Peace Breaks Out by Angela Thirkell

Author:Angela Thirkell [Thirkell, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780349007519
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2016-11-03T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

THE whole of England now settled down to grumble, and indeed had everything to grumble about and would have felt very peculiar if they hadn’t. May melted into June. Sir Robert’s election committee got busy. Mr. Adams’s election committee got very much busier, but were a good deal hampered by the irregular attitude of their candidate who refused to go on the lines laid down for him and carried on a kind of guerrilla campaign of his own. Sir Robert and Mr. Adams continued to meet at the County Club and took a good deal of pleasure in each other’s society, thus scandalising all their partisans.

“It’s funny you and me getting so friendly,” said Mr. Adams to Sir Robert at lunch one day, “and then having to knock one another about like Punch and Judy as you might say. Still, it’s a fair go and a ding-dong go and no malice borne. And if I wake up one morning and find I’m Sam Adams, M.P., I’ll be the first to laugh.”

“I expect it does feel a bit queer,” said Sir Robert thoughtfully. “How is Heather doing?”

“She’s doing fine,” said Mr. Adams. “She took to Cambridge like a duck to water and there isn’t an ology she doesn’t know. She wanted to come here and help her old Dad with the election, but the lady that’s head of the college said she did ought to go to a reading party. ‘Well, Miss Hipcock,’ I said—that’s her name, Miss Hipcock, though it’s not a name I’d choose myself—‘well,’ I said, ‘I don’t know that my Heth needs much reading, seeing as I can get her all the books she wants by telling my sekertary to phone up the booksellers, but if that’s your idea, I daresay there’s something in it.’ Well, the long and the short of it seems to be that they want my Heth to do some extra studying and Sam Adams was never one to spoil a ship for a ha’porth of tar, nor a good machine for a ha’porth of oil neither,” said Mr. Adams reflectively, “so she won’t be here for the election. And I must say I’m just as glad to see her out of it. There’s going to be some nasty feeling and I wouldn’t like my girlie mixed up in it. Nor yours neither.”

“I feel much as you do,” said Sir Robert. “I don’t think the city will be very pleasant in the next few weeks, and I hope Anne is going to stay with friends in the country for part of the time.”

“I liked your girl that summer at Hallbury,” said Mr. Adams. “My Heth liked her too. But they aren’t going to see much of each other in the future and that’s a fack.”

Sir Robert looked questioningly at Mr. Adams.

“Men are one thing, women are another,” said Mr. Adams.

Sir Robert agreed.

“You and me can meet at the Club, or on the platform, or any other place and speak our minds and no harm done,” said Mr.

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