Mistletoe Malice: 'Literary comfort and joy' (Meg Mason, author of Sorrow and Bliss) by Kathleen Farrell

Author:Kathleen Farrell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2023-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Thomas rose early, and so quiet were his movements that he was able to leave Marion sleeping soundly in the twin bed so near—too near—his own. He was conscious that he had not slept well. There had been, so he remembered, a sense of unrest in the night. Noises of footsteps, coming and going. Kate must have had nightmares. He had heard her talking in her sleep, and once she had laughed. Lucky Kate, whose dreams were amusing.

There was no one about downstairs, except Mrs. Page, who stamped in from the kitchen to waylay him by saying:

“Morning, Mr. Thomas. Happy Boxing.”

“What? Oh, yes, Happy Boxing,” he replied politely, thinking that this must be the usual greeting.

Mrs. Page grimaced maliciously at his back. Silly fool! she thought. They say anything. Like parrots. No sense at all. She hummed gaily to herself, pleased that her first trap had been successful. One up to me, she thought. On her good days—and this was one of them, for she had an enquiry to conduct, and of a kind which she most relished—she played these little games. She always won. Every time she tricked one of them into saying or doing something downright dotty, she scored a point. Up to now twenty had been her highest for one day.

What an old monster she is! thought Thomas. The mental discomforts that people will endure rather than accept the physical necessity of looking after themselves! Although might not Mrs. Page herself be merely the product of Rachel’s tyrannical rule? Thomas had been brought up to regard women as gentle creatures whose domination was concerned only with the trivia of living. He would have understood a wife who screamed at him for entering the house with muddy shoes. She might have occasional tearful rages because her marmalade had not set, and he would have been prepared to soothe her. Such a woman had his Mother been, and so lasting were the memories of her that all women today were unnatural—that is, all who did not bring her to mind, and very few did. He had not discovered that Marion was quite unlike his feminine conception, because he had no precedent for thinking that women could be otherwise. He knew, of course, of a few fanatics, but these were either geniuses or were at any rate not met with in his middle-class environment. His Mother had died before she could see that her undeviating goodness had let her son marry a woman who had planned merely to acquire a husband. Why should he question the fresh-complexioned, bouncing young girl who obviously had set her heart on marrying him? Planning and arranging as she already did, that was the very hallmark of youth. That she might not eventually settle down to the customary womanly occupations had never occurred to him. Marion remained obstinately interested in those affairs and problems which he had hitherto regarded as existing solely for masculine minds. She continued to work, flaunting this as her first banner of victory.

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