Mary was glad when Bertha went away to school. When the new year came and she was fourteen she had almost forgotten Bertha. She even forgot for long stretches of time what Bertha had told her. But not altogether.
Because, if it was true, then the story of the Virgin Mary was not true. Jesus couldn't have been born in the way the New Testament said he was born. There was no such thing as the Immaculate Conception. You could hardly be expected to believe in it once you knew why it couldn't have happened.
And if the Bible could deceive you about an important thing like that, it could deceive you about the Incarnation and the Atonement. You were no longer obliged to believe in that ugly business of a cruel, bungling God appeased with bloodshed. You were not obliged to believe anything just because it was in the Bible.
But—if you didn't, you were an Infidel.
She could hear Aunt Bella talking to Uncle Edward, and Mrs. Farmer andMrs. Propart whispering: "Mary is an Infidel."
She thought: "If IamI can't help it." She was even slightly elated, as if she had set out on some happy, dangerous adventure.
Nobody seemed to know what Pantheism was. Mr. Propart smiled when you asked him and said it was something you had better not meddle with. Mr. Farmer said it was only another word for atheism; you might as well have no God at all as be a pantheist. But if "pan" meant "all things," and "theos" was God—
Perhaps it would be in theEncyclopaedia Britannica. The Encyclopaedia told you all about Australia. There was even a good long bit about Byron, too.
Panceput—Panegyric—Pantheism! There you were. Pantheism is "that speculative system which by absolutely identifying the Subject and Object of thought, reduces all existence, mental and material, to phenomenal modifications of one eternal, self-existent Substance which is called by the name of God…. All things are God."
When you had read the first sentence five or six times over and looked up "Subject" and "Object" and "Phenomenal," you could see fairly well what it meant. Whatever else God might be, he was not what they said, something separate and outside things, something that made your mind uncomfortable when you tried to think about it.
"This universe, material and mental, is nothing but the spectacle of the thoughts of God."
You might have known it would be like that. The universe, going on inside God, as your thoughts go on inside you; the universe, so close to God that nothing could be closer. The meaning got plainer and plainer.
There was Spinoza. ("Spinning—Spinoza.") The Encyclopaedia man said that the Jewish priests offered him a bribe of two thousand florins to take back what he had said about God; and when he refused to take back a word of it, they cursed him and drove him out of their synagogue.
Spinoza said, "There is no substance but God, nor can any other be conceived." And the Encyclopaedia man explained it. "God, as the infinite substance, with its infinity of attributes is thenatura naturans. As the infinity of modes under which his attributes are manifested, he is thenatura naturata."
Nature naturing would be the cause, and Nature natured would be the effect. God was both.
"God is the immanent"—indwelling—"but not the transient cause of all things" … "Thought and Extension are attributes of the one absolute substance which is God, evolving themselves in two parallel streams, so to speak, of which each separate body and spirit are but the waves. Body and Soul are apparently two, but really one and they have no independent existence: They are parts of God…. Were our knowledge of God capable of present completeness we might attain to perfect happiness but such is not possible. Out of the infinity of his attributes only two, Thought and Extension, are accessible to us while the modes of these attributes, being essentially infinite, escape our grasp."
So this was the truth about God. In spite of the queer words it was very simple. Much simpler than the Trinity. God was not three incomprehensible Persons rolled into one, not Jesus, not Jehovah, not the Father creating the world in six days out of nothing, and muddling it, and coming down from heaven into it as his own son to make the best of a bad job. He was what you had felt and thought him to be as soon as you could think about him at all. The God of Baruch Spinoza was the God you had wanted, the only sort of God you cared to think about. Thinking about him—after the Christian God—was like coming out of a small dark room into an immense open space filled with happy light.
And yet, as far back as you could remember, there had been a regular conspiracy to keep you from knowing the truth about God. Even the Encyclopaedia man was in it. He tried to put you off Pantheism. He got into a temper about it and said it was monstrous and pernicious and profoundly false and that the heart of man rose up in revolt against it. He had begun by talking about "attempts to transgress the fixed boundaries which One wiser than we has assigned to our intellectual operations." Perhaps he was a clergyman. Clergymen always put you off like that; so that you couldn't help suspecting that they didn't really know and were afraid you would find them out. They were like poor little frightened Mamma when she wouldn't let you look at the interesting bits beyond the place she had marked in your French Reader. And they were always apologising for their God, as if they felt that there was something wrong with him and that he was not quite real.
But to the pantheists the real God was so intensely real that, compared with him, being alive was not quite real, it was more like dreaming.
Another thing: the pantheists—the Hindu ones and the Greeks, and Baruch Spinoza—were heathen, and the Christians had tried to make you believe that the heathen went to hell because they didn't know the truth about God. You had been told one lie on the top of another. And all the time the truth was there, in theEncyclopaedia Britannica.
Who would have thought that the Encyclopaedia could have been so exciting?
The big puce-coloured books stood in a long row in the bottom shelf behind her father's chair. Her heart thumped when she gripped the volumes that contained the forbidden knowledge of the universe. The rough morocco covers went Rr-rr-rimp, as they scraped together; and there was the sharp thud as they fell back into their place when she had done with them. These sounds thrilled her with a secret joy. When she was away from the books she liked to think of them standing there on the hidden shelf, waiting for her. The pages of "Pantheism" and "Spinoza" were white and clean, and she had noticed how they had stuck together. Nobody had opened them. She was the first, the only one who knew and cared.
