XLV
Brian Field to Clemency Power
[Enclosure]
Dear Miss Power,—I promised I would let you know when I was returning to England. Well, I am due next week, for the hospital is closing. I suppose you don’t know of a nice snug little practice in a good sporting neighbourhood with several wealthy malades imaginaires of both sexes dotted conveniently about? That’s what I want, a kind of sinecure. Forgive the low ambition. Indeed I am punished already for indulging it, for see how double-edged the word “sinecure” is, and what a sarcasm on my profession!
Having had one or two letters to you returned as “gone away” I have sent this to your home address to be forwarded. I hope you did not think that I should let you go, having once found you! The skies are not so lavish with their blessings as that! No, begob! I shall be very unhappy until an answer comes to this.—Yours sincerely,
Bryan Field
XLVI
Hazel Barrance to Verena Raby
My Dear Aunt,—Just one more word, then!—but only to say it’s no good, I can’t agree with you. The idea of marriage being necessarily warfare is utterly repugnant to me, and unless a miracle happens I shall continue to go on doing my best to be happy though single. I see no reason whatever for people to scrap, and those who like it always fill me with a kind of disgust. Married life should be all friendliness and niceness. I feel so strongly about married happiness that I believe if I were asked to name my favorite poem in all poetry I should give the old epitaph on the husband who so quickly followed his wife to the grave:
She first deceased; he for a little tried