Free Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym

sprightly. ‘Let me carry those books for you,’ he said.
    ‘Well, it isn’t part of a tutor’s duty to be so polite to his pupils,’ said Barbara.
    ‘Yes, but I’m not your tutor now.’
    There was a pause, as if both were considering their new relationship, whatever it might be. They walked on in silence over Magdalen Bridge. Barbara tried hard to think of some intelligent remark to make. He’ll think I’m so stupid if I don’t say anything , she thought desperately, and I may not get another opportunity to be with him like this again.
    How sympathetic she is, thought Francis. She doesn’t spoil the magic of a beautiful evening—it happened to be a particularly raw December evening
—by making conversation. One could enjoy it in peace. She seemed to know one’s feelings. If he went for such a walk with Margaret she would be chattering all the time about unimportant things, something they ought to get done in the house or some trivial bit of North Oxford gossip. One somehow couldn’t imagine Barbara talking about things like that. He began to see himself as a sensitive, misunderstood person, who had at last found a soul-mate.
    ‘Well, here we are,’ he said with real regret in his tone, as they came to the gates of her college.
    ‘I must go,’ she said, lingering by the gate and not going.
    Francis put out his hand and daringly touched her dark, furry sleeve. It was really just the right moment for a kiss, he thought, and he was sure that she felt it too.
    Oh, why can’t I think of anything intelligent to say. So anxiously had Barbara been racking her brains for the sort of remark an intelligent woman well read in English Literature would make that she had not even noticed his tentative advance, the touch on her sleeve.
    At that moment a dark shape could be seen hurrying down the drive. It was Miss Rideout, the Principal, a good-natured woman who had unwittingly cut short many a good-night kiss.
    ‘Good night,’ said Francis quickly.
    ‘Good night and thank you,’ said Barbara in a small voice, disappointed with herself. She hurried upstairs and into her room, still going over all the things she might have said.
    It was really a good thing, she thought, looking around her, that men weren’t allowed in the women’s rooms. The majority of them were so sordid and unromantic. Even Barbara’s, which was sometimes quite nice, was not looking at its best this evening. The folding washstand was open, there were stockings drying over the back of a chair, the chrysanthemums were dying and the desk was littered with her attempts at a Middle English paper. It was not the kind of room she would have liked to entertain Francis in, although it was better when it was tidy. Barbara thought of it as quite a good setting for herself, with its books and flowers and the large reproduction of a Cézanne landscape over the mantelpiece. But there was nowhere really comfortable to sit except the bed, and it didn’t seem quite right to think of Francis sitting there, among the cheap, gaudy cushions.
    There was a knock at the door, and her friend Sarah Penrose came in. She was a heavily built, fair girl, always overburdened with work.
    ‘Oh, Birdy ,’ she wailed, ‘I wonder if you could help me with Sir Gawaine . I simply can’t translate it. I’ve been at it all afternoon, from two o’clock until now. I thought perhaps we might go through it together.’ She flopped down on the bed, exhausted.
    ‘Have a cigarette,’ said Barbara, ‘and wait while I tidy things up. I’ve been out to tea.’
    ‘Out to tea?’
    Yes, out to tea, thought Barbara. My heart is like a singing bird, just because I’ve been out to tea… .
    ‘I’ve had tea,’ said Mr. Cleveland, as he stood in the drawing-room doorway.
    ‘I should hope you have,’ said his wife, laughing. ‘It’s after six, and you certainly won’t get any here. Did you have it in the town?’
    ‘Yes, I did,’ said Francis shortly.
    Francis sounds rather