She wondered what Mark and her mother would say when they knew. Perhaps Mark would say she ought not to tell her mother if it meant letting out that the Bible said things that were not really true. His idea might be that if Mamma wanted to believe in Jehovah and the Atonement through Christ's blood, it would be unkind to try and stop her. But who on earthwouldwant to believe that dreadful sort of thing if they could help it? Papa might not mind, because as long as he knew that he and Mamma would get into heaven all right he wouldn't worry so much about other people. But Mamma was always worrying about them and making you give up things to them; and she must be miserable when she thought of them burning in hell for ever and ever, and when she tried to reconcile God's justice with his mercy. To say nothing of the intellectual discomfort she was living in. When you had found out the real, happy truth about God, it didn't seem right to keep it to yourself.
She decided that she would tell her mother.
Mark was in the Royal Field Artillery now. He was away at Shoeburyness.If she put it off till he came home again she might never do it. WhenMamma had Mark with her she would never listen to anything you had tosay.
Next Sunday was Epiphany. Sunday afternoon would be a good time.
But Aunt Lavvy came to stay from Saturday to Monday. And it rained. All morning Mamma and Aunt Lavvy sat in the dining-room, one on each side of the fireplace. Aunt Lavvy read James Martineau'sEndeavours After the Christian Life, and Mamma read "The Pulpit in the Family" out of theSunday At Home. Somehow you couldn't do it with Aunt Lavvy in the room.
In the afternoon when she went upstairs to lie down—perhaps.
But in the afternoon Mamma dozed over theSunday At Home. She was so innocent and pretty, nodding her head, and starting up suddenly, and looking round with a smile that betrayed her real opinion of Sunday. You couldn't do it while she dozed.
Towards evening it rained again and Aunt Lavvy went off to Ilford for the Evening Service, by herself. Everybody else stayed at home, and there was hymn-singing instead of church. Mary and her mother were alone together. When her mother had sung the last hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light," then she would do it.
Her mother was singing:
"'Jesu, Lover of my soul,Let me to Thy bosom fly,While the nearer wa-a-ters roll,While the tempest still is high'"—
She could see the stiff, slender muscles straining in her mother's neck. The weak, plaintive voice tore at her heart. She knew that her mother's voice was weak and plaintive. Its thin, sweet notes unnerved her.
"'Other refuge ha-ave I none:Hangs my helpless soul on Thee'"—
Helpless—Helpless. Mamma was helpless. It was only her love of Mark and Jesus that was strong. Something would happen if she told her—something awful. She could feel already the chill of an intolerable separation. She could give up Jesus, the lover of her soul, but she could not give up her mother. She couldn't live separated from Mamma, from the weak, plaintive voice that tore at her.
She couldn't do it.
Catty's eyes twinkled through the banisters. She caught Mary coming downstairs and whispered that there was cold boiled chicken and trifle for supper, because of Aunt Lavvy.
Through the door Mary could see her father standing at the table, and the calm breasts of the cold chicken smoothed with white sauce and decorated with beetroot stars.
There was a book beside Papa's plate, the book Aunt Lavvy had been reading. She had left it open on the drawing-room table when she went to church. She was late for supper and they sat there waiting for her. She came in, slowly as usual, and looking at the supper things as though they were not there. When she caught sight of the book something went up and flickered in her eyes—a sort of triumph.
You couldn't help thinking that she had left it lying about on purpose, so that Papa should see it.
He stood waiting till she had sat down. He handed the book to her. His eyes gleamed.
"When you come here," he said, "you will be good enough to leave JamesMartineau behind you."
Mamma looked up, startled. "You don't mean to say you've brought that man's books into the house?"
"You can see for yourself, Caroline," said Aunt Lavvy.
"I don't want to see. No, Mary, it has nothing to do with you."
Mamma was smiling nervously. You would have supposed that she thoughtJames Martineau funny, but the least bit improper.
"But look, Mamma, it's hisEndeavours After the Christian Life."
Her mother took up the book and put it down as if it had bitten her.
"Christian Life, indeed! What right has James Martineau to call himself a Christian? When he denies Christ—the Lord who bought him! And makes no secret of it. How can you respect an infidel who uses Christ's name to cover up his blasphemy?"
Aunt Lavvy was smiling now.
"I thought you said he made no secret of it?"
Mamma said, "You know very well what I mean."
"If you knew Dr. Martineau—"
"You've no business to know him," Emilius said, "when your brother Victor and I disapprove of him."
Emilius was carving chicken. He had an air of kindly, luscious hospitality, hesitating between the two flawless breasts.
"Dr. Martineau is the wisest and holiest man I ever knew," said AuntLavvy.
"I daresay your sister Charlotte thinks Mr. Marriott the wisest and the holiest mansheever knew."
He settled the larger breast on Aunt Lavvy's plate and laid on it one perfect star of beetroot. He could do that while he insulted her.
"Oh—Papa—youarea br—"
Aunt Lavvy shook her gentle head.
"Lavinia dear" (Mamma's voice was gentle), "did you have a nice service?"
