Friends and Relations Read online

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Friends and Relations

  Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899, the only child of an Irish lawyer and landowner. Her book Bowen’s Court (1942) is the history of her family and their house in County Cork. Throughout her life, she divided her time between London and Bowen’s Court, which she inherited. She wrote many acclaimed novels and short story collections, was awarded the CBE in 1948, and was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1965. She died in 1973.

  Also by Elizabeth Bowen

  The Collected Stories

  The Death of the Heart

  Eva Trout

  The Hotel

  The Last September

  The House in Paris

  The Heat of the Day

  The Little Girls

  To the North

  A World of Love

  FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, AUGUST 2020

  Copyright © 1931 by The Dial Press, Inc., copyright © renewed 1959 by Elizabeth Bowen

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Great Britain by Constable, London, in 1931, and subsequently published in the United States by Dial Press, New York, in 1931.

  Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available at the Library of Congress.

  Anchor Books Trade Paperback ISBN 9780593080672

  Ebook ISBN 9780593080665

  Cover Design by Megan Wilson

  Cover painting by Harold Harvey/Bridgeman Images

  www.anchorbooks.com

  ep_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  To B

  Contents

  Part I: Edward and Rodney

  Part II: The Fine Week

  Part III: Wednesday

  Part I

  Edward and Rodney

  1

  The morning of the Tilney-Studdart wedding rain fell steadily from before daylight, veiling trees and garden and darkening the canvas of the marquee that should have caught the earliest sun in happy augury. The bride’s relations frowned in sleep and were roused with a sense of doom by rain’s inauspicious mutter on roofs and windowsills. Clouds with their reinforcements came rolling over the Malvern Hills. Till quite late, the rooms at Corunna Lodge were dusky as though the morning had been delayed.

  Laurel Studdart herself was not concerned with weather and gave the windows hardly a glance. She and Colonel Studdart, both embarrassed by idleness, frequently met throughout the morning as, straying from room to room, they attempted to efface themselves. Her father had the afternoon on his mind—he had not yet given away a daughter—for her, these hours before her wedding were like a too long wait on the platform of some familiar station from which, virtually, one has already departed, where the very associations become irksome. Her clothes were all packed; she was buttoned into an old blazer of Janet’s and did not look like today’s bride. From half-past ten till noon she and Colonel Studdart, shut into the morning-room, played demon patience. Her life here was over, his at a standstill; there was nothing for them to do. The morning-room flowers had been “arranged”; freesia banked the fireplace; Colonel Studdart, from nervousness and a tendency to hay-fever, frequently sneezed. Pollen dashed Laurel’s cheek where she had leant excitedly forward across a lily.

  The rain stopped before lunch. Later, during the ceremony, the sun came out, parting the clouds widely; so that Laurel’s married way down the aisle was gold from successive windows. When she uncertainly smiled in the porch, against strong blasts from the organ rolling out from behind, the umbrellas were finally down; the graves glittered. It was early-closing day, friends from the Cheltenham shops were among the onlookers. The sweet bride, trailing light in her veil, was nodded and smiled to the car where the chauffeur compromised with his impassivity.

  Now the service was over the afternoon steadily brightened. The open-sided marquee was not, after all, to prove a fiasco. Laurel and Edward, obedient to Mrs. Studdart’s instructions, took up their position in the morning-room. A playing-card, overlooked, lay face down on the carpet. Edward stooped for it—“Don’t!” she cried, “leave it!” her heart in her mouth. Better not—Finding themselves still alone Edward and she kissed hastily, with a feverish calm. They had all time, but only the moment. Then Laurel arranged her train in a pool, as she had seen brides do. Mrs. Studdart, coming in shortly afterwards, re-arranged it.

  “You might hold your lilies,” said Mrs. Studdart, who had discovered the sheaf on a hall table specially cleared for the top-hats.

  “Oh, Mother, I can’t; they’re heavy.”

  “But don’t you think it would be nice, Edward, if she were to hold her lilies?”

  “I don’t know,” said Edward. “Do people generally?”

