May Sinclair

“ They would never say how Mark died. Mamma thought he had died of cholera.
You started at sounds, at the hiss of the flame in the grate, the fall of the ashes on the hearth, the tinkling of the front door bell.
You heard Catty slide back the bolt. People muttered on the doorstep. You saw them go back past the window, quietly, their heads turned away. They were ashamed.
You began to go out. You walked slowly, weighted more than ever by your immense, inexplicable fatigue. When you saw people coming you tried to go quicker; when you spoke to them you panted and felt absurd. ”

“ Sometimes doubts came with her terror. She thought: "Nobody loves me except Mark. And Mark isn't here." Mark's image haunted her. She shut her eyes and it slid forward on to the darkness, the strong body, the brave, straight up and down face, the steady, light brown eyes, shining; the firm, sweet mouth; the sparrow-brown hair with feathery golden tips. She could hear Mark's voice calling to her: "Minx! Minky!"
And there was something that Mamma said. It was unkind to be afraid of the poor dead people. Mamma said, "Would you run away from Isabel if you saw her lying in her little coffin?" ”

“ She shook her head. "I want to go to Mamma. I want to go to Mark."
She pushed away the biscuit. "No. No. Mamma give Mary. Mark give
Mary."
"Drinky—winky," said Papa.
He put his glass to her shaking mouth. She turned her head away, and he took it between his thumb and finger and turned it back again. Her neck moved stiffly. Her head felt small and brittle under the weight and pinch of the big hand. The smell and the sour, burning taste of the wine made her cry.
"Don't tease Baby, Emilius," said Mamma.
"I never tease anybody." ”

“ She wanted to lie back among her cushions where Richard had packed her, and turn over the moments and remember what they had been like: getting out of the train at King's Cross and finding Richard there; coming with him out of the thin white April light into the rich darkness and brilliant colours of the room; the feeling of Richard's hands as they undid her fur stole and peeled the sleeves of her coat from her arms; seeing him kneel on the hearthrug and make tea with an air of doing something intensely interesting, an air of security and possession. ”

“ Mamma shook her head at her. "You want to be spoiled and petted every day."
"No. No. I want—I want—"
"She doesn't know what she wants," said Jenny.
"Yes. I do. I do."
"Well—"
"I want to love Papa every day. 'Cause he gave me my lamb."
"Oh," said Mamma, "if you only love people because they give you birthday presents—"
"But I don't—I don't—really and truly—"
"You didn't ought to have no more birthdays," said Jenny, "if they make you cry."
Why couldn't they see that crying meant that she wanted Papa to be sacred and holy every day? ”

“ And at a quarter past twelve on the fifth day Mamma found Mary crying in the dining-room.
"Oh, Mary, have you been naughty?"
"No; but I shall be to-morrow. I've been so good that I can't keep on any longer."
Mamma took her in her lap. She lowered her head to you, holding it straight and still, ready to pounce if you said the wrong thing.
"Being good when it pleases you isn't being good," she said. "It's not what Jesus means by being good. God wants us to be good all the time, like Jesus." ”

“ He looked at her. A look she hadn't seen before. A look of passionate unbelief.
"I didn't think you cared about me. I thought it was Mark you cared about. Like Mamma."
"Can't you care about more than one person?"
"Mamma can't—"
"Oh Roddy—"
"What's the good of saying 'Oh Roddy' when you know it?"
They were sitting on a ledge of stone and turf. Roddy had ceased to struggle with the hill.
"We're all the same," he said. "I'd give you and Dan up any day for Mark.
Dan would give up you and me. Mark would give up all of us for Mamma. And
Mamma would give up all of us for Mark." ”

“ Yet everybody, except Aunt Lavvy, was determined that everybody else should be happy in their way by believing what they believed; and when it came to Pantheism even Aunt Lavvy couldn't live and let live. You could see that deep down inside her it made her more furious than Unitarianism made Papa.
Mary saw that she was likely to be alone in her adventure. It appeared to her more than ever as a journey into a beautiful, quiet yet exciting country where you could go on and on. The mere pleasure of being able to move enchanted her. ”

“ There had been two Mary Oliviers; long-haired— short-haired, and she had been jealous of the long-haired one. Jealous of herself.
There had been two Maurice Jourdains, the one who said, "I'll understand. I'll never lose my temper"; the one with the crystal mind, shining and flashing, the mind like a big room filled from end to end with light. But he had never existed.
Maurice Jourdain was only a name. A name for intellectual beauty. You could love that. Love was "the cle-eansing fi-yer!" There was the love of the body and the love of the soul. ”

“ She kept on thinking about Miss Thompson's mother. Miss Thompson's mother would be like Jenny in bed with her cap off; and she would be like the dead field mouse that Roddy found in the lane. She would lie on the bed with her back bent and her head hanging loose like the dear little field mouse; and her legs would be turned up over her stomach like his, toes and fingers clawing together. When you touched her she would be cold and stiff, like the field mouse. They had wrapped her up in a white sheet. Roddy said dead people were always wrapped up in white sheets. ”