"Very nice, thank you."
"Did you go to Saint Mary's, or the Parish church?"
Aunt Lavvy's straight, flat chin trembled slightly. Her pale eyes lightened. "I went to neither."
"Then—-where did you go?"
"If you insist on knowing, Caroline, I went to Mr. Robson's church."
"You went to Mr.—to the Unitarian Chapel?"
"To the Unitarian Chapel."
"Emilius—" You would have thought that Aunt Lavvy had hit Mamma and hurt her.
Emilius took up his table napkin and wiped his moustache carefully. He was quite horribly calm.
"You will oblige me by not going there again," he said.
"You forget that I went every Sunday when we were in Liverpool."
"You forget that is the reason why you left Liverpool."
"Only one of the reasons, I think."
"Can you tell me what reason you have for going now? Beyond your desire to make yourself different from other people."
"Aren't Unitarians other people?"
She poured out a glass of water and drank. She was giving herself time.
"My reason," she said, "is that I have joined the Unitarian Church."
Mamma put down her knife and fork. Her lips opened and her face turned suddenly sharp and sallow as if she were going to faint.
"You don't mean to say you've gone over? Then God help poor Charlotte!"
Emilius steadied himself to speak. "Does Victor know?" he said.
"Yes. He knows."
"You have consulted him, and you have not consulted me?"
"You made me promise not to talk about it. I have kept my promise."
Mary was sure then that Aunt Lavvy had left the book open on purpose. She had laid a trap for Emilius, and he had fallen into it.
"If you will hold infamous opinions you must be made to keep them to yourself."
"I have a perfect right to my opinions."
"You have no right to make an open profession of them."
"The law is more tolerant than you, Emilius."
"There is a moral law and a law of honour. You are not living by yourself. As long as you are in Victor's house the least you can do is to avoid giving offence. Have you no consideration for your family? You say you came here to be near us. Have you thought of us? Have you thought of the children? Do you expect Caroline to go to Victor's house if she's to meet the Unitarian minister and his wife?"
"You will be cutting yourself off completely, Lavinia," Mamma said.
"From what?"
"From everybody. People don't call on Nonconformists. If there were no higher grounds—"
"Oh—Caroline—" Aunt Lavvy breathed it on a long sigh.
"It's all very well for you. But you might think of your sisterCharlotte," Mamma said.
Papa's beard jerked. He drew in his breath with a savage guttural noise."A-ach! What's the good of talking?"
He had gone on eating all the time. There was a great pile of chicken bones on his plate.
Aunt Lavvy turned. "Emilius—for thirty-three years"—her voice broke as she quivered under her loaded anguish—"for thirty-three years you've shouted me down. You haven't let me call my soul my own. Yet itismy own—"
"There, please—please," Mamma said, "don't let us have any more of it," just as Aunt Lavvy was beginning to get a word in edgeways.
"Mamma, that isn't fair, you must let her speak."
"Yes. You must let me speak." Aunt Lavvy's voice thickened in her throat.
"I won't have any discussion of Unitarianism here," said Papa.
"It's you who have been discussing it, not I."
"It is, really, Papa. First you began. Then Mamma."
Mamma said, "If you've finished your supper, Mary, you can go."
"But I haven't. I've not had any trifle yet."
She thought: "They don't want me to hear them; but I've a right to sit here and eat trifle. They know they can't turn me out. I haven't done anything."
Aunt Lavvy went on. "I've only one thing to say, Emilius. You've asked me to think of Victor and Charlotte, and you and Caroline and the boys and Mary. Have you once—in thirty-three years—for a single minute—thought ofme?"
"Certainly I have. It's partly for your own sake I object to your disgracing yourself. As if your sister Charlotte wasn't disgrace enough."
Aunt Lavvy drew herself up stiff and straight in her white shawl like a martyr in her flame. "You might keep Charlotte out of it, I think."
"I might. Charlotte can't help herself. You can."
At this point Mamma burst into tears and left the room.
"Now," he said, "I hope you're satisfied."
Mary answered him.
"I thinkyouought to be, Papa, if you've been bullying Aunt Lavvy for thirty-three years. Don't you think it's about time you stopped?"
Emilius stared at his daughter. His face flushed slowly. "I think," he said, "it's time you went to bed."
"It isn't my bed-time for another hour yet."
(A low murmur from Aunt Lavvy: "Don't, Mary, don't.")
She went on. "It was you who made Mamma cry, not Aunt Lavvy. It always frightens her when you shout at people. You know Aunt Lavvy's a perfect saint, besides being lots cleverer than anybody in this house, except Mark. You get her by herself when she's tired out with Aunt Charlotte. You insult her religion. You say the beastliest things you can think of—"
Her father pushed back his chair; they rose and looked at each other.
"You wouldn't dare to do it if Mark was here!"
He strode to the door and opened it. His arm made a crescent gesture that cleared space of her.
"Go! Go upstairs. Go to bed!"
"I don't care where I go now I've said it."
Upstairs in her bed she still heard Aunt Lavvy's breaking voice:
"For thirty-three years—for thirty-three years—"
The scene rose again and swam before her and fell to pieces. Ideas—echoes—images. Religion—the truth of God. Her father's voice booming over the table. Aunt Lavvy's voice, breaking—breaking. A pile of stripped chicken bones on her father's plate.
