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A sample of The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman:
“Lady Ann (to a friend of proved discretion): You have toiled all the way here again? Do you know, I feel I am only beginning to find out who my true friends are? I am much, much better.... On Friday I am to be allowed on to the sofa and by the end of next week Dr. Richardson promises to let me go back to Mount Street. Of course I should have liked the operation to take place there—it is one’s frame and setting, but, truly honestly, Arthur and I have not been in a position to have any painting or papering done for so long.... The surgeon insisted on a nursing home. Apparatus and so on and so forth.... Quite between ourselves I fancy that they make a very good thing out of these homes; but I am so thankful to be well again that I would put up with almost any imposition....
“Everything went off too wonderfully. Perhaps you have seen my brother Brackenbury? Or Ruth? Ah, I am sorry; I should have been vastly entertained to hear what they were saying, what they dared say. Ruth did indeed offer to pay the expenses of the operation—the belated prick of conscience!—and it was on the tip of my tongue to say we are not yet dependent on her spasmodic charity. Also, that I can keep my lips closed about Brackenbury without expecting a—tip? But they know I can’t afford to refuse £500.... If they, if everybody would only leave one alone! Spied on, whispered about....
“The papers made such an absurd stir! If you are known by name as occupying any little niche, the world waits gaping below. I suppose I ought to be flattered, but for days there were callers, letters, telephone-messages. Like Royalty in extremis.... And I never pretended that the operation was in any sense critical....
“Do you know, beyond saying that, I would much rather not talk about it? This very modern frankness.... Not you, of course! But when a man like my brother-in-law Spenworth strides in here a few hours before the anæsthetic is administered and says ‘What is the matter with you? Much ado about nothing, I call it.’ ... That from Arthur’s brother to Arthur’s wife, when, for all he knew, he might never see her alive again.... I prefer just to say that everything went off most satisfactorily and that I hope now to be better than I have been for years....”
Books
by Stephen McKenna
THE RELUCTANT LOVER