. They enjoyed ‘some moments of raptures, most ecstatic madness’.[8]

  Rupert confided to Barbara his feelings about his dead father. He also talked to her about Oxford and his plans, and he asked if she would take the relationship further by going to bed with him: ‘We had much fun and a fight about that.’ Then, by starlight, they strolled down a lane and she told him that she thought ‘the happiness one got out of love was worth any unhappiness it might (and generally does) bring’.[9] Later, Rupert took a bath and Barbara sat in the airing cupboard reciting Dryden. He was about to leave for an excursion to the Lake District with Miles. Barbara was so sad to see him go that she wept and he, too, could barely restrain himself from crying at the parting: ‘Even if I hadn’t had a carriage to myself I don’t think I could have kept back the sobs entirely. It was awful.’[10]

  In the Lakes, his head full of Barbara, Rupert kept calling Miles ‘Darling’ and saying that he wished he was her, ‘which he didn’t take very kindly’. ‘Thank you for making me fall in love with anyone so charming as you,’ he wrote to Barbara’.[11]

  Though the perfect week had cemented the relationship, Barbara was troubled by Rupert’s persistent attempts to have full-blown sex. Often left alone, they experimented sexually. At one moment, she was on all fours, with her dress pushed over her back, revealing her striped underwear. Rupert wrote to her, reminding her of the moment: ‘A very touching and pleasing picture you were, even if not quite fit for publication. – (Did you ever find the hole I mentioned in those striped – er – garments?). It was a lovely sight, that!’ Their relationship had clearly reached a new level of intimacy: ‘My hands send their love to the tropical regions and also to the mountainous regions and my lips send their love to your lips.’[12]

  Barbara wrote to Rupert, telling him how foul and miserable she found Shropshire, but he gently rebuked her again, saying that Oswestry was quite fit for her residence: ‘To me, Morda Lodge is the centre of a radiating golden star of happiness and it must always be marked in gold on my mental map.’ For him, it had been a ‘sacred week’. Back in London, he wrote planning a night together before returning to Oxford:

  Oh darling how immoral we are! And what a lot we do take for granted! I feel chary of even mentioning all the lovely things we did together, that is the more indecent ones, in case of any evil accident these letters ever fell into anybody else’s hands, who, reading them, would say (quite without justification) ‘Barbara Pym seems to have been a rather free and easy young woman.’[13]

  Rupert was still vacillating between a DPhil at Oxford, or joining the RAF, or even the intelligence services. He had applied for a fellowship, though he was worried about the academic life as a career: ‘all the intrigues about the Readership at Oxford have shown me what to expect there and what sort of people academic people are. So that’s not very attractive either.’[14]

  Their long talks about going to bed together often resulted in play-fighting and spanking; something they both seemed to enjoy, according to Rupert: ‘I note with a thrill how even you, decent as you are, can’t write a 2 sheet letter without an allusion to spanking! … Sweetheart and most spankable one! You make me all excited.’[15] In October, Pym and Rupert returned to Oxford.

  CHAPTER XII

  In which Things begin to become a little complicated with Rupert

  Barbara was glad to be leaving ‘foul’ Shropshire. At Banbury, she changed trains, the rolling green hills of the Oxfordshire countryside so different from the grey skies and factories of the north-west.

  Philip Larkin, later a close friend and supporter of Pym, wrote a semi-autobiographical Oxford novel called Jill. He distilled his own painful undergraduate experience as a shy, lower-middle-class boy who struggles to fit into the Eton-infested atmosphere of the rich Oxford colleges. It opens with a train journey from Banbury to Oxford in mid-October: ‘The air had begun to thicken as it does before a dusk in autumn. The sky had become stiff with opaque clouds.’ As the autobiographical protagonist sits on the train he notices the transition from the gasometers and blackened bridges of Banbury to the ‘little arms of rivers twisted through the meadows, lined with willows that littered the surface with leaves’.[1]

  Larkin’s hero struggles with the public school hearties who undermine and bully him, whilst retaining their beautiful manners and sense of noblesse oblige. No matter what he does, he simply does not have the ‘ease’ of the upper classes. Everything is new and intimidating; the black-gowned students, the beautiful quadrangles, the ancient archways with coats of arms and scrolled stones, the Latin at supper and the gilt-framed oil paintings that line the walls of the hall.

  Pym had no such fears about fitting in. Her self-confidence, her happy childhood, her sharp sense of humour were all suitable armour for the pretensions, strange rules and poky hierarchies of Oxford. Now that she was returning for a second year, she was determined to enjoy every minute.

  Michaelmas term held many beauties for Barbara. Term did not start until October, when the nights were starting to draw in. Her North Oxford novel, Crampton Hodnet, recalls the bewitching atmosphere of autumn in Oxford: the smell of fireworks in the air, the lit street lamps and the Victorian Gothic houses, mysterious and romantic in the misty half-light; gardens with monkey puzzle trees and laurel bushes; soft rain pattering on ancient stones and the church bells announcing evensong.