Aunt Lavvy was getting ready to go away. She held up her night gown to her chin, smoothing and folding back the sleeves. You thought of her going to bed in the ugly, yellow, flannel night gown, not caring, lying in bed and thinking about God.
Mary was sorry that Aunt Lavvy was going. As long as she was there you felt that if only she would talk everything would at once become more interesting. She thrilled you with that look of having something— something that she wouldn't talk about—up her sleeve. The Encyclopaedia man said that Unitarianism was a kind of Pantheism. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps she knew the truth about God. Aunt Lavvy would know whether she ought to tell her mother.
"Aunt Lavvy, if you loved somebody and you found out that their religion wasn't true, would you tell them or wouldn't you?"
"It would depend on whether they were happy in their religion or not."
"Supposing you'd found out one that was more true and much more beautiful, and you thought it would make them happier?"
Aunt Lavvy raised her long, stubborn chin. In her face there was a cold exaltation and a sudden hardness.
"No religion was ever more true or more beautiful than Christianity," she said.
"There's Pantheism. Aren't Unitarians a kind of Pantheists?"
Aunt Lavvy's white face flushed. "Unitarians Pantheists? Who's been talking to you about Pantheism?"
"Nobody. Nobody knows about it. I had to find out."
"The less you find out about it the better."
"Aunt Lavvy, you're talking like Mr. Propart. Supposing I honestly thinkPantheism's true?"
"You've no right to think anything about it," Aunt Lavvy said.
"Now you're talking like Papa. And I did so hope you wouldn't."
"I only meant that it takes more time than you've lived to find out what honest thinkingis. When you're twenty years older you'll know what this opinion of yours is worth."
"I know what it's worth to me, now, this minute."
"Is it worth making your mother miserable?"
"That's what Mark would say. How did you know I was thinking of Mamma?"
"Because that's what my brother Victor said to me."
The queer thing was that none of them seemed to think the truth could possibly matter on its own account, or that anything mattered besides being happy or miserable. 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. But nobody would go with her. Nobody knew. Nobody cared.
There was Spinoza; but Spinoza had been dead for ages. Now she came to think of it she had never heard anybody, not even Mr. Propart, speak of Spinoza. It would be worse for her than it had ever been for Aunt Lavvy who had actually known Dr. Martineau. Dr. Martineau was not dead; and if he had been there were still lots of Unitarian ministers alive all over England. And in the end Aunt Lavvy had broken loose and gone into her Unitarian Chapel.
She thought: "Not till after Grandmamma was dead. Till years afterGrandmamma was dead."
She thought: "Of course I'd die rather than tell Mamma."
Aunt Lavvy had gone. Mr. Parish had taken her away in his wagonette.
At lessons Mamma complained that you were not attending. But she was not attending herself, and when sewing time came she showed what she had been thinking about.
"What were you doing in Aunt Lavvy's room this morning?"
She looked up sharply over the socks piled before her for darning.
"Only talking."
"Was Aunt Lavvy talking to you about her opinions?"
"No, Mamma."
"Has she ever talked to you?"
"Of course not. She wouldn't if she promised not to. I don't know even now what Unitarianism is…. WhatdoUnitarians believe in?"
"Goodness knows," her mother said. "Nothing that's any good to them, you may be sure."
Mary went on darning. The coarse wool of the socks irritated her fingers.It caught in a split nail, setting her teeth on edge.
If you went on darning for ever—if you went on darning—Mamma would be pleased. She had not suspected anything.
"'Full fathom five thy father lies,Of his bones are coral made,Those are pearls that were his eyes.Nothing of him that doth fadeBut doth suffer a sea-changeInto something rich and strange.'"
Between the lovely lines she could hear Mamma say, "They all scamp their work. You would require a resident carpenter and a resident glazier—"
And Mrs. Farmer's soft drawl spinning out the theme: "And a resident plumber. Yes, Mrs. Olivier, you really wou-ould."
Mr. and Mrs. Farmer had called and stayed to tea. Across the room you could see his close, hatchet nose and straggly beard. Every now and then his small, greenish eyes lifted and looked at you.
Impossible that you had ever enjoyed going to Mrs. Farmer's to see the baby. It was like something that had happened to somebody else, a long time ago. Mrs. Farmer was always having babies, and always asking you to go and see them. She couldn't understand that as you grew older you left off caring about babies.
"'—We are such stuffAs dreams are made of—'"
"The Bishop—Confirmation—opportunity."
Even Mamma owned that Mr. Farmer never knew when it was time to go.
"'As dreams are made of, and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep—'"
The universe is nothing but the spectacle of the dreams of God. Or was it the thoughts of God?
"Confirmation—Parish Church—Bishop—"
Confirmation. She had seen a Confirmation once, years ago. Girls in white dresses and long white veils, like brides, shining behind the square black windows of the broughams. Dora and Effie Draper. Effie leaned forward. Her pretty, piercing face looked out through the black pane, not seeing anything, trying greedily to be seen. Big boys and girls knelt down in rows before the Bishop, and his sleeves went flapping up and down over them like bolsters in the wind.
Mr. Farmer was looking at her again, as if he had an idea in his head.
