"CATHY HAD EVERYTHING."

Taranaki Daily News, 2 October 1920, Page 10 (Supplement)

"CATHY HAD EVERYTHING."

Ten Portraits of Two Women Friends—of Monica Hensloclc, M.D., aud Cathy Rossiter. "It always occurs to me that to get yourself painted is one of the most ridiculously egotistical acts of an amazingly self-satisfied class. "Look at your own family portraits, Lady Corstairs; if 1 may say so they merelj go to prove that in the past your sneestors looked greedy and respectable. "This man for instance." She indicated a bisbop whose puffy cheeks Iralged out over a white choker, arid whose hand rested on an open book. "Does he look as thojgh he was hungering' and thirsting after righteousness, | or as if he is pure in heart? The lineß around his mouth are clear proof of sensuality." I "You are speaking of a remarkably good man," Lady Carstairs said with the utmost politeness, "a man who gave his life for the. good of others. My great UEcle,- Bishop Footner." "Of course, if he died for his people," I Jane Greenaway said in a more modified voice, "I don't so much object to him." "He passed away in his bed," Lady J Carstairs said reservedly. MONICA HENSTOCK, M.D. This passage on portraits ig quoted from a new story, "Cathy Rossiter," by Mrs. Victor Rickard (Hodder & Stoughton, 7fi. net). It is a well-told story, which shows in a highly stirring way the possible evils of private asylums, of which Cathy Rossiter was the tragic victim. Without- going to the expense of portraits in oik, let us quote' two of Mrs. Ilickards' portraits in ink which disclose to us the personalities of Monica Hens.tock, M.IX, and of her friend Cathy, whom she doubly betrayed both as friend and patient. "The tire wan burning rather low, for Monica Henstock was never lavish with coal and the temperature in her sittingroom had fallen perceptibly. Her room wa3 decorated in greens and greys and none of the easy chairs were really deserving of the title, but the effect was tidy and excessively real and Monica her-solf was the acme of tidiness. "She had come early to her sense of power and had taken her degree as a Bachelor of Medicine with real distinction, and the contrast between her metier and herself was sufficiently striking to make her interesting. NOT A STEREOTYPED PROFESSIONAL. "In figure siie was slender and rather frail, and her fine rnobile features had an original and almost mystic suggestion. Her month drooped at the corners. She was foil of abstract ardours. Since she began to think for herself, which was very early in life, as these things count, she had flung herself into extremes, and fought for a number of causes. Studied closely, it was possible to discover that there was a deep strain of morbidity in her, which induced her to dwell upon the ugly, dangerous side of*things, and her training had accentuated her natural tendency. . . . "She was by no means the stereotyped professional woman, and even though her room had all the rigidity of a consulting room Monica' conquered it, unconsciously, because she was essentially feminine. Her views of life, men, women and marriage, on, the social questions of the day. were defiant, not to say bombastic. Life to her was not so much a battle ground as a platform, and she lectured whenever opportunity arose: "She was thirty-two, but looked younger. Without her special distinction she would have been very dowdy, hut with it, her total lack of chic became an asset. . '. Monica knew less of herself than most of us, and while she believed that she was a merciless antagonist, she was actually, quite unusually vulnerable on the "side of sex. Eut Monica had 'made good.' She ranked with the men whom she affected to despise, and she was of real use in the world. THE UNPROFESSIONAL WOMEN. "Her small house in Colebrook Street, off Cavendish Square, was well knownand her engagements, apart from hospi- , tal work, were almost more than she could deal with. "She had her scorns, feeling she had_ earned a right to be scornful, and some over-indulgence in this respect had pulled down the corners of her flexible month. Yet, behind all this, the real Monica craved for another life, which included love and rapture. Women came to her in shoals, but men, unless her own colleague*., were rare in her life; when they did appear, the hidden Monica peered out, and the Monica that she believed herself to be had to invent fictions to account for the fact that 6he always preferred them to her own sex. "She was standing by her writing table talking to her greatest friend, Cathy Rossiter, and Cathy was grumbling at the excessive angularity of the chair in which she was sitting. WHY WERE THEY FRIENDS! "Why they were friends was one of those strange psychological puzzles which no one understands, and can only be explained through the fact that they had been schoolfellows. Cathy had everything. Mcnica frequently dwielt on the subject with a hint of rancour in her heart, and her easy grace was a poem. Sir Neville Rossiter, her father, had left her well provided for, and she had the type of beauty which proclaims itself to the whole world. She was not bent, she was careless to untidiness, and yet she commanded the full joy of the most critical observer. "Her hair was wavy and brown, and her eyes wide and very blue. Her beauty of features was even less than her beauty of expression and the frankness of her smile. Cathy touched the human being in every one, and there was a end gallantry in her bearing which called for an immediate response. Xb one could grudge her her good fortune in life, because she herself was so generous. In fact the whole of Cathy was just her lavishnesß. She held out hoi arras to*the world, smiled at it, and ask' cd to be a friend, for she was entirely herself. CATHY HAD EVERYTHING. "Monica counted everything. She knew what she spent on stamps; she knew what she had at the bank and she knew to a halfpenny how much small change there was in the voluminous bag winch she carried when she went out. With Cathy everything was otherwise. ... "Cathy was an aristocrat by birth, a I democrat from choice, and Monica came jjjfrnm a steady, middle-class home, and Wt an inward satisfaction to know that the Rossiters were socially above her, |

though she would not have admitted it under torture. When Cathy laughed, no one in the world who listened could remain altogether serious. She knew her own world well, and at the age of 28 she still remained unmarried. "Love had come to her and she had lived through a whole avalanche of entreaty. She had been sought by great . and small alike, and was as innocently attractive as a woman well can be. Yet no one had ever captured her whole undivided love, though she had always responded in a measure. You could no more keep Cathy from showing that she was glad to be loved than you could keep lier from breathing. Without being a flirt she flirted desperately and unconsciously, and she was perpetually interested in men.. A CONTRAST. "Towards Cathy's long list of .suitors Monica adopted an attitude of amused scorn. She could not believe that it all happened without overt act on the part of her friend, and she decided that Cathy's wiles were well considered a."in her effects the result of considerable care and attention. It gave her a further sense of superiority and -she looked down upon Cathy as though from a cold and distant height where she stood proud, lonely and aloof. Cathy got mixed up in one affair after another, and her public was masculine, furthermore, Cathy believed in men and Monica hadn't a good word for thent."