It was a strange and oppressive silence that fell upon them during that meal. Oppressive it was, but electrical as well. Vivid, vital forces were at work in all their minds. Storms were gathering they all knew must burst at last. Something there was that had power to gather those forces to their utmost before they broke and were dispersed in speech.
There they were, four unmarried women, seated about that table with the two portraits looking down upon them in their silence. So they had occupied their allotted positions year by year--year by year. Often there had been quarrelings between them. Often they had not been on speaking terms. Winds of disagreement had fretted the peaceful surface of that house again and again.
But this which was upon them now was unlike any silence that had fallen upon them before. Then they had kept silent because they would. It was now they kept silent because they must. The pervading presence of something about them was tying their tongues from speech. Without the courage to tell themselves what it was, they knew.
There was another in their midst. Those four women, they were not alone. It was not as it had been for so many years. They knew it could never be so again. Something had happened to one of them that set her apart. Each in the variety of her imagination was picturing what that something was. Hannah it frightened. Jane it enraged. Fanny it stirred so deeply that many times through the terribleness of that meal, she thought she must faint.
One and all they might have spoken, had it been no more than this. But that presence in the midst of them kept their tongues to stillness. Life was springing up, where for so long there had been all the silence of a barren field. They could hear it in their hearts. Almost it was a thunder rolling that awed and overwhelmed.
The sound of their knives and forks, even the swallowing of their food hammered across that distant thunder to their conscious ears. Each one knew it was becoming more and more unendurable. Each one knew the moment must come when she could bear it no longer. It was Mary who reached that moment first.
Laying down her knife and fork and pushing away her plate unfinished, she flung back her head with eyes that gathered their eyes to hers.
"Why don't you speak?" she cried to them. "Why can't you say what you're all wanting to say--what's got to be said sooner or later? I know you know--all of you. Hannah's told you. And you've thought it all out, as much as it can be thought out. I don't want any favors from you. This has been my home. I'm quite ready for it to be my home no longer. In any case I'm going away. There's no question, if you're afraid of that, of my appealing to you for pity or generosity. It's only a question of the spirit in which I go and the spirit of what I leave behind. That's all. And why can't you say it? Why can't you tell me what it is? You, Jane! Why don't you speak? You're the one who has anything to say. You told them not to meet the coach. You told them not to put any flowers in my room. If it's something really to fight about, let's fight now. I'm not going to fight again. I'm going away where my child will be born with all the best that I can give it, but I'll hear what you've got to say now, only for God's sake say it!"
IX
None of them knew their Mary like this. Until that moment scarcely in such fashion had she known herself. New instincts had risen in her blood. Already the creative force was striking a dominant note in her voice, setting to fire a light in her eyes.