They turned at the ford into the field path that led to Drake's Farm and
the plantation. He jumped all the stiles and she vaulted them. She could
see that he respected her. And so they came to the big water jump into
the plantation. Mr. Ponsonby went over first and held out his arms. She
hurled herself forward and he caught her. And this time, instead of
putting her down instantly, he lifted her up in his arms and held her
tight and kissed her. Her heart thumped violently and she had a sudden
happy feeling. Neither spoke.

Humphrey Propart had kissed her once for a forfeit. And she had boxed his
ears. Mr. Ponsonby's was a different sort of kiss.

They tore through the plantation as if nothing had happened, clearing all
the brooks in a business-like way. Mr. Ponsonby took brook-jumping as the
serious and delightful thing it was.

Going home across the fields they held each other's hands, like children.
"Minky," he said, "I don't like to think of you hanging out of top-storey
windows."

"But it's so jolly to feel your body come squirming up after your arms."

"It is. It is. All the same, promise me you won't do it any more."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to India when I've passed out, and I want to find you
alive when I come back. Promise me, Minky."

"I will, if you're really going. But you're the only person I allow to
call me Minky, except Mark."

"Am I? I'm glad I'm the only person."

They went on.

"I'm afraid," she said, "my hand is getting very hot and horrid."

He held it tighter. "I don't care how hot and horrid it gets. And I think
you might call me Jimmy."

It was long after six o'clock. She had forgotten the children and their
bed-time. After that day she never played with them again.


V.

"If I were you," Mamma said, "I should put away that box of books. You'll
be no use if you read--read--read all day long."

"You oughtn't to say that, Mamma. I _am_ of use. You know I can make the
sewing-machine go when you can't."

Mamma smiled. She knew it.

"And which would you rather took you over the crossing at the Bank? Me or
Papa?"

Mamma smiled again. She knew she was safer with Mary at a crossing,
because Papa teased her and frightened her before he dragged her over.
But Mary led her gently, holding back the noses of the horses.

"There's that Locke on the human understanding," said Mamma. "Poor Jimmy
was frightened when he found you reading it."

"He wasn't. He was most awfully pleased and excited."

"He was laughing at you."

"He wasn't. He wasn't."

"Of course he was laughing at you. What did you think he was doing?"

"I thought he was interested."

"He wasn't, then. Men," Mamma said, "are _not_ interested in little
book-worms. He told me it was very bad for you."

Shame again. Hot, burning and scalding shame. He was only laughing at
her.

"Mark doesn't laugh at me," she said. The thought of Mark and of his love
for her healed her wound.

"A precious deal," Mamma said, "you know about Mark."

Mamma was safe. Oh, she was safe. She knew that Mark loved her best.


VI.

On the cover of Pinnock's Catechism there was a small black picture of
the Parthenon. And under it was written:

"Abode of gods whose shrines no longer burn."

Supposing the candles in St. Mary's Chapel no longer burned?

Supposing Barkingside church and Aldborough Hatch church fell to bits and
there were no more clergymen? And you only read in history books about
people like Mr. Batty and Mr. Propart and their surplices and the things
they wore round their necks?

Supposing the Christian religion passed away?

It excited you to think these things. But when you heard the "Magnificat"
in church, or when you thought of Christ hanging so bravely on the cross
you were sorry and you stopped thinking.

What a pity you couldn't ever go on without having to stop.

END OF BOOK TWO




BOOK THREE
ADOLESCENCE (1876-1879)


XII


I.

Mary went slowly up the lane between the garden wall and the thorn hedge.

The air, streaming towards her from the flat fields, had the tang of
cold, glittering water; the sweet, grassy smell of the green corn blades
swam on it. The young thorn leaves smelt of almonds and of their own
bitter green.

The five trees stood up, thin and black, in an archway of golden white
fire. The green of their young leaves hung about them like an emanation.

A skylark swung himself up, a small grey ball, spinning over the tree
tops to the arch of the sunset. His song pierced and shook, like the
golden white light. With each throb of his wings he shrank, smaller and
greyer, a moth, a midge, whirling in the luminous air. A grey ball
dropped spinning down.

By the gate of the field her sudden, secret happiness came to her.

She could never tell when it was coming, nor what it would come from. It
had something to do with the trees standing up in the golden white light.
It had come before with a certain sharp white light flooding the fields,
flooding the room.

