The next morning she was often deeply depressed, in the grip of a rather tearful reaction: ‘It’s too beastly—why do we do it?’ she would ask.
And Stephen would answer: ‘God knows I don’t want to, but I won’t let you go to such places without me. Can’t we give it all up? It’s appallingly sordid!’
Then Mary would flare out with sudden anger, her mood changing as she felt a slight tug on the bridle. Were they to have no friends? she would ask. Were they to sit still and let the world crush them? If they were reduced to the bars of Paris, whose fault was that? Not hers and not Stephen’s. Oh, no, it was the fault of the Lady Annas and the Lady Masseys who had closed their doors, so afraid were they of contamination!
Stephen would sit with her head on her hand, searching her sorely troubled mind for some ray of light, some adequate answer.
4
That winter Barbara fell very ill. Jamie rushed round to the house one morning, hatless, and with deeply tormented eyes: ‘Mary, please come—Barbara can’t get up, it’s a pain in her side. Oh, my God—we quarrelled . . .’ Her voice was shrill and she spoke very fast: ‘Listen—last night—there was snow on the ground, it was cold—I was angry . . . I can’t remember . . . but I know I was angry—I get like that. She went out—she stayed out for quite two hours, and when she came back she was shivering so. Oh, my God, but why did we quarrel, whatever? She can’t move; it’s an awful pain in her side . . .’
Stephen said quietly: ‘We’ll come almost at once, but first I’m going to ring up my own doctor.’
5
Barbara was lying in the tiny room with the eye-shaped window that would not open. The stove had gone out in the studio, and the air was heavy with cold and dampness. On the piano lay some remnants of manuscript music torn up on the previous evening by Jamie.
Barbara opened her eyes: ‘Is that you, my bairn?’