The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym

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William Collins

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2021

Copyright © Paula Byrne 2021

Paula Byrne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover design by Anna Morrison

Cover photograph © the Barbara Pym Society

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Source ISBN: 9780008322205

Ebook Edition © 2021 ISBN: 9780008322229

Version: 2021-02-23

Dedication

for Stephen Pickles

Epigraph

‘No Need for Modesty in a Diary’

Barbara Pym, 9 September 1933

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue: In which Miss Barbara Pym pays a Visit to Jane Austen’s Cottage

BOOK THE FIRST: A SHROPSHIRE LASS

I. In which our Heroine is born in Oswestry

II. In which we learn how a Servant Girl, Phoebe Pym, is seduced by a Gentleman and gives birth to a Baby Boy

III. In which Miss Pym is sent away to Boarding School

IV. Miss Pym attempts her First Novel: ‘Young Men in Fancy Dress’

V. In which Miss Barbara Pym goes up to St Hilda’s College, Oxford

VI. In which our Heroine might have said Et in Arcadia ego

VII. In which Miss Pym returns North

VIII. In which Miss Pym returns to Oxford

IX. In which our Heroine meets a Handsome Young Man called Rupert Gleadow

X. Miss Pym’s Summer of Love

XI. Our Heroine returns to Shropshire for the Long Vacation and invites Rupert to stay

XII. In which Things begin to become a little complicated with Rupert

XIII. The End of the Affair

XIV. In which we are introduced to ‘the Saga of Lorenzo’

XV. In which Sandra makes her Appearance

XVI. In which Sandra has her First Date with Lorenzo and bites him on the Cheek

XVII. We’re having a Heatwave – a Tropical Heatwave

XVIII. Miss Pym reflects upon Stormy Weather

XIX. In which Sandra returns

XX. We are given a Glimpse of Sandra’s Diary

XXI. In which Sandra tries to renounce Lorenzo

XXII. A Pet Kangaroo

XXIII. Sandra returns to Oxford and resumes her Affair with Lorenzo

XXIV. The Saga of Sandra and Lorenzo, continued …

XXV. In which a Very Important Correspondence begins

BOOK THE SECOND: GERMANY

I. Miss Pym tours Germany

II. In which Fräulein Pym falls for a Handsome Nazi

III. In which Sandra returns to Oxford and loses her Swastika Badge somewhere on the Banbury Road

IV. Miss Pym’s Final Term

V. Night of the Long Knives

VI. Miss Pym returns to Nazi Germany and attends a Hitler Rally

VII. In which Miss Pym returns to England and begins writing a Novel

VIII. Miss Pym continues her Novel of ‘Real People’

IX. In which Miss Pym returns to Oxford to take her BA Degree

X. In which our Heroine goes to Germany for the third time and sleeps with her Nazi

XI. An Untoward Incident on the River

XII. ‘An English Gentlewoman can never come to any Harm’

XIII. Omit the Nazis

XIV. Pymska

XV. In which Pymska is involved in a Tragic Accident

XVI. In which Jock and Pymska draw closer together …

XVII. The Inquest

XVIII. Miss Pym begins her Second Novel in the Summer of 1936 and returns to Oxford to be Henry’s Amanuensis

XIX. The Story of Adam and Cassandra

XX. Jilted

XXI. An Introduction to Miss Ivy Compton-Burnett

XXII. Pymska writes a Finnish Novel

XXIII. Paavikki Olafsson and Jay

XXIV. Liebe Vikki

XXV. A Trip to the Botanical Gardens

XXVI. An Old Brown Horse

XXVII. In which our Heroine sees Friedbert for the Last Time

XXVIII. In which Pymska returns briefly Home to England and Vikki Olafsson goes to Poland

XXIX. Miss Pym leaves Poland in a Hurry, whilst there is still Time

XXX. We rummage in the Lumber Room

XXXI. We go to Crampton Hodnet

XXXII. Introducing Mr Simon Beddoes

XXXIII. A Peek into 112 Eaton Square

BOOK THE THIRD: WAR

I. Operation Pied Piper

II. In which we meet Mrs Dobbs of Birkenhead and Lady Wraye of Belgravia

III. Miss Pym reads a Government White Paper about Nazi Atrocities

IV. Our Heroine is rejected Again

V. Miss Pym begins a Novel in Real Time

VI. The Shadow of the Swastika

VII. Food Glorious Food

VIII. Oxford Revisited

IX. Miss Pym joins the ARP

X. In which our Heroine works for the YMCA in an Army Tented Camp

XI. A Sketch of Miss Ivy Compton-Burnett

XII. I Married a Nazi

XIII. Miss Pym returns to her ‘Sentimental Journal’

XIV. So Very Secret

XV. Operation Bullseye

XVI. Miss Pym is offered a Job in the Censorship Department (German) and hears News of Friedbert

BOOK THE FOURTH: FROM THE COPPICE TO NAPLES