  Pym still had thoughts of Geoffrey. She had heard that he had received a distinction in his theology diploma. Rupert had new digs at number 90 St Mary’s Road, near James Street, in the east of Oxford. She went to see him as soon as she arrived and they strolled down Aristotle Lane, near Port Meadow, towards the canal, ‘talking about life and reminiscing – not contemplating suicide’ (they were standing on a bridge). It was, she wrote in her diary, a happy reunion. Miles had also returned to undertake postgraduate studies. They had tea together in his digs and it was like old times. She spotted Geoffrey smiling his heavenly smile. All was well.

  Rupert had discovered that there was to be a student pyjama party and wrote to Barbara to say that he could get tickets, so that he could see her in her pink-flowered pyjamas. Once again, he was putting on pressure for them to sleep together. He reminded her of their steamy embraces in Shropshire, ‘when your intrepid explorer made such extensive investigations into the mountainous regions’, and there was more talk of spanking her lovely bottom and of her tropical regions. She finally agreed that she would like to sleep with him. Rupert was ecstatic: ‘I’ve put down in my diary that you said you’d like to sleep with me! And that document will go down to our posteriors, I mean posterity, as gospel truth, so I’m not the only lascivious one! Goodnight darling and sweet dreams. Make the pillows comfy. If only I could be Jupiter I’d come to you, like Danae, in a shower of gold.’[2]
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br />   On 13 October, Rupert’s mother and his brother Edmund came to visit, and they had lunch together at the Randolph Hotel on Beaumont Street. Pym was terrified of meeting Mrs Gleadow, but a new fur coat gave her confidence. Edmund she thought less handsome than his older brother, but with ‘personal magnitude’. They walked to the Sheldonian and then went to Fuller’s cafe for tea. One of Barbara’s habits, when she spoke, was to stretch out her hand for emphasis and Edmund amused her by putting things into her outstretched hand – sugar lumps and copper pennies.

  Meeting Rupert’s mother, whom she liked, and his brother cemented their relationship even further. They had now met one another’s families and the love affair was going from strength to strength. The pyjama party seemed to be the designated day and Rupert implored her to wear her pink-flowered ones when she came back to his digs: ‘I think you’d better come in those pajamas, or at any rate leave part of them about you. Couldn’t you wear the top half of them as a blouse?’[3]

  In one of his summer letters, Rupert had told Barbara that he found her especially sweet and vulnerable late at night, when her guard was down. That Saturday evening he was insistent that she should come back to 90 St Mary’s for tea. Barbara’s diary takes up the record. She wrote that 15 October must be an ever-remembered day: ‘Today I must always remember I suppose. Went to tea with Rupert (and ate a pretty colossal one) and he with all his charm, eloquence and masculine wiles persuaded …’[4] Here, Barbara has torn out and destroyed pages of her diary, so what happened next must be a matter of conjecture. Nevertheless, whatever did happen caused much damage and pain. How lasting that pain was is difficult to estimate, but the events of this day ruptured the relationship.

  Rupert got in touch a couple of days later. Something momentous had clearly occurred. He wrote her an extraordinary letter, in which he admitted that, at the crucial moment, there was a ‘complete lack of passion’ and that there was bad behaviour on his part. The letter has ‘WARNING’ scribbled across the top: ‘This is a long and philosophical letter.’

  Dear Barbara,

  I’ve given you some time to think over events, by not writing – . I said we mustn’t write too often – have I been cursed for it? Or have you been too busy? … You know our behaviour the other night in bed was really rather extraordinary: such a complete lack of passion! I’m not sure I wasn’t rather unkind to make you come after all, with that nasty threat, but somehow I couldn’t let it all go for nothing when for half an hour I’d used every ruse of science and art to plead as beautifully as I was able. Was I selfish? Say so if you like; that my behaviour was only natural is no excuse. How do you feel about it? I feel at present that if the chance came I wouldn’t be so unkind as to ask you to do it again, (partly, of course, that’s due to our sexless way of occupying our time there); but I expect if (or when) it comes to the point, I should merely say ‘Well, darling, would you like to come to bed?’ – and you would probably say no and there would be an end of it. Were you happy in bed at all?[5]

  The remainder of the letter is a combination of panicky rambling and rather incoherent musings about their relationship, adverting to their perfect week in Shropshire: ‘As it might be, under the cloud-free sun to lie hours long on Lynchys hill in the late summer afternoon; it may be the year 2000 and more before anyone sees us there; but for us it will still be 1932; still we shall be happy and still we shall be young and joyful, to perfection.’ He quoted the poet Rupert Brooke: ‘Parting, we flung ourselves upon the hill … our heaven is now, is won! … and laughed, that has such brave true things to say: And suddenly you cried and turned away.’[6] Then he asked her about a romantic time-travel novel with the title Still She Wished for Company that she’d started reading but had seemingly lost interest in.

