The book that Aunt Bella had brought her was calledThe Triumph OverMidian, and Aunt Bella said that if she was a good girl it wouldinterest her. But it did not interest her. That was how she heard AuntBella and Mamma talking together.
Mamma's foot was tapping on the footstool, which showed that she was annoyed.
"They're coming to-morrow," she said, "to look at that house atIlford."
"To live?" Aunt Bella said.
"To live," Mamma said.
"And is Emilius going to allow it? What's Victor thinking of, bringing her down here?"
"They want to be near Emilius. They think he'll look after her."
"It was Victor whowouldhave her at home, and Victor might look after her himself. She was his favourite sister."
"He doesn't want to be too responsible. They think Emilius ought to take his share."
Aunt Bella whispered something. And Mamma said, "Stuff and nonsense! No more than you or I. Only you never know what queer thing she'll do next."
Aunt Bella said, "She was always queer as long as I remember her."
Mamma's foot went tap, tap again.
"She's been sending away things worse than ever. Dolls. Those naked ones."
Aunt Bella gave herself a shake and said something that sounded like"Goo-oo-sh!" And then, "Going to be married?"
Mamma said, "Going to be married."
And Aunt Bella said "T-t-t."
They were talking about Aunt Charlotte.
Mamma went on: "She's packed off all her clothes. Her new ones. Sent them to Matilda. Thinks she won't have to wear them any more."
"You mustn't expect me to have Charlotte Olivier in my house," AuntBella said. "If anybody came to call it would be most unpleasant."
"I wouldn't mind," Mamma said, tap-tapping, "if it was only Charlotte.But there's Lavvy and her Opinions."
Aunt Bella said "Pfoo-oof!" and waved her hands as if she were clearing the air.
"All I can say is," Mamma said, "that if Lavvy Olivier brings herOpinions into this house Emilius and I will walk out of it."
To-morrow—they were coming to-morrow, Uncle Victor and Aunt Lavvy andAunt Charlotte.
They were coming to lunch, and everybody was excited.
Mark and Dank were in their trousers and Eton jackets, and Roddy in his new black velvet suit. The drawing-room was dressed out in its green summer chintzes that shone and crackled with glaze. Mamma had moved the big Chinese bowl from the cabinet to the round mahogany table and filled it with white roses. You could see them again in the polish; blurred white faces swimming on the dark, wine-coloured pool. You held out your face to be washed in the clear, cool scent of the white roses.
When Mark opened the door a smell of roast chicken came up the kitchen stairs.
It was like Sunday, except that you were excited.
"Look at Papa," Roddy whispered. "Papa's excited."
Papa had come home early from the office. He stood by the fireplace in the long tight frock-coat that made him look enormous. He had twirled back his moustache to show his rich red mouth. He had put something on his beard that smelt sweet. You noticed for the first time how the frizzed, red-brown mass sprang from a peak of silky golden hair under his pouting lower lip. He was letting himself gently up and down with the tips of his toes, and he was smiling, secretly, as if he had just thought of something that he couldn't tell Mamma. Whenever he looked at Mamma she put her hand up to her hair and patted it.
Mamma had done her hair a new way. The brown plait stood up farther back on the edge of the sloping chignon. She wore her new lavender and white striped muslin. Lavender ribbon streamed from the pointed opening of her bodice. A black velvet ribbon was tied tight round her neck; a jet cross hung from it and a diamond star twinkled in the middle of the cross. She pushed out her mouth and drew it in again, like Roddy's rabbit, and the tip of her nose trembled as if it knew all the time what Papa was thinking.
She was so soft and pretty that you could hardly bear it. Mark stood behind her chair and when Papa was not looking he kissed her. The behaviour of her mouth and nose gave you a delicious feeling that with Aunt Lavvy and Aunt Charlotte you wouldn't have to be so very good.
The front door bell rang. Papa and Mamma looked at each other, as much as to say, "Nowit's going to begin." And suddenly Mamma looked small and frightened. She took Mark's hand.
"Emilius," she said, "what am I to say to Lavinia?"
"You don't say anything," Papa said. "Mary can talk to Lavinia."
Mary jumped up and down with excitement. She knew how it would be. In another minute Aunt Charlotte would come in, dressed in her black lace shawl and crinoline, and Aunt Lavvy would bring her Opinions. And something, something that you didn't know, would happen.
Aunt Charlotte came in first with a tight, dancing run. You knew her by the long black curls on her shoulders. She was smiling as she smiled in the album. She bent her head as she bent it in the album, and her eyes looked up close under her black eyebrows and pointed at you. Pretty—pretty blue eyes, and something frightening that made you look at them. And something queer about her narrow jaw. It thrust itself forward, jerking up her smile.
No black lace shawl and no crinoline. Aunt Charlotte wore a blue and black striped satin dress, bunched up behind, and a little hat perched on the top of her chignon and tied underneath it with blue ribbons.
She had got in and was kissing everybody while Aunt Lavvy and UncleVictor were fumbling with the hat stand in the hall.
Aunt Lavvy came next. A long grey face. Black bands of hair parted on her broad forehead. Black eyebrows; blue eyes that stuck out wide, that didn't point at you. A grey bonnet, a grey dress, a little white shawl with a narrow fringe, drooping.
She walked slowly—slowly, as if she were still thinking of something that was not in the room, as if she came into a quiet, empty room.
You thought at first she was never going to kiss you, she was so tall and her face and eyes held themselves so still.
Uncle Victor. Dark and white; smaller than Papa, smaller than Aunt Lavvy; thin in his loose frock-coat. His forehead and black eyebrows were twisted above his blue, beautiful eyes. He had a small dark brown moustache and a small dark brown beard, trimmed close and shaped prettily to a point. He looked like something, like somebody; like Dank when he was mournful, like Dank's dog, Tibby, when he hid from Papa. He said, "Well, Caroline. Well, Emilius."
Aunt Charlotte gave out sharp cries of "Dear!" and "Darling!" and smothered them against your face in a sort of moan.
When she came to Roddy she put up her hands.
"Roddy—yellow hair. No. No. What have you done with the blue eyes and black hair, Emilius? That comes of letting your beard grow so long."
Then they all went into the dining-room.
It was like a birthday. There was to be real blancmange, and preserved ginger, and you drank raspberry vinegar out of the silver christening cups the aunts and uncles gave you when you were born. Uncle Victor had given Mary hers. She held it up and read her own name on it.
