They all turned up at The Gulls, St. Mary’s Bay, in time for lunch on Mrs. Hilary’s birthday.  It was her special wish that all those of her children who could should do this each year.  Jim, whom she preferred, couldn’t come this time; he was a surgeon; it is an uncertain profession.  The others all came; Neville and Pamela and Gilbert and Nan and with Gilbert his wife Rosalind, who had no right there because she was only an in-law, but if Rosalind thought it would amuse her to do anything you could not prevent her.  She and Mrs. Hilary disliked one another a good deal, though Rosalind would say to the others, “Your darling mother!  She’s priceless, and I adore her!” She would say that when she had caught Mrs. Hilary in a mistake.  She would draw her on to say she had read a book she hadn’t read (it was a point of honour with Mrs. Hilary never to admit ignorance of any book mentioned by others) and then she would say, “I do love you, mother!  It’s not out yet; I’ve only seen Gilbert’s review copy,” and Mrs. Hilary would say, “In that case I suppose I am thinking of another book,” and Rosalind would say to Neville or Pamela or Gilbert or Nan, “Your darling mother.  I adore her!” and Nan, contemptuous of her mother for thinking such trivial pretence worth while, and with Rosalind for thinking malicious exposure worth while, would shrug her shoulders and turn away.

2

All but Neville arrived by the same train from town, the one getting in at 12.11.  Neville had come from Surrey the day before and spent the night, because Mrs. Hilary liked to have her all to herself for a little time before the others came.  After Jim, Neville was the child Mrs. Hilary preferred.  She had always been a mother with marked preferences.  There were various barriers between her and her various children; Gilbert, who was thirty-eight, had annoyed her long ago by taking up literature as a profession on leaving Cambridge, instead of doing what she described as “a man’s job,” and later on by marrying Rosalind, who was fast, and, in Mrs. Hilary’s opinion, immoral.  Pamela, who was thirty-nine and working in a settlement in Hoxton, annoyed her by her devotion to Frances Carr, the friend with whom she lived.  Mrs. Hilary thought them very silly, these close friendships between women.  They prevented marriage, and led to foolish fussing about one another’s health and happiness.  Nan annoyed her by “getting talked about” with men, by writing books which Mrs. Hilary found both dull and not very nice, in tone, and by her own irritated reactions to her mother’s personality.  Nan, in fact, was often rude and curt to her.

But Jim, who was a man and a doctor, a strong, good-humoured person and her eldest son, annoyed her not at all.  Nor did Neville, who was her eldest daughter and had given her grandchildren and infinite sympathy.