Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym Read Free Book Online Page A

scene, her mother and aunt sewing and knitting in the pleasant chintzy room cluttered with photographs and ornaments, the silver tea-tray and the gay tartan tin of shortbread on the little oak table. Deirdre felt comforted without realizing that she had been in need of it.
    A muffled sound came from outside. It was like the cutting down of the trees in The Cherry Orchard , Deirdre thought, except that the sound wasn’t quite sharp enough for an axe.
    ‘That can’t be Mrs. Skinner beating the rugs now? said Rhoda, ‘She must be mad.’
    ‘It might be Mr. Lydgate himself,’ suggested her sister. ‘In some ways, you know, he is rather strange.’
    It must be his life in Africa, Rhoda thought later, as she stood in the dark uncurtained window of her room, looking down into the next door garden. She could just make out his shadowy figure in some long garment; if he had been a clergyman it could have been a cassock, but as he was not she was forced to the rather shocking conclusion that it must be a dressing-gown. He seemed to be moving about on the lawn, picking up the rugs which had been lying on the grass. When he had gone into the house she drew the curtains and put on the light, and began to get ready for her bath. She made her preparations slowly and efficiently, following a careful routine. She left the bathroom as she would wish to find it, folding her own towels and everyone else’s in a special way that pleased her. It worried her a little that Malcolm was not yet in, for he would spoil the symmetrical arrangement of the towels and might splash water on the floor, in the way that men did when they had a bath. Still, if he was very late he might decide not to have one, there was always that.
    Before going back to her own room, Rhoda went quietly downstairs to see if her sister had laid the breakfast satisfactorily. She saw that Mabel had made an effort, but there were one or two things missing, the marmalade spoon and the mats for the coffee; she put right these omissions and then returned quietly to her room.
    What is she doing, creeping about like that? Mabel wondered, lying in bed listening to Rhoda’s careful footsteps. Then she heard Malcolm’s key in the door and relaxed herself for sleep. He too crept quietly in. No raucous voice or drunken shout disturbed the peace of the suburban road; the occasional screech of an owl made it seem as if one were in the country. The moon shone through the stained-glass window on the landing as Malcolm took off his shoes and started to creep upstairs.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Dierdre  seemed to have been awakened by the sound of organ music and voices singing a hymn. At first she thought she must be still dreaming, but then she realized that it was probably some Festival or Day of Obligation and that Father Tulliver must be having an early morning Sung Mass. It gave her an uneasy feeling to have the church so near her bed and she felt almost guilty that others should be up and singing, such very high hymns too, the voices did not seem able to rcach the top notes. They were, of course, predominantly women’s voices.
    ‘I do hope the vicar will be having a good breakfast,’ said Mabel Swan, as they sat having theirs. ‘Something hot, I should imagine; even cereal would be hardly enough.’
    ‘What funny things you hope for, mother,’ said Malcolm looking up from his paper.
    ‘Well, dear, he ought to have a good breakfast after taking such a very early service.’
    ‘And I think I ought to have something hot too,’ said Rhoda, coming in wearing her hat and coat.
    ‘Why, have you been to church? I didn’t know there v,’as anything today.’ Mabel looked a little annoyed, for there was a certain amount of rivalry between the sisters about church-going, and Father Tulliver was so much higher than the former vicar that it was sometimes difficult to keep up with him. ‘It wasn’t a Day of Obligation, was it?’ she asked rather self-consciously, for these new expressions did