“My Ellis hails from a small village near York,” begins Marina, a young woman of eight-and-twenty. “He came to London with his sister when they both went up to university. She’s long settled there now—married, with two little ones. Not long ago, their mother, Eleanor, paid a visit. She stayed in the city for ten days, lodging, naturally, with Ellis’s sister, who has her own two-bedroom flat and the grandchildren close by. In all that time, I saw her but twice—though as it later turned out, that was far from enough… She took it dreadfully to heart. And all because I never invited her round.”
Marina and Ellis had been courting for just under a year. They’d only recently begun sharing a modest one-bedroom flat on the outskirts of town, saving every penny toward a mortgage. Their days were tightly bound by work, leaving little room or means for hosting.
“Mind you,” she goes on, “I’d already been to visit his family up north. We went last summer. His mother welcomed me with open arms—laid on a splendid spread, treated me like one of her own. She was ever so put out when we didn’t stay the night, but I promised her then—once we were properly wed, I’d come back and spend a good long while.”
Since then, Eleanor had taken to ringing Marina now and again, asking after her, as if searching for some way to draw closer. Then, a fortnight before her trip, she announced she’d be coming down to London—to see her daughter, she said, and take in the city.
“Ellis made a point of taking time off to be with her,” Marina recounts. “Met her at the station, took her straight to his sister’s, then spent days showing her round—walked her down the Strand, took her to the museum, even to the pictures. And me? Well, I kept out of the way. Had my work. His sister’s husband barely lifted a finger—just shared a pot of tea with his mother-in-law once or twice. Yet somehow, I’m the one in the wrong.”
On Eleanor’s last evening before returning home, the whole family gathered. Marina even took leave early—they dined at a café, strolled along the river, and saw her off at the station. All quite proper.
“And now I hear muttered behind my back, ‘There’s the bride-to-be… Wouldn’t even have me over.’ But what was there to see?” Marina scoffs. “Our poky little let in that grey postwar block? The second-hand furnishing, the postage-stamp kitchen? No, I didn’t invite her. Not because I’ve anything to hide or that I couldn’t be bothered—only that I’ve no right yet to show off another’s home as my own. Once we’ve a place of our own—that’ll be different.”
She’s certain Eleanor had no lack of attention. Ellis spared every free hour for her. Both son and daughter set aside their obligations to escort her about the city. Yet for all that, she took offence—because the bride-to-be hadn’t thrown open her doors for a proper hosting.
“I respect Ellis’s mother,” Marina says. “But family isn’t about orders or keeping score. It’s trust and patience. And if she starts with accusations now, I doubt there’ll be much warmth between us later.”
What say you? Has Eleanor cause to feel slighted? Or has she overplayed her hand, expecting hospitality in a flat not yet their own? And can Marina mend matters when already she’s been cast as the ungrateful one?