MARY VICTORIA OLIVIER1863.
They were all telling their names. Mary took them up and chanted them:"Mark Emilius Olivier; Daniel Olivier; Rodney Olivier; Victor JustusOlivier; Lavinia Mary Olivier; Charlotte Louisa Olivier." She liked thesound of them.
She sat between Uncle Victor and Aunt Lavvy. Roddy was squeezed into the corner between Mamma and Mark. Aunt Charlotte sat opposite her between Mark and Daniel. Shehadto look at Aunt Charlotte's face. There were faint grey smears on it as if somebody had scribbled all over it with pencil.
A remarkable conversation.
"Aunt Lavvy! Aunt Lavvy! Have you brought your Opinions?"
"No, my dear, they were not invited. So I left them at home."
"I'm glad to hear it," Papa said.
"Will you bring them next time?"
"No. Not next time, nor any other time," Aunt Lavvy said, looking straight at Papa.
"Did you shut them up in the stair cupboard?"
"No, but I may have to some day."
"Then," Mary said, "if there are any little ones, may I have one?"
"May she, Emilius?"
"Certainly not," Papa said. "She's got too many little opinions of her own."
"What do you know about opinions?" Uncle Victor said.
Mary was excited and happy. She had never been allowed to talk so much. She tried to eat her roast chicken in a business-like, grown-up manner, while she talked.
"I've read about them," she said. "They are dear little animals with long furry tails, much bigger than Sarah's tail, and they climb up trees."
"Oh, they climb up trees, do they?" Uncle Victor was very polite and attentive.
"Yes. There's their picture in Bank's Natural History Book. Next to the Ornythrincus or Duck-billed Plat-i-pus. If they came into the house Mamma would be frightened. But I would not be frightened. I should stroke them."
"Do you think," Uncle Victor said, still politely, "youquiteknow what you mean?"
"Iknow," Daniel said, "she means opossums."
"Yes," Mary said. "Opossums."
"Whatareopinions?"
"Opinions," Papa said, "are things that people put in other people's heads. Nasty, dangerous things, opinions."
She thought: "That was why Mamma and Papa were frightened."
"You won't put them into Mamma's head, will you, Aunt Lavvy?"
Mamma said, "Get on with your dinner. Papa's only teasing."
Aunt Lavvy's face flushed slowly, and she held her mouth tight, as if she were trying not to cry. 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."
"I haven't thought about it at all," Mamma said.
"Theyhave.Iknow what they're thinking. But it's all settled. I'm going to Marshall and Snelgrove's for my things. There's a silver-grey poplin in their window. If I decide on it, Caroline, you shall have my grey watered silk."
"You needn't waggle your big beard at me, Emilius," Aunt Charlotte said.
Papa pretended that he hadn't heard her and began to talk to UncleVictor.
"Did you read John Bright's speech in Parliament last night?"
Uncle Victor said, "I did."
"What did you think of it?"
Uncle Victor raised his shoulders and his eyebrows and spread out his thin, small hands.
"A man with a face like that," Aunt Charlotte said, "oughtn't tobeinParliament."
"He's the man who saved England," said Papa.
"What's the good of that if he can't save himself? Where does he expect to go to with the hats he wears?"
"Where does Emilius expect to go to," Uncle Victor said, "when his JohnBright and his Gladstone get their way?"
Suddenly Aunt Charlotte left off smiling.
"Emilius," she said, "do you uphold Gladstone?"
"Of course I uphold Gladstone. There's nobody in this country fit to black his boots."
"I know nothing about his boots. But he's an infidel. He wants to pull down the Church. I thought you were a Churchman?"
"So I am," Papa said. "I've too good an opinion of the Church to imagine that it can't stand alone."
"You're a nice one to talk about opinions."
"At any rate I know what I'm talking about."
"I'm not so sure of that," said Aunt Charlotte.
Aunt Lavvy smiled gently at the pattern of the tablecloth.
"Do you agree with him, Lavvy?" Mamma had found something to say.
"I agree with him better than he agrees with himself."
A long conversation about things that interested Papa. Blanc-mange going round the table, quivering and shaking and squelching under the spoon.
"There's a silver-grey poplin," said Aunt Charlotte, "at Marshall andSnelgrove's."
The blanc-mange was still going round. Mamma watched it as it went. She was fascinated by the shivering, white blanc-mange.
"If there was only one man in the world," Aunt Charlotte said in a loud voice, "and he had a flowing beard, I wouldn't marry him."
Papa drew himself up. He looked at Mark and Daniel and Roddy as if he were saying, "Whoever takes notice leaves the room."
Roddy laughed first. He was sent out of the room.
Papa looked at Mark. Mark clenched his teeth, holding his laugh down tight. He seemed to think that as long as it didn't come out of his mouth he was safe. It came out through his nose like a loud, tearing sneeze. Mark was sent out of the room.
Daniel threw down his spoon and fork.
"If he goes, I go," Daniel said, and followed him.
Papa looked at Mary.
"What areyougrinning at, you young monkey?"
"Emilius," said Aunt Charlotte, "if you send another child out of the room, I go too."
Mary squealed, "Tee-he-he-he-he-hee! Te-hee!" and was sent out of the room.
She and Aunt Charlotte sat on the stairs outside the dining-room door. Aunt Charlotte's arm was round her; every now and then it gave her a sudden, loving squeeze.
"Darling Mary. Little darling Mary. Love Aunt Charlotte," she said.
Mark and Dank and Roddy watched them over the banisters.
Aunt Charlotte put her hand deep down in her pocket and brought out a little parcel wrapped in white paper. She whispered:
"If I give you something to keep, will you promise not to show it to anybody and not to tell?"
Mary promised.
Inside the paper wrapper there was a match-box, and inside the match-box there was a china doll no bigger than your finger. It had blue eyes and black hair and no clothes on. Aunt Charlotte held it in her hand and smiled at it.
"That's Aunt Charlotte's little baby," she said. "I'm going to be married and I shan't want it any more.
"There—take it, and cover it up, quick!"
Mamma had come out of the dining-room. She shut the door behind her.
"What have you given to Mary?" she said.
"Butter-Scotch," said Aunt Charlotte.
All afternoon till tea-time Papa and Uncle Victor walked up and down the garden path, talking to each other. Every now and then Mark and Mary looked at them from the nursery window.
