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By Root 275 0

perceived a difference of appetite, one that seemed to carry an implicit threat to her own. Yet she dismissed this as ridiculous (dismissed it also as potentially too painful to contemplate) as she sat drinking coffee in the agreeable company of Jennifer and Mrs Pusey and basking in the high summer of their self-esteem, which in its turn shed a kindly light on all those within its orbit. And to Edith, at this strange juncture in her life, there was something soothing in the very existence of Mrs Pusey, a woman so gentle, so greedy, so tranquil, so utterly fulfilled in her desires that she encouraged daring thoughts of possession, of accumulation, in others. She was, Edith thought, an embodiment of the kind of propaganda no contemporary woman could stoop to countenance, for Mrs Pusey was not only an enchantress in her own right, she was also appreciative of such propensities in others. (She was also, by the same token, dismissive.) She had unexpected areas of imagination, of generosity. For example, she saw her daughter not as a rival, as a lesser woman might have done, but as a successor, to be groomed for the stardom which would eventually be hers by right. There was indeed a physical closeness between mother and daughter that surpassed anything Edith had ever known, and there was also love on both sides, although Edith registered that love as being mildly unrealistic. For in spite of Jennifer’s physical stolidity, a stolidity which verged on opulence, it was clear that her mother still thought of her as a small girl. And Jennifer, probably now as a matter of habit as well as of fondness, continued to behave like one.

The result of all this was to re-open in Edith’s mind the question of what behaviour most becomes a woman, the question around which she had written most of her novels, the question she had attempted to argue with Harold Webb, the question she had failed to answer and which she now saw to be of the most vital importance. The excitement she thus experienced at being provided with an opportunity to study the question at first hand was if anything heightened by the fact that everything that Mrs Pusey had said so far was of the utmost triviality. Clearly there were depths here that deserved her prolonged attention.

Mrs Pusey had conveniently opened the debate by referring to her husband, now unfortunately dead, but still an inspiration to her and ever in her thoughts.

‘A wonderful, wonderful man,’ she had said, after releasing this information, the thumb and forefinger of her right hand pressed briefly above the bridge of her nose.

‘Don’t, Mummy,’ begged Jennifer, her hand stroking her mother’s forearm.

Mrs Pusey gave a shaky little laugh. ‘She does hate me to get upset,’ she said to Edith. ‘It’s all right, darling, I’m not going to be silly.’ And she pulled out a fine white lawn handkerchief and dabbed at the corners of her mouth.

‘Oh, but you can’t think how I miss him,’ she confided to Edith. ‘He gave me everything I could possibly want. My early married life was like a dream. He used to say, “Iris, if it’ll make you happy, buy it. I’ll give you a blank cheque. And don’t spend it all on the house. Spend it on yourself.” But of course my lovely home came first. How I adored that house.’ Here the thumb and forefinger were once again applied to the bridge of the nose.

‘Where do you live?’ asked Edith, aware that this was an unimpressively bald question.

‘Oh, but my dear, I’m talking about our first home, in Haslemere. Oh, I wish I had the photos here. Architect designed, it was. It was my dream home. And I mustn’t talk about it too much, because Jennifer will get upset, won’t you, darling? Oh, yes, it broke her heart to leave Green Tiles.’

I can just see it, thought Edith. Parquet floors. Fitted cupboards. Picture windows. Every conceivable appliance in the kitchen. Gardener twice a week. Gardener’s wife, devoted, in a white overall, every day. Downstairs cloakroom for the gentlemen to use after playing a round of golf. Patio, she added.

‘But when my husband went to Head Office and I saw how much travelling