The Church Service was open at the Thirty-Nine Articles. Mamma had pushedDr. Smith's "History of England" away.
"Do you think," she said, "you could say the Catechism and the AthanasianCreed straight through without stopping?"
"I daresay I could if I tried. Why?"
"Because Mr. Farmer will want to examine you."
"Whatever for?"
"Because," her mother said, "there's going to be a Confirmation. It's time you were thinking about being confirmed."
"Confirmed?Me?"
"And why not you?"
"Well—I haven't got to be, have I?"
"You will have, sooner or later. So you may as well begin to think about it now."
Confirmation. She had never thought about it as a real thing that might happen to her, that would happen, sooner or later, if she didn't do something to stop Mr. Farmer and Mamma.
"Iamthinking. I'm thinking tight."
Tight. Tight. Her mind, in agony, pinned itself to one point: how she could stop her mother without telling her.
Beyond that point she couldn't see clearly.
"You see—you see—I don'twantto be confirmed."
"You don't want? You might as well say you didn't want to be aChristian."
"Don't worry, Mamma darling. I only want to stay as I am."
"I must worry. I'm responsible for you as long as you're not confirmed.You forget that I'm your godmother as well as your mother."
She had forgotten it. And Papa and Uncle Victor were her godfathers. "What did your godfathers and godmothers then for you?—They did promise and vow three things in my name—" they had actually done it. "First: that I should renounce"—renounce—renounce—"Secondly: that I should believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith—"
The Christian Faith—the Catholic Faith. "Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly"—
—"And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity andTrinity in Unity."
They had promised and vowed all that. In her name. What right had they?What right had they?
"You're not a baby any more," her mother said.
"That's what I mean. I was a baby when you went and did it. I knew nothing about it. Youcan'tmake me responsible."
"It's we who are responsible," her mother said.
"I mean for your vows and promises, Mamma darling. If you'll let me off my responsibility I'll let you off yours."
"Now," her mother said, "you're prevaricating."
"That means you'll never let me off. If I don't do it now I'll have to do it next year, or the next?"
"You may feel more seriously about it next year. Or next week," her mother said. "Meanwhile you'll learn the Thirty-Nine Articles. Read them through first."
"—'Nine. Of Original or Birth-sin. Original Sin … is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man … whereby man is far gone from original righteousness and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world it deserveth God's wrath and damnation.'"
"Don't look like that," her mother said, "as if your wits were wool-gathering."
"Wool?" She could see herself smiling at her mother, disagreeably.
Wool-gathering. Gathering wool. The room was full of wool; wool flying about; hanging in the air and choking you. Clogging your mind. Old grey wool out of pew cushions that people had sat on for centuries, full of dirt.
Wool, spun out, wound round you, woven in a net. You were tangled and strangled in a net of unclean wool. They caught you in it when you were a baby a month old. Mamma, Papa and Uncle Victor. You would have to cut and tug and kick and fight your way out. They were caught in it themselves, they couldn't get out. They didn't want to get out. The wool stopped their minds working. They hated it when their minds worked, when anybody's mind worked. Aunt Lavvy's—yours.
"'Thirteen. Of Works before Justification. Works done before the grace of Christ, and the Inspiration of His Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ…: yea, rather, for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin.'"
"Do you really believe that, Mamma?"
"Of course I believe it. All our righteousness is filthy rags."
—People's goodness. People's kindness. The sweet, beautiful things they did for each other. The brave, noble things, the things Mark did: filthy rags.
This—this religion of theirs—was filthy; ugly, like the shiny black covers of their Bibles where their fingers left a grey, greasy smear. Filthy and frightful; like funerals. You might as well be buried alive, five coffins deep in a pit of yellow clay.
Mamma couldn't really believe it. You would have to tell her it wasn't true. Not telling her meant that you didn't think she cared about the truth. You insulted her if you supposed she didn't care. Mark would say you insulted her. Even if it hurt her a bit at first, you insulted her if you thought she couldn't bear it. And afterwards she would be happy, because she would be free.
"It's no use, Mamma. I shan't ever want to be confirmed."
"Want—want—want! You ought to want, then. You say you believe theChristian Faith—"
Now—now. A clean quick cut. No jagged ends hanging.
"That's it. I don't believe a single word of it."
She couldn't look at her mother. She didn't want to see her cry.
"You've found that out, have you? You've been mighty quick about it."
"I found it out ages ago. But I didn't mean to tell you."
Her mother was not crying.
"You needn't tell me now," she said. "You don't suppose I'm going to believe it?"
Not crying. Smiling. A sort of cunning and triumphant smile.
"You just want an excuse for not learning those Thirty-Nine Articles."
Mamma was crying.
Papa had left the dining-room. Mary sat at the foot of the table, and her mother at the head. The space between was covered and piled with Mark's kit: the socks, the pocket-handkerchiefs, the vests, the fine white pyjamas. The hanging white globes of the gaselier shone on them. All day Mary had been writing "M.E. Olivier, M.E. Olivier," in clear, hard letters, like print. The iridescent ink was grey on the white linen and lawn, black when you stamped with the hot iron: M.E. Olivier. Mamma was embroidering M.E.O. in crimson silk on a black sock.