I. Miss Pym moves to a ‘Select Residential District’ of Bristol

II. In which we meet a Philandering Gentleman called Gordon Glover

III. The Marriage of Miss Hilary Pym and the Birth of a Baby

IV. Mr Gordon Glover makes a Bold Declaration to Miss Pym

V. It’s That Man Again

VI. Miss Pym has a Medical Examination

VII. In which Miss Pym pays a visit to her Old Love, Rupert Gleadow

VIII. Miss Pym passes her Interview

IX. Miss Pym experiences Life in Uniform

X. Introducing ‘Wren Pym’

XI. Third Officer Pym is posted to Naples, where she meets ‘Pay-Bob’ Starky

XII. The End of the War

BOOK THE FIFTH: MISS PYM IN PIMLICO

I. In which our Heroine and her Sister take up Residence in London

II. Miss Pym the Anthropologist

III. In which Mr Jock Liddell persists and persuades Miss Pym to revise her Novel

IV. Miss Pym finally tames her Gazelle and it is released to the World

V. In which Miss Pym enters the Age of Dior and the Beveridge Report

VI. In which we read of an Excellent Woman

VII. In which Miss Pym leaves Pimlico for Barnes

VIII. In which Jock and Henry return (briefly) to the Story

IX. Miss Pym the Novelist takes Tea with the Distinguished Author Elizabeth Bowen in the Company of Several Homosexuals

X. The Celebrated Miss Barbara Pym

XI. The Tale of Jane and Prudence

XII. In which Miss Pym meets Robert Smith, is promoted to Assistant Editor of Africa, and Marks & Spencer takes Umbrage

XIII. Miss Pym enters the New Elizabethan Age

XIV. Miss Pym goes to Portugal

XV. Bill

XVI. What a Saga!

XVII. Darling Denton and Orvil Pym

XVIII. Tracking down Orvil Pym

XIX. We drink a Glass of Blessings

XX. In which Miss Pym goes to Swanwick

XXI. In which Miss Pym goes over to Rome

XXII. A Sketch of Philip Larkin

XXIII. No fond Return to Print

BOOK THE SIXTH: THE WILDERNESS YEARS

I. Miss Pym’s Annus Horribilis

II. Miss Pym takes Umbrage

III. Hullo Skipper

IV. Miss Pym visits Keats’s House in Hampstead

V. Of Wistfulness and Whitsun Weddings

VI. Darling Richard

VII. The Tale of the Sweet Bahamian and the Goddess of Brooksville

VIII. In which Mr Philip Larkin is disgruntled (when was he not?)

IX. In which Miss Pym takes Skipper as her Guest to the FANY Club Lunch and he receives a Love Token from Another Man, in the form of a Drying-up Cloth patterned with Dachshunds

X. Miss Pym is Off-loaded, again

XI. Mr Larkin to the Rescue

XII. In which we read Miss Pym’s plangent Masterpiece, The Sweet Dove Died

XIII. Miss Pym feels her Age

XIV. In trying Circumstances, Miss Pym compares herself to an Amazon

XV. In which Holborn’s Renowned Department Store, Gamages, is demolished

XVI. Miss Pym moves to Finstock

XVII. A Luncheon at the Randolph

XVIII. The Kissinger Syndrome and the Return of Henry Harvey

BOOK THE SEVENTH: IN WHICH THE FORTUNES OF MISS PYM ARE REVERSED

I. A Real Pym Year

II. Tea with Miss Pym

III. Miss Pym plays a Quartet in Autumn

IV. Miss Pym attends the Booker Prize

V. In which Miss Pym is invited as a Castaway on a famous Desert Island

VI. In which Miss Pym works on her Last Novel

VII. In which Miss Pym makes her Final Journey

Epilogue: In which Mr Larkin attends the Funeral of his Much-Loved Correspondent Miss Barbara Pym

Afterword

Picture Section

Notes

Suggestions for Further Reading

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

In which Miss Barbara Pym pays a Visit to Jane Austen’s Cottage

It was August 1969, a few weeks after man landed on the moon and a couple of days before the assembled rock stars of the world played the Woodstock festival. The first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus would soon be broadcast on the BBC. An unmarried female novelist, now fifty-six years old, was feeling adrift in this brave new world, so she made a pilgrimage to the cottage in the Hampshire village of Chawton that had been the home of another unmarried female novelist.

That night, Barbara Pym wrote in her diary: ‘I put my hand down on Jane’s desk and bring it up covered in dust. Oh that some of her genius might rub off on me.’[1]

Like Jane Austen, our novelist had published six well-received novels. She had built a following of devoted fans, including such luminaries as the poet Philip Larkin and the Oxford professor Lord David Cecil. She also had a legion of ardent ‘excellent women’ who devoured her novels, borrowed them from the circulating libraries and waited expectantly for the next ‘Barbara Pym’. She had been hailed as the new Jane Austen.

