Read Online Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers - Free Book Online

pension for her—only a trifle, but as you know, our income has to be stretched very carefully to cover everything. And we arranged a little scheme by which she takes in odd jobs of mending and so on for the students and attends to the College linen. It all helps; and she’s especially glad because that crippled sister of hers can do part of the work and contribute something to their small income. Agnes says the poor soul is so much happier now that she need not feel herself a burden.”
    Harriet marvelled, not for the first time, at the untiring conscientiousness of administrative women. Nobody’s interests ever seemed to be overlooked or forgotten, and an endless goodwill made up for a perennial scarcity of funds.
    After a little more talk about the doings of past dons and students, the conversation turned upon the new Library. The books had long outgrown their old home in Tudor Building, and were at last to be adequately housed.
    “And when that is finished,” said Miss Lydgate, “we shall feel that our College Buildings are substantially complete. It does seem rather wonderful to those of us who remember the early days when we only had the one funny old house with ten students, and were chaperoned to lectures in a donkey carriage. I must say we rather wept to see the dear old place pulled down to make way for the Library. It held so many memories.”
    “Yes, indeed,” said Harriet, sympathetically. She supposed that there was no moment of the past upon which this experienced and yet innocent soul could not dwell with unaffected pleasure. The entrance of another old pupil cut short her interview with Miss Lydgate, and she went out, vaguely envious, to encounter the persistent Miss Mollison, primed with every remorseless detail of the clock incident. It gave her pleasure to inform Miss Mollison that Mr. A. E. W. Mason had hit on the same idea earlier. Unquenchable, Miss Mollison proceeded to question her victim eagerly about Lord Peter Wimsey, his manners, customs and appearance; and when Miss Mollison was driven away by Miss Schuster-Slatt, the irritation was little relieved, for Harriet was subjected to a long harangue about the sterilisation of the unfit, to which (it appeared) a campaign to encourage the marriage of the fit was a necessary corollary. Harriet agreed that intellectual women should marry and reproduce their kind; but she pointed out that the English husband had something to say in the matter and that, very often, he did not care for an intellectual wife.
    Miss Schuster-Slatt said she thought English husbands were lovely, and that she was preparing a questionnaire to be circulated to the young men of the United Kingdom, with a view to finding out their matrimonial preferences.
    “But English people won’t fill up questionnaires,” said Harriet.
    “Won’t fill up questionnaires?” cried Miss Schuster-Slatt, taken aback.
    “No,” said Harriet, “they won’t. As a nation we are not questionnaire-conscious.”
    “Well, that’s too bad,” said Miss Schuster-Slatt. “But I do hope you will join the British Branch of our League for the Encouragement of Matrimonial Fitness. Our President, Mrs. J. Poppelhinken, is a wonderful woman. You would so much like to meet her. She will be coming to Europe next year. In the meantime I am here to do propaganda and study the whole question from the angle of British mentality.”
    “I’m afraid you will find it a very difficult job. I wonder,” added Harriet (for she felt she owed Miss Schuster-Slatt a riposte for her unfortunate observations of the night before), “whether your intentions are as disinterested as you make out. Perhaps you are thinking of investigating the loveliness of English husbands in a personal and practical way.”
    “Now you’re making fun of me,” said Miss Schuster-Slatt with perfect good-humour. “No. I’m just the little worker-bee, gathering honey for the queens to eat.”
    “How all occasions do inform against me!”