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ENRIETTA

 
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    August 12, 1942
    M Y D EAR R OBERT
    I have been having headaches. Evensong, who suffers dreadfully in her head, said they were nothing. I thought they were quite bad, but whenever I mentioned them toCharles, he said fretfully: ‘For goodness’ sake don’t let’s have Illness in the Home;’ so at last I put on a hat and went and sat in his waiting room with all the other patients. Even that wasn’t a great success, because the patients said: ‘You won’t mind if I go before you, will you, because you can see dear Doctor Brown at any time, and I’m in such a hurry.’ So that, in the end, I was the only one left, and Charles rushed in and said: ‘I’m awfully sorry Henrietta, but I can’t stop now. You must come another time.’
    When the Linnet came home for some leave, I told her about my headaches. The Linnet, who is a sympathetic child, listened with attention, and when Charles came in she said, in a sort of nurse’s voice: ‘I think Mummy’s got neurasthenia.’
    â€˜Then she’d better go and see Knox,’ said Charles, in a relieved voice.
    Knox is the eminent psychiatrist who heals the mentally unstable in our Cathedral City. Knox isn’t his real name. We call him that because he is a Nervo specialist, from which you will gather, dear Robert, that this family is not yet cured of its habit of making poor jokes. *
    The following Wednesday I was shown into the hushed stillness of Knox’s exquisite waiting room. I sat there in great contentment. I was a Patient at last. I hadn’t enjoyed such a luxury for years.
    A secretary with a face like a Madonna stole silently into the room. ‘Will you come this way, Mrs Brown,’ she said, with a gentle smile, and I tiptoed into the Presence.
    â€˜My dear Henrietta,’ said Knox. ‘I am delighted to see you, but what brings you here?’
    â€˜I’ve got neurasthenia,’ I said proudly.
    â€˜Dear me!’ said Knox in his kindly way; ‘and how have you managed to get that?’
    â€˜Do you think it might be the war?’
    â€˜It’s a possibility.’
    Knox’s room was cool and dim, and the Patients’ Chair a cradle of billowing comfort. After answering one or two sympathetic questions about the children, Matins, Evensong, and Shopping in the Street, my tongue was loosened and a torrent of words poured from my lips. Knox listened with the deepest attention. From time to time he made an attempt to say something himself, but I waved him aside and swept onwards, borne on the torrent of my own loquacity. I was a Patient with neurasthenia, and I had often heard Charles say that they did nothing but talk about themselves. Well, here was my chance. It might never occur again, and I was going to make the best of it.
    At the end of an hour, I paused for breath, and Knox rang the bell and asked the secretary to bring me a glass of water.
    â€˜All you have told me is very interesting,’ he said.
    â€˜Is it?’ I said in a hoarse voice, and opened my mouth to begin again.
    â€˜Tell me,’ said Knox quickly, ‘do you ever have dreams?’
    â€˜Often.’
    â€˜Peculiar dreams?’
    â€˜Very peculiar. I once dreamt that I went to put something in the oven, and there, curled up on the bottom shelf, was a tiny little kangeroo. And another time I dreamt that Charles had grown a long, drooping moustache.’
    â€˜Nothing more peculiar than that?’
    â€˜If you don’t think a kangaroo in the gas cooker peculiar, I do.’

    â€˜I dreamt that Charles had grown a long, drooping moustache’
    â€˜Perhaps,’ said Knox sadly, and wrote it down in his little book.
    â€˜She looks very flushed and excited, doesn’t she?’ said the Linnet, when I got home. ‘Was it nice, darling?’
    â€˜It was
lovely.
’
    â€˜Have you got back to the Bee and the Pollen yet?’