Aunt Bella said "Pfoo-oof!" and waved her hands as if she were clearing
the air.

"All I can say is," Mamma said, "that if Lavvy Olivier brings her
Opinions into this house Emilius and I will walk out of it."

To-morrow--they were coming to-morrow, Uncle Victor and Aunt Lavvy and
Aunt Charlotte.


II.

They were coming to lunch, and everybody was excited.

Mark and Dank were in their trousers and Eton jackets, and Roddy in his
new black velvet suit. The drawing-room was dressed out in its green
summer chintzes that shone and crackled with glaze. Mamma had moved the
big Chinese bowl from the cabinet to the round mahogany table and filled
it with white roses. You could see them again in the polish; blurred
white faces swimming on the dark, wine-coloured pool. You held out your
face to be washed in the clear, cool scent of the white roses.

When Mark opened the door a smell of roast chicken came up the kitchen
stairs.

It was like Sunday, except that you were excited.

"Look at Papa," Roddy whispered. "Papa's excited."

Papa had come home early from the office. He stood by the fireplace in
the long tight frock-coat that made him look enormous. He had twirled
back his moustache to show his rich red mouth. He had put something on
his beard that smelt sweet. You noticed for the first time how the
frizzed, red-brown mass sprang from a peak of silky golden hair under his
pouting lower lip. He was letting himself gently up and down with the
tips of his toes, and he was smiling, secretly, as if he had just thought
of something that he couldn't tell Mamma. Whenever he looked at Mamma she
put her hand up to her hair and patted it.

Mamma had done her hair a new way. The brown plait stood up farther back
on the edge of the sloping chignon. She wore her new lavender and white
striped muslin. Lavender ribbon streamed from the pointed opening of her
bodice. A black velvet ribbon was tied tight round her neck; a jet cross
hung from it and a diamond star twinkled in the middle of the cross. She
pushed out her mouth and drew it in again, like Roddy's rabbit, and the
tip of her nose trembled as if it knew all the time what Papa was
thinking.

She was so soft and pretty that you could hardly bear it. Mark stood
behind her chair and when Papa was not looking he kissed her. The
behaviour of her mouth and nose gave you a delicious feeling that with
Aunt Lavvy and Aunt Charlotte you wouldn't have to be so very good.

The front door bell rang. Papa and Mamma looked at each other, as much as
to say, "_Now_ it's going to begin." And suddenly Mamma looked small and
frightened. She took Mark's hand.

"Emilius," she said, "what am I to say to Lavinia?"

"You don't say anything," Papa said. "Mary can talk to Lavinia."

Mary jumped up and down with excitement. She knew how it would be. In
another minute Aunt Charlotte would come in, dressed in her black lace
shawl and crinoline, and Aunt Lavvy would bring her Opinions. And
something, something that you didn't know, would happen.


III.

Aunt Charlotte came in first with a tight, dancing run. You knew her by
the long black curls on her shoulders. She was smiling as she smiled in
the album. She bent her head as she bent it in the album, and her eyes
looked up close under her black eyebrows and pointed at you.
Pretty--pretty blue eyes, and something frightening that made you look at
them. And something queer about her narrow jaw. It thrust itself forward,
jerking up her smile.

No black lace shawl and no crinoline. Aunt Charlotte wore a blue and
black striped satin dress, bunched up behind, and a little hat perched on
the top of her chignon and tied underneath it with blue ribbons.

She had got in and was kissing everybody while Aunt Lavvy and Uncle
Victor were fumbling with the hat stand in the hall.

Aunt Lavvy came next. A long grey face. Black bands of hair parted on her
broad forehead. Black eyebrows; blue eyes that stuck out wide, that
didn't point at you. A grey bonnet, a grey dress, a little white shawl
with a narrow fringe, drooping.

She walked slowly--slowly, as if she were still thinking of something
that was not in the room, as if she came into a quiet, empty room.

You thought at first she was never going to kiss you, she was so tall and
her face and eyes held themselves so still.

Uncle Victor. Dark and white; smaller than Papa, smaller than Aunt Lavvy;
thin in his loose frock-coat. His forehead and black eyebrows were
twisted above his blue, beautiful eyes. He had a small dark brown
moustache and a small dark brown beard, trimmed close and shaped prettily
to a point. He looked like something, like somebody; like Dank when he
was mournful, like Dank's dog, Tibby, when he hid from Papa. He said,
"Well, Caroline. Well, Emilius."

Aunt Charlotte gave out sharp cries of "Dear!" and "Darling!" and
smothered them against your face in a sort of moan.

When she came to Roddy she put up her hands.

"Roddy--yellow hair. No. No. What have you done with the blue eyes and
black hair, Emilius? That comes of letting your beard grow so long."

Then they all went into the dining-room.

It was like a birthday. There was to be real blancmange, and preserved
ginger, and you drank raspberry vinegar out of the silver christening
cups the aunts and uncles gave you when you were born. Uncle Victor had
given Mary hers. She held it up and read her own name on it.

   MARY VICTORIA OLIVIER
   1863.

They were all telling their names. Mary took them up and chanted them:
"Mark Emilius Olivier; Daniel Olivier; Rodney Olivier; Victor Justus
Olivier; Lavinia Mary Olivier; Charlotte Louisa Olivier." She liked the
sound of them.

She sat between Uncle Victor and Aunt Lavvy. Roddy was squeezed into the
corner between Mamma and Mark. Aunt Charlotte sat opposite her between
Mark and Daniel. She _had_ to look at Aunt Charlotte's face. There were
faint grey smears on it as if somebody had scribbled all over it with
pencil.

