Christmas At High Rising – Angela Thirkell

‘All I want to know at present is if you want to see Laura or not.’ ‘Laura? But what has she to do with the subject we, or rather, I, were or was discussing? I was merely, when my pipe, with that devilish liveliness peculiar to inanimate and senseless objects, chose to leap from me and caused me to grovel in a way unbecoming to my age, besides making all the blood fly to my head, I was, as I say, begging you, my dear Anne, nay, imploring you to remember, to bear in mind while memory holds a seat in this distracted globe, not that your head, my dear, is globular, on the contrary it is a very pretty oval shape, omne vivum ex ovo, and indeed I may say well that all my happiness, all my health, any slight game that I may have won, comes from you, to remember, I say, the title of the little chef d’oeuvre by the author of Fantasio, whose name even now trembles on my lips, do not interrupt me, Anne, for well do I know to whom I refer, though my ageing and palsied mind refuses to respond as once it did and no longer can I bend the bow of Odysseus – you know very well whom I mean, Anne,’ said George Knox angrily.

While he was still speaking, Laura Morland appeared at the French window, tapped on it, found it shut, waved her hand, disappeared and almost immediately reappeared in the room. ‘In trouble again, George?’ said Laura, twisting up a few odds and ends of hair and pushing them under her hat. George Knox rolled about in his seat like Dr Johnson, preparatory to speaking, but was forestalled by his wife, who said to Laura: ‘George has to do a talk for the B.B.C., Laura, about Milton, and he can’t think how to begin.

I’ve got to go to the village, so do stay with him and help him. Is Tony with you?’ ‘He did come with me,’ said Laura, looking vaguely about, ‘but I expect he went round to the kitchen. Oh, no, there he is in the willow tree. I know he’ll fall off into the pond, and if it is deep he will be drowned, and if it is shallow he will suffocate in the mud. Which is it?’ ‘I’ll tell him to come in,’ said Anne, soothingly. ‘And I’ll tell them to bring in some tea and cakes and you can have a good long talk.’

Angela Thirkell (1890–1961) was the eldest daughter of John William Mackail, a Scottish classical scholar and civil servant, and Margaret Burne- Jones. Her relatives included the pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin, and her godfather was J. M. Barrie. She was educated in London and Paris, and began publishing articles and stories in the 1920s. In 1931 she brought out her first book, a memoir entitled Three Houses, and in 1933 her comic novel High Rising – set in the fictional county of Barsetshire, borrowed from Trollope – met with great success.

She went on to write nearly thirty Barsetshire novels, as well as several further works of fiction and non-fiction. She was twice married, and had four children. 1kitap1.com/en By Angela Thirkell Barsetshire novels High Rising Wild Strawberries The Demon in the House August Folly Summer Half Pomfret Towers The Brandons Before Lunch Cheerfulness Breaks In Northbridge Rectory Marling Hall Growing Up The Headmistress Miss Bunting Peace Breaks Out Private Enterprise Love Among the Ruins The Old Bank House County Chronicle The Duke’s Daughter Happy Returns Jutland Cottage What Did it Mean?

Enter Sir Robert Never Too Late A Double Affair Close Quarters Love at All Ages Three Score and Ten Non-fiction Three Houses Collected stories Christmas at High Rising 1kitap1.com/en COPYRIGHT Published by Virago 978-0-3490-0431-0 All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Copyright © the Estate of Angela Thirkell 1928, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1940, 1942 The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Copyright in the collection © the Estate of Angela Thirkell 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher. VIRAGO PRESS Little, Brown Book Group 100 Victoria Embankment London, EC4Y 0DY www.littlebrown.co.uk www.hachette.co.uk 1kitap1.com/en CHRISTMAS AT HIGH RISING Table of Contents VIRAGO MODERN CLASSICS 594 By Angela Thirkell COPYRIGHT Pantomime Christmas at Mulberry Lodge St Valentine’s Holiday High Voltage at Low Rising The Private View Shakespeare Did Not Dine Out The Great Art of Riding A Nice Day in Town Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 1kitap1.com/en Pantomime George Knox, the celebrated biographer, who was incapable of doing things by halves, and indeed capable only of overdoing them, suddenly felt that as a grandfather he ought to take a large family party to the theatre.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 683a664b28de47b6
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 748,079 bytes (0.713 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9780349004310
• Pages: 115
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 148.68 minutes
• Total Words: 29,736
• Total Characters: 164,422
• Average Words per Page: 258.57
• Average Characters per Page: 1429.76

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