Jane and Prudence

by Barbara Pym

she saw Fabian in a velvet smoking jacket, sitting by the fire with a glass of some amber-coloured liquid—whisky, perhaps—on a small table at his side. There was a blotter on his knees and he appeared to be writing a letter. Appeared to be writing was a correct impression, for he sat with his pen in his hand adding nothing to the few words he had already written. He did not find it easy to write to Prudence. To begin with, he had never been much of a letter-writer, and then her letters were of such a high literary standard, so much embellished with suitable quotations that he found it quite impossible to equal them. He felt that this was wrong; the man should be the better letter-writer, not the woman, though he remembered that he had never been able to equal Constance’s either. It was ironical to think how much better she would have been able to answer Prudence’s letter than he could himself. He thought that perhaps