(c) She is not in serious pain.
(d) What she most wants is letters from her friends, and you, I imagine, in particular.
(e) She has a library subscription, but would like to know what books are cheerful. She does not want to lie awake thinking about other people’s frustrated lives. She is rather tired of novels with the Café Royal in them.
(f) I have done my best for years to learn to read aloud, for the sake of the children, but most of the sentences end in a yawn. I wonder why it makes one so sleepy.
(g) This is really most important. Aunt Verena is devoted to Solitaire and thinks that a little later it might help her. But in her horizontal position it is, of course, impossible to use a table. What we have been wondering is whether it would be possible to get an arrangement by which it could be played on a more or less vertical board. Do you think this could be managed? I have been thinking about it and can suggest only long spikes and holes in the cards so that they could be hung on. Do you know anyone who could carry out such a scheme? She is going along very satisfactorily and is a perfect patient. She tells me to give you her love and thank you for all your suggestions.—Yours sincerely,
Nesta Rossiter
VI
Hazel Barrance to Verena Raby
Dearest Aunt Verena,—We are so sorry to hear about your accident, and so glad that some of the reports were exaggerated. Father says that nothing would give him such joy as to go to bed for a year, and then perhaps he might lose a few of his seventeen permanent colds; but he sends his love too. There is no news; the chief is that Roy has been demobbed and is wondering what his future is to be. His present is largely Jazz and avoiding father. The lucky boy is staying with some rich friends in Kensington. I am glad that Nesta is with you. Mother has given up Christian Science in favour of what father calls Unchristian Séance.
It’s an awful thing to say, but I often regret the loss of the War. Not because I was a profiteer, but because I then had something to do and some fun with it. But now?—Your loving