Cold Comfort Farm Read Online Free PDF Page A

the cut, fit, colour, construction and proper functioning of brassières; and her friends had learned that her interest, even in moments of extreme emotional or physical distress, could be aroused and her composure restored by the hasty utterance of the phrase:
    ‘I saw a brassière today, Mary, that would have interested you …’
    Mrs Smiling’s character was firm and her tastes civilized. Her method of dealing with wayward human nature when it insisted on obtruding its grossness upon her scheme of life was short and effective; she pretended things were not so: and usually, after a time, they were not. Christian Science is perhaps a larger organization, but seldom so successful.
    ‘Of
course
, if you
encourage
people to think they’re messy, they
will
be messy,’ was one of Mrs Smiling’s favourite maxims. Another was, ‘
Nonsense
, Flora. You
imagine
things.’
    Yet Mrs Smiling herself was not without the softer graces of imagination.
    ‘Well, darling,’ said Mrs Smiling – and Flora, who was tall, bent and kissed her cheek – ‘will you have tea, or a cocktail?’
    Flora said that she would have tea. She folded her gloves and put her coat over the back of a chair, and took the tea and a cinnamon wafer.
    ‘Was the funeral awful?’ enquired Mrs Smiling. She knew that Mr Poste, that large man who had been serious about games and contemptuous of the arts, was not regretted by his child. Nor was Mrs Poste, who had wished people to live beautiful lives and yet be ladies and gentlemen.
    Flora replied that it had been horrid. She added that she was bound to say all the older relatives seemed to have enjoyed it no end.
    ‘Did any of them ask you to go and live with them? I meantto warn you about that. Relatives are always wanting you to go and live with them,’ said Mrs Smiling.
    ‘No. Remember, Mary, I have only a hundred pounds a year now; and I cannot play Bridge.’
    ‘Bridge? What is that?’ enquired Mrs Smiling, glancing vaguely out of the window at the river. ‘What curious ways people have of passing their time, to be sure. I think you are very fortunate, darling, to have got through all those dreadful years at school and college, where you had to play all those games, without getting to like them yourself. How did you manage it?’
    Flora considered.
    ‘Well – first of all, I used to stand quite still and stare at the trees and not think about anything. There were usually some trees about, for most games, you know, are played at in the open air, and even in the winter the trees are still there. But I found that people
would
bump into me, so I had to give up standing still, and run, like the others. I always ran after the ball because, after all, Mary, the ball
is
important in a game, isn’t it? until I found they didn’t like me doing that, because I never got near it or hit it or did whatever you are supposed to do to it.
    ‘So then I ran
away
from it instead, but they didn’t seem to like that either, because apparently people in the audience wondered what I was doing out on the edge of a field all by myself, and running away from the ball whenever I saw it coming near me.
    ‘And then a whole lot of them got at me one day after one of the games was over, and told me I was
no good
. And the Games Mistress seemed quite worried and asked me if I really didn’t
care
about lacrosse (that was the name of the game), and I said no, I was afraid I didn’t, really; and she said it was a pity, because my father was so “keen”, and what
did
I care about?
    ‘So I said, well, I was not quite sure, but on the whole I thought I liked having everything very tidy and calm all round me, and not being bothered to do things, and laughing at the kind of joke other people didn’t think at all funny, and going for country walks, and not being asked to express
opinions
about things (like love, and isn’t so-and-so
peculiar
?). So then she said, oh, well, didn’t I think I could try to be a little less slack,