Mark was in the Army now; in the Royal Field Artillery. He was going to India. In two weeks, before the middle of April, he would be gone. They had known this so long that now and then they could forget it; they could be glad that Mark should have all those things, so many more, and more beautiful, than he had ever had. They were appeased with their labour of forming, over and over again, the letters, clear and perfect, of his name.
Then Papa had come in and said that Dan was not going to live at home any more. He had taken rooms in Bloomsbury with young Vickers.
Dan had not gone to Cambridge when he left Chelmsted, as Mamma had intended. There hadn't been enough money.
Uncle Victor had paid for Mark's last year at Woolwich and for his outfit now. Some day Mamma would pay him back again.
Dan had gone first into Papa's office; then into Uncle Edward's office. He was in Uncle Victor's office now. Sometimes he didn't get home till after midnight. Sometimes when you went into his room to call him in the morning he wasn't there; but there were the bed-clothes turned down as Catty had left them, with his nightshirt folded on the top.
Her mother said: "I hope you're content now you've finished your work."
"Mywork?" her father said.
"Yes, yours. You couldn't rest till you'd got the poor boy out of your office, and now you've turned him out of the house. I suppose you thought that with Mark going you'd better make a clean sweep. It'll be Roddy next."
"I didn't turn him out of the house. But it was about time he went. The young cub's temper is getting unbearable."
"I daresay. You ruined Dan's temper with your silly tease—tease—tease—from morning till night. You can't see a dog without wanting to make it snap and snarl. It was the same with all the children. And when they turned you bullied them. Just because you couldn't break Mark's spirit you tried to crush Dan's. It's a wonder he has any temper left."
Emilius stroked his beard.
"That's right. Stroke your beard as if nothing mattered but your pleasure. You'll be happy enough when Mark's gone."
Emilius left off stroking his beard.
"You say I turned him out of the office," he said. "Did he stay withEdward?"
"Nobody could stay with Edward. You couldn't yourself."
"Ask Victor how long he thinks he'll keep him."
"What do you mean, Emilius?"
He didn't answer. He stood there, his lips pouting between his moustache and beard, his eyes smiling wickedly, as if he had just found out he could torment her more by not saying what he meant.
"If Dan went to the bad," she said, "I wouldn't blame him. It would serve you right.
"Unless," she added, "that's what you want."
And she began to cry.
She cried as a child cries, with spasms of sobbing, her pretty mouth spoiled, stretched wide, working, like india-rubber; dull red blotches creeping up to the brown stains about her eyes. Her tears splashed on to the fine, black silk web of the sock and sparkled there.
Emilius had gone from the room, leaving the door open. Mary got up and shut it. She stood, hesitating. The helpless sobbing drew her, frightened her, stirred her to exasperation that was helpless too. Her mother had never been more intolerably dear.
She went to her. She put her arm round her.
"Don't, Mamma darling. Why do you let him torture you? He didn't turn Dan out of the office. He let him go because he can't afford to pay him enough."
"I know that as well as you," her mother said surprisingly.
She drew herself from the protecting arm.
"Well, then—But, oh, what a brute he is.Whata brute!"
"For shame to talk that way of your father.You'veno right. You're the one that always goes scot-free."
And, beginning to cry again, she rose and went out, grasping Mark's sock in her convulsive hand.
"Mary, did you hear your mother say I bullied you?"
Her father had come back into the room.
"Yes," she said.
"Have I ever bullied you?"
She looked at him steadily.
"No. You would have done if Mamma had loved me as much as she loves Mark. I wish you had. I wish you'd bullied the life out of me. I shouldn't have cared. I wish you'd hated me. Then I should have known she loved me."
He looked at her in silence, with round, startled eyes. He understood.
"Ubique—"
The gunner's motto. Mark's motto, stamped on all the letters he would write. A blue gun on a blue gun-carriage, the muzzle pointing to the left. The motto waving underneath:
At soldiers' funerals the coffin was carried on a gun-carriage and covered with a flag.
"Ubique quo fas et gloria ducunt." All through the excitement of the evening it went on sounding in her head.
It was Mark's coming of age party in the week before he went. The first time she could remember being important at a party. Her consciousness of being important was intense, exquisite. She was Sub-Lieutenant Mark Olivier's sister. His only one.
And, besides, she looked nice.
Last year's white muslin, ironed out, looked as good as new. The blue sash really was new; and Mamma had lent her one of her necklets, a turquoise heart on a thin gold chain. In the looking-glass she could see her eyes shining under her square brown fringe: spots of gold darting through brown crystal. Her brown hair shone red on the top and gold underneath. The side pieces, rolled above her ears and plaited behind, made a fillet for her back hair. Her back hair was too short. She tried to make it reach to her waist by pulling the curled tips straight; but they only sprang back to her shoulder-blades again. It was unfortunate.
Catty, securing the wonderful fillet with a blue ribbon told her not to be unhappy. She would "do."
Mamma was beautiful in her lavender-grey silk and her black jet cross with the diamond star. They all had to stand together, a little behind her, near the door, and shake hands with the people as they came in. Mary was surprised that they should shake hands with her before they shook hands with Mark; it didn't seem right, somehow, when it was his birthday.