“ Mamma said she had always been the clever one, just as Aunt Charlotte had always been the queer one; but Aunt Bella said she was no better than an unbeliever, because she was a Unitarian at heart.
"Why Jehovah in particular?" Aunt Lavvy was like Uncle Victor; she listened politely when you talked to her, as if you were saying something interesting.
"Because he's the one you've got to believe in. Do you really think he is so very good?"
"I don't think anything. I don't know anything, except that God is love." ”

“ The French verbs, grey, slender as little verses on the page, the French verbs swam together and sank under the clear-floating images of home-sickness. Mamma's face, Roddy's, Dan's face. Tall trees, the Essex fields, flat as water, falling away behind them. Little feathery trees, flying low on the sky-line. Outside the hallucination the soiled light shut you in.
The soiled light; odours from the warm roots of girl's hair; and Sunday. Sunday; stale odours of churches. ”

“ The basket was full of tiny garments made of the white stuff, petticoats, drawers and nightgown, sewn with minute tucks and edged with lace. Mamma unfolded them.
"New clothes," she said, "for your new dolly."
"Oh—oh—oh—I love you so much that I can't bear it; you little holy
Mamma!"
Mamma said, "I'm not holy, and I won't be called holy. I want deeds, not words. If you love me you'll learn your lessons properly the night before, not just gabble them over hot from the pan."
"I will, Mamma, I will. Won't you say it?"
"No," Mamma said, "I won't." ”

“ He would be good to Roddy.
It would be all right.
She stood still in the dark lane. A disturbing memory gnawed its way through her thoughts that covered it: the way Roddy had looked at Mamma, that Wednesday, the way he had spoken to her. "Oh wise. Oh right!"
That was because he believed she wanted him to go away. He couldn't believe that she really cared for him; that Mamma really cared for anybody but Mark; he couldn't believe that anybody cared for him.
"'Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.'"
Roddy's chant pursued her up the lane. ”

“ Mary always hoped that Uncle Victor would notice her and say, "Mary is reading Locke On the Human Understanding," or that Mr. Propart would come and turn over the books and make some interesting remark. But they never did.
At half-past eight Catty would bring in the tea-tray; the white and grey and gold tea-cups would be set out round the bulging silver tea-pot that lifted up its spout with a foolish, pompous expression, like a hen. Mamma would move about the table in her mauve silk gown, and there would be a scent of cream and strong tea. ”

“ Sarah raised her haunches under the caressing hand.
Mary's body was still. Something stirred and tightened in it when she looked at Sarah.
"I want Sarah," she said.
"You can't have her," said Jenny. "She's Master Mark's cat."
She wanted her more than Roddy's bricks and Dank's animal book or Mark's soldiers. She trembled when she held her in her arms and kissed her and smelt the warm, sweet, sleepy smell that came from the top of her head.
"Little girls can't have everything they want," said Jenny.
"I wanted her before you did," said Dank. "You're too little to have a cat at all." ”

“ Time stretched out behind and before you, time to read, to make music, to make poems in, to translate Euripides, while Mamma looked after her flowers in the garden; Mamma, sowing and planting and weeding with a fixed, vehement passion. You could hear Catty and little Alice, Maggie's niece, singing against each other in the kitchen as Alice helped Catty with her work. You needn't have been afraid. You would never have anything more to do in the house. Roddy wasn't there. ”

“ Mamma sat down, as if it was too much for her.
"I hope," she said, "you don't talk to Catty or anybody about it."
"No, Mamma. I couldn't. They're my secret."
"That was all very well when you were a little thing. But a great girl of twelve—You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
Mamma had gone. She had taken away the baby-clothes. Mary lay face downwards on her bed.
Shame burned through her body like fire. Hot tears scalded her eyelids. She thought: "How was I to know you mustn't have babies?" Still, she couldn't give them all up. She must keep Isabel and the red-haired baby. ”

“ Mamma's black net Indian scarf, dotted with little green and scarlet flowers, was drawn tight over her hips to hide the place that Catty had scorched with the iron. The heavy, brilliant, silk-embroidered ends, green and scarlet, hung down behind. She felt exquisitely light and slender.
Mamma was shaking her head at Mark as he stared at you.
"If you knew," he said, "what you look like ... That's the way the funny ladies dress in the bazaars—If you'd only take that awful thing off."
"She can't take it off," Mamma said. "He's only teasing you." ”

“ He didn't dance very well: he danced tightly and stiffly as if he didn't like it; but he danced: with Miss Frewin and Miss Louisa Wright, because nobody else would; with the Acroyds because Mrs. Sutcliffe made him; five dances with Dorsy Heron, because he liked her, because he was sorry for her, because he found her looking sad and shy in a corner. You could see Dorsy's eyes turn and turn, restlessly, to look at Mark, and her nose getting redder as he came to her.
Dr. Charles watched them. You knew what he was thinking. "She's in love with him. She can't take her eyes off him." ”