A remarkable conversation.

"Aunt Lavvy! Aunt Lavvy! Have you brought your Opinions?"

"No, my dear, they were not invited. So I left them at home."

"I'm glad to hear it," Papa said.

"Will you bring them next time?"

"No. Not next time, nor any other time," Aunt Lavvy said, looking
straight at Papa.

"Did you shut them up in the stair cupboard?"

"No, but I may have to some day."

"Then," Mary said, "if there are any little ones, may I have one?"

"May she, Emilius?"

"Certainly not," Papa said. "She's got too many little opinions of her
own."

"What do you know about opinions?" Uncle Victor said.

Mary was excited and happy. She had never been allowed to talk so much.
She tried to eat her roast chicken in a business-like, grown-up manner,
while she talked.

"I've read about them," she said. "They are dear little animals with long
furry tails, much bigger than Sarah's tail, and they climb up trees."

"Oh, they climb up trees, do they?" Uncle Victor was very polite and
attentive.

"Yes. There's their picture in Bank's Natural History Book. Next to the
Ornythrincus or Duck-billed Plat-i-pus. If they came into the house Mamma
would be frightened. But I would not be frightened. I should stroke
them."

"Do you think," Uncle Victor said, still politely, "you _quite_ know what
you mean?"

"_I_ know," Daniel said, "she means opossums."

"Yes," Mary said. "Opossums."

"What _are_ opinions?"

"Opinions," Papa said, "are things that people put in other people's
heads. Nasty, dangerous things, opinions."

She thought: "That was why Mamma and Papa were frightened."

"You won't put them into Mamma's head, will you, Aunt Lavvy?"

Mamma said, "Get on with your dinner. Papa's only teasing."

Aunt Lavvy's face flushed slowly, and she held her mouth tight, as if she
were trying not to cry. Papa was teasing Aunt Lavvy.

"How do you like that Ilford house, Charlotte?" Mamma asked suddenly.

"It's the nicest little house you ever saw," Aunt Charlotte said. "But
it's too far away. I'd rather have any ugly, poky old den that was next
door. I want to see all I can of you and Emilius and Dan and little
darling Mary. Before I go away."

"You aren't thinking of going away when you've only just come?"

"That's what Victor and Lavinia say. But you don't suppose I'm going to
stay an old maid all my life to please Victor and Lavinia."

"I haven't thought about it at all," Mamma said.

"_They_ have. _I_ know what they're thinking. But it's all settled. I'm
going to Marshall and Snelgrove's for my things. There's a silver-grey
poplin in their window. If I decide on it, Caroline, you shall have my
grey watered silk."

"You needn't waggle your big beard at me, Emilius," Aunt Charlotte said.

Papa pretended that he hadn't heard her and began to talk to Uncle
Victor.

"Did you read John Bright's speech in Parliament last night?"

Uncle Victor said, "I did."

"What did you think of it?"

Uncle Victor raised his shoulders and his eyebrows and spread out his
thin, small hands.

"A man with a face like that," Aunt Charlotte said, "oughtn't to _be_ in
Parliament."

"He's the man who saved England," said Papa.

"What's the good of that if he can't save himself? Where does he expect
to go to with the hats he wears?"

"Where does Emilius expect to go to," Uncle Victor said, "when his John
Bright and his Gladstone get their way?"

Suddenly Aunt Charlotte left off smiling.

"Emilius," she said, "do you uphold Gladstone?"

"Of course I uphold Gladstone. There's nobody in this country fit to
black his boots."

"I know nothing about his boots. But he's an infidel. He wants to pull
down the Church. I thought you were a Churchman?"

"So I am," Papa said. "I've too good an opinion of the Church to imagine
that it can't stand alone."

"You're a nice one to talk about opinions."

"At any rate I know what I'm talking about."

"I'm not so sure of that," said Aunt Charlotte.

Aunt Lavvy smiled gently at the pattern of the tablecloth.

"Do you agree with him, Lavvy?" Mamma had found something to say.

"I agree with him better than he agrees with himself."

A long conversation about things that interested Papa. Blanc-mange going
round the table, quivering and shaking and squelching under the spoon.

"There's a silver-grey poplin," said Aunt Charlotte, "at Marshall and
Snelgrove's."

The blanc-mange was still going round. Mamma watched it as it went. She
was fascinated by the shivering, white blanc-mange.

"If there was only one man in the world," Aunt Charlotte said in a loud
voice, "and he had a flowing beard, I wouldn't marry him."

Papa drew himself up. He looked at Mark and Daniel and Roddy as if he
were saying, "Whoever takes notice leaves the room."

Roddy laughed first. He was sent out of the room.

Papa looked at Mark. Mark clenched his teeth, holding his laugh down
tight. He seemed to think that as long as it didn't come out of his mouth
he was safe. It came out through his nose like a loud, tearing sneeze.
Mark was sent out of the room.

Daniel threw down his spoon and fork.

"If he goes, I go," Daniel said, and followed him.

Papa looked at Mary.

"What are _you_ grinning at, you young monkey?"

"Emilius," said Aunt Charlotte, "if you send another child out of the
room, I go too."

Mary squealed, "Tee-he-he-he-he-_hee_! Te-_hee_!" and was sent out of the
room.

She and Aunt Charlotte sat on the stairs outside the dining-room door.
Aunt Charlotte's arm was round her; every now and then it gave her a
sudden, loving squeeze.

"Darling Mary. Little darling Mary. Love Aunt Charlotte," she said.

Mark and Dank and Roddy watched them over the banisters.

