Same Time, Same Place by Herbert Ernest Bates is the short story of Miss Treadwell, an old woman who tries to keep up appearances, even though, on a daily basis, she’s struggling to make end’s meet: “Whatever else happened one simply had to keep up appearances. After all one had one’s pride.”
One day, “while she was sitting in the public gardens on an April morning,” she makes acquaintance with Mr Thornhill, an old man, but with a better financial status. Trying hard to keep up appearances, Miss Treadwell gives Mr Thornhill the impression that she is doing quite well, enjoying her life in a nice apartment, when in fact she was living in a room “seven feet by ten.”
What will happen when Mr Thornhill proposes and Miss Treadwell is faced with the dilemma of either accepting his proposal (with all the consequences that it implies) or postponing it. Will they meet again at the same time and in the same place? Find out by reading the short story.
Herbert Ernest Bates was an English journalist, short story writer, and novelist who was born in 1905. He died in 1974.