That night she dreamed that she saw Aunt Charlotte standing at the foot of the kitchen stairs taking off her clothes and wrapping them in white paper; first, her black lace shawl; then her chemise. She stood up without anything on. Her body was polished and shining like an enormous white china doll. She lowered her head and pointed at you with her eyes.
When you opened the stair cupboard door to catch the opossum, you found a white china doll lying in it, no bigger than your finger. That was Aunt Charlotte.
In the dream there was no break between the end and the beginning. But when she remembered it afterwards it split into two pieces with a dark gap between. She knew she had only dreamed about the cupboard; but Aunt Charlotte at the foot of the stairs was so clear and solid that she thought she had really seen her.
Mamma had told Aunt Bella all about it when they talked together that day, in the drawing-room. She knew because she could still see them sitting, bent forward with their heads touching, Aunt Bella in the big arm-chair by the hearth-rug, and Mamma on the parrot chair.
When Christmas came Papa gave her anotherChildren's Prize. This time the cover was blue and the number on it was 1870. Eighteen-seventy was the name of the New Year that was coming after Christmas. It meant that the world had gone on for one thousand eight hundred and seventy years since Jesus was born. Every year she was to have aChildren's Prizewith the name of the New Year on it.
Eighteen-seventy was a beautiful number. It sounded nice, and there was a seven in it. Seven was a sacred and holy number; so was three, because of the three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and because of the seven stars and the seven golden candlesticks. When you said good-night to Mamma you kissed her either three times or seven times. If you went past three you had to go on to seven, because something dreadful would happen if you didn't. Sometimes Mamma stopped you; then you stooped down and finished up on the hem of her dress, quick, before she could see you.
She was glad that theChildren's Prizehad a blue cover, because blue was a sacred and holy colour. It was the colour of the ceiling in St. Mary's Chapel at Ilford, and it was the colour of the Virgin Mary's dress.
There were golden stars all over the ceiling of St. Mary's Chapel. Roddy and she were sent there after they had had chicken-pox and when their whooping-cough was getting better. They were not allowed to go to the church at Barkingside for fear of giving whooping-cough to the children in Dr. Barnardo's Homes; and they were not allowed to go to Aldborough Hatch Church because of Mr. Propart's pupils. But they had to go to church somewhere, whooping-cough or no whooping-cough, in order to get to Heaven; so Mark took them to the Chapel of Ease at Ilford, where the Virgin Mary in a blue dress stood on a sort of step over the door. Mamma said you were not to worship her, though you might look at her. She was a graven image. Only Roman Catholics worshipped graven images; they were heretics; that meant that they were shut outside the Church of England, which was God's Church, and couldn't get in. And they had only half a Sunday. In Roman Catholic countries Sunday was all over at twelve o'clock, and for the rest of the day the Roman Catholics could do just what they pleased; they danced and went to theatres and played games, as if Sunday was one of their own days and not God's day.
She wished she had been born in a Roman Catholic country.
Every night she took theChildren's Prizeto bed with her to keep her safe. It had Bible Puzzles in it, and among them there was a picture of the Name of God. A shining white light, shaped like Mamma's vinaigrette, with black marks in the middle. Mamma said the light was the light that shone above the Ark of the Covenant, and the black marks were letters and the word was the real name of God. She said he was sometimes called Jehovah, but that was not his real name. His real name was a secret name which nobody but the High Priest was allowed to say.
When you lay in the dark and shut your eyes tight and waited, you could see the light, shaped like the vinaigrette, in front of you. It quivered and shone brighter, and you saw in the middle, first, a dark blue colour, and then the black marks that were the real name of God. She was glad she couldn't read it, for she would have been certain to let it out some day when she wasn't thinking.
Perhaps Mamma knew, and was not allowed to say it. Supposing she forgot?
At church they sang "Praise Him in His name Jah and rejoice before Him." Jah was God's pet-name, short for Jehovah. It was a silly name—Jah. Somehow you couldn't help thinking of God as a silly person; he was always flying into tempers, and he was jealous. He was like Papa. Dank said Papa was jealous of Mark because Mamma was so fond of him. There was a picture of God in the night nursery. He had a big flowing beard, and a very straight nose, like Papa, and he was lying on a sort of sofa that was a cloud. Little Jesus stood underneath him, between the Virgin Mary and Joseph, and the Holy Ghost was descending on him in the form of a dove. His real name was Jesus Christ, but they called him Emmanuel.
"There is a fountain filled with bloodDrawn from Emmanuel's veins;And sinners plunged beneath that floodLose all their guilty stains."
That was another frightening thing. It would be like the fountain in Aunt Bella's garden, with blood in it instead of water. The goldfishes would die.
Mark was pleased when she said that Sarah wouldn't be allowed to go toHeaven because she would try to catch the Holy Ghost.
Jesus was not like God. He was good and kind. When he grew up he was always dressed in pink and blue, and he had sad dark eyes and a little, close, tidy beard like Uncle Victor. You could love Jesus.
Jenny loved him. She was a Wesleyan; and her niece Catty was a Wesleyan. Catty marched round and round the kitchen table with the dish-cloth, drying the plates and singing:
"'I love Jesus, yes, I do,Forthe Bible tells meto!'"
and
"'I am so glad that my Father in HeavenTells of His love in the book He has given—I am so glad that Jesus loves me,Jesus loves me,Jesus loves even me!'"
On New Year's Eve Jenny and Catty went to the Wesleyan Chapel at Ilford to sing the New Year in. Catty talked about the Old Year as if it was horrid and the New Year as if it was nice. She said that at twelve o'clock you ought to open the window wide and let the Old Year go out and the New Year come in. If you didn't something dreadful would happen.
Downstairs there was a party. Uncle Victor and Aunt Lavvy and AuntCharlotte were there, and the big boys from Vinings and the Vicarage atAldborough Hatch. Mark and Dank and Roddy were sitting up, and Roddy hadpromised to wake her when the New Year was coming.
He left the door open so that she could hear the clock strike twelve. She got up and opened the windows ready. There were three in Mamma's room. She opened them all.
The air outside was like clear black water and very cold. You couldn't see the garden wall; the dark fields were close—close against the house. One—Two—Three.
Seven—When the last stroke sounded the New Year would have come in.
Ten—Eleven—Twelve.
The bells rang out; the bells of Ilford, the bells of Barkingside, and far beyond the flats and the cemetery there would be Bow bells, and beyond that the bells of the City of London. They clanged together and she trembled. The sounds closed over her; they left off and began again, not very loud, but tight—tight, crushing her heart, crushing tears out of her eyelids. When the bells stopped there was a faint whirring sound. That was the Old Year, that was eighteen sixty-nine, going out by itself in the dark, going away over the fields.