Aunt Charlotte put her hand deep down in her pocket and brought out a
little parcel wrapped in white paper. She whispered:

"If I give you something to keep, will you promise not to show it to
anybody and not to tell?"

Mary promised.

Inside the paper wrapper there was a match-box, and inside the match-box
there was a china doll no bigger than your finger. It had blue eyes and
black hair and no clothes on. Aunt Charlotte held it in her hand and
smiled at it.

"That's Aunt Charlotte's little baby," she said. "I'm going to be married
and I shan't want it any more.

"There--take it, and cover it up, quick!"

Mamma had come out of the dining-room. She shut the door behind her.

"What have you given to Mary?" she said.

"Butter-Scotch," said Aunt Charlotte.


IV.

All afternoon till tea-time Papa and Uncle Victor walked up and down the
garden path, talking to each other. Every now and then Mark and Mary
looked at them from the nursery window.

That night she dreamed that she saw Aunt Charlotte standing at the foot
of the kitchen stairs taking off her clothes and wrapping them in white
paper; first, her black lace shawl; then her chemise. She stood up
without anything on. Her body was polished and shining like an enormous
white china doll. She lowered her head and pointed at you with her eyes.

When you opened the stair cupboard door to catch the opossum, you found a
white china doll lying in it, no bigger than your finger. That was Aunt
Charlotte.

In the dream there was no break between the end and the beginning. But
when she remembered it afterwards it split into two pieces with a dark
gap between. She knew she had only dreamed about the cupboard; but Aunt
Charlotte at the foot of the stairs was so clear and solid that she
thought she had really seen her.

Mamma had told Aunt Bella all about it when they talked together that
day, in the drawing-room. She knew because she could still see them
sitting, bent forward with their heads touching, Aunt Bella in the big
arm-chair by the hearth-rug, and Mamma on the parrot chair.

END OF BOOK ONE




BOOK TWO
CHILDHOOD (1869-1875)


VI


I.

When Christmas came Papa gave her another _Children's Prize_. This time
the cover was blue and the number on it was 1870. Eighteen-seventy was
the name of the New Year that was coming after Christmas. It meant that
the world had gone on for one thousand eight hundred and seventy years
since Jesus was born. Every year she was to have a _Children's Prize_
with the name of the New Year on it.

Eighteen-seventy was a beautiful number. It sounded nice, and there was a
seven in it. Seven was a sacred and holy number; so was three, because of
the three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and because of
the seven stars and the seven golden candlesticks. When you said
good-night to Mamma you kissed her either three times or seven times. If
you went past three you had to go on to seven, because something dreadful
would happen if you didn't. Sometimes Mamma stopped you; then you stooped
down and finished up on the hem of her dress, quick, before she could see
you.

She was glad that the _Children's Prize_ had a blue cover, because blue
was a sacred and holy colour. It was the colour of the ceiling in St.
Mary's Chapel at Ilford, and it was the colour of the Virgin Mary's
dress.

There were golden stars all over the ceiling of St. Mary's Chapel. Roddy
and she were sent there after they had had chicken-pox and when their
whooping-cough was getting better. They were not allowed to go to the
church at Barkingside for fear of giving whooping-cough to the children
in Dr. Barnardo's Homes; and they were not allowed to go to Aldborough
Hatch Church because of Mr. Propart's pupils. But they had to go to
church somewhere, whooping-cough or no whooping-cough, in order to get to
Heaven; so Mark took them to the Chapel of Ease at Ilford, where the
Virgin Mary in a blue dress stood on a sort of step over the door. Mamma
said you were not to worship her, though you might look at her. She was a
graven image. Only Roman Catholics worshipped graven images; they were
heretics; that meant that they were shut outside the Church of England,
which was God's Church, and couldn't get in. And they had only half a
Sunday. In Roman Catholic countries Sunday was all over at twelve
o'clock, and for the rest of the day the Roman Catholics could do just
what they pleased; they danced and went to theatres and played games, as
if Sunday was one of their own days and not God's day.

She wished she had been born in a Roman Catholic country.

Every night she took the _Children's Prize_ to bed with her to keep her
safe. It had Bible Puzzles in it, and among them there was a picture of
the Name of God. A shining white light, shaped like Mamma's vinaigrette,
with black marks in the middle. Mamma said the light was the light that
shone above the Ark of the Covenant, and the black marks were letters and
the word was the real name of God. She said he was sometimes called
Jehovah, but that was not his real name. His real name was a secret name
which nobody but the High Priest was allowed to say.

When you lay in the dark and shut your eyes tight and waited, you could
see the light, shaped like the vinaigrette, in front of you. It quivered
and shone brighter, and you saw in the middle, first, a dark blue colour,
and then the black marks that were the real name of God. She was glad she
couldn't read it, for she would have been certain to let it out some day
when she wasn't thinking.

Perhaps Mamma knew, and was not allowed to say it. Supposing she forgot?

At church they sang "Praise Him in His name Jah and rejoice before Him."
Jah was God's pet-name, short for Jehovah. It was a silly name--Jah.
Somehow you couldn't help thinking of God as a silly person; he was
always flying into tempers, and he was jealous. He was like Papa. Dank
said Papa was jealous of Mark because Mamma was so fond of him. There was
a picture of God in the night nursery. He had a big flowing beard, and a
very straight nose, like Papa, and he was lying on a sort of sofa that
was a cloud. Little Jesus stood underneath him, between the Virgin Mary
and Joseph, and the Holy Ghost was descending on him in the form of a
dove. His real name was Jesus Christ, but they called him Emmanuel.

   "There is a fountain filled with blood
    Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
    And sinners plunged beneath that flood
    Lose all their guilty stains."

