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Show and Sisters herited from our mother. An extrovert, inclined to be willful and pleasure-loving, a very good dancer, at the age for cigarettes and girls, he took life lightly. Phil developed a technique of picking me up by theclothes at the back of my waist and carrying me horizontally so that to myself I appeared to swim. I understood, however, that this was to be a rare treat, never requested. Otherwise I had not much to do with Phil; he was above my ken. Later, when he went to Australia and married, I was touched but surprised to find that he had called his daughter by my name. mon with each other than we had with our elder brothers. I preened myself because I fancied I resembied my kind, easygoing father rather than mypassionate,vigorous mother, in disposition as well as in coloring. Although we never exchanged views on this subject, I rather think Frank did. so, too. Everything in my early life would have turned Frank against me and aroused jealousy in his heart if he had been capable of such petty and evil feeling. But he was too noble. As a young child I was delicate. I cried—and cried. I cried in the nursery where Frank had beenleft in chargeof me, lacerating his heart Author of “Inheritance,” “Freedom Farewell,” “A Man of His Time,” and “O Dreams, O Destinations” had a large attic in our house, and there my mother nursed me through my fevers. Every morn- ing, at the foot of the stairs, was found a tiny toy made for me by Frank out of cardboard or paper. I do not think Frank taught me to read, but he taught meto tell the time, to skip, to bowl a hoop, to play cards, and even checkers. He admitted me to nearly all his games, his flag shows, and marble shows. Heeventried to teach me French and skating, though tender age and weak ankles prevented him there. He took mefor walks, he took me+to county agricultural shows, he took me to the cinema. He always gave < My second brother Norman! was aan of a much more serious type. He was conscientious, ambitious, determined to succeed, and so devoted to his younger siblings, Frank and myself, that he could not bear us to fall by a hairsbreadth below his exacting behavior standards. I still remember my anguish,sitting at the piano, aged aboutsix or seven, while Norman commanded mefiercely to play a certain note. I could not, for I did not know which it was. The fear I felt then has never left me. Worst of all was a later occasion when Norman scolded Frank. Although I was not yet eight, never did a heart seethe with such furious rage as mine did then. That ‘these childish incidents should affect a relationship through ‘a whole life is no doubt absurd, but and did not take me.In laterlife, I became good friends with my sisters-in-law, who on their part had been jealous of the plain, bespectacled social failure of a sister whom my brothers—so unaccountably, in their estimation—loved. When Frank married, I was left at home alone with my father and mother. Novelist Arnold Bennett has remarked that the youngest of a family, in childhood so much favored, has to pay for it all later in lonely care for the aging parents. So it was with me. 1 said at the beginning of this article that my family were all kind, good, honorable people, warmhearted, unselfish, and deeply attached to one another. Were we? Of course we were! Did we over consciously do anything to harm one another? Of course not! Wesupported each other strongly whenever it was necessary. No- body outside the family suspected for a momentthatall these fearful turmoils, these huge sea-wave tossings were going on below. My fa- a 4 Miss Bentley found other families as divided as hers, posing here in 1895: from left, Norman, mother Eleanor, Phyllis, Philip, Frank, father Joseph. with concern and dread. I cried at the seaside, ceasing only when given rides on the back of a donkey, while me birthday and Christmas presents which were of mytaste, not his. -And then we all grew up. ther and mother did not suspect it, and indeed I rather doubt if at the time we suspected it ourselves. All households have these stormy undercurrents. No need, therefore, to be ashamed of them. I remember how great a relief it was to me to discover that, in the family of a school friend, the brothers and sisters, all nice people, were divided like my own. No need to go into its deep psy- ens de sm.--Lqealfriendssaid..te.me:,“How Shalegical, causestorealizethat. it twubiforniniralyttleesPhe atti Pranks actttnlged,-lonked.on. nition that we should neverlet the sun go down upon our wrath is absolutely crucial in family life. True and loving explanations and reconciliations must always be effected before our anger has had time to sink deep. Mybrother Frank I loved with my whole heart. He was quiet and did not stand up for himself, though he stood up for me. I could never bear to hear him rebuked or undervalued. He and I had more in com- quite wistfully. . . In my earliest years, too, I con- tracted every infectious disease on the list—whooping cough, chicken pox, mumps, scarlet fever. (Also pleurisy and double pneumonia, but that is by the way.) My elder brothers were at boarding school during this period, but Frank, attending a local day school, had to remain at home in solitary quarantine till the infectious periods were past. A dreary time for him, I think. We lucky you are, having all those brothers to take you out.” But in: fact it did not operate that way. When I emerged from the schoolroom, my brother Phil was in Australia, my brother Norman was happily married, and my brother Frank was just about to become engaged. He did not love me less but began to love Kathleen more. I rememberto this day the frightful heartbreak I experienced when he first went out to a theater party love, hate, selfishness, self-sacrifice, jealousy, reserve, are. all rampant in family life. They are the price we pay for human variety, one of the greatest factors in civilization and progress. If we wereall alike and fitted comfortably together, we should not quarrel, but we should still be building clay huts. Yet how wonderful family life would be if brother and sister could learn early in life to forgive each other for being different. @ August 27, 1967 5 |