Susan in NC’s Reviews > Northbridge Rectory > Status Update

“Mrs Villars surveyed her world with great satisfaction. As she began to clear up some of the mess she reflected that the rest of John’s leave, or so much as he saw fit to bestow on his parents, would consist largely of clearing up after him, and she further reflected that, thank goodness, here was someone who would never notice if she was tired.”

“ These are but examples of Christmas discomforts in Northbridge, and indeed all over England, but the reader may take it for granted that everyone who came to the party was equally uncomfortable and that most of them were being extremely good and cheerful about it.”

“What with Christmas and one thing and another, Northbridge was beginning to bubble like a boiling pot. Nearly every house, though most of them were already packed to bursting point, had extra refugees or evacuees, or was housing relations that no one wanted but didn’t like not to ask. Most of the unwelcome visitors had forgotten or mislaid their ration-books, and made but little effort to get them…”

“… she could think of nothing to say to Miss Pemberton that would take more than a quarter of an hour. Provençal poetry was not her line, Elizabeth Rivers she vaguely confused with Jane Shore, and as for early Italian painters she could hope no more than to look intelligent and not overdo it.”

“Under his benefactress’s severe eye he worked harder than he had ever worked before and even looked a little less thin, while his books on Provençal literature continued to excite the interest and in some cases the vitriolic criticism of at least two hundred readers. He sometimes resented her yoke and was always grateful for her kindness, showing his gratitude by accepting her rule in every respect...”

“ It then burst upon her mind that she had done something which was against all the tacit conventions of Northbridge. Coming there as she did, fresh from the life of a headmaster’s wife, where open house was kept term in term out, it had been some time before she realized that a Northbridge tea party still had a slightly Victorian sanctity about it.”