  “They’d be such a strain on one arm all the time. You see I can’t change them; I must keep my right arm for shaking hands.”

  “And shake hands lightly,” said Mrs. Studdart, “don’t grip.”

  “Did I look…?”

  “Lovely, lovely,” said Mrs. Studdart. She was looking round distractedly for a vase and soon found one, a kind of Italian urn in which she arranged the lilies beside the bride.

  The house might have been designed for such an occasion. The position of the morning-room was admirable; it had two doors so that the guests could circulate through a chain of rooms. Each, having saluted the bridal pair, was to pass on through the dining-room; through the French window and out by duck-boards into the open-sided marquee. (This was the best of a summer wedding; to make this possible he and she had devoured each other nervously throughout the endless winter of their engagement.) In the dining-room Cousin Richard was to be posted to head the guests off through the window. He would be shot, he said, if he let one past him into the hall.

  “I shall depend upon you, Richard,” said Mrs. Studdart. (He had been in the Colonies.) “For if the two streams mix in the hall and people get squeezed back into the drawing-room and have to pass Laurel all over again, there will be the most shocking confusion.”

  Janet, the bride’s younger sister, knew that Cousin Richard would be certain, sooner or later, to say, “Pass along the car, please.” She supposed that one did not mind? She supposed that someone was bound to be humorous at a wedding? Might not her Wolf Cubs be better? She proffered two. Several had been already allotted to laying down duck-boards or directing cars round the corner where they could park. But Mrs. Studdart thought no, on the whole. The little boys’ boots…Besides, one did not want friends to feel like traffic, in any way “directed.” Also one could not disappoint Cousin Richard, who had been so much in New Zealand.

  Janet said: “Just as you think, of course.”

  Young Mr. and Mrs. Tilney, between her train and the lilies, with a background of pleasant outdoor sunshine, now stood waiting for their photograph by the world to be taken, for the curtain to rise. In the hall, first guests from the church could be heard arriving; Lady Elfrida Tilney tittering in the porch. Their two heads turned, rather beautifully apprehensive; they had an instant for conversation.

  Edward: “This morning, I wanted to ring you up.”

  Out of her bride’s formality, fall of tulle and lace, came the gay little scoffing laugh. “Oho!” she remarked.

  “But Mother kept saying, ‘Now I expect you will ring up Laurel?’ So I went out and bought some labels.”

  “Labels?”

 
“For my things.”

  “Oh, labels. Well, that’s one conversation we’ll never have.”

  “—They’re coming—”

  “No, that’s the ices going round to the marquee. Edward…”

  But his emotions were quite at a standstill. He had at any time more address than an occasion required. Edward was determined that his wedding, like the execution of Julien Sorel, should go off simply, suitably, without any affectation on his part.

  Laurel went on: “I suppose we can’t possibly…”

  But at this point Lady Elfrida brought in the Daubeneys; remarking with the keenest sense of effect: “My daughter-in-law.” Laurel amazed the Daubeneys with a lovely, composed smile. After the Daubeneys, guests began to come through on a strong current.

  Edward remained throughout wonderfully self-possessed; perhaps because of this he did not make an entirely good impression. Lady Elfrida, in claret-coloured georgette, also overacted a little. Besides being a divorcée, which should but does not subdue, she was the bridegroom’s mother—and one apt to play always a little too gracefully a losing game. The Tilney connection (here to shower on Edward for his marriage as well as his mother a loving depreciation), bright woof to a sober warp, shuttled their way to and fro through the Studdart connection. Impervious to strangers, signalling, smiling, these bright friends distinguished each other; where two or three met intimacies flowered and branched.

  In the dining-room, Cousin Richard was more than a match for poor Mr. and Mrs. Daubeney. He turned them out through the window without effort, and into the marquee, where for some time they waited in solitude under the steaming canvas; no chairs were provided. Having come south from Durham for the occasion they would have wished to rejoin those many Tilneys to whom they had so expectantly nodded in church.

