Mary Olivier: a Life Part 50

They stood on the Kendals' doorstep, in the dark, under the snow. Snow powdered the flagstone path swept ready for the New Year's party.

"Think," she said, "their poor party. It would be awful of us."

Roddy rang. As they waited they began to laugh again. Helpless, ruinous, agonising laughter.

"Oh--oh--I can hear Martha coming. _Do_ something. You might be unbuckling my snow-shoes."

The party was waiting for them in the drawing-room. Dr. Charles. Miss Louisa Wright, stiff fragility. A child's face blurred and delicately weathered; features in innocent, low relief. Pale hair rolled into an insubstantial puff above each ear. Speedwell eyes, fading milkily. Hurt eyes, disappointed eyes. Dr. Charles had disappointed her.

Dorsy Heron, tall and straight. Shy hare's face trying to look austere.

Norman Waugh, sulky and superior, in a corner.

As Roddy came in everybody but Norman Waugh turned round and stared at him with sudden, happy smiles. He was so beautiful that it made people happy to look at him. His very name, Rodney Olivier, sounded more beautiful than other people's names.

Dorsy Heron's shy hare's eyes tried to look away and couldn't. Her little high, red nose got redder.

And every now and then Dr. Charles looked at Rodney, a grave, considering look, as if he knew something about him that Rodney didn't know.

V.

"She shall play what she likes," Mr. Sutcliffe said. He had come in late, without his wife.

She was going to play to them. They always asked you to play.

She thought: "It'll be all right. They won't listen; they'll go on talking. I'll play something so soft and slow that they won't hear it. I shall be alone, listening to myself."

She played the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata. A beating heart, a grieving voice; beautiful, quiet grief; it couldn't disturb them.

Suddenly they all left off talking. They were listening. Each note sounded pure and sweet, as if it went out into an empty room. They came close up, one by one, on tiptoe, with slight creakings and rustlings, Miss Kendal, Louisa Wright, Dorsy Heron. Their eyes were soft and quiet like the music.

Mr. Sutcliffe sat where he could see her. He was far away from the place where she heard herself playing, but she could feel his face turned on her like a light.

The first movement died on its two chords. Somebody was saying "How beautifully she plays." Life and warmth flowed into her. Exquisite, tingling life and warmth. "Go on. Go on." Mr. Sutcliffe's voice sounded miles away beyond the music.

She went on into the lovely _Allegretto_. She could see their hushed faces leaning nearer. You could make them happy by playing to them. They loved you because you made them happy.

Mr. Sutcliffe had got up; he had come closer.

She was playing the _Presto agitato_. It flowed smoothly under her fingers, at an incredible pace, with an incredible certainty.

Something seemed to be happening over there, outside the place where she heard the music. Martha came in and whispered to the Doctor. The Doctor whispered to Roddy. Roddy started up and they went out together.

She thought: "Papa again." But she was too happy to care. Nothing mattered so long as she could listen to herself playing the Moonlight Sonata.

Under the music she was aware of Miss Kendal stooping over her, pressing her shoulder, saying something. She stood up. Everybody was standing up, looking frightened.

Outside, in the hall, she saw Catty, crying. She went past her over the open threshold where the snow lay like a light. She couldn't stay to find her snow-shoes and her coat.

The track across the Green struck hard and cold under her slippers. The tickling and trickling of the snow felt like the play of cold light fingers on her skin. Her fear was a body inside her body; it ached and dragged, stone cold and still.

VI.

The basin kept on slipping from the bed. She could see its pattern--reddish flowers and green leaves and curlykews--under the splashings of mustard and water. She felt as if it must slip from her fingers and be broken. When she pressed it tighter to the edge of the mattress the rim struck against Papa's breast.

He lay stretched out on the big yellow birchwood bed. The curtains were drawn back, holding the sour smell of sickness in their fluted folds.

Papa's body made an enormous mound under the green eiderdown. It didn't move. A little fluff of down that had p.r.i.c.ked its way through the cover still lay where it had settled; Papa's head still lay where it had dropped; the forefinger still pointed at the fluff of down.

Papa's head was thrown stiffly back on the high pillows; it sank in, weighted with the blood that flushed his face. Around it on the white linen there was a spatter and splash of mustard and water. His beard clung to his chin, soaked in the yellowish stain. He breathed with a loud, grating and groaning noise.

Her ears were so tired with listening to this noise that sometimes they would go to sleep for a minute or two. Then it would wake them suddenly and she would begin to cry again.

You could stop crying if you looked steadily at the little fluff of down.

At each groaning breath it quivered and sank and quivered.

Roddy sat by the dressing-table. He stared, now at his clenched hands, now at his face in the gla.s.s, as if he hated it, as if he hated himself.

Mamma was still dressed. She had got up on the bed beside Papa and crouched on the bolster. She had left off crying. Every now and then she stroked his hair with tender, desperate fingers. It struck out between the white ears of the pillow-slip in a thin, pointed crest.

Papa's hair. His poor hair. These alterations of the familiar person, the blood-red flush, the wet, clinging beard, the pointed hair, stirred in her a rising hysteria of pity.

Mamma had given him the mustard and water. She could see the dregs in the tumbler on the night-table, and the brown hen's feather they had tickled his throat with.

They oughtn't to have done it. Dr. Charles would not have let them do it if he had been there. They should have waited. They might have known the choking and the retching would kill him. Catty ought to have known.

Somewhere behind his eyes his life was leaking away through the torn net of the blood vessels, bleeding away over his brain, under his hair, under the tender, desperate fingers.

She fixed her eyes on the pattern of the wall-paper. A purplish rose-bud in a white oval on a lavender ground. She clung to it as to some firm, safe centre of being.

VII.

The first day. The first evening.

She went on hushed feet down the pa.s.sage to let Dan in. The squeak of the latch picked at her taut nerves.

She was glad of the cold air that rushed into the shut-up, soundless house, the sweet, cold air that hung about Dan's face and tingled in the curling frieze of his overcoat.

She took him into the lighted dining-room where Roddy and Mamma waited for him. The callous fire crackled and spurted brightness. The table was set for Dan's supper.

Dan knew that Papa was dead. He betrayed his knowledge by the cramped stare of his heavy, gentle eyes and by the shamed, furtive movements of his hands towards the fire. But that was all. His senses were still uncontaminated by _their_ knowledge. He had not seen Papa. He had not heard him.

"What was it?"

"Apoplexy."