Free An Unsuitable Attachment by Barbara Pym

this there wasn't really time to go into whether Penelope particularly liked Rupert Stonebird or not or to embark on the sort of explanation that a man couldn't be expected to understand.
     
    ***
     
    If I were to go in now, thought Rupert, I should attract far more attention than if I'd gone earlier. The whole thing must be nearly over—hardly anything on the stalls—nothing to eat—people looking surreptitiously at their watches wondering if they were at all justified in slipping away home. Perhaps, though, he might stroll out in the direction of the church hall, to see if people were coming out, then he would feel that he had made some kind of effort. If he met anyone he could say, with perfect truthfulness, that he had been absorbed in correcting students' essays and had not realized the time until it was after five o'clock. It was disquieting, though, the way he seemed to have to make these excuses to himself, as if his conscience which he had, so he thought at the age of sixteen, successfully buried, had suddenly reawakened to plague him, not about the fundamentals of belief and morality but about such comparative trivialities as whether or not one should attend the church bazaar. Was it to be like this from now onwards? he wondered apprehensively.
    He opened his front door, walked out and crossed the road. He had nearly reached the church when he saw a group of people approaching him. Miss Broome—Ianthe—the vicar's sister-in-law—Prudence, Jenny, was it?—or one of those fashionable names that often seemed so unsuitable for their bearers—and two men whom he had not seen before. It must obviously be too late to go to the bazaar now, he thought with relief as he came face to face with the group, but he found himself trotting out the excuse about correcting papers and not noticing the time before anyone had had the chance to comment on his non-attendance.
    'We did rather wonder what had happened to you,' said Ianthe.
    Only somebody as naive and unworldly as Ianthe could have come out with such a disconcertingly honest statement, thought Penelope, who had of course wondered even more.
    'Ianthe has invited us in to have a glass of sherry,' she said, hoping that Ianthe would invite Rupert too.
    'Yes—would you like to join us? It isn't worth your while going to the hall now. They were packing up the stalls when we left,' said Ianthe. 'Oh, I'm sorry, you don't know Mervyn Cantrell and John Challow, do you. We all work together.'
    'Well, I'm only a sort of stooge,' said John. 'Mervyn and Ianthe are the clever ones.'
    They turned towards Ianthe's gate and went into the house. It was pleasantly warm in the little hall, Rupert thought, noticing the red glow of a paraffin heater, almost like a sanctuary lamp or the lamp that was said to have burnt clear in Tullia's tomb, for close on fifteen hundred years. He must set about getting something like that himself. There was a coal fire in the sitting room and when Ianthe had drawn the curtains to shut out the November evening everybody agreed with John when he exclaimed how 'cosy' it was. Really there was no other word for it, though only he or Mervyn could have said it.
    'And there's that lovely Pembroke table,' said Mervyn, bending down to examine it.
    John and Rupert sat down rather stiffly, not quite liking to roam about the room appraising the furniture and objects, as Mervyn was doing.
    Ianthe and Penelope went upstairs to take off their coats. Penelope was interested to see Ianthe's bedroom, which was at the back of the house, looking over the garden. Here as in the rest of the house, the furniture was good and well cared for. The hangings were rather chintzy and old-fashioned. The dressing table held only a silver-backed brush, comb and mirror and two trinket boxes, with an old-fashioned flowered china tree for holding rings placed in one corner. No cosmetics of any kind were visible. The bed looked neat, smooth and austere, and the books on the table beside it had