Mamma was not pleased when she came to bed and found the door and windows open and Mary awake in the cot.
At the end of January she was seven years old. Something was bound to happen when you were seven.
She was moved out of Mamma's room to sleep by herself on the top floor in the night nursery. And the day nursery was turned into the boys' schoolroom.
When you were little and slept in the cot behind the curtain Mamma would sometimes come and read you to sleep with the bits you wanted: "The Lord is my Shepherd," and "Or ever the silver cord be loosed or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain or the wheel broken at the cistern," and "the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."
When you were frightened she taught you to say, "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty…. He shall cover thee with His feathers and under His wings shalt thou trust…. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night." And you were allowed to have a night-light.
Now it was all different. You went to bed half an hour later, while Mamma was dressing for dinner, and when she came to tuck you up the bell rang and she had to run downstairs, quick, so as not to keep Papa waiting. You hung on to her neck and untucked yourself, and she always got away before you could kiss her seven times. And there was no night-light. You had to read the Bible in the morning, and it always had to be the bits Mamma wanted, out of Genesis and the Gospel of St. John.
You had to learn about the one God and the three Persons. The one God was the nice, clever, happy God who made Mamma and Mark and Jenny and the sun and Sarah and the kittens. He was the God you really believed in.
At night when you lay on your back in the dark you thought about being born and about arithmetic and God. The sacred number three went into eighteen sixty-nine and didn't come out again; so did seven. She liked numbers that fitted like that with no loose ends left over. Mr. Sippett said there were things you could do with the loose ends of numbers to make them fit. That was fractions. Supposing there was somewhere in the world a number that simply wouldn't fit? Mr. Sippett said there was no such number. But queer things happened. You were seven years old, yet you had had eight birthdays. There was the day you were born, January the twenty-fourth, eighteen sixty-three, at five o'clock in the morning. When you were born you weren't any age at all, not a minute old, not a second, not half a second. But there was eighteen sixty-two and there was January the twenty-third and the minute just before you were born. You couldn't really tell when the twenty-third ended and the twenty-fourth began; because when you counted sixty minutes for the hour and sixty seconds for the minute, there was still the half second and the half of that, and so on for ever and ever.
You couldn't tell when you were really born. And nobody could tell you what being born was. Perhaps nobody knew. Jenny said being born was just being born. Sarah's grandchildren were born in the garden under the wall where the jasmine grew. Roddy shouted at the back door, and when you ran to look he stretched out his arms across the doorway and wouldn't let you through. Roddy was excited and frightened; and Mamma said he had been very good because he stood across the door.
There was being born and there was dying. If you died this minute there would be the minute after. Then, if you were good, your soul was in Heaven and your body was cold and stiff like Miss Thompson's mother. And there was Lazarus. "He hath been in the grave four days and by this time he stinketh." That was dreadfully frightening; but they had to say it to show that Lazarus was really dead. That was how you could tell.
"'Lord, if thou hadst been here our brother had not died.'"
That was beautiful. When you thought of it you wanted to cry.
Supposing Mamma died? Supposing Mark died? Or Dank or Roddy? Or evenUncle Victor? Even Papa?
They couldn't. Jesus wouldn't let them.
When you were frightened in the big dark room you thought about God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost. They didn't leave you alone a single minute. God and Jesus stood beside the bed, and Jesus kept God in a good temper, and the Holy Ghost flew about the room and perched on the top of the linen cupboard, and bowed and bowed, and said, "Rook-ke-heroo-oo! Rook-ke-keroo-oo!"
And there was the parroquet.
Mark had given her the stuffed parroquet on her birthday, and Mamma had given her the Bible and the two grey china vases to make up, with a bird painted on each. A black bird with a red beak and red legs. She had set them up on the chimney-piece under the picture of the Holy Family. She put the Bible in the middle and the parroquet on the top of the Bible and the vases one on each side.
She worshipped them, because of Mamma and Mark.
She said to herself: "God won't likethat, but I can't help it. The kind, clever God won't mind a bit. He's much too busy making things. And it's not as if they were graven images."
Jenny had taken her for a walk to Ilford and they were going home to the house in Ley Street.
There were only two walks that Jenny liked to go: down Ley Street to Barkingside where the little shops were; and up Ley Street to Ilford and Mr. Spall's, the cobbler's. She liked Ilford best because of Mr. Spall. She carried your boots to Mr. Spall just as they were getting comfortable; she was always ferreting in Sarah's cupboard for a pair to take to him. Mr. Spall was very tall and lean; he had thick black eyebrows rumpled up the wrong way and a long nose with a red knob at the end of it. A dirty grey beard hung under his chin, and his long, shaved lips curled over in a disagreeable way when he smiled at you.
When Jenny and Catty went to sing the New Year in at the Wesleyan Chapel he brought them home. Jenny liked him because his wife was dead, and because he was a Wesleyan and Deputy Grand Master of the Independent Order of Good Templars. You had to shake hands with him to say good-bye. He always said the same thing: "Next time you come, little Missy, I'll show you the Deputy Regalia." But he never did.
To-day Jenny had made her stand outside in the shop, among the old boots and the sheets of leather, while she and Mr. Spall went into the back parlour to talk about Jesus. The shop smelt of leather and feet and onions and of Mr. Spall, so that she was glad when they got out again. She wondered how Jenny could bear to sit in the back parlour with Mr. Spall.
Coming home at first she had to keep close by Jenny's side. Jenny was tired and went slowly; but by taking high prancing and dancing steps she could pretend that they were rushing along; and once they had turned the crook of Ley Street she ran on a little way in front of Jenny. Then, walking very fast and never looking back, she pretended that she had gone out by herself.
When she had passed the row of elms and the farm, and the small brown brick cottages fenced off with putty-coloured palings, she came to the low ditches and the flat fields on either side and saw on her left the bare, brown brick, pointed end of the tall house. It was called Five Elms.
Further down the road the green and gold sign of The Green Man and the scarlet and gold sign of the Horns Tavern hung high on white standards set up in the road. Further down still, where Ley Street swerved slightly towards Barkingside, three tall poplars stood in the slant of the swerve.
