The House of Discontent Read Online Free Page B

upon themselves to welcome Patricia, and ask her out and give her as good a time as was possible, Dorothy’s jealousy was formidable.
    The neighbours rang up Mary and said, “Do bring your cousin to tea tomorrow. We should so like to meet her.” And afterwards, when Dorothy met these friends in the post-office or the street or at the grocer’s, she heard nothing but praise for her “charming niece”—for her sweetness and her good manners and her prettiness.
    “Really, you would never think she had travelled so much, just to meet her,” one neighbour said. “She is so natural and so gracious. There are no airs about her.”
    “Why should she have airs?” Dorothy retorted sharply. “She’s no better than anyone else, is she?”
    “No, no, of course not,” the other woman said hurriedly, and went home to report that Mrs. Leslie did not seem to be at all fond of her niece.
    Patricia made up her mind to get a job and become independent of the Leslies as soon as possible. Financial independence she already had, for her father had left her enough to live on, but she did not want to go on living at The Knowle. She wanted to pay for her keep but her Uncle Peter would not hear of it.
    She was sorry for her uncle, who obviously suffered on account of his wife’s hostile reception of her, and she was even more sorry for Mary, who kept constantly asking her, “You are happy with us, aren’t you? You won’t want to go away? It has made the whole difference to me, your being here.”
    Patricia assured her that she was happy, but Mary could not have helped noticing her mother’s attitude, and must have realized how uncomfortable it made it for her cousin to go on staying there. Once or twice she tried to make excuses for her mother by saying: “She doesn’t really mean to be like that, you know. She’s just the same with me. She’s been like that ever since we left the White House. She minded it so terribly. It’s understandable really, isn’t it? It makes her so wild to think of the Greys living there.”
    Patricia respected Mary for her loyalty to her mother, and tried, for her sake and for Uncle Peter’s, to pretend that nothing was the matter, and that she was perfectly happy. She made up her mind to get a job first and then let it appear that she was leaving the house on account of her work. To make this sound convincing she began to talk about the work she wanted to do. This part at least was true, for she did badly want to plunge into some really vital activity, and she asked Uncle Peter’s advice as to what it would be best for her to do.
    “Don’t do anything in too much of a hurry, my dear,” he said. “You haven’t been in England a fortnight yet Take your time and look around, and study the various opportunities open to you—unless, of course, you feel that you have a real vocation for something in particular.”
    “Nursing is the thing which interests me most” she said.
    “You’ll start by scrubbing floors,” Dorothy put in, “but I don’t suppose you’ll mind that as it’s in a hospital. That’s you modern girls all over. You don’t mind scrubbing in a hospital, but ask you to do a little housework in your own home, and oh, no, you’re much too good for that! You wouldn’t demean yourself by going down on your hands and knees and scrubbing out the hall here or cleaning the brass, would you? It would spoil your hands I suppose ... Well, would you?” she demanded again, as Patricia made no reply.
    “I’d certainly clean out the hall if you wanted me to, Patricia replied quietly, “but I think it would be rather insulting to Margaret, who keeps it so beautifully.” Margaret was the daily woman.
    “Yes, but we won’t have Margaret always, and when she goes, don’t you ask me to try to get another daily. You and Mary will have to turn to and do a little work for a change, and it won’t do either of you any harm, let me tell you. All you ever think of is gadding about ... This