December 2nd 1940 continued

Monday December 2nd

[French sections translated into English.]

There was a family scene today with B*. She lies all the time, and we are stupid and foolish!

There is no difference, I think, between she - the little egoist - and F**, who completely confuses a noble patriotism with extreme jealousy.  According to him, it’s my relationship with Mummy that causes the jealousy and nothing else. Equally little B is sure that everyone else is lying, and that she’s said nothing but the absolute truth. In reality, there are several people in the dark.

Even French as execrable as mine is useful sometimes. I had not thought of this little device before.

In the end good Aunt G*** saved her poor little lamb with the result that the ‘event’ (is that the right word for the issue?) is completely confused - and I, who was only the instrument of justice, am beginning to feel that I was to blame.

The others mentioned in the text are the house guests who came to stay indefinitely with Lorna and her mother in Malvern five months earlier 'because of the strain of repeated warnings over the Bristol Channel' - see the diary entry for July 2nd 1940.

* Lorna’s 12 year-old first cousin once removed Beryl, grand-daughter of  Uncle Alfred (Fred) and Aunt Gladys
** Lorna's Uncle Fred (Alfred), Beryl’s grandfather, and Gladys’ husband
*** Lorna’s Aunt Gladys, grandmother of Beryl, wife of Fred, and sister of Lorna’s mother Topsie