XI.
The funeral woke her. A line of light slid through the chink of the door, crooked itself and staggered across the ceiling, a blond triangle throwing the shadows askew. That was Catty, carrying the lamp for the bearers.
It came again. There was a shuffling of feet in the passage, a secret muttering at the head of the stairs, the crack of a banister, a thud as the shoulder of the coffin butted against the wall at the turn. Then the grinding scream of the brakes on the hill, the long "Shr-issh" of the checked wheels ploughing through the snow.
She could see her mother's face on the pillow, glimmering, with shut eyes. At each sound she could hear her draw a shaking, sobbing breath. She turned to her and took her in her arms. The small, stiff body yielded to her, helpless, like a child's.
"Oh Mary, what shall I do? To send him away like that—in a train—all the way…. Your Grandmamma Olivier tried to keep him from me, and now he's gone back to her."
"You've got Mark."
"What's that you say?"
"Mark. Mark. Nobody can keep Mark from you. He'll never want anybody but you. He said so."
How small she was. You could feel her little shoulder-blades, weak and fine under your fingers, like a child's; you could break them. To be happy with her either you or she had to be broken, to be helpless and little like a child. It was a sort of happiness to lie there, holding her, hiding her from the dreadful funeral dawn.
Five o'clock.
The funeral would last till three, going along the road to Reyburn Station, going in the train from Reyburn to Durlingham, from Durlingham to King's Cross. She wondered whether Dan and Roddy would keep on feeling the funeral all the time. The train was part of it. Not the worst part. Not so bad as going through the East End to the City of London Cemetery.
When it came to the City of London Cemetery her mind stopped with a jerk and refused to follow the funeral any further.
Ten o'clock. Eleven.
They had shut themselves up in the dining-room, in the yellow-ochreish light. Mamma sat in her arm-chair, tired and patient, holding her Bible and her Church Service on her knees, ready. Every now and then she dozed. When this happened Mary took the Bible from her and read where it opened: "And he made the candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work made he the candlestick; his shaft, and his branch, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, were of the same…. And in the candlestick were four bowls made like almonds, his knops and his flowers: And a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same, according to the six branches going out of it. Their knops and their branches were of the same: all of it was one beaten work of pure gold."
At two o'clock the bell of Renton Church began to toll. Her mother sat up in a stiff, self-conscious attitude and opened the Church Service. The bell went on tolling. For Papa.
It stopped. Her mother was saying something.
"Mary—I can't see with the blind down. Do you think you could read it to me?"
* * * * *
"'I am the Resurrection and the Life—'"
A queer, jarring voice burst out violently in the dark quiet of the room.
It carried each sentence with a rush, making itself steady and hard.
"'…He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live….
"'I said, I will take heed to my ways: that I offend not with my tongue—'"
"Not that one," her mother said.
"'O Lord, Thou hast been our refuge; from one generation to another.
"'Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made—'"
(Too fast. Much too fast. You were supposed to be following Mr. Propart; but if you kept up that pace you would have finished the Service before he had got through the Psalm.)
"'Lord God most holy—'"
"I can't hear you, Mary."
"I'm sorry. 'O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.
"'Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts: shut not Thy merciful ears to our prayers: but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most Mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour—'"
(Prayers, abject prayers for themselves. None for him. Not one word. They were cowards, afraid for themselves, afraid of death; their funk had made them forget him. It was as if they didn't believe that he was there. And, after all, it was his funeral.)
"'Suffer us not, at our last hour—'"
The hard voice staggered and dropped, picked itself and continued on a note of defiance.
"'…For on pains of death, to fall from Thee….'"
(They would have come to the grave now, by the black pointed cypresses. There would be a long pit of yellow clay instead of the green grass and the white curb. Dan and Roddy would be standing by it.)
"'Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His mercy to take unto
Himself the soul of our dear brother—'"
The queer, violent voice stopped.
"I can't—I can't."
Mamma seemed gratified by her inability to finish the Order for the
Burial of the Dead.
XII.
"You can say that, with your poor father lying in this grave—"
It was the third evening after the funeral. A minute ago they were at perfect peace, and now the everlasting dispute about religion had begun again. There had been no Prayers since Papa died, because Mamma couldn't trust herself to read them without breaking down. At the same time, it was inconceivable to her that there should be no Prayers.
