After lunch Miss Doggett went up for her rest as usual and, as Mr. Latimer was staying with Pamela’s people, who, to Miss Morrow’s secret disappointment, did not live in Pimlico at all but in Kensington, Miss Morrow was by herself.
She sat gazing meditatively at the vase of coloured teasels which filled the fireless dining-room grate. Yesterday had been warm, but today was cold and raining. And yet it was somehow right that it should be so, she felt. It had been just like this at the beginning of the last academic year, which had brought so many new people into their lives: Mr. Latimer, Simon Beddoes, Barbara Bird … they had come and some of them had gone as if they had never been.
Miss Morrow began to hum aimlessly without knowing what she hummed, but after a while she recognised the tune as that of a hymn which used to fascinate her as a child.
Within the churchyard, side by side,
Are many long low graves:
And some have stones set over them
On some the green grass waves… .
Well, we all came to it sooner or later, whether in Bayswater or Belgravia, in North Oxford or Crampton Hodnet. She looked at the drooping branches of the monkey-puzzle. It will be here when we are all gone, she thought.
And then she remembered that there was really no need to sit in a North Oxford dining-room at ten past three on a wet Sunday afternoon thinking about death and graves unless one wanted to. A simple movement could fill the room with rich, unsuitable music from Radio Luxembourg. She switched on the wireless, and the sound of it poured out into the room. Except for a slight scratchiness of the records it might have been the very same music that she had listened to this time a year ago, for modern dance tunes sounded very much alike to Miss Morrow’s unworldly ear.
After twenty minutes of music Miss Morrow went upstairs to change her dress, and shortly afterwards the rustle of mackintoshes was heard in the hall.
In they came, a great herd of them all at once, Michael and Gabriel, Mr. Bompas, Willie Teep, Miss Jennings and Miss Matador from Somerville, and, at the end, a thin, nervous young man with spectacles, who did not look as if he would be at all equal to the rich cakes which had been made in his honour—Viscount St. Pancras.
‘No, I do not think you will find any change and decay in Leamington Lodge,’ said Miss Doggett, smiling.
And Miss Morrow was inclined to agree with her.
THE END
Table of Contents
NOTE
I. Sunday Tea Party
II. The Clevelands
III. A Safe Place for a Clergyman
IV. Miss Bird
V. The Vicar of Crampton Hodnet
VII. Mr. Latimer Gets an Idea
VIII. Spring, the Sweet Spring
IX. Ballet in the Parks
X. Respect and Esteem
XI. Love in the British Museum
XII. Conversation in a Tool Shed
XIII. Edward and Mother Give a Tea Party
XIX. Thoughts at a Lecture
XV. Advice for Mrs. Cleveland
XVI. Mr. Latimer’s Holiday
XVIII. A London Visit
XIX. An Evening on the River
XX. An Unexpected Outcome
XXI. The Road Home
XXII. The Prodigal Returns
XXIII. Old friends and New