ons and parcels of the
dreadful past upon which you had least desire to dwell, had almost
certainly no interest at all in hearing even these, but only did it
because they had to, and you would be boring them. They might even say,
as one had said to Rosalind during the first confession which had
inaugurated her brief ecclesiastical career, and to which she had looked
forward with some interest as a luxurious re-living of a stimulating
past--"No details, please." Rosalind, who had had many details ready,
had come away disappointed, feeling that the Church was not all she
had hoped. But the psycho-analyst doctor would really want to hear
details. Of course he would prefer the kind of detail which Rosalind
would have been able to furnish out of her experience, for that was
what psycho-analysts recognised as true life. Mrs. Hilary's experiences
were pale in comparison; but psycho-analysts could and did make much out
of little, bricks without clay. She would tell him all about the
children--how sweet they were as babies, how Jim had nearly died of
croup, Neville of bronchitis and Nan of convulsions, whereas Pamela had
always been so well, and Gilbert had suffered only from infant debility.
She would relate how early and how unusually they had all given signs of
intelligence; how Jim had always loved her more than anything in the
world, until his marriage, and she him (this was a firm article in Mrs.
Hilary's creed); how Neville had always cherished and cared for her, and
how she loved Neville beyond anything in the world but Jim; how Gilbert
had disappointed her by taking to writing instead of to a man's job, and
then by marrying Rosalind; how Nan had always been tiresome and perverse.
And before the children came--all about Richard, and their courtship, and
their young married life, and how he had loved and cared for her beyond
anything, incredibly tenderly and well, so that all those who saw it had
wondered, and some had said he spoilt her. And back before Richard, to
girlhood and childhood, to parents and nursery, to her brother and
sister, now dead. How she had fought with her sister because they had
both always wanted the same things and got in one another's way! The
jealousies, the bitter, angry tears!

To pour it all out--what comfort! To feel that someone was interested,
even though it might be only as a case. The trouble about most people was
that they weren't interested. They didn't mostly, even pretend they were.