V
Nesta Rossiter to Richard Haven
Dear “Uncle” Richard,—I got here this afternoon and found Aunt Verena very still and white and pathetic, but the doctor is cheerful and a London swell, a friend of his—Sir Smithfield Mark—is expected to-morrow. Mrs. Carlyon, who lives in that big house near the church, on the Llandrindod road, has been kindness itself. I have come prepared to stay for a considerable time. Fred has promised not to go away just yet and fortunately we have a very good nurse. A little later perhaps Lobbie, my second, will come to me here; it depends on how quiet Aunt Verena has to be kept.
Now for the answers to your questions, which Mrs. Carlyon has handed over to me:—
(a) She can use her hands but is not permitted to do anything tiring, such as writing.
(b) She has to lie too flat to be able to hold a book with any comfort for more than a very short while.
(c) She is not in serious pain.
(d) What she most wants is letters from her friends, and you, I imagine, in particular.
(e) She has a library subscription, but would like to know what books are cheerful. She does not want to lie awake thinking about other people’s frustrated lives. She is rather tired of novels with the Café Royal in them.
(f) I have done my best for years to learn to read aloud, for the sake of the children, but most of the sentences end in a yawn. I wonder why it makes one so sleepy.
(g) This is really most important. Aunt Verena is devoted to Solitaire and thinks that a little later it might help her. But in her horizontal position it is, of course, impossible to use a table. What we have been wondering is whether it would be possible to get an arrangement by which it could be played on a more or less vertical board. Do you think this could be managed? I have been thinking about it and can suggest only long spikes and holes in the cards so that they could be hung on. Do you know anyone who could carry out such a scheme? She is going along very satisfactorily and is a perfect patient. She tells me to give you her love and thank you for all your suggestions.—Yours sincerely,
Nesta Rossiter