8
When it was nearly dark Sarah lit the gas. Harriett had gone downstairs. Miriam lowered the Venetian blinds, shutting out the summer. To-morrow it would be there again, waiting for them when they woke in the morning. In her own and Harriett’s room the daylight would be streaming in through the Madras muslin curtains, everything in the room very silent and distinct; nothing to be heard but the little flutterings of birds under the eaves. You could listen to it for ever if you kept perfectly still. When you drew back the curtains the huge day would be standing outside clear with gold and blue and dense with trees and flowers.
Sarah’s face was uneasy. She seemed to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes. Presently she faced them, sitting on a low rocking chair with her tightly clasped hands stretched out beyond her knees. She glanced fearfully from one to the other and bit her lips. “What now,” thought Miriam. The anticipated holidays disappeared. Of course. She might have known they would. For a moment she felt sick, naked and weak. Then she braced herself to meet the shock. I must sit tight, I must sit tight and not show anything. Eve’s probably praying. Oh, make haste, Sally, and get it over.
“What’s the matter, Sally?” said Eve in a low voice.
“Oh, Eve and Mim, I’m awfully sorry.”
“You’d better tell us at once,” said Eve, crimsoning.
“Haven’t you noticed anything?”
Miriam looked at Sarah’s homely prosperous shape. It couldn’t be anything. It was a nightmare. She waited, pinching her wrist.
“What is it, Sally?” breathed Eve, tapping her green-clad knee. Clothes and furniture and pictures ... houses full of things and people talking in the houses and having meals and pretending, talking and smiling and pretending.
“It’s mother.”
“What on earth do you mean, Sarah?” said Miriam angrily.
“She’s ill. Bennett took her to a specialist. There’s got to be—she’s got to have an operation.”
Miriam drew up the blind with a noisy rattle, smiling at Eve frowning impatiently at the noise. Driving the heavy sash up as far as it would go, she leaned her head against the open frame. The garden did not seem to be there. The tepid night air was like a wall, a black wall. For a moment a splintered red light, like the light that comes from a violent blow on the forehead, flashed along it. Sarah and Eve were talking in strange voices, interrupting each other. It would be a relief to do something, faint or something selfish. But she must hear what they were saying; listen to both the voices cutting through the air of the hot room. Propped weak-limbed against the window open-mouthed for air she forced herself to hear, pressing her cold hands closely together. The gas light that had seemed so bright hardly seemed to light the room at all. Everything looked small, even Grannie’s old Chippendale bedstead and the double-fronted wardrobe. The girls were little monkey ghosts babbling together beside Eve’s open trunk. Did they see that it was exactly like a grave?