That was another frightening thing. It would be like the
fountain in Aunt Bella's garden, with blood in it instead of
water. The goldfishes would die.

Mark was pleased when she said that Sarah wouldn't be allowed to go to
Heaven because she would try to catch the Holy Ghost.

Jesus was not like God. He was good and kind. When he grew up he was
always dressed in pink and blue, and he had sad dark eyes and a little,
close, tidy beard like Uncle Victor. You could love Jesus.

Jenny loved him. She was a Wesleyan; and her niece Catty was a Wesleyan.
Catty marched round and round the kitchen table with the dish-cloth,
drying the plates and singing:

   "'I love Jesus, yes, I do,
    _For_ the Bible tells me _to_!'"

and

   "'I am so glad that my Father in Heaven
     Tells of His love in the book He has given--
     I am so glad that Jesus loves me,
     Jesus loves me,
     Jesus loves even me!'"

On New Year's Eve Jenny and Catty went to the Wesleyan Chapel at Ilford
to sing the New Year in. Catty talked about the Old Year as if it was
horrid and the New Year as if it was nice. She said that at twelve
o'clock you ought to open the window wide and let the Old Year go out and
the New Year come in. If you didn't something dreadful would happen.

Downstairs there was a party. Uncle Victor and Aunt Lavvy and Aunt
Charlotte were there, and the big boys from Vinings and the Vicarage at
Aldborough Hatch. Mark and Dank and Roddy were sitting up, and Roddy had
promised to wake her when the New Year was coming.

He left the door open so that she could hear the clock strike twelve. She
got up and opened the windows ready. There were three in Mamma's room.
She opened them all.

The air outside was like clear black water and very cold. You couldn't
see the garden wall; the dark fields were close--close against the house.
One--Two--Three.

Seven--When the last stroke sounded the New Year would have come in.

Ten--Eleven--Twelve.

The bells rang out; the bells of Ilford, the bells of Barkingside, and
far beyond the flats and the cemetery there would be Bow bells, and
beyond that the bells of the City of London. They clanged together and
she trembled. The sounds closed over her; they left off and began again,
not very loud, but tight--tight, crushing her heart, crushing tears out
of her eyelids. When the bells stopped there was a faint whirring sound.
That was the Old Year, that was eighteen sixty-nine, going out by itself
in the dark, going away over the fields.

Mamma was not pleased when she came to bed and found the door and windows
open and Mary awake in the cot.


II.

At the end of January she was seven years old. Something was bound to
happen when you were seven.

She was moved out of Mamma's room to sleep by herself on the top floor in
the night nursery. And the day nursery was turned into the boys'
schoolroom.

When you were little and slept in the cot behind the curtain Mamma would
sometimes come and read you to sleep with the bits you wanted: "The Lord
is my Shepherd," and "Or ever the silver cord be loosed or the golden
bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain or the wheel
broken at the cistern," and "the city had no need of the sun, neither of
the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the
Lamb is the light thereof."

When you were frightened she taught you to say, "He that dwelleth in the
secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the
Almighty.... He shall cover thee with His feathers and under His wings
shalt thou trust.... Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night."
And you were allowed to have a night-light.

Now it was all different. You went to bed half an hour later, while Mamma
was dressing for dinner, and when she came to tuck you up the bell rang
and she had to run downstairs, quick, so as not to keep Papa waiting. You
hung on to her neck and untucked yourself, and she always got away before
you could kiss her seven times. And there was no night-light. You had to
read the Bible in the morning, and it always had to be the bits Mamma
wanted, out of Genesis and the Gospel of St. John.

You had to learn about the one God and the three Persons. The one God was
the nice, clever, happy God who made Mamma and Mark and Jenny and the sun
and Sarah and the kittens. He was the God you really believed in.

At night when you lay on your back in the dark you thought about being
born and about arithmetic and God. The sacred number three went into
eighteen sixty-nine and didn't come out again; so did seven. She liked
numbers that fitted like that with no loose ends left over. Mr. Sippett
said there were things you could do with the loose ends of numbers to
make them fit. That was fractions. Supposing there was somewhere in the
world a number that simply wouldn't fit? Mr. Sippett said there was no
such number. But queer things happened. You were seven years old, yet you
had had eight birthdays. There was the day you were born, January the
twenty-fourth, eighteen sixty-three, at five o'clock in the morning. When
you were born you weren't any age at all, not a minute old, not a second,
not half a second. But there was eighteen sixty-two and there was January
the twenty-third and the minute just before you were born. You couldn't
really tell when the twenty-third ended and the twenty-fourth began;
because when you counted sixty minutes for the hour and sixty seconds for
the minute, there was still the half second and the half of that, and so
on for ever and ever.

You couldn't tell when you were really born. And nobody could tell you
what being born was. Perhaps nobody knew. Jenny said being born was just
being born. Sarah's grandchildren were born in the garden under the wall
where the jasmine grew. Roddy shouted at the back door, and when you ran
to look he stretched out his arms across the doorway and wouldn't let you
through. Roddy was excited and frightened; and Mamma said he had been
very good because he stood across the door.

There was being born and there was dying. If you died this minute there
would be the minute after. Then, if you were good, your soul was in
Heaven and your body was cold and stiff like Miss Thompson's mother. And
there was Lazarus. "He hath been in the grave four days and by this time
he stinketh." That was dreadfully frightening; but they had to say it to
show that Lazarus was really dead. That was how you could tell.

"'Lord, if thou hadst been here our brother had not died.'"

That was beautiful. When you thought of it you wanted to cry.