“ Roddy was there...."
She thought: "Why can't I be kind—always? Kindness matters more than anything. Some day she'll die and she'll never have said or thought one unkind thing in all her poor, dreadful little life.... Why didn't I go to tea with her on Wednesday?"
On Wednesday her mind had revolted against its destiny of hunger. She had hated Morfe. She had felt angry with her mother for making her live in it, for expecting her to be content, for thinking that Dorsy and Miss Louisa and Miss Kendal were enough. She had been angry with Aunt Lavvy for talking about her to Miss Kendal. ”

“ Maudsley was solemn and exalted in his desire that there should be no mistake about it. "There is a destiny made for a man by his ancestors, and no one can elude, were he able to attempt it, the tyranny of his organisation."
You had been wrong all the time. You had thought of your family, Papa and Mamma, perhaps Grandpapa and Grandmamma, as powerful, but independent and separate entities, in themselves sacred and inviolable, working against you from the outside: either with open or secret and inscrutable hostility, hindering, thwarting, crushing you down. But always from the outside. ”

“ Roddy's beautiful face was bleached and sharpened; the sallow, mauve-tinted skin stretched close over the bone; but below the edge of his cap you could see the fine spring of his head from his neck, like the spring of Mark's head.
They were in April now. He was getting better. He could walk up the lower slopes of Karva without panting.
"Why are we ever out?" he said. "Supposing we went home?"
"All right. Let's."
He was like that. When he was in the house he wanted to be on the moor; when he was on the moor he wanted to be back in the house. ”

“ The photographs in Mamma's old album showed how they looked when they and Mamma were young. Modest pose of dropped arms, holding mushroom hats in front of them as a protection, the narrow ribbons dangling innocently. Ellen Frewin, small and upright, slender back curved in to the set of shawl and crinoline, prim head fixed in the composure of gentle disdain, small mouth saying always "Oh," Meta, the younger sister, very tall, head bent in tranquil meditation, her mantle slanting out from the fall of the thin shoulders.
They rose up in the small, green lighted drawing-room. ”

“ People will think you mad."
"Let them. I don't care—I don't care if you think I'm mad. I only think it's beastly of you to say so."
"You're not madder than I am. We're all mad. Mad as hatters. You and me and Dank and Roddy and Uncle Victor. Poor Charlotte's the sanest of the lot, and she's the only one that's got shut up." ”

“ XXIII I. The books stood piled on the table by her window, the books Miss Wray of Clevehead had procured for her, had given and lent her. Now Roddy had gone she had time enough to read them: Hume's Essays, the fat maroon Schwegler, the two volumes of Kant in the hedgesparrow-green paper covers.
"Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Kritik der reinen Vernunft." She said it over and over to herself. It sounded nicer than "The Critique of Pure Reason." At the sight of the thick black letters on the hedgesparrow-green ground her heart jumped up and down with excitement. ”

“ She could see Dan in the nursery at Five Elms, scowling and swearing he would kill Papa. She could see Roddy, and Mark with his red tight face, laughing at him. She could see herself, a baby, kicking and screaming when he took her in his arms. For months she hadn't thought about him except to wish he wasn't there so that she could go on playing. When he was in the fit she had been playing on the Kendals' piano, conceited and happy, not caring. ”

“ Richard Nicholson sat, in a purely temporary attitude, by the table in the window. Against the window-pane she could see his side face drawn in a brilliant, furred line of light. His moustache twitched under the shadow of his nose. He was smiling to himself as he wrote the letter to Mamma.
There was a brutality about that, too. She wondered if he had seen old Baxter's pinched mouth and sliding eyes when he took the letter. He was watching him as he went out, waiting for the click of the latch.
"It's all right," he said. "They expect you. They think it's work." ”

“ Papa was teasing Aunt Lavvy.
"How do you like that Ilford house, Charlotte?" Mamma asked suddenly.
"It's the nicest little house you ever saw," Aunt Charlotte said. "But it's too far away. I'd rather have any ugly, poky old den that was next door. I want to see all I can of you and Emilius and Dan and little darling Mary. Before I go away."
"You aren't thinking of going away when you've only just come?"
"That's what Victor and Lavinia say. But you don't suppose I'm going to stay an old maid all my life to please Victor and Lavinia." ”

“ Roddy said. "If we keep on thinking we shall go off our heads."
"We are off our heads," she said.
Their hatred of themselves was a biting, aching madness. She hated the conceited, happy self that hadn't cared. The piano, gleaming sombrely in the hushed light, reminded her of it.
She hated the piano.
They dragged themselves back into the dining-room where Mamma and Dan sat doing nothing, hiding their faces from each other. The afternoon went on. Utter callousness, utter weariness came over them.
Their mother kept looking at the clock. "Uncle Victor will have got to Durlingham," she said. ”

“ Mark. Nobody can keep Mark from you. He'll never want anybody but you. He said so."
How small she was. You could feel her little shoulder-blades, weak and fine under your fingers, like a child's; you could break them. To be happy with her either you or she had to be broken, to be helpless and little like a child. It was a sort of happiness to lie there, holding her, hiding her from the dreadful funeral dawn.
Five o'clock.
The funeral would last till three, going along the road to Reyburn Station, going in the train from Reyburn to Durlingham, from Durlingham to King's Cross. ”