Margaret visits her mother, Helen, who uses her physical frailty and sharp tongue to undermine Margaret's confidence and judge her affair with the Duke of Argyll. The scene highlights a toxic mother-daughter dynamic where affection is withheld and replaced by critiques of appearance and moral standing. Margaret attempts to assert her happiness but is ultimately silenced by her mother's manipulative vulnerability.
HELEN: Careful.
MARGARET: It’s an Argyll family heirloom.
HELEN: Looks like it came from Woolworths.
MARGARET: Well, it didn’t.
HELEN: I might be stuck in this chair but I still hear things. He’s still married and you’re carrying on like he isn’t. I know. My daughter. An adulteress. A roundheels. The squalor of it.
MARGARET: It’s not adultery if the marriage is unhappy. It doesn’t count.
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