Mary Olivier: a Life Part 61

"My mother and your father and your Uncle Victor wouldn't let me."

"I suppose he was a Unitarian?"

"Yes. He was a Unitarian. But whatever he'd been I couldn't have married him. I couldn't do anything I liked. I couldn't go where I liked or stay where I liked. I wanted to be a teacher, but I had to give it up."

"_Why_?"

"Because your Uncle Victor and I had to look after your Aunt Charlotte."

"You could have got somebody else to look after Aunt Charlotte. Somebody else has to look after her now."

"Your Grandmamma made us promise never to send her away as long as it was possible to keep her. That's why your Uncle Victor never married."

"And all the time Aunt Charlotte would have been better and happier with Dr. Draper. Aunt Lavvy--t's too horrible."

"It wasn't as bad as you think. Your Uncle Victor couldn't have married in any case."

"Didn't he love anybody?"

"Yes, Mary; he loved your mother."

"I see. And she didn't love him."

"He wouldn't have married her if she had loved him. He was afraid."

"Afraid?"

"Afraid of going like your Aunt Charlotte. Afraid of what he might hand on to his children."

"Papa wasn't afraid. He grabbed. It was poor little Victor and you who got nothing."

"Victor has got a great deal."

"And you--you?"

"I've got all I want. I've got all there is. When everything's taken away, then G.o.d's there."

"If he's there, he's there anyhow."

"Until everything's taken away there isn't room to _see_ that he's there."

When Catty came in with the lamp Aunt Lavvy went out quickly.

Mary got up and stretched herself. The pain had left off hammering. She could think.

Aunt Lavvy--to live like that for thirty-three years and to be happy at the end. She wondered what happiness there could be in that dull surrender and acquiescence, that cold, meek love of G.o.d.

"Kikerikuh! sie glaubten Es ware Hahnen geschrei."

XXIV

I.

Everybody in the village knew you had been jilted. Mrs. Waugh and Miss Frewin knew it, and Mr. Horn, the grocer, and Mr. Oldshaw at the bank.

And Mr. Belk, the Justice of the Peace--little pink and flaxen gentleman, carrying himself with an air of pompous levity--eyes slewing round as you pa.s.sed; and Mrs. Belk--hard, tight rotundity, little iron-grey eyes twinkling busily in a snub face, putty-skinned with a bilious gleam; curious eyes, busy eyes saying, "I'd like to know what she did to be jilted."

Minna and Sophy Acroyd, with their blown faces and small, disgusted mouths: you could see them look at each other; they were saying, "Here's that awful girl again." They were glad you were jilted.

Mr. Spencer Rollitt looked at you with his hard, blue eyes. His mouth closed tight with a snap when he saw you coming. He had disapproved of you ever since you played hide-and-seek in his garden with his nephew. He thought it served you right to be jilted.

And there was Dr. Charles's kind look under his savage, s.h.a.ggy eyebrows, and Miss Kendal's squeeze of your hand when you left her, and the sudden start in Dorsy Heron's black hare's eyes. They were sorry for you because you had been jilted.

Miss Louisa Wright was sorry for you. She would ask you to tea in her little green-dark drawing-room; she lived in the ivy house next door to Mrs. Waugh; the piano would be open, the yellow keys shining; from the white t.i.tle page enormous black letters would call to you across the room: "Cleansing Fires." That was the song she sang when she was thinking about Dr. Charles. First you played for her the Moonlight Sonata, and then she sang for you with a feverish exaltation:

"For as gold is refined in the _fi_-yer, So a heart is tried by pain."

She sang it to comfort you.

Her head quivered slightly as she shook the notes out of her throat in ecstasy.

She was sorry for you; but she was like Aunt Lavvy; she thought it was a good thing to be jilted; for then you were purified; your soul was set free; it went up, writhing and aspiring, in a white flame to G.o.d.

II.

"Mary, why are you always admiring yourself in the gla.s.s?"

"I'm not admiring myself. I only wanted to see if I was better-looking than last time."

"Why are you worrying about it? You never used to."

"Because I used to think I was pretty."

Her mother smiled. "You were pretty." And took back her smile. "You'd be pretty always if you were happy, and you'd be happy if you were good.

There's no happiness for any of us without Christ."

She ignored the dexterous application.

"Do you mean I'm not, then, really, so very ugly?"

"n.o.body said you were ugly."

"Maurice Jourdain did."