All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow

Author:Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2023-01-26T09:54:53+00:00

Vita concluded the evening after coffee by announcing her tiredness. Rollo and I responded by immediately standing up as though suddenly realising we were late for something else. Dolly was staying over, and I left without either the promised game of bridge or a mention of dinner the following Friday. Were we, simply, after several Fridays in a row together, so ensconced in the weekly habit of dinner that it no longer needed to be formally referenced? Or was it, instead, a period that was never to be repeated? Etiquette for Ladies recommended responding to such omitted invitations with quiet dignity. Any insult, whether intended or accidental, will fail to register if one ignores being excluded and manages to refrain from all enquiry, either directly or through a third party. The absence of an expected invitation is, Edith assured, an opportunity to demonstrate one’s character; this is achieved by being magnanimous and restrained on the subject.

That night, and the following day, I went over and over the evening, replaying all the conversations, but the only poorly received comment was my refusal for Dolly to work on the Lakeside renovation and to travel to London. I could not, afterwards, justify this ban, which I had imposed mainly because they had not told me about the visits, even when I must have had dinner with them, spoken with them, directly afterwards. Dolly was not my property, I reasoned; she spent time with her grandparents, her friends and her father. If she wanted to widen her circle to include Vita and Rollo, and to experience the world of work, then it was my role to support and encourage this. I felt as I had when I was a child, before I let go of my anxious hold on Dolores. Something similar had whirled and scratched inside me when I first began to hear my sister coming home in darkness.

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