Mary Olivier: a Life Part 73

Mr. Sutcliffe was going to send to Cook's for the tickets to-morrow.

Expensive, well-fitting clothes had come from Durlingham, so that nothing could prevent it happening.

Mr. Sutcliffe was paying for her ticket. Uncle Victor had paid for the clothes. He had kept on writing to Mamma and telling her that she really ought to let you go. Aunt Bella and Uncle Edward had written, and Mrs.

Draper, and in the end Mamma had given in.

At first she had said, "I won't hear of your going abroad with the Sutcliffes," and, "The Sutcliffes seem to think they've a right to take you away from me. They've only to say 'Come' and you'll go." Then, "I suppose you'll have to go," and, "I don't know what your Uncle Victor thinks they'll do for you, but he shan't say I've stood in your way." And suddenly her face left off disapproving and reproaching and behaved as it did on Christmas Days and birthdays.

She smiled now as she sat still and sewed, as she watched you sitting still and sewing, making new underclothes.

Aunt Bella would come and stay with Mamma, then Aunt Lavvy, then Mrs.

Draper, so that she would not be left alone.

St.i.tch--st.i.tch. She wondered: Supposing they weren't coming? Could she have left her mother alone, or would she have given up going and stayed? No. She couldn't have given it up. She had never wanted anything in her life as she wanted to go to Agaye with the Sutcliffes. With Mr.

Sutcliffe. Mrs. Sutcliffe didn't count; she wouldn't do anything at Agaye, she would just trail about in the background, kind and smiling, in a shawl. She might almost as well not be there.

The happiness was too great. She could not possibly have given it up.

She went on st.i.tching. Mamma went on st.i.tching. Catty brought the lamp in.

Then Roddy's telegram came. From Queenstown.

"Been ill. Coming home. Expect me to-morrow. Rodney."

She knew then that she would not go to Agaye.

IV.

But not all at once.

When she thought of Roddy it was easy to say quietly to herself, "I shall have to give it up." When she thought of Mr. Sutcliffe and the Paris-Lyons-Mediterranee train and the s.h.i.+ning, gold-white, unknown towns, it seemed to her that it was impossible to give up going to Agaye.

You simply could not do it.

She shut her eyes. She could feel Mr. Sutcliffe beside her in the train and the carriage rocking. Dijon, Avignon, Cannes. She could hear his voice telling her the names. She would stand beside him at the window, and look out. And Mrs. Sutcliffe would sit in her corner, and smile at them kindly, glad because they were so happy.

"Roddy doesn't say he _is_ ill," her mother said. "I wonder what he's coming home for."

Supposing you had really gone? Supposing you were at Agaye when Roddy--

The thought of Roddy gave her a pain in her heart. The thought of not going to Agaye dragged at her waist and made her feel weak, suddenly, as if she were trying to stand after an illness.

She went up to her room. The shoulder line of Greffington Edge was fixed across the open window, immovable, immutable. Her knees felt tired. She lay down on her bed, staring at the immovable, immutable white walls. She tried to think of Substance, of the Reality behind appearances. She could feel her mind battering at the walls of her body, the walls of her room, the walls of the world. She could hear it crying out.

She was kneeling now beside her bed. She could see her arms stretched out before her on the counterpane, and her hands, the finger-tips together.

She pressed her weak, dragging waist tighter against the bed.

"If Anything's there--if Anything's there--make me give up going. Make me think about Roddy. Not about myself. About Roddy. _Roddy_. Make me not want to go to Agaye."

She didn't really believe that anything would happen.

Her mind left off crying. Outside, the clock on the Congregational Chapel was striking six. She was aware of a sudden checking and letting go, of a black stillness coming on and on, hus.h.i.+ng sound and sight and the touch of her arms on the rough counterpane, and her breathing and the beating of her heart. There was a sort of rhythm in the blackness that caught you and took you into its peace. When the thing stopped you could almost hear the click.

She stood up. Her white room was grey. Across the window the shoulder of the hill had darkened. Out there the night crouched, breathing like an immense, quiet animal. She had a sense of exquisite security and clarity and joy. She was not going to Agaye. She didn't want to go.

She thought: "I shall have to tell the Sutcliffes. Now, this evening. And Mamma. They'll be sorry and Mamma will be glad."

But Mamma was not glad. Mamma hated it when you upset arrangements. She said, "I declare I never saw anybody like you in my life. After all the trouble and expense."

But you could see it was Roddy she was thinking about. She didn't want to believe there was anything the matter with him. If you went that would look as though he was all right.

"What do you suppose the Sutcliffes will think? And your Uncle Victor?

With all those new clothes and that new trunk?"

"He'll understand."

"_Will_ he!"

"Mr. Sutcliffe, I mean."

V.

She went down to Greffington Hall that night and told him. He understood.

But not quite so well as Mrs. Sutcliffe. She gave you a long look, sighed, and smiled. Almost you would have thought she was glad. _He_ didn't look at you. He looked down at his own lean fine hands hanging in front of him. You could see them trembling slightly. And when you were going he took you into the library and shut the door.

"Is this necessary, Mary?" he said.

"Yes. We don't quite know what's wrong with Roddy."

"Then why not wait and see?"

"Because I _do_ know. And Mamma doesn't. There's something, or he wouldn't have come home."

A long pause. She noticed little things about him. The proud, handsome corners of his mouth had loosened; his eyelids didn't fit nicely as they used to do; they hung slack from the eyebone.

"You care more for Roddy than you do for Mark," he said.

"I don't care for him half so much. But I'm sorry for him. You can't be sorry for Mark.... Roddy wants me and Mark doesn't. He wants n.o.body but Mamma."

"He knows what he wants.... Well. It's my fault. I should have known what I wanted. I should have taken you a year ago."

"If you had," she said, "it would have been all over now."

"I wonder, would it?"

For the life of her she couldn't imagine what he meant.

When she got home she found her mother folding up the work in the work-basket.