But six years before her visit to Chawton, Pym’s publisher, Jonathan Cape, had rejected Pym’s seventh novel. It was 1963 and London was swinging. The decade had begun with the Lady Chatterley trial and now the Beatles had just released their first LP, Please Please Me. The editors at Cape felt that Barbara Pym’s ‘cosy’ domestic comedies were out of touch, outmoded.

Pym was shocked. She had just completed a draft of what would be her masterpiece. Like the novel she had submitted, it would be considered unpublishable. It was left to languish with her other manuscript novels in a linen cupboard in her shared house in London.

There have been times when even Jane Austen’s novels have fallen out of favour. Tastes and fashions change with each decade, each era. But a truly great body of work will sooner or later bounce back: Austen’s ‘courtship’ novels, for instance – which centred on village life, avoiding overt politics and the wider world – are, for all their limited scope, now acclaimed as forerunners of the women’s movement because they prioritised female experience in a world run by and for men.

Life had left Miss Barbara Pym emotionally bruised, though few would have known this by her outward appearance and demeanour. To look at her she seemed the epitome of middle-class respectability: perfectly coiffed hair; immaculately dressed; good shoes and handbag. To some, she might seem rather intimidating, redoubtable, even; though there was often a twinkle of good humour in those intelligent eyes. The young women in mini-skirts with beehive hairdos seemed to live on a different planet from Miss Barbara Pym, assistant editor of Africa magazine.

‘If only someone would have the courage to be unfashionable,’ Pym had remarked sadly to her friend Philip Larkin.[2] She feared that her novels would go out of print and she would never find another publisher. Her sense of identity had been founded on her literary status, so Cape’s rejection was a bitter blow.

Barbara Pym was a lover not only of Jane Austen, but also of Austen’s eighteenth-century predecessors. At St Hilda’s College, Oxford, where she studied from 1931, female undergraduates were called by their surnames; Barbara was always ‘Pym’ to her friends. But she also liked the appellation ‘Miss Pym’: she frequently referred to herself in this way in her letters, notebooks and journals. In an early (unfinished) novel, she describes the heroine, who is partly based on herself, as a ‘perfect eighteenth-century lady’. She loved Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, but lost interest when Mr B’s intentions towards his beautiful maidservant became honourable.[3] (It is a good point: Mr B is a wonderful villain but loses all credibility when he reforms.) It was the racier aspects of the novel that attracted Barbara Pym.

Pym’s own diaries are prefaced ‘The Adventures of Miss Pym’, and later of ‘Sandra’ and of ‘Pymska’, in the manner of Henry Fielding’s masterpiece Tom Jones. Like Fielding’s naive hero, Miss Pym spent much of her youth falling in love and – surprisingly in the light of her reputation for provinciality – a considerable amount of it on the road. So it is fitting to imagine her life as a picaresque adventure, with a Fieldingesque narrative: ‘In which our heroine …’

CHAPTER I

In which our Heroine is born in Oswestry

Shropshire is a rural county in the north-west of England, nestling on the Welsh border. It is a green and pleasant land, but not far from the city of Liverpool and the industrial shipbuilding town of Birkenhead; it is quiet, slow, rainy and green. The poet A. E. Housman immortalised its ‘blue remembered hills’ in A Shropshire Lad, even though he hardly spent any time there. Oswestry, in the north of the county and close to the border, was the birthplace of another poet, Wilfred Owen. It is an ancient market town dating back to 1190. Its narrow streets conjure up images of its medieval past: ‘The Horsemarket’, ‘English Walls’, ‘Welsh Walls’, ‘The Bailey’.

Barbara Pym was born in the family home, 72 Willow Street, near the centre of Oswestry. Across the road was the office where her father, Frederic Crampton Pym, practised as a solicitor; his brass plate ‘Crampton Pym and Lewis’ is still in place beside the doorway. Barbara was born on 2 June 1913; her only sibling, Hilary, was born in 1916. By then, the family had moved to a detached Edwardian house called Morda Lodge. Set back from the road, it boasted a paddock, a coach house and a spacious garden of three acres. The attic room of the converted coach house was a playroom for the little girls.

