Mary Olivier: a Life Part 25

"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 gla.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 sister Charlotte," 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 it _is_ my 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 of _me_?"

"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 think _you_ ought 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!"