People came to call on me, a great many people. They meant to be kind to me, I knew that. They wanted me to join all sorts of societies and to do all sorts of things. They asked me if I was musical; if I took an interest in politics, or infant welfare. And it seemed to me, when they asked me that I was not interested in anything at all.
They thought so too, I think.
Walter was vexed with me. He said that I ought to make friends with some of the ladies that came to see me; he said they would think me stuck up, that I gave myself airs. I didn’t understand how they could think that. I don’t now. Walter said that I would find that I had lots of things in common with some of them, if only I would try, and I expect that is quite true, but somehow I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t make the effort. I felt then, and I still do, as though there were no room for new people in my life any more. I should never care for new friends as I did for the old ones. When one has had the best of all, second best seems not worth having.
Mollie came to see us. She helped me with the house; we arranged the books together, and the pictures, and all the little things. She stayed a little longer, and I thought:
‘There is still Mollie . . . if she can go on, I can.’
But she could not stay long. She was going to work again at her Biological institute, and she had to go back. She said she would come again, she said she would often come, and she does come, and stay with us quite often. Even Walter is glad when she comes; he says it is her intellectual interests that have kept her so sweet and serene; he calls it so intelligent. I should not put it in that way, I think it is something much deeper and more fundamental in Mollie, than her interest in biology, that makes her what she is; but it does not matter much what we call it, we mean, really, the same thing. And often when she is not there, when I am discouraged and downhearted, and wonder if it is worth while going on, I think of Mollie, as I do of Cousin Delia, and I am ashamed of my own poorness of spirit, and I think again, how wonderful they are.
III
Just before Christmas time, my Grandmother fell ill. She had grown very old and frail in the last years. The war had worn her out.
I went to her at Campden Hill Square. It was like long ago, before I married Walter; I had not been to stay there, for more than a night, since then.
Grandmother said that she was glad to have me there.