A queer white light everywhere, like water thin and clear. Wide fields, flat and still, like water, flooded with the thin, clear light; grey earth, shot delicately with green blades, shimmering. Ley Street, a grey road, whitening suddenly where it crossed open country, a hard causeway thrown over the flood. The high trees, the small, scattered cottages, the two taverns, the one tall house had the look of standing up in water.
She saw the queer white light for the first time and drew in her breath with a sharp check. She knew that the fields were beautiful.
She saw Five Elms for the first time: the long line of its old red-tiled roof, its flat brown face; the three rows of narrow windows, four at the bottom, with the front door at the end of the row, five at the top, five in the middle; their red brick eye-brows; their black glassy stare between the drawn-back curtains. She noticed how high and big the house looked on its slender plot of grass behind the brick wall that held up the low white-painted iron railing.
A tall iron gate between brown brick pillars, topped by stone balls. A flagged path to the front door. Crocuses, yellow, white, white and purple, growing in the border of the grass plot. She saw them for the first time.
The front door stood open. She went in.
The drawing-room at the back was full of the queer white light. Things stood out in it, sharp and suddenly strange, like the trees and houses in the light outside: the wine-red satin stripes in the grey damask curtains at the three windows; the rings of wine-red roses on the grey carpet; the tarnished pattern on the grey wall-paper; the furniture shining like dark wine; the fluted emerald green silk in the panel of the piano and the hanging bag of the work-table; the small wine-red flowers on the pale green chintz; the green Chinese bowls in the rosewood cabinet; the blue and red parrot on the chair.
Her mother sat at the far end of the room. She was sorting beads into trays in a box lined with sandal wood.
Mary stood at the doorway looking in, swinging her hat in her hand. Suddenly, without any reason, she was so happy that she could hardly bear it.
Mamma looked up. She said, "What are you doing standing there?"
She ran to her and hid her face in her lap. She caught Mamma's hands and kissed them. They smelt of sandal wood. They moved over her hair with slight quick strokes that didn't stay, that didn't care.
Mamma said, "There. That'll do. That'll do."
She climbed up on a chair and looked out of the window. She could see Mamma's small beautiful nose bending over the tray of beads, and her bright eyes that slid slantwise to look at her. And under the window she saw the brown twigs of the lilac bush tipped with green.
Her happiness was sharp and still like the white light.
Mamma said, "What did you see when you were out with Jenny to-day?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? And what are you looking at?"
"Nothing, Mamma."
"Then go upstairs and take your things off. Quick!"
She went very slowly, holding herself with care, lest she should jar her happiness and spill it.
One of the windows of her room was open. She stood a little while looking out.
Beyond the rose-red wall of the garden she saw the flat furrowed field, stripes of grey earth and vivid green. In the middle of the field the five elms in a row, high and slender; four standing close together, one apart. Each held up a small rounded top, fine as a tuft of feathers.
On her left towards Ilford, a very long row of high elms screened off the bare flats from the village. Where it ended she saw Drake's Farm; black timbered barns and sallow haystacks beside a clump of trees. Behind the five elms, on the edge of the earth, a flying line of trees set wide apart, small, thin trees, flying away low down under the sky.
She looked and looked. Her happiness mixed itself up with the queer light and with the flat fields and the tall, bare trees.
She turned from the window and saw the vases that Mamma had given her standing on the chimney-piece. The black birds with red beaks and red legs looked at her. She threw herself on the bed and pressed her face into the pillow and cried "Mamma! Mamma!"
Passion Week. It gave you an awful feeling of something going to happen.
In the long narrow dining-room the sunlight through the three windows made a strange and solemn blue colour in the dark curtains. Mamma sat up at the mahogany table, looking sad and serious, with the Prayer Book open before her at the Litany. When you went in you knew that you would have to read about the Crucifixion. Nothing could save you.
Still you did find out things about God. In the Epistle it said: "'Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel and thy garments like him that treadeth the wine-fat? I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in my anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.'"
The Passion meant that God had flown into another temper and that Jesus was crucified to make him good again. Mark said you mustn't say that to Mamma; but he owned that it looked like it. Anyhow it was easier to think of it that way than to think that God sent Jesus down to be crucified because you were naughty.
There were no verses in the Prayer-Book Bible, only long grey slabs like tombstones. You kept on looking for the last tombstone. When you came to the one with the big black letters, THE KING OF THE JEWS, you knew that it would soon be over.
"'They clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns and put it on his head….'" She read obediently: "'And when the sixth hour was come … and when the sixth hour was come there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice…. And Jesus cried with a loud voice … with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.'"
Mamma was saying that the least you could do was to pay attention. But you couldn't pay attention every time. The first time it was beautiful and terrible; but after many times the beauty went and you were only frightened. When she tried to think about the crown of thorns she thought of the new hat Catty had bought for Easter Sunday and what Mr. Spall did when he ate the parsnips.
Through the barred windows of the basement she could hear Catty singing in the pantry:
"'I am so glad that Jesus loves me,Jesus loves me,Jesus loves me….'"
Catty was happy when she sang and danced round and round with the dish-cloth. And Jenny and Mr. Spall were happy when they talked about Jesus. But Mamma was not happy. She had had to read the Morning Prayer and the Psalms and the Lessons and the Litany to herself every morning; and by Thursday she was tired and cross.
Passion Week gave you an awful feeling.
Good Friday would be the worst. It was the real day that Jesus died. There would be the sixth hour and the ninth hour. Perhaps there would be a darkness.
But when Good Friday came you found a smoking hot-cross bun on everybody's plate at breakfast, tasting of spice and butter. And you went to Aldborough Hatch for Service. She thought: "If the darkness does come it won't be so bad to bear at Aldborough Hatch." She liked the new white-washed church with the clear windows, where you could stand on the hassock and look out at the green hill framed in the white arch. That was Chigwell.
"'There is a green hill far a-a-wayWithout a city wall—'"
The green hill hadn't got any city wall. Epping Forest and Hainault Forest were there. You could think of them, or you could look at Mr. Propart's nice clean-shaved face while he read about the Crucifixion and preached about God's mercy and his justice. He did it all in a soothing, inattentive voice; and when he had finished he went quick into the vestry as if he were glad it was all over. And when you met him at the gate he didn't look as if Good Friday mattered very much.
In the afternoon she forgot all about the sixth hour and the ninth hour. Just as she was going to think about them Mark and Dank put her in the dirty clothes-basket and rolled her down the back stairs to make her happy. They shut themselves up in the pantry till she had stopped laughing, and when Catty opened the door the clock struck and Mark said that was the ninth hour.
