Free A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor, Caleb Crain

supposed his bout of drunkenness to be over.
    The next time that she saw him was in his own home. His mother had come to live at the Old Vicarage where once Dr Garrett Anderson had stayed. Lilian, who had never entered the house before, paused in the hall and looked up at the ceiling, round at the walls, disregarding her hostess for a brief moment, as if there were homage to be paid first.
    Julia Jephcott was in her sixties. Mad, raffish, unselfconscious, she had the beautiful and calm air of one who has all her life acknowledged compliments. This air, associated with beauty, lingered after the beauty itself had collapsed and fled. She seemed to be lovely still to herself, as if no amount of looking into mirrors could ruin her illusion. For this reason, perhaps, she wore the clothes of much younger women and a pale, haphazard make-up, which wretchedly emphasised the wrinkled eyelids, the drawn throat. Her white hair was patchily gilded as if it had been brushed over with yolk of egg. Her charm was unflagging. She had learnt it diligently in Sir Frank Benson’s Shakespearean Company. Hours of walking with books on her head had given her a deportment which was now unconscious, and years of being kind to her admirers, of smiling (though one word could not describe the great range of her smiles – tender, gay, brave, mocking, sly, wistful) at nothing, of stressing her words and lowering her voice for scarcely any reason at all, had made it impossible for her now to speak to her gardener or pay a bus-fare without seeking to please and beguile. She was still their servant. She thought nothing of herself.
    Even Lilian’s standing mute in the hall looking about her did not spoil her welcome. Julia always came out to meet her guests, running down the shallow steps with a suggestion of drapery flowing back from her, her braceleted arms stretched out in greeting, her palms upturned, denoting eagerness and the proffering of love.
    While Lilian was making her silent obeisance, Julia came to kiss Harriet, who felt that here at last was somebody to love her, who had singled her out.
    Charles did not run to meet people. He stood with one elbow on the chimney-piece in the drawing-room, one hand in his pocket, waiting. From time to time, listening to the voices in the hall, he glanced at his finger-nails, bent them towards him and gave them an aloof appraisal. He also had a trick, when he was alone or as good as alone, of stretching his closed lips in a tight grimace and rubbing his chin. He did this when his mind was empty, although it gave him a very thoughtful look.
    It appeared to Harriet that she was always the one who remembered having seen other people. They never remembered having seen her. She did not like to seem (even to herself) so much more caught up in the importance of others when they cared so little for her. While she was trying to tone down her enthusiasm to something more appropriate, they were attempting to simulate what they did not feel. Sometimes they merely pretended to pretend. Julia could not help but convince.
    â€˜Dr Garrett Anderson once came here for a rest,’ Lilian was explaining.
    â€˜Darling, I must confess I never heard of him,’ said Julia. ‘My narrow, narrow life and my muddle-headed ways. I am quite a loony about people’s names.
    â€˜ Elizabeth Garrett Anderson,’ said Lilian faintly.
    â€˜I would never go to a woman doctor,’ Julia said. She put her hand up beautifully to her face, the tips of her fingers curved to her cheekbone, her thumb to her chin. ‘A man is half the battle,’ she added mysteriously. ‘Now here is my old stodge. My son Charles. Darling, this is Mrs Claridge and dear Harriet. Say how-do-you-do nicely.’
    Harriet guessed that only his mother would ever make fun of Charles.
    â€˜Are you a suffragette?’ Julia asked Lilian.
    â€˜No one has any need to be that now, but once I was.’
    â€˜I have never voted in my