  Janet Studdart had been told by her family to “cope” with Lady Elfrida, but soon gave this up. She paced here and there, a heavy-lidded and rather sombre Diana, supervising the Wolf Cubs. She looked darkly in at the Daubeneys in the marquee and remarked what a good thing it was that the afternoon had cleared up.

  “Some more will be coming out,” she added, “but just now there seems to be a stoppage. Do you know Cheltenham?”

  The Daubeneys did not.

  “It’s stuffy,” said Janet. “Even we notice that, although we live here. And of course weddings are tiring. It’s a pity,” she added, looking dispassionately round the marquee, “you can’t sit down.”

  Mrs. Daubeney said faintly: “We like standing.” This tall, rather fierce girl did not make a pleasurable impression on the Daubeneys, though obviously seeking to be kind. She now blew a blast on a whistle, piercingly and abruptly, issued an order to a Wolf Cub and disappeared. Mrs. Daubeney supposed that daughters of retired colonels living outside Cheltenham often did this. How fortunate Laurel was to have married Edward; they would live in London and visit in Scotland and the North.

  It had delighted the Studdarts to assemble at Laurel’s wedding many old friends whose persistence had become a reproach and cousins receding in distance almost to vanishing-point. The Cliffords were here, whose greeting arrived each third week of December in time to be returned before Christmas; the Blakes so immersed in their Hampstead interests; the Bowleses always ready to put up the girls in Bayswater, to whom the girls never would go; the Thirdmans who had lived ten years in Switzerland and knew nobody. Alex and Willa Thirdman remained in the drawing-room doorway, turning this way and that their charming, anxious faces. They launched and abandoned smiles. They murmured: “Surely that is Eliza Strang—over there by the cabinet—very much stouter. I don’t think she sees us…And surely—no—yes—no—that is Lambert Cane?” But it seldom was. Lambert Cane, for instance, had died some years ago, with every formality. The Thirdmans were shockingly out of it. They had brought their girl, Theodora, for whom at each introduction they joyously turned. But she was never beside them. Theodora had, at the very first, said to her parents, “I wish you would not huddle,” and angrily left them. Hearing a tinkle of spoons in the marquee and anxious for ices she had gained the buffet without being forced to acknowledge the bridal pair by the simple expedient of pushing her way through the hall door and walking round outside the house.

  The bride’s two attendants, little girls grilled to the waist, with pink knickers, had escaped from old gentlemen on to the spongy lawn. Here they were playing clock golf till the cake should be cut.

  “Cheat!” shrieked Prue.

  “Are you allowed almond-paste?” Dilly countered.

  “Oo, I’m sick of old almond-paste!” Prue, swinging her putter, jumped as hard as she could to make dents in the green. “I was bridesmaid once with a little boy that cried in the church. Were you ever?”

  Mortified, Dilly putted in silence.

  “I got a pearl pendant that time, and another time I got corals. What did you get ever?”

  “Oh, you cheat you! You kicked your ball!”

  “Oh, well, I’m not playing really; I call this a silly old game.”

  Their four little pink satin shoes were green-stained. There would be trouble, Theodora noted with pleasure. She was fifteen and, except for the bridesmaids, the youngest present. Every allowance made for her unfortunate age, her appearance was not engaging. She was spectacled, large-boned and awkwardly anxious to make an impression. Her mother, with infinite solicitude, had chosen her for the occasion a large stiff blue hat. All the grown-up girls present wore droopy hats that cast a transparent shadow across their faces. She determined to persecute Mrs. Thirdman for this on the way home. Pulling out her hair-ribbon under her hat, she entered the marquee, where she had some slight diffidence about approaching the buffet.

  Mrs. Daubeney engaged her attention by wearing a toque of violets like Queen Alexandra’s, also a pearl collar. “Let me get you an ice,” Theodora said boldly.

  “Oh…I don’t think they’ve quite begun.”

  “I daresay I’ll manage.”

  Mrs. Daubeney would have preferred tea. But certainly Edward had married into a tradition of capable girls, though she had heard he was highly strung…With Mrs. Daubeney, over two reluctantly granted ices, Theodora was enjoying what she was resigned to believe her unique success of the afternoon when Lady Elfrida joined them. Theodora looked strikingly at Edward’s striking mother, but was ignored.