It was all over. And nothing had happened. Nothing at all.
Only, when you thought of what had been done to Jesus, it didn't seem right, somehow, to have eaten the hot-cross buns.
Grandmamma and Grandpapa Olivier were buried in the City of LondonCemetery. A long time ago, so long that even Mark couldn't remember it,Uncle Victor had brought Grandmamma in a coffin all the way fromLiverpool to London in the train.
On Saturday afternoon Mamma had to put flowers on the grave for Easter Sunday, because of Uncle Victor and Aunt Lavvy. She took Roddy and Mary with her. They drove in Mr. Parish's wagonette, and called for Aunt Lavvy at Uncle Victor's tall white house at the bottom of Ilford High Street. Aunt Lavvy was on the steps, waiting for them, holding a big cross of white flowers. You could see Aunt Charlotte's face at the dining-room window looking out over the top of the brown wire blind. She had her hat on, as if she had expected to be taken too. Her eyes were sharp and angry, and Uncle Victor stood behind her with his hand on her shoulder.
Aunt Lavvy gave Mary the flower cross and climbed stiffly into the wagonette. Mary felt grown up and important holding the big cross on her knee. The white flowers gave out a thick, sweet smell.
As they drove away she kept on thinking about Aunt Charlotte, and about Uncle Victor bringing Grandmamma in a coffin in the train. It was very, very brave of him. She was sorry for Aunt Charlotte. Aunt Charlotte had wanted to go to the cemetery and they hadn't let her go. Perhaps she was still looking over the blind, sharp and angry because they wouldn't let her go.
Aunt Lavvy said, "We couldn't take Charlotte. It excited her too much last time." As if she knew what you were thinking.
The wagonette stopped by the railway-crossing at Manor Park, and they got out. Mamma told Mr. Parish to drive round to the Leytonstone side and wait for them there at the big gates. They wanted to walk through the cemetery and see what was to be seen.
Beyond the railway-crossing a muddy lane went along a field of coarse grass under a hedge of thorns and ended at a paling. Roddy whispered excitedly that they were in Wanstead Flats. The hedge shut off the cemetery from the flats; through thin places in the thorn bushes you could see tombstones, very white tombstones against very dark trees. There was a black wooden door in the hedge for you to go in by. The lane and the thorn bushes and the black door reminded Mary of something she had seen before somewhere. Something frightening.
When they got through the black door there were no tombstones. What showed through the hedge were the tops of high white pillars standing up among trees a long way off. They had come into a dreadful, bare, clay-coloured plain, furrowed into low mounds, as if a plough had gone criss-cross over it.
You saw nothing but mounds. Some of them were made of loose earth; some were patched over with rough sods that gaped in a horrible way. Perhaps if you looked through the cracks you would see down into the grave where the coffin was. The mounds had a fresh, raw look, as if all the people in the City of London had died and been buried hurriedly the night before. And there were no stones with names, only small, flat sticks at one end of each grave to show where the heads were.
Roddy said, "We've got to go all through this to get to the other side."
They could see Mamma and Aunt Lavvy a long way on in front picking their way gingerly among the furrows. If only Mark had been there instead of Roddy. Roddywouldkeep on saying: "The great plague of London. The great plague of London," to frighten himself. He pointed to a heap of earth and said it was the first plague pit.
In the middle of the ploughed-up plain she saw people in black walking slowly and crookedly behind a coffin that went staggering on black legs under a black pall. She tried not to look at them.
When she looked again they had stopped beside a heap that Roddy said was the second plague pit. Men in black crawled out from under the coffin as they put it down. She could see the bulk of it flattened out under the black pall. Against the raw, ochreish ground the figures of two mutes stood up, black and distinct in their high hats tied in the bunched out, streaming weepers. There was something filthy and frightful about the figures of the mutes. And when they dragged the pall from the coffin there was something filthy and frightful about the action.
"Roddy," she said, "I'm frightened."
Roddy said, "So am I. I say, supposing we went back? By ourselves. AcrossWanstead Flats." He was excited.
"We mustn't. That would frighten Mamma."
"Well, then, we'll have to go straight through."
They went, slowly, between the rows of mounds, along a narrow path of yellow clay that squeaked as their boots went in and out. Roddy held her hand. They took care not to tread on the graves. Every step brought them nearer to the funeral. They hadn't pointed it out to each other. They had pretended it wasn't there. Now it was no use pretending; they could see the coffin.
"Roddy—I can't—I can't go past the funeral."
"We've got to."
He looked at her with solemn eyes, wide open in his beautiful face. He was not really frightened, he was only trying to be because he liked it.
They went on. The tight feeling under her waist had gone; her body felt loose and light as if it didn't belong to her; her knees were soft and sank under her. Suddenly she let go Roddy's hand. She stared at the funeral, paralysed with fright.
At the end of the path Mamma and Aunt Lavvy stood and beckoned to them. Aunt Lavvy was coming towards them, carrying her white flower cross. They broke into a stumbling, nightmare run.
The bare clay plain stretched on past the place where Mamma and Aunt Lavvy had turned. The mounds here were big and high. They found Mamma and Aunt Lavvy standing by a very deep and narrow pit. A man was climbing up out of the pit on a ladder. You could see a pool of water shining far down at the bottom.
Mamma was smiling gently and kindly at the man and asking him why the grave was dug so deep. He said, "Why, because this 'ere lot and that there what you've come acrost is the pauper buryin' ground. We shovel 'em in five at a time this end."
Roddy said, "Like they did in the great plague of London."
"I don't know about no plague. But there's five coffins in each of these here graves, piled one atop of the other."
Mamma seemed inclined to say more to the grave-digger; but Aunt Lavvy frowned and shook her head at her, and they went on to where a path of coarse grass divided the pauper burying ground from the rest. They were now quite horribly near the funeral. And going down the grass path they saw another that came towards them; the palled coffin swaying on headless shoulders. They turned from it into a furrow between the huddled mounds. The white marble columns gleamed nearer among the black trees.
They crossed a smooth gravel walk into a crowded town of dead people. Tombstones as far as you could see; upright stones, flat slabs, rounded slabs, slabs like coffins, stone boxes with flat tops, broken columns; pointed pillars. Rows of tall black trees. Here and there a single tree sticking up stiffly among the tombstones. Very little trees that were queer and terrifying. People in black moving about the tombstones. A broad road and a grey chapel with pointed gables. Under a black tree a square plot enclosed by iron railings.
