Desperately uncomfortable and angular Rosalind made you feel, petting you and purring over you and calling you “mother dear,” with that glint always behind her golden-brown eyes which showed that she was up to no good, that she knew you hated her and was only leading you on that she might strike her claws into you the deeper. The great beautiful cat: that was what Rosalind was. You didn’t trust her for a moment.
She was pouring out tea.
“Lemon? But how dreadfully stupid of me! I’d forgotten you take milk … oh yes, and sugar. …”
She rang, and ordered sugar. Mothers take it; not the mothers of Rosalind’s world, but mothers’ meetings, and school treats, and mothers-in-law up from the seaside.
“Are you up for shopping? How thrilling! Where have you been? … Oh, High Street. Did you find anything there?”
Mrs. Hilary knew that Rosalind would see her off, hung over with dozens of parcels, and despise them, knowing that if they were so many they must also be cheap.
“Oh, there’s not much to be got there, of course,” she said. “I got a few little things—chiefly for my mother to give away in the parish. She likes to have things. …”
“But how noble of you both! I’m afraid I never rise to that. It’s all I can manage to give presents to myself and nearest rellies. And you came up to town just to get presents for the parish! You’re wonderful, mother!”
“Oh, I take a day in town now and then. Why not? Everyone does.”
Extraordinary how defiant Rosalind made one feel, prying and questioning and trying to make one look absurd.
“Why, of course! It freshens you up, I expect; makes a change. … But you’ve come up from Windover, haven’t you, not the seaside?”
Rosalind always called St. Mary’s Bay the seaside. To her our island coasts were all one; the seaside was where you went to bathe, and she hardly distinguished between north, south, east and west.
“How are they down at Windover? I heard that Nan was there, with that young man of hers who performs good works. So unlike Nan herself! I hope she isn’t going to be so silly as to let it come to anything; they’d both be miserable. But I should think Nan knows better than to marry a square-toes. I daresay he knows better too, really. … And how’s poor old Neville? I think this doctoring game of hers is simply a scream, the poor old dear.”
To hear Rosalind discussing Neville. … Messalina coarsely patronising a wood-nymph … the cat striking her claws into a singing bird. … And poor—and old! Neville was, indeed, six years ahead of Rosalind, but she looked the younger of the two, in her slim activity, and didn’t need to paint her face either. Mrs. Hilary all but said so.
“It is a great interest to Neville, taking up her medical studies again,” was all she could really say. (What a hampering thing it is to be a lady!) “She thoroughly enjoys it, and looks younger than ever. She is playing a lot of tennis, and beats them all.”
How absurdly her voice rang when she spoke of Neville or Jim! It always made Rosalind’s lip curl mockingly.
“Wonderful creature! I do admire her. When I’m her age I shall be too fat to take any exercise at all. I think it’s splendid of women who keep it up through the forties. … She won’t be bored, even when she’s sixty, will she?”
That was a direct hit, which Mrs. Hilary could bear better than hits at Neville.
“I see no reason,” said Mrs. Hilary, “why Neville should ever be bored. She has a husband and children. Long before she is sixty she will have Kay’s and Gerda’s children to be interested in.”
“No, I suppose one can’t well be bored if one has grandchildren, can one,” Rosalind said, reflectively.
There was a silence, during which Mrs. Hilary’s eyes, coldly meeting Rosalind’s with their satirical comment, said “I know you are too selfish a woman ever to bear children, and I thank God for it. Little Hilarys who should be half yours would be more than I could endure.”
Rosalind, quite understanding, smiled her slow, full-mouthed, curling smile, and held out to her mother-in-law the gold case with scented cigarettes.
“Oh no, you don’t, do you. I never can remember that. It’s so unusual.”
Her eyes travelled over Mrs. Hilary, from her dusty black shoes to her pale, lined face. They put her, with deliberation, into the class with companions, housekeepers, poor relations. Having successfully done that (she knew it was successful, by Mrs. Hilary’s faint flush) she said “You don’t look up to much, mother dear. Not as if Neville had been looking after you very well.”
Mrs. Hilary, seeing her chance, swallowed her natural feelings and took it.
“The fact is, I sleep very badly. Not particularly just now, but always. … I thought. … That is, someone told me … that there have been wonderful cures for insomnia lately … through that new thing. …”
“Which new thing? Sedobrol? Paraldehyd? Gilbert keeps getting absurd powders and tablets of all sorts. Thank God, I always sleep like a top.”
“No, not those. The thing you practice. Psychoanalysis, I mean.”
“Oh, psycho. But you wouldn’t touch that, surely? I thought it was anathema.”
“But if it really does cure people. …”
Rosalind’s eyes glittered and gleamed. Her strawberry-red mouth curled joyfully.
“Of course it has. … Not that insomnia is always a case for psycho, you know. It’s sometimes incipient mania.”
“Not in my case.” Mrs. Hilary spoke sharply.
“Why no, of course not. … Well, I think you’d be awfully wise to get analysed. Whom do you want to go to?”
“I thought you could tell me. I know no names. … A man,” Mrs. Hilary added quickly.
“Oh, it must be a man? I was going to say, I’ve a vacancy myself for a patient. But women usually want men doctors. They nearly
