The Documents in the Case

on and not let things get on top of me for the next year or two I shall come out of it quite all right. But I am not to have a rest-cure! It seems Dr. Coombs was all wrong about that⁠—of course he didn’t exactly say she was wrong, it wouldn’t be professional, but I could see that he thought it! Dr. Trevor says that rest-cures only “turn you in upon yourself,” and that makes things worse. He says I must get right away from myself and my feelings, so as to “sublimate” all these repressed urges and turn them into some other sort of energy. He says it was quite all right to start with to have my dreams and subconscious betrayals analysed, so as to know exactly what was the matter with me, but that now the time has come when I must learn to throw all these bottled-up desires outwards, and give them something to do. He explained it all most clearly. I said, “I suppose it is sex, doctor, isn’t it?” (Of course, one gets quite used to asking things perfectly frankly, and one doesn’t mind it a bit.) And he said, well, largely; and, of course, that was a thing most people suffered from one way and another, and in these days one couldn’t always take the obvious and direct way out of a condition of sex-repression, because it would often be socially and economically inconvenient. I said that with two million extra women in this country it didn’t seem possible, certainly, for everybody to get married, and he smiled and said: “My dear Miss Milsom, half my patients come to me because they are not married⁠—and the other half because they are!” We had quite a laugh about it. He is very nice and rather good-looking, but he doesn’t seem to think it necessary for all his patients to fall in love with him, like that odd man I went to see in Wimpole Street, who suffered so dreadfully from halitosis.

Well, anyway, he asked me what I was interested in, and I said I’d always had an idea I should like to write. He said that was an awfully good idea, and I ought to encourage it by trying my hand at a little sketch or article every day, or by just putting down my observations of people and things as I saw them. I’m sure I get subjects enough in this house, as far as matrimony goes, anyhow. Indeed, my dear, from what I see of men, I’m very glad there are other ways out of my troubles than what Dr. Trevor calls the direct way!! Do you mind, please, not throwing my letters away⁠—just stick them in one of the drawers in my old desk when you’ve finished with them, because I think I might use some of the funny little incidents that happen here to work up into a novel some time. One puts these things down when they are fresh in one’s mind, and then one forgets about them.

Well, we are jogging along here in our usual placid way⁠—with the usual little outbreaks, of course, when a meal goes wrong, as they will sometimes, with all my care. Mr. Harrison is such an expert, you know, that it is very hard for a person with only one pair of hands to keep everything up to his high standard. And, fond though I am, and always shall be, of dear Mrs. Harrison, I do sometimes wish that she was just a little more practical. If anything at all is left to her to do, she is so apt to lose herself in a book or a daydream and forget all about it. She always says she ought to have been born to ten thousand a year⁠—but who of us could not say that? I always feel myself that I was really meant to “sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam”⁠—you remember the games we used to play about being princesses in the Arabian Nights, with a train of a hundred black slaves, carrying alabaster bowls filled with rubies⁠—but alas! life is life and we have to make the best of it. And I do sometimes feel it a little unfair that so much should come upon my shoulders. Women do want romance in their lives, and there is so little of it about. Of course, as you know, I do feel for Mrs. Harrison⁠—her husband is such a dry sort of man and so lacking in sympathy. I do what I can, but that is not the same thing and it is very worrying. I must learn to detach myself. Dr. Trevor says it is very important to cultivate detachment.

When I was shopping this morning I met Mr. Bell, who told me the top maisonnette was let at last⁠—to two young men! I said I hoped they wouldn’t be noisy (though anything would be a relief after that awful woman with her children), and he said they seemed quiet, gentlemanly young fellows. One of them he thinks must be some kind of artist, because they were so interested in the top back room which has a big window with a north light⁠—you know, the one Mr. Harrison always covets so much. Though, of course, it is not nearly so convenient a house as ours in other ways.

I have started on Tom’s stockings. They are going to be very smart. I have worked out an original design for the turnover⁠—a sort of swirly pattern in fawn, brown and black, taken from the coat of the kitchen cat⁠—tabby, you know. Mr. Perry saw it the other day when he called. He thinks I have quite a talent for that kind of thing.

Give my love to Ronnie and Joan. I hope you are taking care of yourself.

Your loving sister,
Aggie

2

The Same to the Same

15, Whittington Terrace, Bayswater
13th September, 1928

Dear Olive,

I