“It is an awful sin.” Mr. Cradock could say what he liked on that subject; he might tell Mrs. Hilary that it was not awful except in so far as any other yielding to nature’s promptings in defiance of the law of man was awful, but he could not persuade her. Like many other people, she set that particular sin apart, in a special place by itself; she would talk of “a bad woman,” “an immoral man,” a girl who had “lost her character,” and mean merely the one kind of badness, the one manifestation of immorality, the one element in character. Dishonesty and cruelty she could forgive, but never that.
“I shall start in three days,” said Mrs. Hilary, becoming tragically resolute. “I must tell Mr. Cradock tomorrow.”
“That young man? Must he know about Nan’s affairs, my dear?”
“I have to tell him everything, mother. It’s part of the course. He is as secret as the grave.”
Grandmama knew that Emily, less secret than the grave, would have to ease herself of the sad tale to someone or other in the course of the next day, and supposed that it had better be to Mr. Cradock, who seemed to be a kind of hybrid of doctor and clergyman, and so presumably was more discreet than an ordinary human being. Emily must tell. Emily always would. That was why she enjoyed this foolish psychoanalysis business so much.
At the very thought of it a gleam had brightened Mrs. Hilary’s eyes, and her rigid, tense pose had relaxed. Oh the comfort of telling Mr. Cradock! Even if he did tell her how it was all in the course of nature, at least he would sympathise with her trouble about it, and her annoyance with Grandmama. And he would tell her how best to deal with Nan when she got to her. Nan’s was the sort of case that Mr. Cradock really did understand. Any situation between the sexes—he was all over it. Psychoanalysts adored sex; they made an idol of it. They communed with it, as devotees with their God. They couldn’t really enjoy, with their whole minds, anything else, Mrs. Hilary sometimes vaguely felt. But as, like the gods of the other devotees, it was to them immanent, everywhere and in everything; they could be always happy. If they went up into heaven it was there; if they fled down into hell it was there also. Once, when Mrs. Hilary had tentatively suggested that Freud, for instance, overstated its importance, Mr. Cradock had said firmly “It is impossible to do that,” which settled it once and for all.
Mrs. Hilary stood up. Her exalted, tragic mood clothed her like a flowing garment.
“I shall write to Cook,” she said. “Also to Nan, to tell her I am coming.”
Grandmama, after a moment’s silence, seemed to gather herself together for a final effort.
“Emily, my child. Is your mind set to do this?”
“Absolutely, mother. Absolutely and entirely.”
“Shall I tell you what I think? No, you don’t want to hear it, but you drive me to it. … If you go to that foolish, reckless child and attempt to interfere with her, or even to question her, you will run the risk, if she is innocent, of driving her into what you are trying to prevent. If she is already committed to it, you run the risk of shutting the door against her return. In either case you will alienate her from yourself: that is the least of the risks you run, though the most certain. … That is all. I can say no more. But I ask you, my dear. … I beg you, for the child’s sake and your own … to write neither to Cook nor to Nan.”
Grandmama’s breath came rather fast and heavily; her heart was troubling her; emotion and effort were not good for it.
Mrs. Hilary stood looking down at the old shrunk figure, shaking a little as she stood, knowing that she must be patient and calm.
“You will please allow me to judge. You will please let me take the steps I think necessary to help my child. I know that you have no confidence in my judgment or my tact; you’ve always shown that plainly enough, and done your best to teach my children the same view of me. …”
Grandmama put up her hand, meaning that she could not stand, neither she nor her heart could stand, a scene. Mrs. Hilary broke off. For once she did not want a scene either. In these days she found what vent was necessary for her emotional system in her interviews with Mr. Cradock.
“I daresay you mean well, mother. But in this matter I must be the judge. I am a mother first and foremost. It is the only thing that life has left for me to be.” (Scarcely a daughter, she meant: that was made too difficult for her; you would almost imagine that the office was not wanted.)
She turned to the writing table.
“First of all I shall write to Rosalind, and tell her what I think of her and her abominable gossip.”
She began to write.
Grandmama sat shrunk and old and tired in her chair.
Mrs. Hilary’s pen scratched over the paper, telling Rosalind what she thought.
“Dear Rosalind,” she wrote, “I was very much surprised at your letter. I do not know why you should trouble to repeat to me these ridiculous stories about Nan. You cannot suppose that I am likely to care either what you or any of your friends are saying about one of my children. …” And so on. One knows the style. It eases the mind of the writer and does not deceive the reader. When the reader is Rosalind Hilary it amuses her vastly.
IV
Next day, at three p.m., Mrs. Hilary told Mr. Cradock all about it. Mr. Cradock was not in the least surprised. Nor had he the slightest, not the
