The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West

Author:Rebecca West
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2010-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

3

“AS SOON as you children go out,” said Mamma, as we stood at the french windows after lunch the next day, “I am going to write to my cousin Constance and ask her to come and see us. It cannot be a long journey for her, she lives in South London too. Oh, dear, I wish we could furnish the attic room next Kate’s, so that Constance could come and stay with us, and bring her little girl Rosamund. But I cannot spare a stick of furniture from the other rooms.” She stared through the glass as if she hoped to see some overlooked chairs and tables on the lawn.

“Don’t bother to have them just because you think we would like to play with the little girl,” I said.

“We have you and Papa and Richard Quin, and that is enough,” said Mary.

“But I want them,” said Mamma, her eyes wide with desire. “Constance is not my cousin, she is married to my Cousin Jock, God help her, but she was at school with me, we were like sisters. I want to see her. Think what you two would feel like if when you were grown up you never managed to be together. You cannot think how lonely it is,” she said with a passion which we children sympathetically recognized as the passion of a child, “never to be with anybody who knew you when you were little. And also I must try to make a world for you. It is not good for you never to be with other people than yourselves, and Papa’s relatives are not friendly, and things may not be easy with the people here…” Her voice faded away.

“Oh, Mamma, we will be all right,” said Mary.

“Yes, Mamma, we will always be all right,” I said.

“I will sit down and write the letter now so that you can post it at once,” Mamma said ecstatically.

At first her fears that things might not be easy at Lovegrove seemed groundless. Papa was always happy when he was engaged in certain activities. Of these the one which gave him greatest pleasure was his lifelong wrestling match with money. He was infatuated with it though he could not get on good terms with it. He felt towards it as a man of his type might have felt towards a gipsy mistress, he loved it and hated it, he wanted hugely to possess it and then drove it away, so that he nearly perished of his need for it. But he knew almost as great joy if he were conducting a campaign against some social injustice, particularly if it were the rights of property which had been dealt with unjustly. This was not because he himself had any property, of which he possessed not one farthing’s worth, nor because he any longer numbered among his friends any property-owners, nor because he was callous about the sufferings of the poor, but because he was a disciple of Herbert Spencer and believed the right

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