Supposing Mamma died? Supposing Mark died? Or Dank or Roddy? Or even
Uncle Victor? Even Papa?

They couldn't. Jesus wouldn't let them.

When you were frightened in the big dark room you thought about God and
Jesus and the Holy Ghost. They didn't leave you alone a single minute.
God and Jesus stood beside the bed, and Jesus kept God in a good temper,
and the Holy Ghost flew about the room and perched on the top of the
linen cupboard, and bowed and bowed, and said, "Rook-ke-heroo-oo!
Rook-ke-keroo-oo!"

And there was the parroquet.

Mark had given her the stuffed parroquet on her birthday, and Mamma had
given her the Bible and the two grey china vases to make up, with a bird
painted on each. A black bird with a red beak and red legs. She had set
them up on the chimney-piece under the picture of the Holy Family. She
put the Bible in the middle and the parroquet on the top of the Bible and
the vases one on each side.

She worshipped them, because of Mamma and Mark.

She said to herself: "God won't like _that_, but I can't help it. The
kind, clever God won't mind a bit. He's much too busy making things. And
it's not as if they were graven images."


III.

Jenny had taken her for a walk to Ilford and they were going home to the
house in Ley Street.

There were only two walks that Jenny liked to go: down Ley Street to
Barkingside where the little shops were; and up Ley Street to Ilford and
Mr. Spall's, the cobbler's. She liked Ilford best because of Mr. Spall.
She carried your boots to Mr. Spall just as they were getting
comfortable; she was always ferreting in Sarah's cupboard for a pair to
take to him. Mr. Spall was very tall and lean; he had thick black
eyebrows rumpled up the wrong way and a long nose with a red knob at the
end of it. A dirty grey beard hung under his chin, and his long, shaved
lips curled over in a disagreeable way when he smiled at you.

When Jenny and Catty went to sing the New Year in at the Wesleyan Chapel
he brought them home. Jenny liked him because his wife was dead, and
because he was a Wesleyan and Deputy Grand Master of the Independent
Order of Good Templars. You had to shake hands with him to say good-bye.
He always said the same thing: "Next time you come, little Missy, I'll
show you the Deputy Regalia." But he never did.

To-day Jenny had made her stand outside in the shop, among the old boots
and the sheets of leather, while she and Mr. Spall went into the back
parlour to talk about Jesus. The shop smelt of leather and feet and
onions and of Mr. Spall, so that she was glad when they got out again.
She wondered how Jenny could bear to sit in the back parlour with Mr.
Spall.

Coming home at first she had to keep close by Jenny's side. Jenny was
tired and went slowly; but by taking high prancing and dancing steps she
could pretend that they were rushing along; and once they had turned the
crook of Ley Street she ran on a little way in front of Jenny. Then,
walking very fast and never looking back, she pretended that she had gone
out by herself.

When she had passed the row of elms and the farm, and the small brown
brick cottages fenced off with putty-coloured palings, she came to the
low ditches and the flat fields on either side and saw on her left the
bare, brown brick, pointed end of the tall house. It was called Five
Elms.

Further down the road the green and gold sign of The Green Man and the
scarlet and gold sign of the Horns Tavern hung high on white standards
set up in the road. Further down still, where Ley Street swerved slightly
towards Barkingside, three tall poplars stood in the slant of the swerve.

A queer white light everywhere, like water thin and clear. Wide fields,
flat and still, like water, flooded with the thin, clear light; grey
earth, shot delicately with green blades, shimmering. Ley Street, a grey
road, whitening suddenly where it crossed open country, a hard causeway
thrown over the flood. The high trees, the small, scattered cottages, the
two taverns, the one tall house had the look of standing up in water.

She saw the queer white light for the first time and drew in her breath
with a sharp check. She knew that the fields were beautiful.

She saw Five Elms for the first time: the long line of its old red-tiled
roof, its flat brown face; the three rows of narrow windows, four at the
bottom, with the front door at the end of the row, five at the top, five
in the middle; their red brick eye-brows; their black glassy stare
between the drawn-back curtains. She noticed how high and big the house
looked on its slender plot of grass behind the brick wall that held up
the low white-painted iron railing.

A tall iron gate between brown brick pillars, topped by stone balls. A
flagged path to the front door. Crocuses, yellow, white, white and
purple, growing in the border of the grass plot. She saw them for the
first time.

The front door stood open. She went in.

The drawing-room at the back was full of the queer white light. Things
stood out in it, sharp and suddenly strange, like the trees and houses in
the light outside: the wine-red satin stripes in the grey damask curtains
at the three windows; the rings of wine-red roses on the grey carpet; the
tarnished pattern on the grey wall-paper; the furniture shining like dark
wine; the fluted emerald green silk in the panel of the piano and the
hanging bag of the work-table; the small wine-red flowers on the pale
green chintz; the green Chinese bowls in the rosewood cabinet; the blue
and red parrot on the chair.

Her mother sat at the far end of the room. She was sorting beads into
trays in a box lined with sandal wood.

Mary stood at the doorway looking in, swinging her hat in her hand.
Suddenly, without any reason, she was so happy that she could hardly bear
it.

Mamma looked up. She said, "What are you doing standing there?"

She ran to her and hid her face in her lap. She caught Mamma's hands and
kissed them. They smelt of sandal wood. They moved over her hair with
slight quick strokes that didn't stay, that didn't care.

Mamma said, "There. That'll do. That'll do."

She climbed up on a chair and looked out of the window. She could see
Mamma's small beautiful nose bending over the tray of beads, and her
bright eyes that slid slantwise to look at her. And under the window she
saw the brown twigs of the lilac bush tipped with green.

