XI.
"You'd better let me see what he says, Mamma."
Her mother had called to her to come into the study. She had Maurice
Jourdain's letter in her hand. She looked sad and at the same time happy.
"My darling, he doesn't want you to see it."
"Is it as bad as all that?"
"Yes. If I'd had my way you should never have had anything to do with him. I'd have forbidden him the house if your Uncle Victor hadn't said that was the way to make you mad about him. He seemed to think that seeing him would cure you. And so it ought to have done….
"He says you know he wants to break off the engagement, but he doesn't think he has made you understand why."
"Oh, yes, he did. It's because of his business."
"He doesn't say a word about his business. I'm to break it to you that he doesn't care for you as he thought he cared. As if he wasn't old enough to know what he wanted. He might have made up his mind before he drove your father into his grave."
"Tell me what he says."
"He just says that. He says he's in an awful position, and whatever he does he must behave dishonourably…. I admit he's sorry enough. And he's doing the only honourable thing."
"He would do that."
She fixed her mind on his honour. You could love that. You could love that always.
"He says he asked you to release him. Did he?"
"Yes."
"Then why on earth didn't you?"
"I did. But I couldn't release myself."
"But that's what you ought to have done. Instead of leaving him to do it."
"Oh, no. That would have been dishonourable to myself."
"You'd rather be jilted?"
"Much rather. It's more honourable to be jilted than to jilt."
"That's not the world's idea of honour."
"It's my idea of it…. And, after all, he was Maurice Jourdain."
XII.
The pain hung on to the left side of her head, clawing. When she left off reading she could feel it beat like a hammer, driving in a warm nail.
Aunt Lavvy sat on the parrot chair, with her feet on the fender. Her fingers had left off embroidering brown birds on drab linen.
In the dying light of the room things showed fuzzy, headachy outlines. It made you feel sick to look at them.
Mamma had left her alone with Aunt Lavvy.
"I suppose you think that nobody was ever so unhappy as you are," Aunt
Lavvy said.
"I hope nobody is. I hope nobody ever will be."
"Should you say I was unhappy?"
"You don't look it. I hope you're not."
"Thirty-three years ago I was miserable, because I couldn't have my own way. I couldn't marry the man I cared for."
"Oh—that. Why didn't you?"
"My mother and your father and your Uncle Victor wouldn't let me."
"I suppose he was a Unitarian?"
"Yes. He was a Unitarian. But whatever he'd been I couldn't have married him. I couldn't do anything I liked. I couldn't go where I liked or stay where I liked. I wanted to be a teacher, but I had to give it up."
"Why?"
"Because your Uncle Victor and I had to look after your Aunt Charlotte."
"You could have got somebody else to look after Aunt Charlotte. Somebody else has to look after her now."
"Your Grandmamma made us promise never to send her away as long as it was possible to keep her. That's why your Uncle Victor never married."
"And all the time Aunt Charlotte would have been better and happier with
Dr. Draper. Aunt Lavvy—t's too horrible."
"It wasn't as bad as you think. Your Uncle Victor couldn't have married in any case."
"Didn't he love anybody?"
"Yes, Mary; he loved your mother."
"I see. And she didn't love him."
"He wouldn't have married her if she had loved him. He was afraid."
"Afraid?"
"Afraid of going like your Aunt Charlotte. Afraid of what he might hand on to his children."
"Papa wasn't afraid. He grabbed. It was poor little Victor and you who got nothing."
"Victor has got a great deal."
"And you—you?"
"I've got all I want. I've got all there is. When everything's taken away, then God's there."
"If he's there, he's there anyhow."
"Until everything's taken away there isn't room to see that he's there."
When Catty came in with the lamp Aunt Lavvy went out quickly.
Mary got up and stretched herself. The pain had left off hammering. She could think.
Aunt Lavvy—to live like that for thirty-three years and to be happy at the end. She wondered what happiness there could be in that dull surrender and acquiescence, that cold, meek love of God.
"Kikeriküh! sie glaubten
Es wäre Hahnen geschrei."