But Mrs. Hilary didn’t get as far as this. She stopped at “not the first time Nan’s been a Town Topic. …” and dropped the thin mauve sheets onto her lap, and looked at Grandmama, her face queerly tight and flushed, as if she were about to cry.
Grandmama had finished her tea, and had been listening quietly.
Mrs. Hilary said “Oh, my God,” and jerked her head back, quivering like a nervous horse who has had a shock and does not care to conceal it.
“Your daughter-in-law,” said Grandmama, without excitement, “is an exceedingly vulgar young woman.”
“Vulgar? Rosalind? But of course. … Only that doesn’t affect Nan. …”
“Your daughter-in-law,” Grandmama added, “is also a very notorious liar.”
“A liar … oh yes, yes, yes. … But this time it’s true. Oh I feel, I know, it’s true. Nan would. That Stephen Lumley—he’s been hanging about her for ages. … Oh yes, it’s true what they say. The very worst. …”
Grandmama glanced at her curiously. The very worst in that direction had become strangely easier of credence by Mrs. Hilary lately. Grandmama had observed that. Mr. Cradock’s teaching had not been without its effect. According to Mr. Cradock, people were usually engaged either in practising the very worst, or in desiring to practise it, or in wishing and dreaming that they had practised it. It was the nature of mankind, and not in the least reprehensible, though curable. Thus Mr. Cradock. Mrs. Hilary had, against her own taste, absorbed part of his teaching, but nothing could ever persuade her that it was not reprehensible: it quite obviously was. Also disgusting. Mr. Cradock might say what he liked. It was disgusting. And when the man had a wife. …
“It is awful,” said Mrs. Hilary. “Awful. … It must be stopped. I shall go to Rome. At once.”
“That won’t stop it, dear, if it is going on. It will only irritate the young people.”
“Irritate! You can use a word like that! Mother, you don’t realise this ghastly thing.”
“I quite see, my dear, that Nan may be carrying on with this artist. And very wrong it is, if so. All I say is that your going to Rome won’t stop it. You know that you and Nan don’t always get on very smoothly. You rub each other up. … It would be far better if someone else went. Neville, say.”
“Neville is ill.” Mrs. Hilary shut her lips tightly on that. She was glad Neville was ill; she had always hated (she could not help it) the devotion between Neville and Nan. Nan, in her tempestuous childhood, flaring with rage against her mother, or sullen, spiteful and perverse, long before she could have put into words the qualities in Mrs. Hilary which made her like that, had always gone to Neville, nine years older, to be soothed and restored to good temper. Neville had reprimanded the little naughty sister, had told her she must be “decent to mother—feel decent if you can, behave decent in any case,” was the way she had put it. It was Neville who had heard Nan’s confidences and helped her out of scrapes in childhood, schoolgirlhood and ever since. This was very bitter to Mrs. Hilary. She was jealous of both of them; jealous that so much of Neville’s love should go elsewhere than to her, jealous that Nan, who gave her nothing except generous and extravagant gifts and occasional, spasmodic, remorseful efforts at affection and gentleness, should to Neville give all.
“Neville is ill,” she said. “She certainly won’t be fit to travel out of England this winter. Influenza coming on the top of that miserable breakdown is a thing to be treated with the greatest care. Even when she is recovered, post-influenza will keep her weak till the summer. I am really anxious about her. No; Neville is quite out of the question.”
“Well, what about Pamela?”
“Pamela is up to her eyes in her work. … Besides, why should Pamela go, or Neville, rather than I? A girl’s mother is obviously the right person. I may not be of much use to my children in these days, but at least I hope I can save them from themselves.”
“It takes a clever parent to do that, Emily,” said Grandmama, who doubtless knew.
“But, mother, what would you have me do? Sit with my hands before me while my daughter lives in sin? What’s your plan?”
“I’m too old to make plans, dear. I can only look on at the world. I’ve looked at the world now for many, many years, and I’ve learnt that only great wisdom and great love can change people’s decisions as to their way of life, or turn them from evil courses. Frankly, my child, I doubt if you have, where Nan is concerned, enough wisdom or enough love. Enough sympathy, I should rather say, for you have love. But do you feel you understand the child enough to interfere wisely and successfully?”
“Oh, you think I’m a fool, mother; of course I know you’ve always thought me a fool. Good God, if a mother can’t interfere with her own daughter to save her from wickedness and disaster, who can, I should like to know?”
“One would indeed like to know that,” Grandmama said, sadly.
“Perhaps you’d like to go yourself,” Mrs. Hilary shot at her, quivering now with anger and feeling.
“No, my dear. Even if I were able to get to Rome I should know that I was too old to interfere with the lives of the young. I don’t understand them enough. You believe that you do. Well, I suppose you must go and try. I can’t stop you.”
“You certainly can’t. Nothing can stop me. … You’re singularly unsympathetic, mother, about this awful business.”
“I don’t feel so, dear. I am very, very sorry for you, and very, very sorry for Nan (whom, you must remember, we may
