'No. I've not got a job yet. I'm going to look round a little first.'
'Oh, that's sense. Have a good time at home for a bit. Well, it's time you had a holiday, isn't it? I wish old Frank could. He's working like an old horse. He may slave himself to death for those Pimlico pigs, for all any of them care. It's never "thank you"; it's always "more, more, more," with them. That's your Socialism, Johnny.'
The twins got on very well with their sister-in-law, but thought her a fool. When, as she was fond of doing, she mentioned Socialism, they, rightly believing her grasp of that economic system to be even less complete than that of most people, always changed the subject.
But on this occasion they did not have time to change it before Clare said, 'Mother's writing a novel about Socialism. She shows it up like anything.'
Mrs. Potter smiled.
'I confess I am trying my hand at the burning subject. But as for showing it up—well, I am being fair to both sides, I think. I don't feel I can quite condemn it wholesale, as Peggy does. I find it very difficult to treat anything like that—I can't help seeing all round a thing. I'm told it's a weakness, and that I should get on better if I saw everything in black and white, as so many people do, but it's no use my trying to alter, at my time of life. One has to write in one's own way or not at all.'
'Anyhow,' said Clare, 'it's going to be a ripping book, Socialist
Cecily; quite one of your best, mother.'
Clare had always been her mother's great stand-by in the matter of literature. She was also useful as a touchstone, as what her mother did not call a foolometer. If a book went with Clare, it went with Leila Yorke's public beyond. Mr. Potter was a less satisfactory reader; he regarded his wife's books as goods for sale, and his comments were, 'That should go all right. That's done it,' which attitude, though commercially helpful, was less really satisfying to the creator than Clare's uncritical absorption in the characters and the story. Clare was, in fact, the public, while Mr. Potter was more the salesman.
And the twins were neither, but more like the less agreeable type of reviewer, when they deigned to read or comment on their mother's books at all, which was not always. Johnny's attitude towards his mother suggested that he might say politely, if she mentioned her books, 'Oh, do you write? Why?' Mrs. Potter was rather sadly aware that she made no appeal to the twins. But then, as Clare reminded her, the twins, since they had gone to Oxford, never admitted that they cared for any books that normal people cared for. They were like that; conceited and contrary.
To change the subject (so many subjects are the better for being changed, as all those who know family life will agree) Jane said, 'Johnny and I are going on a reading-party next month.'