Everybody had come except Aunt Charlotte; even Mr. Marriott, though he was supposed to be afraid of parties. (You couldn't ask Aunt Charlotte because of Mr. Marriott.) There were the two Manistys, looking taller and leaner than ever. And there was Mrs. Draper with Dora and Effie. Mrs. Draper, black hawk's eyes in purple rings; white powder over crushed carmines; a black wing of hair folded over grey down. Effie's pretty, piercing face; small head poised to strike. Dora, a young likeness of Mrs. Draper, an old likeness of Effie, pretty when Effie wasn't there.
When they looked at you you saw that your muslin was not as good as new. When they looked at Mamma you saw that her lavender silk was old-fashioned and that nobody wore black jet crosses now. You were frilly and floppy when everybody else was tight and straight in Princess dresses.
Mamma was more beautiful than Mrs. Draper; and her hair, anyhow, was in the fashion, parted at the side, a soft brown wing folded over her left ear.
But that made her look small and pathetic—a wounded bird. She ought not to have been made to look like that.
You could hear Dora and Effie being kind to Mamma. "Dear Mrs. Olivier"—Indulgence—Condescension. As if to an unfortunate and rather foolish person. Mark could see that. He was smiling: a hard, angry smile.
Mrs. Draper was Mamma's dearest friend. They could sit and talk to each other about nothing for hours together. In the holidays Mrs. Draper used to be always coming over to talk to Mamma, always bringing Dora and Effie with her, always asking Mark and Dan and Roddy to her house, always wondering why Mark never went.
Dan went. Dan seemed as if he couldn't keep away.
This year Mrs. Draper had left off asking Mark and Dan and Roddy. She had left off bringing Dora and Effie with her.
Mary wondered why she had brought them now, and why her mother had asked them.
The Manistys. She had brought them for the Manistys. She wanted Mamma to see what she had brought them for. And Mamma had asked them because she didn't care, and wanted them to see that she didn't care, and that Mark didn't care either.
If they only knew how Mark detested them with their "DearMrs.Olivier"!
Something was going on. She heard Uncle Victor saying to Aunt Lavvy,"Mark's party is a bit rough on Dan."
Dan was trying to get to Effie through a gap in the group formed by the Manistys and two young subalterns, Mark's friends. Each time he did it Mrs. Draper stopped him by moving somehow so as to fill the gap. He gave it up at last, to sit by himself at the bottom of the room, jammed into a corner between the chimney-piece and the rosewood cabinet, where he stared at Effie with hot, unhappy eyes.
Supper. Mamma was worried about the supper. She would have liked to have given them a nicer one, but there wasn't enough money; besides, she was afraid of what Uncle Victor would think if they were extravagant. That was the worst of borrowing, Mark said; you couldn't spend so much afterwards. Still, there was enough wine yet in the cellar for fifty parties. You could see, now, some advantage in Papa's habit of never drinking any but the best wine and laying in a large stock of it while he could.
Mary noticed that Papa and Dan drank the most. Perhaps Dan drank more than Papa. The smell of wine was over all the supper, spoiling it, sending through her nerves a reminiscent shiver of disgust.
Mark brought her back into the dining-room for the ice she hadn't had. Dan was there, by himself, sitting in the place Effie had just left. Effie's glass had still some wine in it. You could see him look for the wet side of the rim and suck the drops that had touched her mouth. Something small and white was on the floor beside him. Effie's pocket-handkerchief. He stooped for it. You could hear him breathing up the scent on it with big, sighing sobs.
They slunk back into the drawing-room.
Mark asked her to play something.
"Make a noise, Minky. Perhaps they'll go."
"The Hungarian March." She could play it better than Mamma. Mamma never could see that the bass might be even more important than the treble. She was glad that she could play it better than Mamma, and she hated herself for being glad.
Mark stood by the piano and looked at her as she played. They talked under cover of the "Droom—Droom—Droom-era-room."
"Mark, am I looking too awful?"
"No. Pretty Minx. Very pretty Minx."
"We mustn't, Mark. They'll hear us. They'll think us idiots."
"I don't care if they do. Don't you wish they'd go? Clever Minx. Clever paws."
Mamma passed and looked at them. Her face shrank and sharpened under the dropped wing of her hair. She must have heard what Mark said. She hated it when Mark talked and looked like that. She hated it when you playedhermusic.
Beethoven, then. The "Sonata Eroica" was bound up with "Violetta," the"Guards" and "Mabel" Waltzes and the "Pluie des Perles."
"Ubique quo fas et gloria ducunt." That was the meaning of the noble, serious, passionate music.
Roddy called out, "Oh,not thatdull old thing."
No. Not that. There was the Funeral March in it:sulle morte d'un eroe.Mark was going away.
"Waldteufel," then.One—two—three.One—two—three. Sustained thrum in the bass. One—two—three. Thursday—Friday—One—two—three. Saturday—Sunday. Beat of her thoughts, beat of the music in a sort of syncopated time.One—two—three, Monday.
On Tuesday Mark would be gone.
His eyes made her break off to look round. Dan had come back into the room, to his place between the cabinet and the chimney-piece. He stooped forward, his head hanging as if some weight dragged it. His eyes, turned up, staring at Effie, showed half circles of blood-shot white. His face was flushed. A queer, leaden grey flush.
Aunt Lavvy sat beside him. She had her hand on his arm, to keep him quiet there in his corner.
