Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym

Author:Barbara Pym [Pym, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780748131525
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2011-05-19T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

The next day Harriet could talk of nothing but Mr Mold. At breakfast she declared that he was remarkably young-looking for his age.

‘I suppose he must be in the early fifties, but that’s really the Prime of Life, isn’t it?’ she said to Belinda, who had not so far contributed anything to her sister’s eulogy apart from the observation that he certainly had rather a high colour. Harriet repeated ‘the Prime of Life’, and went on eating her sausage.

‘Yes, I suppose he is,’ agreed Belinda, but rather doubtfully, for she was not really sure what the Prime of Life was. She had always thought that her own prime was twenty-five, so that by her reckoning Mr Mold must be nearly thirty years past it. ‘Personally he isn’t a type that appeals to me very much,’ she added, remembering the joke about the public baths in Belgrade.

‘Oh, I know he isn’t always quoting Gray’s Elegy,’ said Harriet pointedly, ‘but he’s so amusing, such a Man of the World,’ she added naively. ‘I wonder how long he will be staying?’

‘I expect he will have to get back to the Library soon,’ said Belinda. ‘Old Mr Lydgate is in charge now, but I should think he is hardly up to the work really, though,’ she added irrelevantly, ‘he had some very interesting experiences in Ethopia.’

With that she went upstairs, thinking that it would really be a good thing when both the Librarian and Mr Mold went back. Although it was nice seeing different people, especially if they were old friends as dear Nicholas was, Belinda found it rather unsettling. The effort of trying to talk to so many people last night and keep them at peace with each other had quite exhausted her. But there was some satisfaction mixed with her tiredness, for she felt it had been quite a successful party. Edith and Connie had obviously enjoyed both the food and the company, and as inviting them had been something in the nature of a duty, one could feel special satisfaction there. Nicholas and Edith had had a very full conversation about conveniences and he had invited her to come for a personally conducted tour of the Library, where her advice on certain points would be much valued. The curate, Count Bianco and Mr Mold had seemed quite happy, though perhaps the word was scarcely applicable to the Count, who preferred his gentle state of melancholy which must have been enriched by Harriet’s attentions to Mr Mold and the curate. Belinda’s only fear was that the Archdeacon had been bored, though she had decided that his going to sleep showed rather that he felt at home in her house and she was determined to go on thinking so. As she dusted her dressing-table, she broke into Addison’s noble hymn, The spacious firmament on high.

In Reason’s ear they all rejoice … How admirable that was! Belinda began to think rather confusedly about the eighteenth century, and what in her undergraduate essays she had called its ‘Rationalism’.

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