dream.
Her nights were always tense, peopled with regrets, fitfully menacing, unless she drugged herself. She had years ago justified the pills she took by the claim that she slept badly; her doses grew heavier, and still she slept badly—worse, she was convinced, than Mr Quest, who was her patient.
Oh what a dream, what a dream! Mrs Quest turned her back on her garden, and went into the fusty living-room, where the little dog leaped on to her lap. Dear Kaiser, there there, Kaiser, she whispered to the animal’s pricked ears and wet muzzle. She let him out into the veranda, and walked around it into the kitchen. The servants were not in yet. Mrs Quest made herself tea, keeping her mind occupied with cups, water, sugar, planning: if I dress now, then I might get dirty again, if I have to do something for him—but surely not, I’ve got everything ready; yes, it would be more sensible to dress for the Parade now. The tea was ready, and the decision to dress taken. But Mrs Quest returned to the living-room, and switched on a coil of red electricity, and sat by it, shivering. Her old face was set with unhappiness. The little white dog bounded back—he knows how I feel, thought Mrs Quest, fondling the silky ears. She bent her face to the warmth of the dog’s fat back and remembered the dream.
Her mother, reaching down from a high place which Mrs Quest knew was heaven, handed her three red roses…the old lady was crying, thinking of her mother, who had died young. She had not known her. All through her childhood and youth her mother had been mysterious, not only with the brutal pathos of her death in childbirth, but because of a quality that for a long time the young girl had sensed as dangerous. There was something about her mother never explained, never put into words, but there always, like a sweet and reckless scent hidden in old dresses, old cupboards. Some things had been said. She was pretty, for instance. She was clever, too, and gay. She was brave—had ridden to the hounds on a great chestnut horse, jumping fences where no one would follow her. Had been strong—she went to balls and danced all night, and then teased her husband to walk home with her through the dawn while the carriage came behind. But she had died, after all, leaving not only three small children, not only the sting of resentment earned by those who die with all their qualities intactbut—what was the thing that no one put into words but which the young girl felt so strongly?
Grown up at last, she understood that her mother had been beautiful. Not pretty. The grudging little word made her look again at the tall, cold, disciplined house she had been brought up in. Long-concealed pictures came to light and the dead woman was revealed to be beautiful, and with the sort of beauty not easily admitted by that house whose chief virtue had been respectability, described as a ‘sense of proportion’, as ‘healthy’.
Did that mean her mother had been ‘morbid’, ‘selfish’, ‘wrong-headed’? The girl decided this must have been the case, even while she remembered that as a small girl she had started up in bed from a nightmare screaming: ‘They wanted her to die,’ and to the servant who came scolding in with a candle shielded behind a hand that smelled of hot dripping from the kitchen: ‘You all wanted her to die.’
She knew, when she put her hair up, deciding that she would not be a Victorian young lady, but must fight her stern father so that she could be a nurse (which no real lady was, in spite of Florence Nightingale) that her childhood had lacked something which she craved. Beauty, she told herself it was, clinging to that word, refusing ‘morbid’ and ‘selfish’ and ‘right-minded’.
But her life had gone—nursing. She had got her way, had fought her father who would not speak to her for months, had won her battles. She had nursed—as a young woman, then through the war, and then her husband. She had nursed all her life.
Her nights were always tense, peopled with regrets, fitfully menacing, unless she drugged herself. She had years ago justified the pills she took by the claim that she slept badly; her doses grew heavier, and still she slept badly—worse, she was convinced, than Mr Quest, who was her patient.
Oh what a dream, what a dream! Mrs Quest turned her back on her garden, and went into the fusty living-room, where the little dog leaped on to her lap. Dear Kaiser, there there, Kaiser, she whispered to the animal’s pricked ears and wet muzzle. She let him out into the veranda, and walked around it into the kitchen. The servants were not in yet. Mrs Quest made herself tea, keeping her mind occupied with cups, water, sugar, planning: if I dress now, then I might get dirty again, if I have to do something for him—but surely not, I’ve got everything ready; yes, it would be more sensible to dress for the Parade now. The tea was ready, and the decision to dress taken. But Mrs Quest returned to the living-room, and switched on a coil of red electricity, and sat by it, shivering. Her old face was set with unhappiness. The little white dog bounded back—he knows how I feel, thought Mrs Quest, fondling the silky ears. She bent her face to the warmth of the dog’s fat back and remembered the dream.
Her mother, reaching down from a high place which Mrs Quest knew was heaven, handed her three red roses…the old lady was crying, thinking of her mother, who had died young. She had not known her. All through her childhood and youth her mother had been mysterious, not only with the brutal pathos of her death in childbirth, but because of a quality that for a long time the young girl had sensed as dangerous. There was something about her mother never explained, never put into words, but there always, like a sweet and reckless scent hidden in old dresses, old cupboards. Some things had been said. She was pretty, for instance. She was clever, too, and gay. She was brave—had ridden to the hounds on a great chestnut horse, jumping fences where no one would follow her. Had been strong—she went to balls and danced all night, and then teased her husband to walk home with her through the dawn while the carriage came behind. But she had died, after all, leaving not only three small children, not only the sting of resentment earned by those who die with all their qualities intactbut—what was the thing that no one put into words but which the young girl felt so strongly?
Grown up at last, she understood that her mother had been beautiful. Not pretty. The grudging little word made her look again at the tall, cold, disciplined house she had been brought up in. Long-concealed pictures came to light and the dead woman was revealed to be beautiful, and with the sort of beauty not easily admitted by that house whose chief virtue had been respectability, described as a ‘sense of proportion’, as ‘healthy’.
Did that mean her mother had been ‘morbid’, ‘selfish’, ‘wrong-headed’? The girl decided this must have been the case, even while she remembered that as a small girl she had started up in bed from a nightmare screaming: ‘They wanted her to die,’ and to the servant who came scolding in with a candle shielded behind a hand that smelled of hot dripping from the kitchen: ‘You all wanted her to die.’
She knew, when she put her hair up, deciding that she would not be a Victorian young lady, but must fight her stern father so that she could be a nurse (which no real lady was, in spite of Florence Nightingale) that her childhood had lacked something which she craved. Beauty, she told herself it was, clinging to that word, refusing ‘morbid’ and ‘selfish’ and ‘right-minded’.
But her life had gone—nursing. She had got her way, had fought her father who would not speak to her for months, had won her battles. She had nursed—as a young woman, then through the war, and then her husband. She had nursed all her life.
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