The train was thundering through Maidenhead. Dora wished she had got her book out of her suitcase before the train started. She felt too shy to disturb her neighbour by doing so now. Anyway, the book was at the bottom of the case and the whisky bottles on the top, so the situation was best left alone. She began to study the other people in the carriage. Some nondescript grey ladies, an elderly man, and opposite to her, two younger men. Or rather, a man and a boy. The boy, who was sitting by the window, must be about eighteen, and the man, who was the one who had helped her with her luggage, about forty. These two appeared to be travelling together. They were a good-looking pair. The man was large and broad-shouldered, but a little gaunt and drawn in the face underneath his sunburn. He had an open friendly expression and a wide forehead crossed by rows of regular lines. He had plenty of curly dark brown hair, going grey in places. His heavily veined hands were lightly clasped on his knee, and his gaze shifted easily along the row of passengers opposite, appraising each without embarrassment. He had the sort of face which can look full of amiability without smiling, and the sort of eyes which can meet the eyes of a stranger and even linger, without seeming aggressive, or seductive, or even curious. In spite of the heat of the day he was dressed in heavy country tweeds. He wiped his perspiring forehead with a clean handkerchief. Dora struggled out of her coat and thrust a hand surreptitiously into her blouse to feel the perspiration collecting between her breasts. She transferred her attention to the boy.
The boy sat in an attitude of very slightly self-conscious grace, one long leg stretched out and almost touching Dora’s. He wore dark grey flannels and a white open-necked shirt. He had thrown his jacket into the rack above. His sleeves were rolled up and his bare arm lay in the sun along the dusty ledge of the window. He was less weather-beaten than his companion but the recent sunshine had burnt his two cheeks to a dusky red. He had an extremely round head with dark brown eyes, and his dry hair, of a dull chestnut colour, which he kept a little long, fell in a shell-like curve and ended in a clean line about his neck. He was very slim and wore the wide-eyed insolent look of the happy person.
Dora recognized that look out of her own past as she contemplated the boy, confident, unmarked, and glowing with health, his riches still in store. Youth is a marvellous garment. How misplaced is the sympathy lavished on adolescents. There is a yet more difficult age which comes later, when one has less to hope for and less ability to change, when one has cast the die and has to settle into a chosen life without the consolations of habit or the wisdom of maturity, when, as in her own case, one ceases to beune jeune fille un peu folle, and becomes merely a woman, worst of all, a wife. The very young have their troubles, but they have at least a part to play, the part of being very young.
The pair opposite were talking, and Dora listened idly to their conversation.
“Must keep at your books, of course,” said the man.“Mustn’t let your maths get rusty before October.”
“I’ll try,” said the boy. He behaved a little sheepishly to his companion. Dora wondered if they could be father and son, and decided that they were more likely to be master and pupil. There was something pedagogic about the older man.
“What an adventure for you young people,” said the man, “going up to Oxford! I bet you’re excited?”
“Oh, yes,” said the boy. He answered quietly, a little nervous of a conversation in public. His companion had a loud booming voice and no one else was talking.
“I don’t mind telling you, Toby, I envy you,” said the man. “I didn’t take that chance myself and I’ve regretted it all my life. At your age all I knew about was sailing boats!”
Toby, thought Dora. Toby Roundhead.
“Awfully lucky,” mumbled the boy.
Toby is trying to please his master, thought Dora. She took the last cigarette from her packet, and having peered inside several times to make sure that it was empty, threw the packet, after some indecision, out of the window, and caught a look of disapproval, immediately suppressed, on the face of the man opposite. She fumbled to tuck her blouse back into the top of her skirt. The afternoon seemed to be getting hotter.
“And what a splendid subject!” said the man. “If you’re an engineer you’ve got an honest trade that you can take with you anywhere in the world. It’s the curse of modern life that people don’t have real trades any more. A man is his work. In the old days we were all butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers, weren’t we?”
“Yes,” said Toby. For some time now he had been conscious of Dora’s stare. An anxious smile came and went upon his prominent and, it occurred to Dora, admirably red lips. He moved his leg nervously and his foot touched hers. He jerked back and tucked his feet under the seat. Dora was amused.
“That’s one of the things we stand for,” said the man. “To bring dignity and significance back into life through work. Too many people hate their work nowadays. That’s why arts and crafts are so important. Even hobbies are important. Have you any hobbies?”
Toby was reticent.
Dora noticed some children standing on the embankment and waving at the train. She waved back, and found herself smiling. She caught Toby’s eye; he began to smile too, but quickly looked away. As she continued to watch him he began to blush. Dora was delighted.
“A problem for our whole society,” the man was saying. “But meanwhile, we have our individual lives to live, haven’t we? And heaven help liberalism if that sense of individual vocation is ever lost. One must never be frightened of being called a crank. After all, there’s an example to set, a way of keeping the problem before people’s eyes, symbolically as it were. Don’t you agree?”
Toby agreed.
The train began to slow down. “Why, here we are in Oxford!” said the man. “Look, Toby, there’s your city!”
He pointed, and everyone in the carriage turned to look at a line of towers, silvered by the heat into a sky pale with light. Dora was suddenly reminded of travelling with Paul in Italy. She had accompanied him once on a non-stop trip to consult some manuscript. Paul detested being abroad. So, on that occasion, did Dora: barren lands made invisible by the sun, and poor starving cats driven away from expensive restaurants by waiters with flapping napkins. She remembered the towers of cities seen always from railways stations, with their fine names, Perugia, Parma, Piacenza. A strange nostalgic pain woke within her for a moment. Oxford, in the summer haze, looked no less alien. She had never been there. Paul was a Cambridge man.
The train had stopped now, but the pair opposite made no move. “Yes, symbols are important,” said the man. “Has it ever occurred to you that all symbols have a sacramental aspect? We do not live by bread alone. You remember what I told you about the bell?”
“Yes,” said Toby, showing interest. “Will it come before I go?”
“Indeed it will,” said the man. “It should be with us in a fortnight. We’ve planned a little ceremony, a sort of christening, all very picturesque and traditional. The Bishop has been very kind and agreed to come over. You’ll be one of the exhibits, you know – the first of the few, or rather of the many. We hope to have a lot of you young people visiting us at Imber.”
Dora got up abruptly and stumbled in the direction of the corridor. Her face was glowing and she put up one hand to hide it. Her cigarette fell on the floor and she abandoned it. The train began to move again.
She could not have mis-heard the name. These two must be going to Imber as well, they must be members of that mysterious community Paul had spoken of. Dora leaned on the rail in the corridor. She fingered in her handbag for more cigarettes, and found she had left them in her coat pocket. She could not go back for them now. Behind her she could still hear the voices of Toby and his mentor, and it seemed suddenly as if they must be talking about her. For a short time they had existed for her diversion, but now they would be set before her as judges. Her acquaintance with them in the railway carriage had been something slight and fragile but at least innocent. The sweetness of these ephemeral contacts was precious to Dora. But now it was merely the prelude to some far drearier knowledge. It occurred to her to wonder how much Paul had said about her at Imber and what he had said. Her imagination, reeling still at the notion that Paul had actually existed during the months of their separation, now came to grips with the idea that he had not existed alone. Perhaps it was known that she was coming today. Perhaps the sunburnt man, who now seemed to look like a clergyman, had been on the look-out for the sort of woman who might be Paul’s wife. Perhaps he had noticed her trying to catch Toby’s eye. However had Paul described her?