Her happiness was sharp and still like the white light.

Mamma said, "What did you see when you were out with Jenny to-day?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? And what are you looking at?"

"Nothing, Mamma."

"Then go upstairs and take your things off. Quick!"

She went very slowly, holding herself with care, lest she should jar her
happiness and spill it.

One of the windows of her room was open. She stood a little while looking
out.

Beyond the rose-red wall of the garden she saw the flat furrowed field,
stripes of grey earth and vivid green. In the middle of the field the
five elms in a row, high and slender; four standing close together, one
apart. Each held up a small rounded top, fine as a tuft of feathers.

On her left towards Ilford, a very long row of high elms screened off the
bare flats from the village. Where it ended she saw Drake's Farm; black
timbered barns and sallow haystacks beside a clump of trees. Behind the
five elms, on the edge of the earth, a flying line of trees set wide
apart, small, thin trees, flying away low down under the sky.

She looked and looked. Her happiness mixed itself up with the queer light
and with the flat fields and the tall, bare trees.

She turned from the window and saw the vases that Mamma had given her
standing on the chimney-piece. The black birds with red beaks and red
legs looked at her. She threw herself on the bed and pressed her face
into the pillow and cried "Mamma! Mamma!"


IV.

Passion Week. It gave you an awful feeling of something going to happen.

In the long narrow dining-room the sunlight through the three windows
made a strange and solemn blue colour in the dark curtains. Mamma sat up
at the mahogany table, looking sad and serious, with the Prayer Book open
before her at the Litany. When you went in you knew that you would have
to read about the Crucifixion. Nothing could save you.

Still you did find out things about God. In the Epistle it said:
"'Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel and thy garments like him that
treadeth the wine-fat? I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the
people there was none with me: for I will tread them in my anger, and
trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my
garments, and I will stain all my raiment.'"

The Passion meant that God had flown into another temper and that Jesus
was crucified to make him good again. Mark said you mustn't say that to
Mamma; but he owned that it looked like it. Anyhow it was easier to think
of it that way than to think that God sent Jesus down to be crucified
because you were naughty.

There were no verses in the Prayer-Book Bible, only long grey slabs like
tombstones. You kept on looking for the last tombstone. When you came to
the one with the big black letters, THE KING OF THE JEWS, you knew that
it would soon be over.

"'They clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns and put it
on his head....'" She read obediently: "'And when the sixth hour was
come ... and when the sixth hour was come there was darkness over the whole
land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a
loud voice.... And Jesus cried with a loud voice ... with a loud voice,
and gave up the ghost.'"

Mamma was saying that the least you could do was to pay attention. But
you couldn't pay attention every time. The first time it was beautiful
and terrible; but after many times the beauty went and you were only
frightened. When she tried to think about the crown of thorns she thought
of the new hat Catty had bought for Easter Sunday and what Mr. Spall did
when he ate the parsnips.

Through the barred windows of the basement she could hear Catty singing
in the pantry:

   "'I am so glad that Jesus loves me,
     Jesus loves me,
     Jesus loves me....'"

Catty was happy when she sang and danced round and round with the
dish-cloth. And Jenny and Mr. Spall were happy when they talked about
Jesus. But Mamma was not happy. She had had to read the Morning Prayer
and the Psalms and the Lessons and the Litany to herself every morning;
and by Thursday she was tired and cross.

Passion Week gave you an awful feeling.

Good Friday would be the worst. It was the real day that Jesus died.
There would be the sixth hour and the ninth hour. Perhaps there would be
a darkness.

But when Good Friday came you found a smoking hot-cross bun on
everybody's plate at breakfast, tasting of spice and butter. And you went
to Aldborough Hatch for Service. She thought: "If the darkness does come
it won't be so bad to bear at Aldborough Hatch." She liked the new
white-washed church with the clear windows, where you could stand on the
hassock and look out at the green hill framed in the white arch. That was
Chigwell.

   "'There is a green hill far a-a-way
     Without a city wall--'"

The green hill hadn't got any city wall. Epping Forest and Hainault
Forest were there. You could think of them, or you could look at Mr.
Propart's nice clean-shaved face while he read about the Crucifixion and
preached about God's mercy and his justice. He did it all in a soothing,
inattentive voice; and when he had finished he went quick into the vestry
as if he were glad it was all over. And when you met him at the gate he
didn't look as if Good Friday mattered very much.

In the afternoon she forgot all about the sixth hour and the ninth hour.
Just as she was going to think about them Mark and Dank put her in the
dirty clothes-basket and rolled her down the back stairs to make her
happy. They shut themselves up in the pantry till she had stopped
laughing, and when Catty opened the door the clock struck and Mark said
that was the ninth hour.

It was all over. And nothing had happened. Nothing at all.

Only, when you thought of what had been done to Jesus, it didn't seem
right, somehow, to have eaten the hot-cross buns.


V.

Grandmamma and Grandpapa Olivier were buried in the City of London
Cemetery. A long time ago, so long that even Mark couldn't remember it,
Uncle Victor had brought Grandmamma in a coffin all the way from
Liverpool to London in the train.

On Saturday afternoon Mamma had to put flowers on the grave for Easter
Sunday, because of Uncle Victor and Aunt Lavvy. She took Roddy and Mary
with her. They drove in Mr. Parish's wagonette, and called for Aunt Lavvy
at Uncle Victor's tall white house at the bottom of Ilford High Street.
Aunt Lavvy was on the steps, waiting for them, holding a big cross of
white flowers. You could see Aunt Charlotte's face at the dining-room
window looking out over the top of the brown wire blind. She had her hat
on, as if she had expected to be taken too. Her eyes were sharp and
angry, and Uncle Victor stood behind her with his hand on her shoulder.

