The house may be an ancient ark but at least it was built in easier times and there are plenty of bathrooms. The grandchildren have the whole top floor, what used to be the servants’ floor, to themselves, and can bang away up there. John has warned me not to be shocked at how they all look—like tramps, he explained. But that is really how we used to look in the days of middies and bloomers. Blue jeans shredded and coming half way up the thigh are just another version of the same thing. I should hate it, really, if they were too elegant. They are such splendid people! Much better informed and more concerned about the world around them than we, God knows, ever were—and they will be gentle with Cornelius. They’ll see what a battle he is fighting. At least I pray they will. We are all such blunderbusses, really, in this family. Even Mamzelle could never quell the fierceness in Olivia.

My Olivia—I had hoped so very much that she would marry, but she has fallen in love, with immense bravado, always with the impossible man, suffered, and held to her own way. Now she has become a magnificent aunt. Her nieces and nephews adore her. Somehow it is she who can speak their language.

John has gone over now to see Jane Tuttle. It is sure to do him good, for I think he feels the depression lurking again. He and Cornelius played cribbage for an hour last night while I washed up. They hardly talked, but I felt, right through the walls, the peace of it.

I have come to the conclusion that John, perhaps because of all he has suffered and his own sense of failure, is an extraordinary human being. Cruel world, for which this is not enough! Besides Bruno, so solid and sure of himself, John is like some rare refined creature—a camelopard, a unicorn—useless, to Bruno’s way of thinking! Sybille—dangerous subject!—has tamed him too well, I sometimes think. But I have to remind myself that she has had to bear a great deal, and has done so with immense patience and lovingkindness. She just always seems so unimaginative, like a rather starchy nurse. I suppose that has been good for the children. They needed a sort of absolute person in authority. But I always feel she looks on us as a weird and rather unpalatable tribe. I know I am a snob about her and her air of suburban virtue. Luckily she seems able to “see” Cornelius. I have always baffled her completely. It’s fire and water, I suppose. But away with such thoughts! Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I am so deeply thankful for my family.

Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9