‘Doesn’t your mother like him?’
‘Immensely. But mother has an inordinate appetite for affection. She’s like a spider with a fly. She won’t share him.’
‘How bitterly you speak!’
Hypatia loftily repudiated the suggestion. ‘Not at all. I’m merely stating a fact. You will see, if you’re here long enough.’
‘Poor Bunny!’ said Sheila.
‘Oh, don’t worry about him. I shan’t let mother gobble him up, you may be sure.’
‘I’m sure you won’t,’ Sheila replied, biting her lip. ‘You’ll marry him sooner than that.’
But irony was lost on Hypatia. ‘Mother shan’t have him,’ she reiterated.
5
Edward found the presence of another person distracting. The dictation of his book was soon abandoned, and he pursued his solitary way. Yet not solitary, for he was not unconscious that his solitude had been invaded, destroyed; and he was not yet sure whether he liked or resented the invasion. In spirit another walked by his side. For Sheila this book, child of his brain, became a living thing to be thought about with a reverent excitement. She was still enough of a child to find this making of books miraculous: it was like that creation of something out of nothing which the church attributed to God. The best of Edward went into his book, and Sheila was quick to remember this in his defence when vitality or humour seemed lacking in him. He worked with clocklike regularity. He wrote from nine till twelve-thirty. He resumed work, after lunch, at one-thirty and wrote till, at half-past four, some toast and tea was brought to him on a tray. For this refreshment he allowed himself twenty minutes, and for ten minutes he systematically did nothing. From five till seven was his final daily spell.