  “Dear Edith,” exclaimed Lady Elfrida, “I thought I should never find you—Ices? Oh how dreadful!—I hope your feet are not wet; mine are soaking; I think I shall die. Edward never was fortunate in his weather.”

  “I don’t think he has done so badly, Elfrida.”

  “Oh, don’t you?—I do want you to see Janet!”

  “Janet?”

  “You remember I told you—”

  Mrs. Daubeney lowered her voice, the tent was beginning to fill up. “But Laurel is very pretty.”

  “Oh yes, yes. Edward had to make up his own mind. She’s lovely, isn’t she? At his age—” Lady Elfrida’s glittering look ran round the confused Mrs. Daubeney like lightning. She looked derisive, and having already said far too much had the air of holding with ironic impatience more in reserve. She laughed. “Janet’s so capable—she’s left two of those little Cubs in Edward’s dressing-room to see no one puts rice in the suitcases. But at his age—”

  From which Theodora, intently listening, inferred that Janet loved Edward, that his mother preferred Janet; that for Janet this was a day of chagrin, possibly of despair. Despair (wrapped up in curtain, biting the curtain) Theodora could understand, but not yet love. She felt an attraction to Janet and longed to find her. She could not help looking significantly at Lady Elfrida.

  “I expect she has interests,” said Mrs. Daubeney, remembering the whistle. Girls could not all expect to marry.

  “Oh, but I don’t believe in interests, do you?” said Lady Elfrida. At this point Theodora, openi
ng her mouth to speak, saw Mrs. Daubeney being removed by a skilful touch on the elbow. “What a terrible girl,” said Lady Elfrida, who made no allowance for age, as they retreated. “Who on earth—?”

  “I have no idea,” said Mrs. Daubeney.

  Theodora remained looking gloomily down at the crushed grass. “We shall meet again,” she assured herself. “She will be anxious to know me.” On this occasion, Theodora had certainly not arrived. She had to confess inexperience; her personality was still too much for her, like a punt-pole. Surrendering to an advance from the kind Bowleses—was this her first English wedding?—she recurrently thought of Janet. Mrs. Bowles would be delighted to put Theodora up when she came to London.

  “We live in London, thank you,” said Theodora. “We have a flat.”

  Someone very tall appeared in the French window. “What a marvellous young man!” said Theodora loudly.

  “Ssh,” whispered Mrs. Bowles, “that is the bridegroom. They will be coming out to cut the cake.” Theodora looked at Edward and, for one delusive moment, loved him.

  The wedding went off delightfully. No one, even the bride, remained for more than a second clearly in view; there was some rather poignant gaiety, some confusion. The Cheltenham caterer justified his reputation. The little bridesmaids dived shrieking in and out of the marquee, tripping over the tent-cords. Laurel, very much elated, not nervous, cut a slice from the cake and traced another; Edward said surely that was enough; Janet took her place. Lewis Gibson, the best man, feared Janet might find this too much. Healths were proposed. The bride and bridegroom, the best man and the bridesmaids were photographed. The sun descended, the wet garden was staged in light; guests ventured out on duck-boards to see the tulips. The sun, still descending, came in at the side of the marquee, painting the company. Laughter became expressed in glittering teeth, congeniality in a flashing eyeglass. A white kid glove rolled back from a wrist, the half-ruined cake went golden; the faces flame-coloured—Lady Elfrida’s was for a moment ravaged: she had this less than moment for consternation, her own life was ruined, ruined—The moment went unseen. The little girls were given champagne, champagne was taken away from the little girls. One of the Studdarts’ friends said to one of the Tilneys’ friends, she hoped they might meet again: this, alas, was impossible, for the Tilneys’ friend was going abroad. One of the Tilneys’ friends asked one of the Studdarts’ friends to lunch, to help her organize something. Someone felt faint in the marquee. Someone showed some disposition to weep. Word came that the bride and bridegroom were going away.