Chapter 9 No.9

Their voices rose and fell against the soft splashing of the sea; Neville's, sweet and light, with pretty cadences, Pamela's, crisp, quick and decided, Nan's, trailing a little, almost drawling sometimes. The Hilary voices were all thin, not rich and full-bodied, like Rosalind's. Mrs. Hilary's was thin, like Grandmama's.

"Nice voices," thought Mrs. Hilary, languidly listening. "Nice children. But what nonsense they often talk."

They were talking now about the Minority Report of some committee, which had been drafted by Rodney. Rodney and the Minority and Neville and Pamela and Nan were all interested in what Mrs. Hilary called "This Labour nonsense which is so fashionable now." Mrs. Hilary herself, being unfashionable, was anti-Labour, since it was apparent to her that the working classes had already more power, money and education than was good for them, sons of Belial, flown with insolence and bonuses. Grandmama, being so nearly out of it all, was used only to say, in reply to these sentiments, "It will make no difference in the end. We shall all be the same in the grave, and in the life beyond. All these movements are very interesting, but the world goes round just the same." It was all very well for Grandmama to be philosophical; she wouldn't have to live for years ruled and triumphed over by her own gardener, which was the way Mrs. Hilary saw it.

Mrs. Hilary began to get angry, hearing the girls talking in this silly way. Of course it was natural that Neville should agree with Rodney; but Pamela had picked up foolish ideas from working among the poor and living with Frances Carr, and Nan was, as usual, merely wrong-headed, childish and perverse.

Suddenly she broke out, losing her temper, as she often did when she disagreed with people's politics, for she did not take a calm and tolerant view of these things.

"I never heard such stuff in my life. I disagree with every word you've all said."

She always disagreed in bulk, like that. It seemed simpler than arguing separate points, and took less time and knowledge. She saw Neville wrinkling her broad forehead, doubtfully, as if wondering how the subject could most easily be changed, and that annoyed her.

Nan said, "You mean you disagree with the Report. Which clauses of it?" and there was that soft viciousness in her voice which showed that she knew Mrs. Hilary had not even read the Minority Report, or the Majority Report either. Nan was spiteful; always trying to prove that her mother didn't know what she was talking about; always trying to pin her down on points of detail. Like the people with whom Mrs. Hilary had failed to get on during her brief sojourn in London; they too had always shunned general disputes about opinion and sentiment, such as were carried on with profit in St. Mary's Bay, and pinned the discussion down to hard facts, about which the Bay's information was inaccurate and incomplete. As if you didn't know when you disagreed with a thing's whole drift, whether you had read it or not.... Mrs. Hilary had never had any head for facts.

"It's the whole idea," she said, hotly. "And I detest all these Labour people. Vile creatures.... Of course I don't mean people like Rodney-the University men. They're merely amateurs. But these dreadful Trades Union men, with their walrus moustaches.... Why can't they shave, like other people, if they want to be taken for gentlemen?"

Neville told her, chaffingly, that she was a mass of prejudice.

Grandmama, who had fallen asleep and dropped the London Mercury onto the floor, diverted the conversation by waking up and remarking that it seemed a less interesting number than usual on the whole, though some of the pieces of poetry were pretty, and that Mrs. Hilary ought not to lie under the open window.

Mrs. Hilary, who was getting worse, admitted that she had better be in bed.

"I hope," said Grandmama, "that it will be a lesson to you, dear, not to stay in the water so long again, even if you do want to show off before your daughter-in-law." Grandmama, who disliked Rosalind, usually called her to Mrs. Hilary "your daughter-in-law," saddling her, so to speak, with the responsibility for Gilbert's ill-advised marriage. To her grandchildren she would refer to Rosalind as "your sister-in-law," or "poor Gilbert's wife."

"The bathe was worth it," said Mrs. Hilary, swinging up to high spirits again. "It was a glorious bathe. But I have got rheumatics."

So Neville stayed on at The Gulls that night, to massage her mother's joints, and Pamela and Nan went back to Hoxton and Chelsea by the evening train. Pamela had supper, as usual, with Frances Carr, and Nan with Barry Briscoe, and they both talked and talked, about all the things you don't talk of in families but only to friends.