  The destroyed pages of Pym’s diary speak volumes. It would appear that having written about the day of the pyjama party she did not record anything for several weeks. When she resumes, she appears to be suffering from a kind of emotional amnesia:

  October 27th I spent the afternoon with Rupert but can’t remember what I did.

  Oct 28th Can’t remember at present.

  Nov 1st Can’t remember anything about this day.

  Nov 3rd, Went back to Rupert’s digs – where we had a pleasant time, I imagine.

  Nov 6th, I spent a few pleasant hours with Rupert in his digs … Can’t remember much else.[7]

  Her diary then stops and is not resumed until the following year.

  Whatever did happen on 15 October, Pym began to withdraw from Rupert. He continued to send affectionate letters and they spent time together, but there was an emotional estrangement from both sides. One of the last happy days was a long walk, where she was ‘hatless and Atalanta-esque in blue’.[8]

  In November, Rupert heard that he had not been awarded the coveted college fellowship. A letter later in the month is chilly. He says that he doesn’t miss Barbara as he ought to and refers to his ‘beastly, cold and unsympathetic nature’. He asks: ‘Am I really a villain, as well as unscrupulous?’9

  Pym went home alone for the Christmas vacation. Rupert went skiing in Aspen.

  CHAPTER XIII

  The End of the Affair

  Barbara dealt with the Rupert incident by burying the memory. They both entered into a tacit pact to pretend that she had retained her virginity. He wrote to her at Christmas, discussing presents: ‘I’m afraid that we can’t add your estimable virginity to the list, as we have agreed that you should have that for Christmas!’[1] It was a lie and they both knew it. A month later he wrote that he had seen that in America a man was sent to prison for seduction: ‘I shall have to look out, if ever I go there!’[2] Joking about the incident was preferable to open confession and repentance.

  Barbara told him that she had been having dreams about being in bed with him and another Oxford friend, she wearing red pyjamas. Rupert asked which of the men was the ‘chief attraction?’; later he wrote that if she offered him her virginity for his birthday, he would take it. He told her that he knew a shop in London where he could buy the necessary precautions, and added, ‘with the aid of Freud you ought not to have much difficulty in making out the meaning of our periodic bed-going dream’. He finished his letter with a reference to John Donne: ‘I must confess “When souls mix, tis an happiness; but not complete till bodies too” etc. Not to mention Marvell and Herrick and others who knew the value of mistresses. So do I! But it’s a difficult art, having a mistress and Oxford is one of the most difficult places to practice it in. Hence, darling, your still lasting immunity.’[3]

  When Barbara returned to Oxford and resumed her diary, Rupert barely made an appearance. Other men had begun to catch her eye – one in particular, whom she called the ‘pale, Magdalen Man’. She had tea with Rupert and indulged in ‘some very pleasant caresses … but I stuck out against having a real necking party, and got a slight spanking because of it’.[4] By now, Rupert knew that it was all over. He was thoroughly disillusioned with Oxford, describing it as an awful place. He challenged her: ‘Have you ever asked your dear father what he sent you to Oxford for?’[5] By March, he was complaining that if he were killed in his plane, she wouldn’t give two hoots. He added, cynically, ‘a woman must keep up her prestige, even at the expense of truth’. He also wrote about how she might regard him in the future: ‘There was that poor dear Rupert Gleadow – quite mad about me he was, but my dear he really was terribly trying, so lascivious, never would leave me alone. What did I like him for?’[6]

  From then on, their correspondence was sporadic. In April, he asked resignedly: ‘Barbara Dearest, Who have you fallen in love with this time?’ The following year, he wrote to her saying that his heart was fairly free, though he had had a couple of love affairs early in the year. ‘How’s your own heart? Pining, I suppose, for some beautiful man, as usual?’[7] He told her that he still remembered their time together in Shropshire: ‘That summer is safely gilded in my memory.’ And he also dropped a heavy hint that he would like her to
destroy his love letters. He found the tone of her letters to him ‘colder and more disillusioned’.[8]

  By August 1935, Rupert had lost all interest in suppressing the ugly truth of what had happened between them. He referred to his digs at number 90 and that disastrous night. ‘I remember all that too. And that was why I insisted on a second occasion, becos [sic] I felt you had not enjoyed the first occasion and a second would make up for it. Whether I was right I never found out I think you ought to count me among the possibilities – tho’ we both know so well that you did not want it then.’[9]

  Pym did not comment on Rupert’s ‘seduction’, and there is no way of knowing for sure whether she was forced, or whether it happened unexpectedly in the heat of the moment, or whether it was simply a lack of sexual compatibility. Whatever else, she had lost her virginity to him in a disturbing way, which she wiped from her diary, if not her memory.