The Man in the Wing Chair approached his mother before she could reply and said quietly but audibly: “May I remind you it’s her decision. It’s not your life, or mine.”
“She has no experience of this sort of thing, nor do you. I know exactly how to resolve such a situation. She mustn’t take him back. She mustn’t let that man into her house ever again.”
“Why not?” he asked in a low, harsh tone that Miss Prim had never heard him use before. “Because you didn’t?”
The old lady gave her son such a terrible, icy look that Miss Prim thought the door must have blown open and let in a blast of cold air.
“How dare you!” the old lady hissed before rising from her seat, snatching her coat, and rushing from the room, followed by her maid.
He didn’t try to stop her, but once the door had closed he sank down onto the sofa and rested his forehead on his hands.
“It’s all my fault,” moaned Miss Mott, anxiously twisting the belt of her dress. “I should never have called you, I should never have involved you in all this. Now your mother’s angry. I’m so stupid! I don’t have any strength of character, I never had, but I shouldn’t let my problems—”
“Please, Eugenia, don’t worry. None of that is your fault, and in any case it’s not important. Right now we have to discuss how to resolve this, what you want to do with your life and whether there’s a place in it for your husband.”
At this, Prudencia cleared her throat quietly.
“Yes, Miss Prim?” he asked, raising his head and looking at her for the first time since she’d entered the room.
“Would you like me to go after your mother?”
“I’d be very grateful. I can’t leave Miss Mott in this state, but I was a little abrupt with Mother. I’m sorry you had to witness it.”
Again she felt a pang of envy, a strange, inopportune envy combined in equal measure with something very like compassion.
“That’s okay,” she replied, “I’ll go and talk to her.”
As she came out of the house she saw the old lady sitting with her maid on a bench beneath a camellia. Miss Prim approached slowly and sat down beside her. The maid slipped away to fetch the car. Once she’d gone, the old lady spoke.
“I expect you’re wondering why my son said what he did, aren’t you?”
“Definitely not,” she replied. “It’s a family matter.”
“It is indeed.”
“Although, since you’ve asked, there is one thing I don’t understand.”
The old lady turned toward her, interested.
“Tell me, what don’t you understand?”
“It’s just that I’m surprised at your son mentioning something so personal in public. It’s not like him.”
The elderly lady picked up a pale pink camellia blossom from the ground and began sorrowfully to pluck the petals.
“No, it isn’t, but he couldn’t help it.”
“Why not? I’ve never met anyone with his gift for avoiding discourtesy.”
“Why not? Because he blames me, my dear, and when a son blames his mother, much as he might want to avoid it, the feeling surfaces sooner or later.”
Miss Prim now picked up a flower herself and stared at it as she spun it around between her fingertips. It was beginning to grow dark and the air was becoming colder. All of a sudden, she removed her scarf and slipped it around the old lady’s shoulders.
“People sometimes say things without thinking. They’re not expressing what they feel but rather the tension of the moment, or even a desire to win the argument. I don’t think your son was showing his grief or resentment when he said what he did; I think he simply wanted to put an end to the conversation.”
The old lady shivered in a gust of cold wind and then looked straight into the librarian’s eyes.
“My dear Prudencia, there are times in life when we’re all faced with a dilemma we’d rather not have to deal with. For each person the dilemma might come in a different guise, but in essence it’s always the same. There’s a sacrifice to be made, and you have to choose the victim: yourself or those around you.”
