Free Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

taken as being of the first quality. ‘It might,’ he said seriously, ‘be an ordinaire. Always remember that. A little learning is a dangerous thing, Mildred.’
    ‘Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring,’ I went on, pleased at being able to finish the quotation. ‘But I’m afraid I shall never have the chance to drink deep so I must remain ignorant.’
    ‘Ah, Pope at Twickenham,’ sighed William. ‘And now Popesgrove is a telephone exchange. It makes one feel very sad.’ He paused for a moment and then began to eat with great enjoyment.
    It was certainly an excellent luncheon and what we were having did not appear to be on the menu. After we had been eating for some time and had satisfied our first brutish hunger, he began to ask me about myself, what I had been doing since the last time we met, whether there had been any interesting cases before my committee.
    ‘How I should love to do work of that kind,’ he said, ‘I feel that I almost have a natural gift for it. You see, I would understand so well what these unfortunate gentlepeople had lost. The great house in Belgrave Square with the servants bringing up trays from the basement, the Edwardian country house parties with visiting foreign royalties, the villa at Nice or Bordighera for the winter months …’
    ‘Oh, but the people we have to deal with aren’t usually as grand as that,’ I said, marvelling at William’s understanding, when he and Dora, the children of a doctor, had been brought up in a Birmingham suburb. ‘They are gentlepeople, of course, but more like us, daughters of clergymen or professional people, who may have been comfortably off but never really wealthy.’
    ‘A pity, I mean that you don’t get the grander kind, because the greater the fall the more poignant the tragedy.’
    ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ I remembered reading something of the kind at school when we had been studying Shakespeare’s tragedies. ‘But we do have some very tragic cases,’ I said, ‘and I’m afraid there is nothing at all dramatic about them, poor souls.’
    ‘Ah, yes.’ He became serious, but then seemed to brighten up. Tell me about the new people who have come to live in your house.’
    I began to describe the Napiers, rather hesitantly, for I did not want to make too much of their disagreements as I knew that William with his love of gossip and scandal would seize eagerly on any scrap. Not that it really mattered, I supposed, and as I went on talking I must have become less cautious for I found myself, rather to my dismay, insisting that he was much too nice for her.
    ‘But, my dear, that’s so often the way,’ said William, ‘one should never be surprised at it. All these delightful men married to such monsters, such fiends.’
    ‘Oh, Mrs. Napier isn’t like that,’ I protested, ‘it’s just that he is exceptionally nice.’
    I suppose it must have been the Nuits St. Georges or the spring day or the intimate atmosphere of the restaurant, but I heard myself to my horror, murmuring something about Rocky Napier being just the kind of person I should have liked for myself.
    There was a marked silence after I had said this, during which I looked round the restaurant with detachment, noticing a waiter concocting some dish over a flame at a side table, a man leaning across to touch the hand of the girl sitting opposite him, and I suddenly felt irritated with William for being so grey and fussy and Dora’s brother whom I had known for years.
    But my dear Mildred, you mustn’t marry,’ he was saying indignantly. ‘Life is disturbing enough as it is without these alarming suggestions. I always think of you as being so very balanced and sensible, such an excellent woman. I do hope you’re not thinking of getting married?’
    He stared across the table at me, his eyes and mouth round and serious with alarm. I began to laugh to break the unnatural tension which had arisen, and also at Dora’s idea, which I believe she still cherished,