Miss Hargreaves

A Friend for Tea

‘Muffins for tea!’ he used to cry,

And fall into my chair.

Above the soda-cake, tobacco

Smoke lay on the air.

Exhausted after Evening Prayer

He’d play himself at Solitaire,

Toy vaguely with his third éclair–

Happy young hostess I!

Now when I light my lamp and drain

My cup beside the fire,

I see the ghost of him I lack. Oh

Memory retire!

Muffins for tea . . . My thoughts conspire

To conjure up King’s College Choir

And happy days in Cambridgeshire

That will not come again.

When I wrote essays at school I was always told to begin at the beginning and end at the end. I’m not at all sure that this story has an end. As for a beginning–well, in my opinion it really begins–as I began–with my father. Anyway that’s where I’m going to start.

Huntley’s bookshop is as well known as the Cathedral. Most days I work there with father, except when I’m studying music. We sell everything, modern and old, any language you like. Though I say it myself, Cornelius Huntley knows a good deal more about books than you’d imagine from his rather muddled talk.