"Mark—what's the matter with Dan?"
One—two—three.One—two—three. Something bumped against the glass door of the cabinet. A light tinkling crash of a broken pane. She could see slantwise as she went on playing. Dan was standing up. He swayed, feeling for the ledge of the cabinet. Then he started to come down the room, his head lowered, thrust forward, his eyes heavy with some earnest, sombre purpose.
He seemed to be hours coming down the room by himself. Hours standing in the middle of the room, holding on to the parrot chair.
"Mark!"
"Go on playing."
He went to him. Roddy sprang up from somewhere. Hours while they were getting Dan away from the parrot chair to the door beside the piano. Hours between the opening and sudden slamming of the door.
But she had not played a dozen bars. She went on playing.
"Wait a minute, Effie."
Effie was standing beside her with her hand on the door.
"I've lost my pocket-handkerchief. I must have left it in the dining-room.IknowI left it in the dining-room," she said, fussing.
Mary got up. "All right. I'll fetch it."
She opened the door and shut it again quickly.
"I can't go—yet."
Friday, Saturday and Sunday passed, each with a separate, hurrying pace that quickened towards bed-time.
Mark's last night. She had left her door open so that she could hear him come upstairs. He came and sat on her bed as he used to do years ago when she was afraid of the ghost in the passage.
"I shan't be away for ever, Minky. Only five years."
"Yes, but you'll be twenty-six then, and I shall be nineteen. We shan't be ourselves."
"I shall be my self. Five years isn't really long."
"You—you'll like it, Mark. There'll be jungles with bisons and tigers."
"Yes. Jungles."
"And polo."
"Shan't be able to go in for polo."
"Why not?"
"Ponies. Too expensive."
They sat silent.
"What Idon'tlike," Mark said in a sleepy voice, "is leaving Papa."
"Papa?"
He really meant it. "Wish I'd been decenter to him," he said.
And then: "Minky—you'll be kind to little Mamma."
"Oh, Mark—aren't I?"
"Not always. Not when you say funny things about the Bible."
"You say funny things yourself."
"Yes; but she thinks I don't mean them, so it doesn't matter."
"She thinks I don't mean them, either."
"Well—let her go on thinking it. Do what she wants—even when it's beastly."
"It's all very well for you. She doesn't wantyouto learn theThirty-Nine Articles. What would you do if she did?"
"Learn them, of course. Lie about them, if that would please her."
She thought: "Mamma didn't want him to be a soldier."
As if he knew what she was thinking, he said, "She doesn't really mind my going into the Army. I knew she wouldn't. Besides, I had to."
"Yes."
"I'll make it up to her," he said. "I won't do any other thing she wouldn't like. I won't marry. I won't play polo. I'll live on my pay and give poor Victor back his money. And there's one good thing about it. Papa'll be happier when I'm not here."
"Mark!"
"Minky!"
"He had said good-night and gone to his room and come back again to hold her still tighter in his arms.
"What?"
"Nothing," he said. "Only—good-night."
To-morrow no lingering and no words. Mark's feet quick in the passage. A door shut to, a short, crushing embrace before he turned from her to her mother.
Her mother and she alone together in the emptied room, turning from each other, without a word.
The wallflowers had grown up under the south side of the garden wall; a hedge of butterfly-brown and saffron. They gave out a hot, velvet smell, like roses and violets laced with mignonette.
Mamma stood looking at the wallflowers, smiling at them, happy, as ifMark had never gone.
As if Mark had never gone.
Mamma whispered to Mrs. Draper, and Aunt Bella whispered to Mamma: "Fourteen." They always made a mystery about being fourteen. They ought to have told her.
Her thoughts about her mother went up and down. Mamma was not helpless. She was not gentle. She was not really like a wounded bird. She was powerful and rather cruel. You could only appease her with piles of hemmed sheets and darned stockings. If you didn't take care she would get hold of you and never rest till she had broken you, or turned and twisted you to her own will. She would say it was God's will. She would think it was God's will.
They might at least have told you about the pain. The knives of pain. You had to clench your fists till the fingernails bit into the palms. Over the ear of the sofa cushions she could feel her hot eyes looking at her mother with resentment.
She thought: "You had no business to have me. You had no business to have me."
Somebody else's eyes. Somebody else's thoughts. Not yours. Not yours.
Mamma got up and leaned over you and covered you with the rug. Her white face quivered above you in the dusk. Her mouth pushed out to yours, making a small sound like a moan. You heard yourself cry: "Mamma, Mamma, you are adorable!"
That was you.
And as if Mark had never gone, as if that awful thing had never happened to Dan, as if she had never had those thoughts about her mother, her hidden happiness came back to her. Unhappiness only pushed it to a longer rhythm. Nothing could take it away. Anything might bring it: the smell of the white dust on the road; the wind when it came up out of nowhere and brushed the young wheat blades, beat the green flats into slopes where the white light rippled and ran like water, set the green field shaking and tossing like a green sea; the five elm trees, stiff, ecstatic dancers, holding out the broken-ladder pattern of their skirts; haunting rhymes, sudden cadences; the grave "Ubique" sounding through the Beethoven Sonata.
Its thrill of reminiscence passed into the thrill of premonition, of something about to happen to her.