No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym Read Free Book Online Page B

the least we can do,’ said Monica brusquely.
    ‘In Brazil – ‘ Senhor MacBride-Pereira began.
    ‘Now we know what you’re going to say,’ said Mrs Beltane teasingly. ‘We all know how you Latins treat animals, you nasty brutes! But Felix has been very naughty and I don’t think Miss Mainwaring is going to let him have one of his favourite petit-fours, are you, Miss Mainwaring?’
    Dulcie, busy pouring out the coffee, made a polite answer. She had not really catered for Felix, and it would certainly not have occurred to her to offer a dog a petit-four. ‘Would he like a plain biscuit?’ she suggested.
    ‘No, thank you, we wouldn’t, would we, Felix,’ said Mrs Beltane in a doting tone. ‘We don’t like plain biscuits, do we. We like petit-fours.’
    Felix, perhaps feeling that after all he was going to get something to eat, rose from his cushion and bounced about the room, yapping with excitement.
    ‘There’s nothing like an animal for breaking the ice,’ said Mrs Beltane complacently. ‘I find that wherever I go with Felix.’
    ‘He breaks more than ice,’ said Monica, with an attempt at laughter. ‘We really must apologize for him.’
    ‘You have no animal, Miss Mainwaring? No pet , as the English say?’ asked Senhor MacBride-Pereira.
    ‘No, I somehow haven’t felt the need for one,’ said Dulcie, thinking that, with her broken love affair and family upheavals, it was rather surprising that she had not. It was also surprising that Mrs Beltane, with two children, should have done so. Monica was not, perhaps, the kind of child who would welcome any lavish-ing of affection, but Paul always seemed to Dulcie to be very lovable. ‘Perhaps when my mother died,’ she went on, ‘I might have got a dog or cat for company, but somehow I didn’t.’
    ‘No?’ said Senhor MacBride-Pereira. ‘And yet it is only the English who would think of replacing a loved one with an animal.’
    ‘Oh, come now, Luiz!’ said Mrs Beltane in mock indignation.
    ‘I believe you’ve come to London to take a secretarial course?’ said Monica, turning to Laurel. ‘What do you intend to do after that?’
    Laurel felt a little like a schoolgirl being interviewed by a headmistress, but she realized that Monica was trying to take a kindly interest, so she tried to sound intelligent and purposeful. ‘I’d like to be secretary to a publisher,’ she said. ‘I think that would be awfully interesting.’ She hurried over the last words, ashamed of their naivety. ‘I don’t really want to go into commerce or anything like that.’
    ‘What were your best subjects at school?’ Monica continued.
    ‘I liked English and History best,’ said Laurel lamely.
    Ah, thought Dulcie sardonically, how many a young girl must have given the same answer to that question! And really what did it mean? A sentimental penchant for King Charles the First or even Napoleon, or a liking for the poetry of Marvell, Keats, or Matthew Arnold? That was what it had been with her, but she had been fortunate in having an ambitious English teacher and parents who, rather bewildered by the whole thing, could afford to send her to Oxford. And now she was making indexes and doing little bits of research for people with more original minds than herself. What, as Miss Lord would ask, did it lead to? And what answer should a girl give now when asked what had been her favourite subjects at school? Russian and nuclear physics were perhaps too far advanced, as yet, but English and History would hardly do.
    ‘I am a lecturer in botany,’ said Monica.
    ‘Oh, how – interesting ,’ Laurel breathed, for what answer could one make to the kind of statement designed to bring conversation to a full stop.
    ‘Yes, it is interesting to see how the same thing has come out in our family,’ said Mrs Beltane. ‘My husband was a great gardener and had a gift for water divining – not very useful in the suburbs,’ she added with a little laugh. ‘Monica has this