Grandmamma and Grandpapa Olivier were buried in one half of the plot under a white marble slab. In the other half, on the bare grass, a white marble curb marked out a place for another grave.
Roddy said, "Who's buried there?"
Mamma said, "Nobody. Yet. That's for—"
Mary saw Aunt Lavvy frown again and put her finger to her mouth.
She said, "Who? For who?" An appalling curiosity and fear possessed her. And when Aunt Lavvy took her hand she knew that the empty place was marked out for Mamma and Papa.
Outside the cemetery gates, in the white road, the black funeral horses tossed their heads and neighed, and the black plumes quivered on the hearses. In the wagonette she sat close beside Aunt Lavvy, with Aunt Lavvy's shawl over her eyes.
She wondered how she knew that you were frightened when Mamma didn't.Mamma couldn't, because she was brave. She wasn't afraid of the funeral.
When Roddy said, "She oughtn't to have taken us, she ought to have known it would frighten us," Mark was angry with him. He said, "She thought you'd like it, you little beast. Because of the wagonette."
Darling Mamma. She had taken them because she thought they would like it.Because of the wagonette. Because she was brave, like Mark.
Dead people really did rise. Supposing all the dead people in the City of London Cemetery rose and came out of their graves and went about the city? Supposing they walked out as far as Ilford? Crowds and crowds of them, in white sheets? Supposing they got into the garden?
"Please, God, keep me from thinking about the Resurrection. Please God, keep me from dreaming about coffins and funerals and ghosts and skeletons and corpses." She said it last, after the blessings, so that God couldn't forget. But it was no use.
If you said texts: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night.""Yea, though I walk through the City of London Cemetery." It was no use.
"The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall arise … Incorruptible."
That was beautiful. Like a bright light shining. But you couldn't think about it long enough. And the dreams went on just the same: the dream of the ghost in the passage, the dream of the black coffin coming round the turn of the staircase and squeezing you against the banister; the dream of the corpse that came to your bed. She could see the round back and the curled arms under the white sheet.
The dreams woke her with a sort of burst. Her heart was jumping about and thumping; her face and hair were wet with water that came out of her skin.
The grey light in the passage was like the ghost-light of the dreams.
Gas light was a good light; but when you turned it on Jenny came up and put it out again. She said, "Goodness knows when you'll get to sleep withthatlight flaring."
There was never anybody about at bedtime. Jenny was dishing up the dinner. Harriet was waiting. Catty only ran up for a minute to undo the hooks and brush your hair.
When Mamma sent her to bed she came creeping back into the dining-room.Everybody was eating dinner. She sickened with fright in the steam andsmell of dinner. She leaned her head against Mamma and whimpered, andMamma said in her soft voice, "Big girls don't cry because it's bed-time.Only silly baby girls are afraid of ghosts."
Mamma wasn't afraid.
When she cried Mark left his dinner and carried her upstairs, past the place where the ghost was, and stayed with her till Catty came.
"Minx! Minx! Minx!"
Mark had come in from the garden with Mamma. He was calling to Mary. Minx was the name he had given her. Minx was a pretty name and she loved it because he had given it her. Whenever she heard him call she left what she was doing and ran to him.
Papa came out of the library with Boag's Dictionary open in his hand. "'Minx: A pert, wanton girl. A she-puppy.' Do you hear that, Caroline? He calls his sister a wanton she-puppy." But Mamma had gone back into the garden.
Mark stood at the foot of the stairs and Mary stood at the turn. She had one hand on the rail of the banister, the other pressed hard against the wall. She leaned forward on tiptoe, measuring her distance. When she looked at the stairs they fell from under her in a grey dizziness, so that Mark looked very far away.
They waited till Papa had gone back into the library—Mark held out his arms.
"Jump, Minky! Jump!"
She let go the rail and drew herself up. A delicious thrill of danger went through her and out at her fingers. She flung herself into space and Mark caught her. His body felt hard and strong as it received her. They did it again and again.
That was the "faith-jump." You knew that you would be killed if Mark didn't catch you, but you had faith that he would catch you; and he always did.
Mark and Dan were going to school at Chelmsted on the thirteenth of September, and it was the last week in August now. Mark and Mamma were always looking for each other. Mamma would come running up to the schoolroom and say, "Where's Mark? Tell Mark I want him"; and Mark would go into the garden and say, "Where's Mamma? I want her." And Mamma would put away her trowel and gardening gloves and go walks with him which she hated; and Mark would leave Napoleon Buonaparte and the plan of the Battle of Austerlitz to dig in the garden (and he loathed digging) with Mamma.
This afternoon he had called to Mary to come out brook-jumping. Mark could jump all the brooks in the fields between Ilford and Barkingside, and in the plantations beyond Drake's Farm; he could jump the Pool of Siloam where the water from the plantations runs into the lake below Vinings. Where there was no place for a little girl of seven to cross he carried her in his arms and jumped. He would stand outside in the lane and put his hands on the wall and turn heels over head into the garden.
She said to herself: "In six years and five months I shall be fourteen. I shall jump the Pool of Siloam and come into the garden head over heels." And Mamma called her a little humbug when she said she was afraid to go for a walk with Jenny lest a funeral should be coming along the road.
The five elm trees held up their skirts above the high corn. The flat surface of the corn-tops was still. Hot glassy air quivered like a thin steam over the brimming field.
The glazed yellow walls of the old nursery gave out a strong light and heat. The air indoors was dry and smelt dusty like the hot, crackling air above the corn. The children had come in from their play in the fields; they leaned out of the windows and talked about what they were going to be.
Mary said, "I shall paint pictures and play the piano and ride in a circus. I shall go out to the countries where the sand is and tame zebras; and I shall marry Mark and have thirteen children with blue eyes like Meta."
Roddy was going to be the captain of a cruiser. Dan was going to Texas, or some place where Papa couldn't get at him, to farm. Mark was going to be a soldier like Marshal McMahon.
It was Grandpapa and Grandmamma's fault that he was not a soldier now.
"If," he said, "they'd let Papa marry Mamma when he wanted to, I might have been born in eighteen fifty-two. I'd be eighteen by this time. I should have gone into the French Army and I should have been with McMahon at Sedan now."
"You might have been killed," Mary said.
"That wouldn't have mattered a bit. I should have been at Sedan. Nothing matters, Minky, as long as you get what you want."
