who said she never used her hottie unless it got much colder, than this, promised to fill it and bring it along.
She had intended to do this immediately, but paused to pick up the book which lay, forgotten, at the foot of Miss Searle’s chair. She could bring it along with the bottle; but, seeing the title, she was fascinated by its bulk. Dimly recollecting a selected textbook at school, she had conceived THE CANTERBURY TALES as a thin feuilleton. The archaisms within made her see Miss Searle with new eyes. A brain like that was enough to choke off any man; Miss Fisher’s envy was for the first time mixed with a protective feeling.
Idly she continued to thumb the pages, finding odd passages which spelling and inflection did not wholly disguise, and feeling pleased with herself for getting some sense out of it. This one, The Miller’s Tale, seemed homely stuff enough. Presently she paused, startled; turned up a glossary she had discovered at the end; and read, incredulously, the passage again.
Well, said Miss Fisher to herself. Doesn’t that show you? I’ve met that sort before. Sit talking to the Vicar all through visiting hours, but when they’re coming round from the anaesthetic, you have to keep the junior pro out of the room. And then she has the nerve … It won’t hurt her to let her know I had a look inside. In hospital, I’d be running round on duty with a cold no worse than hers. Better take her temperature, though, I suppose.
Miss Searle, whom she found pottering in a dressing-gown, received the bottle cordially and got into bed. Waiting for the thermometer to register, Miss Fisher noticed the fineness of her white silk nightgown and bed-jacket; also their complete opacity and lack of moulded cut. They combined, mysteriously, the utmost fastidiousness with complete absence of allure. There was a faint scent of eau de cologne in the room.
The thermometer read 97.8; Miss Fisher, rinsing it, decided that no more compunction was called for. She was just opening her mouth when Miss Searle said, gratefully, “And you’ve even brought up my Chaucer. You are spoiling me. Now I’ve everything round me I can possibly want.”
Miss Fisher eyed her with mystified concentration. She knew more about human behaviour than about Middle English; this total unselfconsciousness could only be genuine. A happy and charitable thought struck her. It was a long book; Miss Searle couldn’t have got there yet.
“Is it an interesting book?” she asked, delicately sounding.
Miss Searle smiled, on the brink of a polite assent (there really seemed nothing else to say); but the naiveté of the question moved her. She scented in it a stifled intellectual curiosity, to which all that was best of the pedagogue in her responded.
“You’d hardly imagine that anyone could find it interesting, after going back to it again and again for fifteen years—” (Fifteen years, thought Miss Fisher; she must know it off by heart!)—“but do you know, I never really get tired of it. Both technically and humanly, it’s almost inexhaustible. The vitality, the fascinating touches of realism.” Gratified by the rapt stare in Miss Fisher’s eyes, she went on: “It seems unbelievable that for centuries his verse was thought to be irregular and crude. Because of the changing sound-laws, of course—”
Miss Fisher could hold herself in no longer.
“That’s ever so interesting. I thought he was supposed to be—well—rather rude?”
“Well, of course,” said Miss Searle serenely, “some of his humour has a coarseness that would be quite inconceivable in the present day. But …”
The pleasant, well-modulated voice ran on. Groping after enlightenment, Miss Fisher thought: She hasn’t noticed that it’s about people. It’s poetry, in a book, with clever rhymes and all that, by someone who’s dead. Advancing from the partial truth another step, she decided. It’s her job, after all. Sort of smooths out one bit of you, and leaves
She had intended to do this immediately, but paused to pick up the book which lay, forgotten, at the foot of Miss Searle’s chair. She could bring it along with the bottle; but, seeing the title, she was fascinated by its bulk. Dimly recollecting a selected textbook at school, she had conceived THE CANTERBURY TALES as a thin feuilleton. The archaisms within made her see Miss Searle with new eyes. A brain like that was enough to choke off any man; Miss Fisher’s envy was for the first time mixed with a protective feeling.
Idly she continued to thumb the pages, finding odd passages which spelling and inflection did not wholly disguise, and feeling pleased with herself for getting some sense out of it. This one, The Miller’s Tale, seemed homely stuff enough. Presently she paused, startled; turned up a glossary she had discovered at the end; and read, incredulously, the passage again.
Well, said Miss Fisher to herself. Doesn’t that show you? I’ve met that sort before. Sit talking to the Vicar all through visiting hours, but when they’re coming round from the anaesthetic, you have to keep the junior pro out of the room. And then she has the nerve … It won’t hurt her to let her know I had a look inside. In hospital, I’d be running round on duty with a cold no worse than hers. Better take her temperature, though, I suppose.
Miss Searle, whom she found pottering in a dressing-gown, received the bottle cordially and got into bed. Waiting for the thermometer to register, Miss Fisher noticed the fineness of her white silk nightgown and bed-jacket; also their complete opacity and lack of moulded cut. They combined, mysteriously, the utmost fastidiousness with complete absence of allure. There was a faint scent of eau de cologne in the room.
The thermometer read 97.8; Miss Fisher, rinsing it, decided that no more compunction was called for. She was just opening her mouth when Miss Searle said, gratefully, “And you’ve even brought up my Chaucer. You are spoiling me. Now I’ve everything round me I can possibly want.”
Miss Fisher eyed her with mystified concentration. She knew more about human behaviour than about Middle English; this total unselfconsciousness could only be genuine. A happy and charitable thought struck her. It was a long book; Miss Searle couldn’t have got there yet.
“Is it an interesting book?” she asked, delicately sounding.
Miss Searle smiled, on the brink of a polite assent (there really seemed nothing else to say); but the naiveté of the question moved her. She scented in it a stifled intellectual curiosity, to which all that was best of the pedagogue in her responded.
“You’d hardly imagine that anyone could find it interesting, after going back to it again and again for fifteen years—” (Fifteen years, thought Miss Fisher; she must know it off by heart!)—“but do you know, I never really get tired of it. Both technically and humanly, it’s almost inexhaustible. The vitality, the fascinating touches of realism.” Gratified by the rapt stare in Miss Fisher’s eyes, she went on: “It seems unbelievable that for centuries his verse was thought to be irregular and crude. Because of the changing sound-laws, of course—”
Miss Fisher could hold herself in no longer.
“That’s ever so interesting. I thought he was supposed to be—well—rather rude?”
“Well, of course,” said Miss Searle serenely, “some of his humour has a coarseness that would be quite inconceivable in the present day. But …”
The pleasant, well-modulated voice ran on. Groping after enlightenment, Miss Fisher thought: She hasn’t noticed that it’s about people. It’s poetry, in a book, with clever rhymes and all that, by someone who’s dead. Advancing from the partial truth another step, she decided. It’s her job, after all. Sort of smooths out one bit of you, and leaves
Similar Books
The Duke's Temptation
Addie Jo Ryleigh
The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers
Mike Evans
Catching Falling Stars
Karen McCombie
Survival Games
J.E. Taylor
Battle Fatigue
Mark Kurlansky
Now I See You
Nicole C. Kear
The Whipping Boy
Speer Morgan
Rippled
Erin Lark
The Story of Us
Deb Caletti