The Spring Madness of Mr. Sermon by R. F. Delderfield

Author:R. F. Delderfield [Delderfield, R. F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
Published: 2011-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

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suburb and a conversation with any of Sybil's devotees, or member of the staff at Napier Hall, always left him with a feeling that they had drawn a tight circle round themselves and that nothing but a violent shock would cause them to step outside it and be themselves for a few moments. It had made all his personal contacts stale and profitless, as though every sentence he exchanged with the few people he did meet was the kind one might exchange in a railway compartment and this stricture, this hedged-in feeling, had extended even to Sybil and certainly to his son and daughter. As he pondered this, however, a new thought struck him. Were the kind of people he had met during the last few weeks different or did they merely seem different because his own personality had undergone a radical change, so that he was now able to meet them half-way or, in the case of the shy ones like Olga, more than half-way? He was so struck with this that Rachel Grey made the error of thinking his attention had wandered and said: "Look here, Martin, I'm boring you to tears! I didn't volunteer the story of my life, you asked for it, remember? Let's have a drink and something to eat!" and she pressed the starter button.

"I'm not in the least bored," he said, "I was comparing your story with my own. After the divorce what happened? Did you come home again?"

"I always come home! Father's a very tolerant person and one of the wisest people I know. He doesn't probe, he enjoys watching me get my breath back. I'm the youngest you see and all the others have turned out rather well. One brother is a physicist and another brother and a sister are both happily married with two kids apiece. He's been very lonely since Mother died and the one tidy thing about my life is my relationship with Fred. He's a poppet and we're buddies! There isn't much left to tell anyway; after a bit I took the job as companion-nannie to Lady Wilkinson."

"What I don't understand," he said slowly, as she reversed and moved back on to the road, "is how few bruises you've got to show for it. You aren't bitter about anything, not Steve or bad luck, or mistakes or even those awful Wilkinson people. You're like . . . like someone who has stood all day throwing rings at a hoop-la stall without winning a prize, but remains as optimistic as when you

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started out. You think of yourself as a muddier but you aren't really, you've got something quite rare and I can't think of the word for it. It isn't 'resilience' exactly and it isn't a thick hide. Can you name it ? Do you know yourself that well?"

She gave him a shrewd glance as though she was not at all sure how she should take this, then she laughed and said: "It was smart of you to spot it that quickly.

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