Henry and Cato Read Online Free PDF

you how unhappy I was all last year, I am not up to it. It has needed some nerve to be honest with myself and come through to this truth, though I know you will be hurt. At home when you say you must try I say yes I will try, but I’ve felt so wretched about it. You must think I’m spineless, but please please don’t be angry. I have faced up to it and now I know myself, like you were always quoting about Socrates. I want so much to come home. Please don’t try to telephone me, they can’t get me anyway, the hostel phone is out of order, and please don’t send a telegram or write, there won’t be time, just try to understand and don’t think it’s a tragedy, it’s not the end of the world! I’ll find my way in life but it must be my way. I have tried your way, truly I have. There are all kinds of growing up and getting educated which are not academic kinds. One has got to feel free to become oneself. I can learn things, but not in this way. I feel what I am doing now just lacks relevance, for me anyhow. You know I’m not just a ‘silly girl’ like the ones you despise. Please see I have to do my thing—and I don’t mean that in a silly way either. Make things easy for me. I could only explain this in a letter. I do rather dread coming home. I’m so terribly sorry I cost so much money for nothing, I want not to cost any more. I’ll get a job soon, only don’t be angry. I’ll pack my stuff and it can be picked up later. I’ll be home in a few days, I’ll let you know when. Dear Daddy, much much love to you from your loving
    C.
    John Forbes threw the letter onto the kitchen table which was covered with dirty plates and beer bottles. Earlier in the evening, George Bellamy, the Laxlinden gardener whose services John coveted, had come over to watch colour television and to bring the latest Hall news. John disliked everybody at the Hall, and since he had bought the Oak Meadow there had been a positive, though quite irrational, sense of feud. Gerda made such a muddle over the sale, and wrote afterwards implying that he had pressed her into it. Of course he had felt sorry for Gerda when Sandy died and had written her a carefully composed letter. He had never forgotten the cold letter which Gerda wrote when Ruth died. But then poor Gerda always envied Ruth her beauty and her talents. About his old friend Lucius Lamb, John often thought sadly. And now George Bellamy had brought news of the arrival, expected in a week or so, of the creep Henry. John Forbes disliked and disapproved of them all, but he was always interested in Bellamy’s bits of news.
    Colette’s letter was a bolt from the blue, though he now told himself that of course the girl had obviously tried to prepare him for it, only he had refused to listen. He could not bear to think that a child of his was not an intellectual. He had pushed her and encouraged her and taught her himself and pulled strings and tried and failed to get her into a decent university (of course she was a bad examinee) and had had to accept that training college as a second best, not good enough for his daughter but still the best available and good of its kind. He had regularly interviewed her tutor, Mr Tindall, had explained exactly what courses he thought would suit Colette, and had even suggested certain changes in the college syllabus, to toughen it up a little. He had talked for hours with Colette herself about what she ought to do, what subjects she ought to choose, what she ought to concentrate upon, he had done the best he could to help her in the vacations. He had actually found the books for her and put them into her hands!
    Perhaps he had used the wrong tactics, he thought now. Women are so odd. He abhorred bullying, and had often thought and said that the domination of men over women is the source of many of the world’s evils. He had always fought for women’s liberation, he had fought,