Hugh Walpole

“ You saw, Roddy, how, until she died, I never quite recovered my security. To any small child she must have been awful. It wasn't only what she was in herself, but the breathless attitude that people adopted when they were speaking of her. The way Miss Manche herself would sink her voice and throw her eye over her shoulder, and as to Nurse Protty, at the mere sound of Granny Wrexe's name she would quiver all over like a jelly. ”

“ I went back to the schoolroom and stood, tearless, white of face, staring at Miss Manche.
"The room was dark now, and my soul was dark, too. There was Romance again—the sense of finality, a child's utter abandoned despair, an agony rich in feeling. But I saw nothing romantic then. I was simply resolved that I would act—act in some blind final catastrophic way—burn the place down, if necessary, to get Tatters back again. ”

“ A child from nowhere, a dog from the bowels of the earth, in the middle of the night, in the very holy of holies. ...
"She stared, and then suddenly her terror yielded to rage. She seized Tatters and shook him to and fro with her old whipcord hands, the while her grey hair, like Medusa's locks, waved in the breeze. The strangest curses came from her lips. I was too young at the time, but, looking back, I fancy that there were words there, real stable-door, barnyard words, that years of artificial decorum had checked, that only possibly poor Adela had ever heard. ”

“ Do I raise that window an inch and the roar comes tattering in, the roar so aimless and so threatening. But I have made my terms with this modern world, Roddy, and I know how to deal with it. A mask, a pair of iron gloves, an indifferent heart. No time for deep feeling, no pause for questioning. Our son is off my hands, happily married in the modern fashion. I have friends, money, flowers, security. Don't pity me, only remember that if you could come back to me, even for an hour, I would throw all this out of the window down into that squealing, bellowing Fifth Avenue—and oh, how happy I'd be! ”

“ That would make something of a subject for a painter, I think, even in these clever days when subject pictures are so completely out of fashion—the small, terrified child in her nightdress, the match suddenly struck, the candle lighted, revealing the high four-poster bed with its dark red hangings and the old woman sitting up, her nose sharp like a pin, her eyes flashing fire. ”

“ The intensity, the pause that come from waiting, from listening—the pause that we can't secure now, try as we may. Why do I feel nothing intensely any longer? Is it because I am for ever being moved away from it, pushed on by machines, always something buzzing in my ears that refuses to allow me to listen?
"Machines, machines, machines! I tell you, Roddy, they're awful. Much worse than when you were alive—worse every week—more of them, they move faster, they make more noise. ”

“ Miss Manche believed in her good old methods for bringing up children, saying sharply, 'Now, don't do that, Rachel!' on every possible opportunity, and being absolutely inhuman. According to Lizzie Rand, who knew her afterwards, she had troubles enough of her own; but, of course, she never took me into her confidence, although I was old for my age, and might have been of some comfort to her had she made the experiment. But when I think of Roddy Junior, and the time he had in his childhood, and the time I had! ”

“ At the thought of that hatred the waters of romance swell upward again. I wish that I could hate anyone as much to-day, that I could care enough. He was always interfering. Looking back, I can see that Miss Manche hated him quite as deeply as I did, but of course I didn't know that then. I didn't credit Miss Manche with any lively feelings save sentiment. ”

“ Then Miss Manche found a letter awaiting her from a favourite brother, and the dog was quiet in a corner with a biscuit that I had found for him, and, for the moment, he was forgotten.
"It was then that I had for the first time in my young life a real contact with a human being. No one had ever, so far as I knew, loved me before. Tatters loved me at sight. ”