‘If my mother had invited her ten times over I’d never have taken her to Morton,’ Stephen muttered.
Oh, but she knew, and only too well, what it would mean should they be there together; the lies, the despicable subterfuges, as though they were little less than criminals. It would be: ‘Mary, don’t hang about my bedroom—be careful . . . of course while we’re here at Morton . . . it’s my mother, she can’t understand these things; to her they would seem an outrage, an insult. . . .’ And then the guard set upon eyes and lips; the feeling of guilt at so much as a hand-touch; the pretence of a careless, quite usual friendship—‘Mary, don’t look at me as though you cared! you did this evening—remember my mother.’
Intolerable quagmire of lies and deceit! The degrading of all that to them was sacred—a very gross degrading of love, and through love a gross degrading of Mary. Mary . . . so loyal and as yet so gallant, but so pitifully untried in the war of existence. Warned only by words, the words of a lover, and what were mere words when it came to actions? And the ageing woman with the far-away eyes, eyes that could yet be so cruel, so accusing—they might turn and rest with repugnance on Mary, even as once they had rested on Stephen: ‘I would rather see you dead at my feet. . . .’ A fearful saying, and yet she had meant it, that ageing woman with the far-away eyes—she had uttered it knowing herself to be a mother. But that at least should be hidden from Mary.
She began to consider the ageing woman who had scourged her but whom she had so deeply wounded, and as she did so the depth of that wound made her shrink in spite of her bitter anger, so that gradually the anger gave way to a slow and almost reluctant pity. Poor, ignorant, blind, unreasoning woman; herself a victim, having given her body for Nature’s most inexplicable whim. Yes, there had been two victims already—must there now be a third—and that one Mary? She trembled. At that moment she could not face it, she was weak, she was utterly undone by loving. Greedy she had grown for happiness, for the joys and the peace that their union had brought her. She would try to minimize the whole thing; she would say: ‘It will only be for ten days; I must just run over about this business,’ then Mary would probably think it quite natural that she had not been invited to Morton and would ask no questions—she never asked questions. But would Mary think such a slight was quite natural? Fear possessed her; she sat there terribly afraid of this cloud that had suddenly risen to menace—afraid yet determined not to submit, not to let it gain power through her own acquiescence.
There was only one weapon to keep it at bay. Getting up she opened the window: ‘Mary!’
All unconscious the girl hurried in with David: ‘Did you call?’
‘Yes—come close. Closer . . . closer, sweetheart. . . .’
2
Shaken and very greatly humbled, Mary had let Stephen go from her to Morton. She had not been deceived by Stephen’s glib words, and had now no illusions regarding Anna Gordon. Lady Anna, suspecting the truth about them, had not wished to meet her. It was all quite clear, cruelly clear if it came to that matter—but these thoughts she had mercifully hidden from Stephen.
She had seen Stephen off at the station with a smile: ‘I’ll write every day. Do put on your coat, darling; you don’t want to arrive at Morton with a chill. And mind you wire when you get to Dover.’