“I haven’t told Mamma anything about it and shan’t, until after the wedding. She keeps right on saying she doesn’t want to see Cicily or Albert ever again. But she’ll get over that, of course.
“Her blood pressure has been flaring up and she’s had some dizzy spells that have worried me. She fusses a lot about the house, and Minnie quarrels with all the other servants. She just made Mamma dismiss an excellent waitress I got her—such a nice girl who didn’t want her Sundays out—because she thought the pantry cupboards weren’t very clean.
“Of course they aren’t as clean as they were when Minnie used to keep them. But the neighbourhood’s so dirty now. That factory on Erie Street always burns soft coal. I don’t blame the waitress—and, anyway, Jane, you know what I mean, what difference does it make? The main thing is to keep Mamma tranquil, and she’d never know about the pantry cupboards if Minnie didn’t tell her.
“She ought to move, of course, into some nice apartment that would be easy to live in, but she won’t hear of it. They’re going to pull down the house across the yard and put up a skyscraper. It will take away all the south sun and the blank north wall will be hideous to look at. I hate to think what Minnie will say when the wreckers begin. The plaster dust will sift in all the windows and the noise will be frightful. After that steel riveting, I suppose, all summer and fall.
“If you were here, I’d really advise trying to move them at once, but I honestly don’t feel up to all the argument alone. And, after all, perhaps it wouldn’t be worth while. Mamma’s seventy-seven and she’d never really feel at home anywhere else. She doesn’t do anything any more. She never goes out. Just walks around that empty house, rummaging in bureau drawers and boxes, going over her possessions and trying to throw things away. You know Mamma always kept everything, and the closets are all full of perfectly worthless objects. She doesn’t accomplish a thing, of course, and it tires her fearfully. But she won’t stay quiet.
“She’s always very sweet with me when I drop in, and I think she’s quite happy. But Minnie says she talks a lot about how she wants to leave things. She mentions that to me, sometimes, and I just hate to hear her. It’s queer—you’d think it would make her feel so sad, but she seems rather to enjoy it. I think it makes her feel important again—you know, something to be reckoned with. Perhaps at seventy-seven that’s the only way you can feel important—by disposing of your property. That would account for lots of startling wills, wouldn’t it, Jane?
“She told me last week that you were to have the seed-pearl set and I was to have the amethyst necklace. It really made me cry. She says she wants that opal pin that she always said was Cicily’s to go to Belle, now, along with the cameos. But she’ll change her mind about that, of course, when she hears of Billy Winter.
“Minnie reads the paper to her every night in the library. They’re always sitting there together when Robin and I drop in. Reading the paper or talking over old times. In a way it seems awful—Mamma talking like that with Minnie—But Minnie’s really the only one, now, who remembers the things that Mamma likes to talk about. She always stands up very nicely when Robin and I are there, but I know when we’ve gone she just settles down in Papa’s armchair, and she doesn’t wear her apron any longer. I think I ought to try to make her, but Robin says to let her alone.
“I wouldn’t write Mamma much about the wedding if I were you. Not even about the children. It would only upset her. Her great-grandchildren don’t seem to mean much to her any more. They’re just things that make the general situation worse. I dread telling her about Belle. She keeps saying she’s glad that Papa was spared all this. And Mrs. Lester. She always speaks as if they had died just last week. And, after all, it’s nine years now.
“Of course, Jane, I think we really feel just as badly about it as Mamma does. But we have to carry it off. Old people are just like children. They have no mercy on you. I get so sick of trying to defend the situation to Mamma and Minnie, when I think, in my heart, there’s no defence for it.
“Well—when Jack’s a full-fledged engineer and Belle and Billy have settled down in Ritchie Court and Cicily and Albert are living in Peking, I suppose we’ll all shake down in some dreadful modern way and accept the situation and not even feel awkward about it. Cicily’s children are still my grandchildren and Belle’s children are Muriel’s grandchildren as well as mine. We’re all held together by the hands of babies, which, I suppose, are the strongest links in the world. Nevertheless, Cicily and Albert won’t live in Peking forever, and I just can’t bear to think of the Christmas dinners and Thanksgiving luncheons that are ahead of us! It all seems so terribly confused and sordid.
“But I’m fifty-six, old dear, and you’re fifty-one and Stephen’s turned sixty and Robin’s sixty-three. The children will all have to live with the messes they’ve
