A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym Read Free Book Online

prophesied. He was a tall dark man of thirty-nine, his hair now streaked with grey and his manner more pompous than in the days when I had stood on his shoulders to write my name on the ceiling of an officers’ mess somewhere near Naples.
    ‘Wilmet, how very nice to see you, and looking as beautiful and elegant as ever. You really must bring old Rodney with you next time.’
    ‘Yes, he’d love to come, but work wouldn’t allow it this weekend.’
    ‘A shocking life—I don’t know how these civil servants stand it!’
    ‘How are things in Mincing Lane?’ I asked, unable to keep a hint of mockery out of my tone.
    ‘Not too bad, thanks. In fact, business is pretty good. But I won’t bore you with details.’
    Harry was one of those non-intellectual men who are often more comforting to women than the exciting but tortured intellectuals. He might not have any very interesting conversation for his wife at the end of the day, might indeed quite easily drop off to sleep after dinner, but he was strong and reliable, assuming that he would be the breadwinner and that his wife would of course vote the same way as he did.
    Dinner was a very pleasant meal. Rowena was a good cook and would have liked to make exotic dishes, but the tyranny of Harry and the children made it necessary for her to keep to plain wholesome English food.
    ‘Well, this looks all right,’ said Harry, as a joint of veal was brought to the table. ‘I hope you like veal, Wilmet?’
    ‘Oh dear, I’d forgotten it was Friday,’ Rowena lamented. ‘Does your high vicar command you to eat fish?’
    ‘Not really,’ I said, ‘though I daresay he and Father Bode will be abstaining from meat this evening.’ A sudden anxious picture came into my mind—the two priests in the clergy house kitchen, trying to cook fillets of plaice or cod steaks. Perhaps in the end they would have to open a tin of sardines or spaghetti, unless they had decided to dine out. They might even have got a housekeeper by now. How wonderful it would be if Father Thames had interviewed and engaged Mr Bason, and he was even now preparing them a delicious sole véronique! I saw him at the kitchen table, peeling grapes. Of course I had no idea what he looked like—I just saw his fingers, long and sensitive as befitted an Anglo-Catholic fond of cooking, removing the pips. I was smiling to myself at the thought of it so I had to tell Rowena and Harry.
    ‘It would be much better if all clergymen were married,’ said Harry dogmatically. This new man we’ve got here is proving very troublesome.’
    ‘Is he married?’
    ‘Actually he is, but he’s got High Church leanings, though he hasn’t had much opportunity to put them into practice yet.’
    ‘But High Church services are much the most interesting kind,’ I said rather feebly.
    ‘That’s what Piers always says,’ said Rowena.
    At the mention of her brother, Harry gave an angry snort, so we thought it more prudent to change the subject.
    After dinner we had coffee in the drawing-room and watched a television programme. There was a film about the habits of badgers, which showed the creatures rootling about in a kind of twilight in what seemed to be rhododendron bushes. But in reality, as we were told by the commentator, there were lights suspended from the trees because badgers only come out at night and so couldn’t be filmed naturally. There was something melancholy about the creatures in the half darkness, with their long sad faces.
    It was not until half way through the entertainment, if such it could be called, that I realized that Harry had edged nearer to me on the sofa and was holding my hand. My main feeling on discovering this was one of irritation. The silly old thing—not unlike a badger himself, I thought; but then I felt flattered and a little guilty. Rowena, who was sitting in a little pool of lamplight by her sewing table, was absorbed in smocking a dress for Patience. She never once glanced at the television