Mary Olivier: a Life Part 100

"P'raps not, Miss Mary; but I thought I'd tell you."

Mamma had been crying all evening. Her pocket-handkerchief lay in her lap, a wet rag.

"I thought you were never coming back again," she said.

"Why, where did you think I'd gone?"

"Goodness knows where. I believe there's nothing you wouldn't do. I've no security with you, Mary.... Staying out till all hours of the night....

Sitting up with that man.... You'll be the talk of the place if you don't take care."

(She thought: "I must let her go on. I won't say anything. If I do it'll be terrible.")

"I can't think what possessed you...."

("Why did I do it? _Why_ did I smash it all up? Uncle Victor suicided.

That's what I've done.... I've killed myself.... This isn't me.")

"If that's what comes of your publis.h.i.+ng I'd rather your books were sunk to the bottom of the sea. I'd rather see you in your coffin."

"I _am_ in my coffin."

"I wish I were in mine," her mother said.

Mamma was getting up from her chair, raising herself slowly by her arms.

Mary stooped to pick up the pocket-handkerchief. "Don't, Mamma; I've got it."

Mamma went on stooping. Sinking, sliding down sideways, clutching at the edge of the table.

Mary saw terror, bright, animal terror, darting up to her out of Mamma's eyes, and in a place by themselves the cloth sliding, the lamp rocking and righting itself.

She was dragging her up by her armpits, holding her up. Mamma's arms were dangling like dolls' arms.

And like a machine wound up, like a child in a pa.s.sion, she still struggled to walk, her knees thrust out, doubled up, giving way, her feet trailing.

VI.

Not a stroke. Well, only a slight stroke, a threatening, a warning.

"Remember she's getting old, Mary."

Any little worry or excitement would do it.

She was worried and excited about me. Richard worried and excited her.

If I could only stay awake till she sleeps. She's lying there like a lamb, calling me "dear" and afraid of giving me trouble.... Her little hands dragged the bedclothes up to her chin when Dr. Charles came. She looked at him with her bright, terrified eyes.

She isn't old. She can't be when her eyes are so bright.

She thinks it's a stroke. She won't believe him. She thinks she'll die like Mrs. Heron.

Perhaps she knows.

Perhaps Dr. Charles really thinks she'll die and won't tell me. Richard thought it. He was sorry and gentle, because he knew. You could see by his cleared, smoothed face and that dreadfully kind, dreadfully wise look. He gave into everything--with an air of insincere, provisional acquiescence, as if he knew it couldn't be for very long. Dr. Charles must have told him.

Richard wants it to happen.... Richard's wanting it can't make it happen.

It might, though. Richard might get at her. His mind and will might be getting at her all the time, making her die. He might do it without knowing he was doing it, because he couldn't help it. He might do it in his sleep.

But I can stop that.... If Richard's mind and will can make her die, my mind and will can keep her from dying.... There was something I did before.

That time I wanted to go away with the Sutcliffes. When Roddy was coming home. Something happened then.... If it happened then it can happen now.

If I could remember how you do it. Flat on your back with your eyes shut; not tight shut. You mustn't feel your eyelids. You mustn't feel any part of you at all. You think of nothing, absolutely nothing; not even think.

You keep on not feeling, not thinking, not seeing things till the blackness comes in waves, blacker and blacker. That's how it was before.

Then the blackness was perfectly still. You couldn't feel your breathing or your heart beating.... It's coming all right.... Blacker and blacker.

It wasn't like this before.

_This_ is an awful feeling. Dying must be like this. One thing going after another. Something holding down your heart, stopping its beat; something holding down your chest, crus.h.i.+ng the breath out of it....

Don't think about the feeling. Don't feel. Think of the blackness....

It isn't the same blackness. There are specks and shreds of light in it; you can't get the light away.... Don't think about the blackness and the light. Let everything go except yourself. Hold on to yourself.... But you felt your self going.

Going and coming back; gathered together; incredibly free; disentangled from the net of nerves and veins. It didn't move any more with the movement of the net. It was clear and still in the blackness; intensely real.

Then it willed. Your self willed. It was free to will. You knew that it had never been free before except once; it had never willed before except once. Willing was this. Waves and waves of will, coming on and on, making your will, driving it through empty time.... "The time of time": that was the Self.... Time where nothing happens except this. Where nothing happens except G.o.d's will. G.o.d's will in your will. Self of your self.

Reality of reality.... It had felt like that.

Mamma had waked up. She was saying she was better.

Mamma was better. She said she felt perfectly well. She could walk across the room. She could walk without your holding her.

It couldn't have been that. It couldn't, possibly. It was a tiny haemorrhage and it had dried up. It would have dried up just the same if you hadn't done anything. Those things _don't happen_.

What did happen was extraordinary enough. The queer dying. The freedom afterwards. The intense stillness, the intense energy; the certainty.

Something was there.

That horrible dream. Dorsy oughtn't to have made me go and see the old woman in the workhouse. A body without a mind. That's what made the dream come. It was Mamma's face; but she was doing what the old woman did.

"Mamma!"--That's the second time I've dreamed Mamma was dead.