Mary Olivier: a Life Part 99

"What's he got to do with it?"

"And that girl. You said I couldn't have known anything about it.... You said I couldn't even have come in for the sad end of it."

"Well?"

"Well.... I did.... I _was_ the sad end of it.... The girl was me."

"But you told me it wasn't true."

...He had got up. He wanted to stand. To stand up high above you.

"You _know_," he said, "you told me it wasn't true."

They would have to go through with it. Dining. Drinking coffee. Talking politely; talking intelligently; talking. Villiers de L'Isle Adam, Villiers de L'Isle Adam. "The symbolistes are finished ... Do you know Jean Richepin? 'Il etait une fois un pauvre gars Qui aimait celle qui ne l'aimait pas'? ... 'Le coeur de ta mere pour mon chien.'" He thinks I lied. "You ought to read Henri de Regnier and Remy de Gourmont. You'd like them." ... Le coeur de ta mere. He thinks I lied. Goodness knows what he doesn't think.

The end of it would come at nine o'clock.

"Are you still angry?"

He laughed. A dreadful sniffling laugh that came through his nostrils.

"_I_'m not. If I were I should let you go on thinking I lied. You see, I didn't know it was true. I didn't know I was the girl."

"You didn't _know_?"

"How could I when he never said a word?"

"I can't understand your not seeing it."

"Would you like me better if I had seen it?"

"N-no.... But I wish you hadn't told me. Why did you?"

"I was only trying to break the shock. You thought I couldn't be old enough to be that girl. I meant you to do a sum in your head: 'If she was that girl and she was seventeen, then she must be thirty-nine now.'"

"Is _that_ what you smashed up our evening for?"

"Yes."

"I shouldn't care if you were fifty-nine. I'm forty-five."

"You're sorry. You're sorry all the same."

"I'm sorry because there's so little time, Mary. Sorry I'm six years older than you...."

Nine o'clock.

She stood up. He turned to her. He made a queer sound. A sound like a deep, tearing sigh.

"If I were twenty I couldn't marry you, because of Mamma. That's one thing. You can't marry Mamma."

"We can talk about your mother afterwards."

"No. Now. There isn't any afterwards. There's only this minute that we're in. And perhaps the next.... You haven't thought what it'll be like. You can't leave London because of your work. I can't leave this place because of Mamma. She'd be miserable in London. I can't leave her. She hasn't anybody but me. I promised my brother I'd look after her.... She'd have to live with me."

"Why not?"

"You couldn't live with her."

"I could, Mary."

"Not you. You said you couldn't stand another evening like yesterday....

_All the evenings would be like yesterday_.... Please.... Even if there wasn't Mamma, you don't want to marry. If you'd wanted to you'd have done it long ago, instead of waiting till you're forty-five. Think of two people tied up together for life whether they both like it or not.

It isn't even as if one of them could be happy. How could you if the other wasn't? Look at the Sutcliffes. Think how he hated it.... And _he_ was a kind, patient man. You know you wouldn't dream of marrying me if you didn't think it was the only possible way."

"Well--isn't it?"

"No. The one impossible way. I'd do anything for you but that....

Anything."

"Would you, Mary? Would you have the courage?"

"It would take infinitely more courage to marry you. We should be risking more. All the beautiful things. If it wasn't for Mamma.... But there _is_ Mamma. So--you see."

She thought: "He _hasn't_ kissed me. He _hasn't_ held me in his arms.

He'll be all right. It won't hurt him."

V.

That was Catty's white ap.r.o.n.

Catty stood on the cobbled square by the front door, looking for her.

When she saw them coming she ran back into the house.

She was waiting in the pa.s.sage as Mary came in.

"The mistress is upset about something," she said. "After she got Mr.

Nicholson's letter."

"There wasn't anything to upset her in that, Catty."