Mary Olivier: a Life Part 26

He strode to the door and opened it. His arm made a crescent gesture that cleared s.p.a.ce of her.

"Go! Go upstairs. Go to bed!"

"I don't care where I go now I've said it."

Upstairs in her bed she still heard Aunt Lavvy's breaking voice:

"For thirty-three years--for thirty-three years--"

The scene rose again and swam before her and fell to pieces.

Ideas--echoes--images. Religion--the truth of G.o.d. Her father's voice booming over the table. Aunt Lavvy's voice, breaking--breaking. A pile of stripped chicken bones on her father's plate.

V.

Aunt Lavvy was getting ready to go away. She held up her night gown to her chin, smoothing and folding back the sleeves. You thought of her going to bed in the ugly, yellow, flannel night gown, not caring, lying in bed and thinking about G.o.d.

Mary was sorry that Aunt Lavvy was going. As long as she was there you felt that if only she would talk everything would at once become more interesting. She thrilled you with that look of having something-- something that she wouldn't talk about--up her sleeve. The Encyclopaedia man said that Unitarianism was a kind of Pantheism. Perhaps that was it.

Perhaps she knew the truth about G.o.d. Aunt Lavvy would know whether she ought to tell her mother.

"Aunt Lavvy, if you loved somebody and you found out that their religion wasn't true, would you tell them or wouldn't you?"

"It would depend on whether they were happy in their religion or not."

"Supposing you'd found out one that was more true and much more beautiful, and you thought it would make them happier?"

Aunt Lavvy raised her long, stubborn chin. In her face there was a cold exaltation and a sudden hardness.

"No religion was ever more true or more beautiful than Christianity," she said.

"There's Pantheism. Aren't Unitarians a kind of Pantheists?"

Aunt Lavvy's white face flushed. "Unitarians Pantheists? Who's been talking to you about Pantheism?"

"n.o.body. n.o.body knows about it. I had to find out."

"The less you find out about it the better."

"Aunt Lavvy, you're talking like Mr. Propart. Supposing I honestly think Pantheism's true?"

"You've no right to think anything about it," Aunt Lavvy said.

"Now you're talking like Papa. And I did so hope you wouldn't."

"I only meant that it takes more time than you've lived to find out what honest thinking _is_. When you're twenty years older you'll know what this opinion of yours is worth."

"I know what it's worth to me, now, this minute."

"Is it worth making your mother miserable?"

"That's what Mark would say. How did you know I was thinking of Mamma?"

"Because that's what my brother Victor said to me."

VI.

The queer thing was that none of them seemed to think the truth could possibly matter on its own account, or that anything mattered besides being happy or miserable. Yet everybody, except Aunt Lavvy, was determined that everybody else should be happy in their way by believing what they believed; and when it came to Pantheism even Aunt Lavvy couldn't live and let live. You could see that deep down inside her it made her more furious than Unitarianism made Papa.

Mary saw that she was likely to be alone in her adventure. It appeared to her more than ever as a journey into a beautiful, quiet yet exciting country where you could go on and on. The mere pleasure of being able to move enchanted her. But n.o.body would go with her. n.o.body knew. n.o.body cared.

There was Spinoza; but Spinoza had been dead for ages. Now she came to think of it she had never heard anybody, not even Mr. Propart, speak of Spinoza. It would be worse for her than it had ever been for Aunt Lavvy who had actually known Dr. Martineau. Dr. Martineau was not dead; and if he had been there were still lots of Unitarian ministers alive all over England. And in the end Aunt Lavvy had broken loose and gone into her Unitarian Chapel.

She thought: "Not till after Grandmamma was dead. Till years after Grandmamma was dead."

She thought: "Of course I'd die rather than tell Mamma."

VII.

Aunt Lavvy had gone. Mr. Parish had taken her away in his wagonette.

At lessons Mamma complained that you were not attending. But she was not attending herself, and when sewing time came she showed what she had been thinking about.

"What were you doing in Aunt Lavvy's room this morning?"

She looked up sharply over the socks piled before her for darning.

"Only talking."

"Was Aunt Lavvy talking to you about her opinions?"

"No, Mamma."

"Has she ever talked to you?"

"Of course not. She wouldn't if she promised not to. I don't know even now what Unitarianism is.... What _do_ Unitarians believe in?"

"Goodness knows," her mother said. "Nothing that's any good to them, you may be sure."

Mary went on darning. The coa.r.s.e wool of the socks irritated her fingers.

It caught in a split nail, setting her teeth on edge.

If you went on darning for ever--if you went on darning--Mamma would be pleased. She had not suspected anything.

VIII.