the old, elfish,
thin-lipped, sweet one. Neville, her Neville, flower of her flock, her
loveliest, first and best, her dearest but for Jim, her pride, and nearer
than Jim, because of sex, which set Jim on a platform to be worshipped,
but kept Neville on a level to be loved, to be stormed at when storms
rose, to be clung to when all God's waters went over one's head. Oh
Neville, that you should smile at Grandmama like that, that Grandmama
should, as she always had, steal your confidence that should have been
all your mother's! That you should perhaps even talk over your mother
with Grandmama (as if she were something further from each of you than
each from the other), pushing her out of the close circle of your
intimacy into the region of problems to be solved.... Oh God, how bitter
a thing to bear!

The garden, the summer border of bright flowers, swam in tears.... Mrs.
Hilary turned away her face, pretending to be pulling up daisies from the
grass. But, unlike the ostrich, she well knew that they always saw. To
the children, as to Grandmama, they were an old story, those hot, facile,
stinging tears of Mrs. Hilary's that made Neville weary with pity, and
Nan cold with scorn, and Rosalind happy with lazy malice, and Pamela
bright and cool and firm, like a woman doctor. Only Grandmama took them
unmoved, for she had always known them.

6

Grandmama, settled in her special chair, remarked on the unusual (for
July) fineness of the day, and requested Neville to read them the chief
items of news in the Observer, which she had brought out with her. So
Neville read about the unfortunate doings of the Supreme Council at Spa,
and Grandmama said "Poor creatures," tolerantly, as she had said when
they were at Paris, and again at San Remo; and about General Dyer and
the Amritsar debate, and Grandmama said "Poor man. But one mustn't treat
one's fellow creatures as he did, even the poor Indian, who, I quite
believe, is intolerably provoking. I see the Morning Post is getting up
a subscription for him, contributed to by Those Who Remember Cawnpore,
Haters of Trotzky, Montague and Lansbury, Furious English-woman, and many
other generous and emotional people. That is kind and right. We should
not let even our more impulsive generals starve."

Then Neville read about Ireland, which was just then in a disturbed
state, and Grandmama said it certainly seemed restless, and mentioned
with what looked like a gleam of hope that they would