"If you were killed Mamma and me would die, too, the same minute. Papa would be sorry, then; but not enough to kill him, so that we should go to heaven together without him and be happy."
"Mamma wouldn't be happy without him. We couldn't shut him out."
"No," Mary said; "but we could pray to God not to let him come up too soon."
Sedan—Sedan—Sedan.
Papa came out into the garden where Mamma was pulling weeds out of the hot dry soil. He flapped the newspaper and read about the Battle of Sedan. Mamma left off pulling weeds out and listened.
Mark had stuck the picture of Marshal McMahon over the schoolroom chimney-piece. Papa had pinned the war-map to the library door. Mark was restless. He kept on going into the library to look at the war-map and Papa kept on turning him out again. He was in a sort of mysterious disgrace because of Sedan. Roddy was excited about Sedan. Dan followed Mark as he went in and out; he was furious with Papa because of Mark.
Mamma had been a long time in the library talking to Papa. They sent for Mark just before dinner-time. When Mary ran in to say good-night she found him there.
Mark was saying, "You needn't think I want your beastly money. I shall enlist."
Mamma said, "If he enlists, Emilius, it'll kill me."
And Papa, "You hear what your mother says, sir. Isn't that enough for you?"
Mark loved Mamma; but he was not going to do what she wanted. He was going to do something that would kill her.
Papa walked in the garden in the cool of the evening, like the Lord God.And he was always alone. When you thought of him you thought of Jehovah.
There was something funny about other people's fathers. Mr. Manisty, of Vinings, who rode along Ley Street with his two tall, thin sons, as if he were actually proud of them; Mr. Batty, the Vicar of Barkingside, who called his daughter Isabel his "pretty one"; Mr. Farmer, the curate of St. Mary's Chapel, who walked up and down the room all night with the baby; and Mr. Propart, who went about the public roads with Humphrey and Arthur positively hanging on him. Dan said Humphrey and Arthur were tame and domestic because they were always going about with Mr. Propart and talking to him as if they liked it. Mark had once seen Mr. Propart trying to jump a ditch on the Aldborough Road. It was ridiculous. Humphrey and Arthur had to grab him by the arms and pull him over. Mary was sorry for the Propart boys because they hadn't got a mother who was sweet and pretty like Mamma and a father called Emilius Olivier. Emilius couldn't jump ditches any more than Mr. Propart; but then he knew he couldn't, and as Mark said, he had the jolly good sense not to try. You couldn't be Jehovah and jump ditches.
Emilius Olivier was everything a father ought to be.
Then suddenly, for no reason at all, he left off being Jehovah and began trying to behave like Mr. Batty.
It was at dinner, the last Sunday before the thirteenth. Mamma had moved Roddy and Mary from their places so that Mark and Dan could sit beside her. Mary was sitting at the right hand of Papa in the glory of the Father. The pudding had come in; blanc-mange, and Mark's pudding with whipped cream hiding the raspberry jam. It was Roddy's turn to be helped; his eyes were fixed on the snow-white, pure blanc-mange shuddering in the glass dish, and Mamma had just asked him which he would have when Papa sent Mark and Dan out of the room. You couldn't think why he had done it this time unless it was because Mark laughed when Roddy said in his proud, dignified voice, "I'll have a little piece of the Virgin's womb, please, first." Or it may have been because of Mark's pudding. He never liked it when they had Mark's pudding. Anyhow, Mark and Dan had to go, and as they went he drew Mary's chair closer to him and heaped her plate with cream and jam, looking very straight at Mamma as he did it.
"You might have left them alone," Mamma said, "on their last Sunday. They won't be here to annoy you so very long."
Papa said, "There are three days yet till the thirteenth."
"Three days! You'll count the hours and the minutes till you've got what you want."
"What I want is peace and quiet in my house and to get a word in edgeways, sometimes, with my own wife."
"You've no business to have a wife if you can't put up with your own children."
"It isn't my business to have a wife," Papa said. "It's my pleasure. My business is to insure ships. And you see me putting up with Mary very well. I suppose she's my own child."
"Mark and Dan are your own children first."
"Arethey? To judge by your infatuation I should have said they weren't. 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? Silver bells and cockle shells, and chocolate creams all in a row.'"
He took a large, flat box of chocolates out of his pocket and laid it beside her plate. And he looked straight at Mamma again.
"If those are the chocolates I reminded you to get for—for the hamper, I won't have them opened."
"They arenotthe chocolates you reminded me to get for—the hamper. I suppose Mark's stomachisa hamper. They are the chocolates I reminded myself to get for Mary."
Then Mamma said a peculiar thing.
"Are you trying to show me that you're not jealous of Mary?"
"I'm not trying to show you anything. You know I'm not jealous of Mary.And you know there's no reason why I should be."
"To hear you, Emilius, anybody would think I wasn't fond of my own daughter. Mary darling, you'd better run away."
"And Mary darling," he mocked her, "you'd better take your chocolates with you."
Mary said: "I don't want any chocolates, Papa."
"Is that her contrariness, or just her Mariness?"
"Whatever it is it's all the thanksyouget, and serve you right, too," said Mamma.
She went upstairs to persuade Dan that Papa didn't mean it. It was just his way, and they'd see he would be different to-morrow.
But to-morrow and the next day and the next he was the same. He didn't actually send Mark and Dan out of the room again, but he tried to pretend to himself that they weren't there by refusing to speak to them.
"Do you think," Mark said, "he'll keep it up till the last minute?"
He did; even when he heard the sound of Mr. Parish's wagonette in the road, coming to take Mark and Dan away. They were sitting at breakfast, trying not to look at him for fear they should laugh, or at Mamma for fear they should cry, trying not to look at each other. Catty brought in the cakes, the hot buttered Yorkshire cakes that were never served for breakfast except on Christmas Day and birthdays. Mary wondered whether Papa would say or do anything. He couldn't. Everybody knew those cakes were sacred. Catty set them on the table with a sort of crash and ran out of the room, crying. Mamma's mouth quivered.
Papa looked at the cakes; he looked at Mamma; he looked at Mark. Mark was staring at nothing with a firm grin on his face.
"The assuagers of grief," Papa said. "Pass round the assuagers."
The holy cakes were passed round. Everybody took a piece except Dan.
Papa pressed him. "Try an assuager. Do."
And Mamma pleaded, "Yes, Dank."
"Do you hear what your mother says?"
Dan's eyes were red-rimmed. He took a double section of cake and tried to bite his way through.