During the summer months the garden at Morda Lodge was a riot of colour and fragrance. In a letter written to her Oxford friends, Pym describes the array of spring flowers there: ‘primroses, violets, daffodils, scyllas, grape hyacinths, anemones’.[1] In one of her short stories, a heroine, modelled on herself, loves flowers with such passionate intensity that she believes that they have feelings and emotions and worries that they cry when they are cut down. Her diaries too are a record of her passion for flowers, which lasted for all of her life. Many of her happiest moments were punctuated by the gift of flowers, especially when they were brought by lovers – as when one lover once left a farewell note alongside two dozen ‘of the loveliest daffodils’.[2]

Pym described her father Frederic as ‘extremely good-tempered, undemanding and appreciative’.[3] Every day he would set off on foot for his office in the middle of town and return home for lunch. Sometimes, as young girls, Barbara and Hilary would visit him in his book-lined office, which he shared with his clerk and typist. Fred was a good singer, singing bass in the church choir. He was also athletic and a keen runner. A knee injury kept him out of the First World War, and he took up golf. He enjoyed reading: Rudyard Kipling and the thriller writer Edgar Wallace were among his favourite authors.

A more charismatic and somewhat eccentric figure was Pym’s mother, Irena. The daughter of a successful businessman, Irena was from a large, close family. Two of her unmarried sisters, May and Janice, lived next door to Morda Lodge with their mother in a house called Scottswood. The girls would climb over the garden wall to pay regular visits to their aunts and grandmother. Fun and energetic, Irena bought a motorbike to get around during the war, wearing leather gloves and a long leather motoring coat. The Pyms kept ponies and chickens. The girls had little interest in the ponies, though Irena drove one of them, Mogus, around in a trap. Irena would feed the chickens, Barbara remembered, wearing an old tweed coat – a detail that she stored up and used for a portrait of her mother in the novel, Jane and Prudence.

Irena was an avid reader and fond of music. She played the organ at the parish church of St Oswald’s and she and Fred belonged to the Oswestry Operatic Society. She was also an active member of the parish and the local Women’s Institute. A practical person, in many respects Irena was the epitome of the ‘excellent women’ that would be at the core of her daughter’s novels. She loved to compose doggerel, was a good mimic and had a good sense of humour – a trait she passed on to her clever, lively daughters. She had a font of maxims and favoured quotations, which afforded the girls much amusement. ‘It is hardly worthwhile dividing a cherry’ was one of her sayings. And she would often quote from hymns: ‘God works in mysterious ways’ was a favourite.[4]

On cosy evenings, when the family were at home, together with their two cats sleeping in a chair, Irena would declaim: ‘Behold how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity.’ At other times she would burst into song or quote from Walter Scott. More crucially, in terms of her influence on Barbara, she delighted in fabricating stories about people and their lives: ‘See what you can find without asking’, was one of her maxims.[5] She was sporty – a keen hockey player as a youngster, and later turning to golf – a trait she passed on to Hilary, who also played hockey. Barbara, however, was not fond of physical exercise, preferring to read, scribble stories and pick flowers in the garden for her bedroom.

Barbara loved family jokes and nicknames: Irena was ‘Links’ – a reference to her love of the golf links; Frederic was ‘Dor’ and Hilary was Poopa; and she was ‘Buddy’. Barbara was extremely fond of and protective of her little sister, her mother often having to scold her, ‘What are you doing to Hilary? Put her down.’ When Barbara was sent to boarding school aged twelve, Hilary would spend the whole day at the gate waiting in the hope that she would return.[6]

The Pym sisters were close to some young cousins in Hatch End, London, who would come to stay at Christmas and Easter. Hilary recalled sugar mice adorning the Christmas cake and celluloid animals in their stockings. At the age of eight Barbara wrote an operetta called ‘The Magic Diamond’, which she and her cousins performed at Morda Lodge in 1922.

The Pyms were closely connected to the local church: the girls were friends with the vicar’s daughter, Audrey Brown, and they enjoyed Christmas parties at the vicarage. The family would make a habit of inviting the young curates of the parish to tea. Hilary recalled how she fell in love with a handsome young curate when she was fourteen: during a chat with Irena, he had crossed his legs, revealing white combinations under his cassock. This would form the opening of Barbara’s first published novel, Some Tame Gazelle. It was the kind of detail that the Pym sisters loved; jokes about underwear – ‘combinations’ for men and ‘trollies’ for women – were always good value. They were a religious family, but they were never prudes.

The Pyms were typically respectable middle class and had a small entourage of staff: a gardener and several maids – Sarah (who also acted as a nursemaid to the girls), Leah, Emily, Dilys and Marjorie. Two of the maids lived in, occupying tiny candlelit attic rooms (there was no electricity on this floor of the house). The Pym girls were encouraged to help out with household chores, polishing and washing up, but much of the family’s life depended upon domestic service.

In her diary, Barbara remembered how ‘boring’ she found it to show fifteen-year-old Marjorie around the house: the girl’s fate as a live-in maid would never be her own. Servants would crop up in Pym’s early novels, written during the 1930s, but that changed, as so many things did, after the Second World War. Pym might have felt more sympathy for the young maid had she known about a family scandal that only came to light after her death.