Aunt Lavvy gave Mary the flower cross and climbed stiffly into the
wagonette. Mary felt grown up and important holding the big cross on her
knee. The white flowers gave out a thick, sweet smell.

As they drove away she kept on thinking about Aunt Charlotte, and about
Uncle Victor bringing Grandmamma in a coffin in the train. It was very,
very brave of him. She was sorry for Aunt Charlotte. Aunt Charlotte had
wanted to go to the cemetery and they hadn't let her go. Perhaps she was
still looking over the blind, sharp and angry because they wouldn't let
her go.

Aunt Lavvy said, "We couldn't take Charlotte. It excited her too much
last time." As if she knew what you were thinking.

The wagonette stopped by the railway-crossing at Manor Park, and they got
out. Mamma told Mr. Parish to drive round to the Leytonstone side and
wait for them there at the big gates. They wanted to walk through the
cemetery and see what was to be seen.

Beyond the railway-crossing a muddy lane went along a field of coarse
grass under a hedge of thorns and ended at a paling. Roddy whispered
excitedly that they were in Wanstead Flats. The hedge shut off the
cemetery from the flats; through thin places in the thorn bushes you
could see tombstones, very white tombstones against very dark trees.
There was a black wooden door in the hedge for you to go in by. The lane
and the thorn bushes and the black door reminded Mary of something she
had seen before somewhere. Something frightening.

When they got through the black door there were no tombstones. What
showed through the hedge were the tops of high white pillars standing up
among trees a long way off. They had come into a dreadful, bare,
clay-coloured plain, furrowed into low mounds, as if a plough had gone
criss-cross over it.

You saw nothing but mounds. Some of them were made of loose earth; some
were patched over with rough sods that gaped in a horrible way. Perhaps
if you looked through the cracks you would see down into the grave where
the coffin was. The mounds had a fresh, raw look, as if all the people in
the City of London had died and been buried hurriedly the night before.
And there were no stones with names, only small, flat sticks at one end
of each grave to show where the heads were.

Roddy said, "We've got to go all through this to get to the other side."

They could see Mamma and Aunt Lavvy a long way on in front picking their
way gingerly among the furrows. If only Mark had been there instead of
Roddy. Roddy _would_ keep on saying: "The great plague of London. The
great plague of London," to frighten himself. He pointed to a heap of
earth and said it was the first plague pit.

In the middle of the ploughed-up plain she saw people in black walking
slowly and crookedly behind a coffin that went staggering on black legs
under a black pall. She tried not to look at them.

When she looked again they had stopped beside a heap that Roddy said was
the second plague pit. Men in black crawled out from under the coffin as
they put it down. She could see the bulk of it flattened out under the
black pall. Against the raw, ochreish ground the figures of two mutes
stood up, black and distinct in their high hats tied in the bunched out,
streaming weepers. There was something filthy and frightful about the
figures of the mutes. And when they dragged the pall from the coffin
there was something filthy and frightful about the action.

"Roddy," she said, "I'm frightened."

Roddy said, "So am I. I say, supposing we went back? By ourselves. Across
Wanstead Flats." He was excited.

"We mustn't. That would frighten Mamma."

"Well, then, we'll have to go straight through."

They went, slowly, between the rows of mounds, along a narrow path of
yellow clay that squeaked as their boots went in and out. Roddy held her
hand. They took care not to tread on the graves. Every step brought them
nearer to the funeral. They hadn't pointed it out to each other. They had
pretended it wasn't there. Now it was no use pretending; they could see
the coffin.

"Roddy--I can't--I can't go past the funeral."

"We've got to."

He looked at her with solemn eyes, wide open in his beautiful face. He
was not really frightened, he was only trying to be because he liked it.

They went on. The tight feeling under her waist had gone; her body felt
loose and light as if it didn't belong to her; her knees were soft and
sank under her. Suddenly she let go Roddy's hand. She stared at the
funeral, paralysed with fright.

At the end of the path Mamma and Aunt Lavvy stood and beckoned to them.
Aunt Lavvy was coming towards them, carrying her white flower cross. They
broke into a stumbling, nightmare run.

The bare clay plain stretched on past the place where Mamma and Aunt
Lavvy had turned. The mounds here were big and high. They found Mamma and
Aunt Lavvy standing by a very deep and narrow pit. A man was climbing up
out of the pit on a ladder. You could see a pool of water shining far
down at the bottom.

Mamma was smiling gently and kindly at the man and asking him why the
grave was dug so deep. He said, "Why, because this 'ere lot and that
there what you've come acrost is the pauper buryin' ground. We shovel 'em
in five at a time this end."

Roddy said, "Like they did in the great plague of London."

"I don't know about no plague. But there's five coffins in each of these
here graves, piled one atop of the other."

Mamma seemed inclined to say more to the grave-digger; but Aunt Lavvy
frowned and shook her head at her, and they went on to where a path of
coarse grass divided the pauper burying ground from the rest. They were
now quite horribly near the funeral. And going down the grass path they
saw another that came towards them; the palled coffin swaying on headless
shoulders. They turned from it into a furrow between the huddled mounds.
The white marble columns gleamed nearer among the black trees.

They crossed a smooth gravel walk into a crowded town of dead people.
Tombstones as far as you could see; upright stones, flat slabs, rounded
slabs, slabs like coffins, stone boxes with flat tops, broken columns;
pointed pillars. Rows of tall black trees. Here and there a single tree
sticking up stiffly among the tombstones. Very little trees that were
queer and terrifying. People in black moving about the tombstones. A
broad road and a grey chapel with pointed gables. Under a black tree a
square plot enclosed by iron railings.

