This idea of illness satisfied the motherhood in her—and of the matehood she was not even yet fully unaware.
§ 2
If Patricia had been a religious woman, especially if she had been a Roman Catholic, her natural refuge in such a crisis would have been the priest. But Patricia—though she paid the customary lip-service of her caste in Arlsfield Church—regarded her God as she regarded her King. Both were symbols: the one a symbol of conduct, the other a symbol of country. As symbols one owed loyalty to both; but individually neither could be of the slightest assistance. Every normal human being, argued Patricia, must fight its way through the world unaided. . . .
Hitherto, her own battles had been purely personal: the fights of reason (a sensible General) against instincts (a horde of hare-brained savages); and hitherto—except for one lapse, falling in love with her own husband—reason had always triumphed. Reason must triumph again; only Reason—not instinct—could save Peter. . . .
Having thus persuaded herself, as the drunkard persuades himself of his perfect sobriety, that her passion for Peter would soon be a thing of the past, Patricia took a lonely walk, tried to sum up her problems.
First and foremost of these was to carry out her father’s instructions: to make Peter confess; break down the wall of reticent commonplaces which he had built up against her. How? She remembered her father’s words, “Make love to him as if you were his mistress!” The words themselves conveyed nothing whatever to a woman utterly unversed in the wiles of sex; but they filled her with a delicious feeling of fright. For a moment, the idea of being Peter’s “mistress” completely routed that calculating General, Reason. . . .
This “bed-room thought,” as Patricia phrased it, was so disturbing that reason took refuge among its minor problems. Peter’s leave had still ten weeks to run; long before it ended, she would find some way of gaining his confidence.
Meanwhile, the home, Peter’s home, demanded immediate attention. She really must get rid of Fry, Fry came later and later of a morning, left earlier and earlier of an evening, Fry overfed the animals, Fry hadn’t yet finished his seed-potato-sorting. . . . Thought became gloriously inconsecutive. . . . One oughtn’t to keep three servants. The children would have to go to school. The Lowndes Square purchase money wouldn’t last for ever. It was very good of Peter to have given her the Lowndes Square money. Peter always had been very good to her. . . .
By this time, she had circled Arlsfield Village, was beyond the Post Office. In front of her, the boundary road of Arlsfield Hall serpentined under leafless chestnuts. Still lost in thought, Patricia wandered on.
Peter’s mistress! Why mistress? What did a mistress give that wife couldn’t? Ridiculous! She smiled to herself. Give! What couldn’t she give to a man if only. . .