Part 9 (1/2)
And then, when one morning, Mary said--
”I've been thinking, f.a.n.n.y--why shouldn't I turn that room looking over the garden into a bedroom? We're awfully cramped here. It's just like us to go on with the same arrangements, merely because we're used to them.”
Then f.a.n.n.y knew, and her knowledge was more of an upheaval in her mind than any thought of this revolution against the placid routine of their existence. So much greater was it that she could not even bestir herself to resentment against Mary for preferring to be alone.
The thought crossed her mind--
”How do I interfere with her? It's awfully selfish of her to want to be alone. It isn't as if we hadn't shared the same room for years.”
Such thoughts as these would have been poignant at any other time. Mary was prepared for the a.s.sertion of them. But they seemed idle to f.a.n.n.y then--foolish and utterly devoid of purpose.
She sat on the side of her bed, staring at Mary busily engaged in doing her hair. And she knew so well what the meaning of that centered occupation was. Such a moment she would have chosen herself for an announcement of that nature.
Mary was in love, and with a man who had a wife already. She was surprised in her own soul at the littleness of weight the second half of that realization carried in her thoughts. She did not ask herself what--this being so--Mary was going to do about it. As a problem of impenetrable solution, it meant scarcely anything to her. All that kept repeating itself in her mind was just the knowledge that Mary was in love--Mary was in love.
She felt a sickness in her throat. It was not of fear. It was not exactly of joy. She might have been seized of an ague, for she trembled. The sensation was like waves breaking over her; as though she were in water, fathoms deep, and were struggling to keep her lips above the surface that she might breathe freely. But she could not breathe; only in stolen moments, as if breath were no longer hers to hold.
Mary was in love. She wanted that room by herself so that at night she could lie alone with her thoughts and none could touch or spoil them with their presence. She wanted that room alone so that in the morning she could wake with none but her thoughts beside her. She was in love.
Suddenly the world to f.a.n.n.y seemed bitter and black and cold. She was out of it. It had gone by. She was left there on the roadside--trembling.
Love was the magic by which she herself could be revealed to herself when, coming upon this sudden knowledge of Mary, it was that she realized there was no magic in the world for her.
She was alone, unloved, unloving. In that there was merely consciousness, a staring, hungry consciousness of herself. Only in the abandonment of generosity that came with love could she find any meaning in her soul. Only by giving could she gain.
The tragedy of f.a.n.n.y Throgmorton and the countless women that are like her was that she had none to whom she could give.
All this, without a word in her thoughts that could have given it expression, was what she felt about Mary as she sat on her bedside that morning and watched her sister doing her hair.
VI
Jane made the discovery for herself, but by chance.
One morning when Mary had gone out, indicating the likelihood of her playing a game of golf, Jane put on her oldest hat, took the path through the marshes which avoided the necessity of going through the village where she would be seen and criticized for her clothes, and went alone up onto the cliffs beyond Penlock.
These were rare, but definite, occasions with her. She felt the necessity of them at unexpected intervals as a Catholic, apart from Saints' days and Holy days, feels the necessity of confession and straightway, in the midst of business hours or household duties, seeks out the priest and speaks his mind.
To Jane, those lonely walks with the solemn solitude of those cliffs, were confessional moments when, setting herself at a distance which that wide environment could lend her, she could look on at herself, could calmly inspect and almost dispa.s.sionately criticize.
She went without knowledge of her purposes. It was just for a walk, she said, and if questioned why she insisted upon going alone, she would find herself becoming angry at their curiosity.
”Mayn't I sometimes like my own company better than anybody else's?” she would ask shortly and that was about all she knew definitely of these confessional calls. If she was aware of any mental exercise during those walks, it was in momentary observations of Nature, a lark soaring, a flight of gulls upon the water, the life of that farm in the hollow above Penlock. Of that inquisitorial examination of herself, practically she knew nothing. It took place behind the bolts of doors, all sound of it shut out, barring admittance to her conscious self.
Coming back for the midday meal she would say to Hannah across the table--
”How you can stick in the house all day, one week after another, beats me. It was perfectly lovely this morning up there on the moors. We all make life so automatic here that one might as well put a penny in the slot and have finished with it. It's only a pennyworth we get.”
From this they received the impression she had also given to herself, that she had been drinking in the beauties of the countryside. If she had, it was but a sip of wine at the altar where she had been kneeling in inmost meditation.