Crampton Hodnet

by Barbara Pym

  After lunch Miss Doggett went up for her rest as usual and, as Mr. Latimer was staying with Pamela’s people, who, to Miss Morrow’s secret disappointment, did not live in Pimlico at all but in Kensington, Miss Morrow was by herself.

  She sat gazing meditatively at the vase of coloured teasels which filled the fireless dining-room grate. Yesterday had been warm, but today was cold and raining. And yet it was somehow right that it should be so, she felt. It had been just like this at the beginning of the last academic year, which had brought so many new people into their lives: Mr. Latimer, Simon Beddoes, Barbara Bird … they had come and some of them had gone as if they had never been.

  Miss Morrow began to hum aimlessly without knowing what she hummed, but after a while she recognised the tune as that of a hymn which used to fascinate her as a child.

  Within the churchyard, side by side,

  Are many long low graves:

  And some have stones set over them

  On some the green grass waves… .

  Well, we all came to it sooner or later, whether in Bayswater or Belgravia, in North Oxford or Crampton Hodnet. She looked at the drooping branches of the monkey-puzzle. It will be here when we are all gone, she thought.

  And then she remembered that there was really no need to sit in a North Oxford dining-room at ten past three on a wet Sunday afternoon thinking about death and graves unless one wanted to. A simple movement could fill the room with rich, unsuitable music from Radio Luxembourg. She switched on the wireless, and the sound of it poured out into the room. Except for a slight scratchiness of the records it might have been the very same music that she had listened to this time a year ago, for modern dance tunes sounded very much alike to Miss Morrow’s unworldly ear.

  After twenty minutes of music Miss Morrow went upstairs to change her dress, and shortly afterwards the rustle of mackintoshes was heard in the hall.

  In they came, a great herd of them all at once, Michael and Gabriel, Mr. Bompas, Willie Teep, Miss Jennings and Miss Matador from Somerville, and, at the end, a thin, nervous young man with spectacles, who did not look as if he would be at all equal to the rich cakes which had been made in his honour—Viscount St. Pancras.

  ‘Oh, Miss Doggett, isn’t it frightful, we’re in our third year,’ said Michael and Gabriel, rushing to greet her. ‘Change and decay in all around we see, but not here.’

  ‘No, I do not think you will find any change and decay in Leamington Lodge,’ said Miss Doggett, smiling.

  And Miss Morrow was inclined to agree with her.

  THE END

  Table of Contents

  NOTE

  I. Sunday Tea Party

  II. The Clevelands

  III. A Safe Place for a Clergyman

  IV. Miss Bird

  V. The Vicar of Crampton Hodnet

  VI. An Afternoon in the Bodleian

  VII. Mr. Latimer Gets an Idea

  VIII. Spring, the Sweet Spring

  IX. Ballet in the Parks

  X. Respect and Esteem

  XI. Love in the British Museum

  XII. Conversation in a Tool Shed

  XIII. Edward and Mother Give a Tea Party

  XIX. Thoughts at a Lecture

  XV. Advice for Mrs. Cleveland

  XVI. Mr. Latimer’s Holiday

  XVII. A Confrontation

  XVIII. A London Visit

  XIX. An Evening on the River

  XX. An Unexpected Outcome

  XXI. The Road Home

  XXII. The Prodigal Returns

  XXIII. Old friends and New