{"product_id":"2940013740747","title":"And Now Goodbye","description":"The Reverend Howat Freemantle awoke about the usual time on Monday\u003cbr\u003emorning of that second week in November. From habit, as soon as he was\u003cbr\u003ecompletely conscious, he lit the bedside candle, glanced at his watch\u003cbr\u003eticking loudly on the table, and then at his wife, whose huddled back and\u003cbr\u003edeep regular breathing presented a familiar picture close by.\u003cbr\u003eSeven-thirty. He reached out an arm to light the gas-ring under the\u003cbr\u003ekettle--a manoeuvre dexterously performed as a result of long practice.\u003cbr\u003eThen he leaned back to doze for those last and frequently most delightful\u003cbr\u003eminutes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut this morning they were not particularly delightful. Parsons, he had\u003cbr\u003eoften reflected, were not immune from the 'Monday morning' feeling--on\u003cbr\u003ethe contrary, they were subject to a peculiarly distressing Monday\u003cbr\u003emorning feeling of their own. After Sunday, with its sermons and\u003cbr\u003eservices, Monday came, not as the beginning of a six days' holiday, as so\u003cbr\u003emany lay persons imagined, but as a sudden drop to the bottom of a hill\u003cbr\u003ewhich had to be slowly and laboriously climbed over again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd it had been a difficult Sunday, he recollected, dark and foggy all\u003cbr\u003eday, with congregations and collections very small--serious matters to a\u003cbr\u003eNonconformist minister in a northern manufacturing town already\u003cbr\u003eimpoverished by the trade slump and unemployment. The chapel, too, had\u003cbr\u003ebeen bitterly cold, owing to an ancient and defective heating apparatus\u003cbr\u003e(soon, however, to be replaced), and the fog and chill had got at his\u003cbr\u003ethroat and given him acute pain during the evening service--'_that_\u003cbr\u003epain', he had already begun to call it in his mind. Curious how people\u003cbr\u003ecould stare at him up there in the pulpit, and not know that the chief\u003cbr\u003ethought in his mind all the time was--'I've got the most frightful\u003cbr\u003esharpness in my throat--wonder if anything serious starts like this?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the kettle began to boil he warmed the teapot, put in the tea, and\u003cbr\u003epoured. Then, reaching out further, he gave his wife's shoulder the\u003cbr\u003egentle shove which was nearly always sufficient to wake her. She stirred,\u003cbr\u003eopened her eyes sleepily, and gave an incoherent murmur. \"Good morning,\"\u003cbr\u003ehe said, with a smile at her huddled shoulders. He did not look at her\u003cbr\u003eface. He felt, though he scarcely admitted it even to himself, a\u003cbr\u003ereluctance to observe her during those first few inelegant moments after\u003cbr\u003ewaking--with her hair crimped up in clusters of curlers, her skin greasy\u003cbr\u003ewith perspiration, and her lips dry and parched through breathing through\u003cbr\u003eher mouth. She could not, of course, help all that; the fault, he knew,\u003cbr\u003elay with himself--in a certain initial fastidiousness which, he feared,\u003cbr\u003ewas hardly less a sin for being involuntary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe did not reply to his 'good morning' except by further murmurs, and\u003cbr\u003eafter a little pause he poured out a cup of tea and placed it on the\u003cbr\u003etable next to a novel by W. J. Locke which she was in the course of\u003cbr\u003ereading. Then, after putting on an old brown dressing-gown, he poured two\u003cbr\u003eother cups and carried them out of the room, across the landing, and into\u003cbr\u003eanother room where his daughter Mary slept. She was a thin-faced,\u003cbr\u003esallow-complexioned girl of twenty, working as a teacher in the school\u003cbr\u003ethat adjoined the chapel. He lit the gas and wakened her now, according\u003cbr\u003eto established routine; he liked that early morning habit of tea and a\u003cbr\u003echat. He began desultorily to mention politics (there was a by-election\u003cbr\u003epending in the neighbourhood), though he had not uttered many words\u003cbr\u003ebefore he felt again that sharp, cramping sensation in his throat. Mary,\u003cbr\u003ehowever, was not interested in politics, and plunged into chapel and\u003cbr\u003eschool matters with a briskness that made him, as for relief, pull aside\u003cbr\u003ethe curtains and see the pale grey dawn outlining the roofs and factories\u003cbr\u003eof Browdley; there was no fog, but a soft slanting rain. Then she asked\u003cbr\u003eif he would 'hear some Latin verbs she had been learning by heart; she\u003cbr\u003ewas cramming for a degree examination, and had to make use of every odd\u003cbr\u003emoment. He agreed, and for the next five minutes stood solemnly and\u003cbr\u003eshiveringly by the window with the text-book in his hand (she had slept\u003cbr\u003ewith it under her pillow), while she went through the various moods and\u003cbr\u003etenses of the third conjugation. \"Rego, Regis, Regit...\" How chilly it\u003cbr\u003ewas, he reflected, and there would be no hot water in the bathroom (the\u003cbr\u003ekitchen fire was always allowed to go out on Sunday afternoons), and the\u003cbr\u003esmell of bacon was drifting up the stairs just as it had done for\u003cbr\u003egoodness knew how many years--did there await him, he wondered, some\u003cbr\u003eglorious morning in the dim future, an alternative breakfast smell that\u003cbr\u003ewould amaze and delight his nostrils?","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070259118320,"sku":"2940013740747","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013740747_p0.jpg?v=1763589608","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013740747","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}