Barbara Pym - Crampton Hodnet

Barbara Pym began Crampton Hodnet just after the outbreak of war in 1939. In spite of wartime tasks, housework and evacuees, it progressed steadily:

18 Nov. 1939: Did about 8 pages of my novel. It grows very slowly and is rather funny I think 22 Dec. 1939: Determined to finish my N. Oxford novel and send it on the rounds.

The novel was completed and sent to Robert Liddell in April. But before she could send it on the rounds she became more deeply involved in war work and the novel was laid aside.

After the war she looked at it again and made some revisions and alterations, but it seemed to her to be too dated to be publishable. Instead, she concentrated on revising the more timeless Some Tame Gazelle, and the manuscript of Crampton Hodnet remained among her other unpublished works. Now, for readers in 1985, the period quality adds an extra dimension to the novel.

Crampton Hodnet is one of Barbaras earliest completed novels, and in it she was still feeling her way as a writer. Occasional over-writing and over-emphasis led to repetition, which, in preparing the manuscript for press, I have tried to eliminate. I was greatly helped by Barbaras own emendations (made in the 1950s) and by some notes she made about this novel in her pocket-diary for 1939.

Faithful readers of the novels will welcome the first incarnation of Miss Doggett and Jessie Morrow. It is interesting to see how, in Jane and Prudence, she redraws them from a more ironic and more subtle point of view. And it is not impossible that the young Barbara Bird of Crampton Hodnet might have grown into the brusque novelist of the later work.

Barbara herself lit upon the exact word to describe this book. It is more purely funny than any of her later novels. So far, everyone who has read the manuscript has laughed out loud - even in the Bodleian Library.

Hazel Holt

London, 1985

The Reverend Stephen Latimers first sight of Leamington Lodge was on an October evening. Preparations were already being made for the Fifth of November, and there was a smell of fireworks in the air. Ever afterwards this smell reminded him of his arrival in Oxford. The street lamps were already lit, and the Victorian-Gothic house looked mysterious and romantic in the misty half-light. Its ugliness was softened and the monkey-puzzle and the dingy laurels were blurred masses of darkness.

Miss Morrow heard the scrunch of feet on the red gravel but took no notice of it. Mr. Latimer was not expected until seven. Miss Doggett, who had gone out to tea, was coming back at six. It was now only half past five.

Miss Morrow was in her bedroom putting rouge on her cheeks. She was experimenting. She had read that if you put the rouge far out on the cheek-bones, and smoothed it in carefully so that no hard line showed, it gave roundness to a thin face. A touch on the chin was another trick, but it didnt say what that gave. She had got as far as putting on some lipstick, and two large dabs of rouge on her cheeks and a smaller one on her chin, when Florence tapped at the door.

Please, Miss Morrow, Im sorry to disturb you, she said, but Mr. Latimer is here.

Mr. Latimer here, now? echoed Miss Morrow incredulously. She spoke with her back turned, so that Florence should not see her face. Well, tell him Ill be down in a minute. Miss Doggett wasnt expecting him till seven.

No, miss, but the sheets are on the bed, said Florence virtuously. Ill tell him what you say.

I dont suppose hell want to go to bed at half past five, thought Miss Morrow, who was now in a flurry of agitation. There was no time to change her dress, but she washed her hands and sprinkled herself lavishly with Parma Violet, as if to make up for it. Then, with her handkerchief, she scrubbed at her lips and cheeks, but the cosmetics she had used were of an indelible brand, and while the scrubbing took some of it off, it by no means removed all of it. This was especially noticeable with the lips. Miss Morrow thought, with sudden shame but also with some amusement, of the advertisement on the little card to which the lipstick had been fixed. Something about your lips never having looked so tempting. How humiliating it was to be caught out in such folly! She assured herself that nothing had been further from her mind than the idea of tempting anyone. The very possibility of Jessie Morrows tempting anyone was so ludicrous that it made her feel like blushing.

At last, when she had ruined a white linen handkerchief and removed what seemed to her nearly all the unnatural colouring, she hurried downstairs. Whatever would Miss Doggett say, she wondered, when she discovered that Mr. Latimer had arrived nearly two hours too early? Miss Morrow felt that in some inexplicable way she would be blamed for it, and so her greeting of Mr. Latimer when she entered the drawing-room lacked warmth; indeed, it was hardly a greeting at all.

I dont know what Miss Doggett will say, she burst out in a breathless voice. She isnt here yet.

Stephen Latimer, who had been prodding the little cactus with his finger, turned round, rather taken aback by this welcome. It was not at all what he was accustomed to. Women usually gushed with delight when they met him. He saw a thin, fair woman standing in the doorway, nervously clasping her hands. She had very bright eyes and such a high colour on her cheeks and lips that for a moment he wondered if it could be natural. But then he told himself that his suspicions were ridiculous. She didnt look at all the sort who would use make-up. By instinct and from experience he distrusted all women under the age of fifty and some over it, for he was an attractive man with a natural charm of manner and had been much run after. Once, indeed, he had even got himself caught in the tangles of an engagement, so that before he knew what he was doing he found himself strolling with a young woman before the windows of Waring and Gillow, looking at dining-room suites. But fortunately they had not got beyond looking, although there had been some unpleasantness and nearly a breach of promise case. He turned hastily from these uncomfortable recollections and was thankful that he had chosen to live with an old lady and her companion in North Oxford, where he hoped he would be safe from the advances of designing women. He did not imagine that many such would call at Leamington Lodge.

Im terribly sorry, he said easily, but I found myself catching an earlier train, and I thought I could probably leave my luggage here, even if you werent ready for me.

Oh, we are ready, really, said Miss Morrow, remembering the sheets on the bed. But Miss Doggett isnt here, she added hopelessly. She was quite taken aback at the sight of Mr. Latimer. Mrs. Wardell had told them about his red hair, but it was auburn, really, and so thick. He was tall, too, with broad shoulders, and yet he didnt look like the Rugger Blue type, who would preach about the Game of Life.

Well, as youre here, Id better show you your room, she said doubtfully, still thinking of Miss Doggett.

Thank you, that would be very kind.

Miss Morrow led the way upstairs. She knew that she was doing a wicked thing, but she quieted her conscience by reminding herself that she could hardly be blamed for Mr. Latimers early arrival, and that she could hardly have refused to see him until Miss Doggett came back.