"I should have thought, if you could read the Burial Service—"
"I only did it because you asked me to."
"Then you might do this because I ask you."
"It isn't the same thing. You haven't got to believe in the Burial
Service. But either you believe in Prayers or you don't believe in them.
If you don't you oughtn't to read them. You oughtn't to be asked to read
them."
"How are we going on, I should like to know? Supposing I was to be laid aside, are there to be no Prayers, ever, in this house because you've set yourself up in your silly self-conceit against the truth?"
The truth. The truth about God. As if anybody really knew it; as if it mattered; as if anything mattered except Mamma.
Yet it did matter. It mattered more than anything in the whole world, the truth about God, the truth about anything; just the truth. Papa's death had nothing to do with it. It wasn't fair of Mamma to talk as if it had; to bring it up against you like that.
"Let's go to bed," she said.
Her mother took no notice of the suggestion. She sat bolt upright in her chair; her face had lost its look of bored, weary patience; it flushed and flickered with resentment.
"I shall send for Aunt Bella," she said.
"Why Aunt Bella?"
"Because I must have someone. Someone of my own."
XIII.
It was three weeks now since the funeral.
Mamma and Aunt Bella sat in the dining-room, one on each side of the fireplace. Mamma looked strange and sunken and rather yellow in a widow's cap and a black knitted shawl, but Aunt Bella had turned herself into a large, comfortable sheep by means of a fleece of white shawl and an ice-wool hood peaked over her cap.
There was a sweet, inky smell of black things dyed at Pullar's. Mary picked out the white threads and pretended to listen while Aunt Bella talked to Mamma in a woolly voice about Aunt Lavvy's friendship with the Unitarian minister, and Uncle Edward's lumbago, and the unreasonableness of the working classes.
She thought how clever it was of Aunt Bella to be able to keep it up like that. "I couldn't do it to save my life. As long as I live I shall never be any good to Mamma."
The dining-room looked like Mr. Metcalfe, the undertaker. Funereal hypocrisy. She wondered whether Roddy would see the likeness.
She thought of Roddy's nervous laugh when Catty brought in the first Yorkshire cakes. His eyes had stared at her steadily as he bit into his piece. They had said: "You don't care. You don't care. If you really cared you couldn't eat."
There were no more threads to pick.
She wondered whether she would be thought unfeeling if she were to take a book and read.
Aunt Bella began to talk about Roddy. Uncle Edward said Roddy ought to go away and get something to do.
If Roddy went away there would be no one. No one.
She got up suddenly and left them.
XIV.
The air of the drawing-room braced her like the rigour of a cold bath. Her heartache loosened and lost itself in the long shiver of chilled flesh.
The stone walls were clammy with the sweat of the thaw; they gave out a sour, sickly smell. Grey smears of damp dulled the polished lid of the piano.
They hadn't used the drawing-room since Papa died. It was so bright, so heartlessly cheerful compared with the other rooms, you could see that Mamma would think you unfeeling if you wanted to sit in it when Papa was dead. She had told Catty not to light the fire and to keep the door shut, for fear you should be tempted to sit in it and forget.
The piano. Under the lid the keys were stiffening with the damp. The hammers were swelling, sticking together. She tried not to think of the piano.
She turned her back on it and stood by the side window that looked out on to the garden. Mamma's garden. It mouldered between the high walls blackened by the thaw. On the grass-plot the snow had sunk to a thin crust, black-pitted. The earth was a black ooze through ulcers of grey snow.
She had a sudden terrifying sense of desolation.
Her mind clutched at this feeling and referred it to her father. It sent out towards him, wherever he might be, a convulsive emotional cry.
"You were wrong. I do care. Can't you see that I can never be happy again? Yet, if you could come back I would be happy. I wouldn't mind your—your little funny ways."
It wasn't true. She would mind them. If he were really there he would know it wasn't true.
She turned and looked again at the piano. She went to it. She opened the lid and sat down before it. Her fingers crept along the keyboard; they flickered over the notes of the Sonata Appassionata, a ghostly, furtive playing, without pressure, without sound.
And she was ashamed as if the piano were tempting her to some cruel, abominable sin.