Grandmamma and Grandpapa Olivier were buried in one half of the plot
under a white marble slab. In the other half, on the bare grass, a white
marble curb marked out a place for another grave.

Roddy said, "Who's buried there?"

Mamma said, "Nobody. Yet. That's for--"

Mary saw Aunt Lavvy frown again and put her finger to her mouth.

She said, "Who? For who?" An appalling curiosity and fear possessed her.
And when Aunt Lavvy took her hand she knew that the empty place was
marked out for Mamma and Papa.

Outside the cemetery gates, in the white road, the black funeral horses
tossed their heads and neighed, and the black plumes quivered on the
hearses. In the wagonette she sat close beside Aunt Lavvy, with Aunt
Lavvy's shawl over her eyes.

She wondered how she knew that you were frightened when Mamma didn't.
Mamma couldn't, because she was brave. She wasn't afraid of the funeral.

When Roddy said, "She oughtn't to have taken us, she ought to have known
it would frighten us," Mark was angry with him. He said, "She thought
you'd like it, you little beast. Because of the wagonette."

Darling Mamma. She had taken them because she thought they would like it.
Because of the wagonette. Because she was brave, like Mark.


VI.

Dead people really did rise. Supposing all the dead people in the City of
London Cemetery rose and came out of their graves and went about the
city? Supposing they walked out as far as Ilford? Crowds and crowds of
them, in white sheets? Supposing they got into the garden?

"Please, God, keep me from thinking about the Resurrection. Please God,
keep me from dreaming about coffins and funerals and ghosts and skeletons
and corpses." She said it last, after the blessings, so that God couldn't
forget. But it was no use.

If you said texts: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night."
"Yea, though I walk through the City of London Cemetery." It was no use.

   "The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall arise ... Incorruptible."

That was beautiful. Like a bright light shining. But you couldn't think
about it long enough. And the dreams went on just the same: the dream of
the ghost in the passage, the dream of the black coffin coming round the
turn of the staircase and squeezing you against the banister; the dream
of the corpse that came to your bed. She could see the round back and the
curled arms under the white sheet.

The dreams woke her with a sort of burst. Her heart was jumping about and
thumping; her face and hair were wet with water that came out of her
skin.

The grey light in the passage was like the ghost-light of the dreams.

Gas light was a good light; but when you turned it on Jenny came up and
put it out again. She said, "Goodness knows when you'll get to sleep with
_that_ light flaring."

There was never anybody about at bedtime. Jenny was dishing up the
dinner. Harriet was waiting. Catty only ran up for a minute to undo the
hooks and brush your hair.

When Mamma sent her to bed she came creeping back into the dining-room.
Everybody was eating dinner. She sickened with fright in the steam and
smell of dinner. She leaned her head against Mamma and whimpered, and
Mamma said in her soft voice, "Big girls don't cry because it's bed-time.
Only silly baby girls are afraid of ghosts."

Mamma wasn't afraid.

When she cried Mark left his dinner and carried her upstairs, past the
place where the ghost was, and stayed with her till Catty came.




VII


I.

"Minx! Minx! Minx!"

Mark had come in from the garden with Mamma. He was calling to Mary. Minx
was the name he had given her. Minx was a pretty name and she loved it
because he had given it her. Whenever she heard him call she left what
she was doing and ran to him.

Papa came out of the library with Boag's Dictionary open in his hand.
"'Minx: A pert, wanton girl. A she-puppy.' Do you hear that, Caroline? He
calls his sister a wanton she-puppy." But Mamma had gone back into the
garden.

Mark stood at the foot of the stairs and Mary stood at the turn. She had
one hand on the rail of the banister, the other pressed hard against the
wall. She leaned forward on tiptoe, measuring her distance. When she
looked at the stairs they fell from under her in a grey dizziness, so
that Mark looked very far away.

They waited till Papa had gone back into the library--Mark held out his
arms.

"Jump, Minky! Jump!"

She let go the rail and drew herself up. A delicious thrill of danger
went through her and out at her fingers. She flung herself into space and
Mark caught her. His body felt hard and strong as it received her. They
did it again and again.

That was the "faith-jump." You knew that you would be killed if Mark
didn't catch you, but you had faith that he would catch you; and he
always did.

Mark and Dan were going to school at Chelmsted on the thirteenth of
September, and it was the last week in August now. Mark and Mamma were
always looking for each other. Mamma would come running up to the
schoolroom and say, "Where's Mark? Tell Mark I want him"; and Mark would
go into the garden and say, "Where's Mamma? I want her." And Mamma would
put away her trowel and gardening gloves and go walks with him which she
hated; and Mark would leave Napoleon Buonaparte and the plan of the
Battle of Austerlitz to dig in the garden (and he loathed digging) with
Mamma.

This afternoon he had called to Mary to come out brook-jumping. Mark
could jump all the brooks in the fields between Ilford and Barkingside,
and in the plantations beyond Drake's Farm; he could jump the Pool of
Siloam where the water from the plantations runs into the lake below
Vinings. Where there was no place for a little girl of seven to cross he
carried her in his arms and jumped. He would stand outside in the lane
and put his hands on the wall and turn heels over head into the garden.

She said to herself: "In six years and five months I shall be fourteen. I
shall jump the Pool of Siloam and come into the garden head over heels."
And Mamma called her a little humbug when she said she was afraid to go
for a walk with Jenny lest a funeral should be coming along the road.