It had happened so often that she received it now with a shock of
recognition; and when it was over she wanted it to happen again. She
would go back and back to the places where it had come, looking for it,
thinking that any minute it might happen again. But it never came twice
to the same place in the same way.

Catty was calling to her from the bottom of the lane. She stood still by
the gate, not heeding Catty, holding her happiness. When she had turned
from the quiet fields it would be gone.


II.

Sometimes she had queer glimpses of the persons that were called Mary
Olivier. There was Mrs. Olivier's only daughter, proud of her power over
the sewing-machine. When she brought the pile of hemmed sheets to her
mother her heart swelled with joy in her own goodness. There was Mark
Olivier's sister, who rejoiced in the movements of her body, the strain
of the taut muscles throbbing on their own leash, the bound forwards, the
push of the wind on her knees and breast, the hard feel of the ground
under her padding feet. And there was Mary Olivier, the little girl of
thirteen whom her mother and Aunt Bella whispered about to each other
with mysterious references to her age.

Her secret happiness had nothing to do with any of these Mary Oliviers.
It was not like any other happiness. It had nothing to do with Mamma or
Dan or Roddy, or even Mark. It had nothing to do with Jimmy.

She had cried when Jimmy went away, and she would cry again to-night when
she thought about him. Jimmy's going away was worse than anything that
had happened yet or could happen till Mark went to India. That would be
the worst thing.

Jimmy had not gone to India as he had said. He had had to leave Woolwich
because of something he had done, and his father had sent him to
Australia. He had gone without saying good-bye, and he was never coming
back. She would never in all her life see Jimmy again.

Jimmy had done something dreadful.

Nobody but Mamma and Papa and Mark knew what he had done; but from the
way they talked you could see that it was one of those things you mustn't
talk about. Only Mark said he didn't believe he really had done it.

Last Sunday she had written a letter to him which Mark posted:

"Dear Jimmy,--I think you might have come to say good-bye to us, even if
Papa and Mamma do think you've done something you oughtn't to. I want you
to know that Mark and I don't believe you did it, and even if you did it
won't make any difference. I shall always love you just the same, next
best to Mark. You can't expect me to love you really best, because he
will always come first as long as I live. I hope you will be very happy
in Australia. I shall keep my promise just the same, though it's
Australia and not India you've gone to.

"With love, ever your loving

"Minky.

"P.S. No. 1.--I'm reading a new poet--Byron. There was a silly woman who
said she'd rather have the fame of Childe Harold than the immortality of
Don Juan. But I'd rather have the immortality, wouldn't you?

"P.S. No. 2.--Do you think that you will keep Kangaroos? They might help
to make you happy."


III.

Mary was picking French beans in the kitchen garden when Mamma and Aunt
Bella came along the path, talking together. The thick green walls of the
runners hid her.

"Mary is getting very precocious," said Mamma.

"That comes from being brought up with boys," said Aunt Bella. "She ought
to see more girls of her own age."

"She doesn't like them."

Mary shouted "Cuckoo!" to warn them, but they wouldn't stop.

"It's high time," Aunt Bella said, "that she should learn to like them.
The Draper girls are too old. But there's that little Bertha Mitchison."

"I haven't called on Mrs. Mitchison for two years."

"And why haven't you, Caroline?"

"Because I can't afford to be always hiring wagonettes to go to Woodford
Bridge."

"Cuckoo!"

"Caroline--do you think she could have heard?"

"Cuckoo, Aunt Bella! Cuckoo!"


IV.

On the high road the white dust had a clear, sharp, exciting smell. At
the wet edges of the ford it thickened.

When you shut your eyes you could still see Bertha's scarlet frock on the
white bridge path and smell the wet earth at the edges of the ford.

You were leaning over the white painted railing of the bridge when she
began. The water flowed from under the little tunnel across the road into
the field beyond. Deep brown under the tunnel, tawny in the shallow ford,
golden patches where the pebbles showed through, and the water itself, a
sheet of thin crystal, running over the colours, sliding through them,
running and sliding on and on.

There was nothing in the world so beautiful as water, unless it was
light. But water was another sort of light.

Bertha pushed her soft sallow face into yours. Her big black eyes bulged
out under her square fringe. Her wide red mouth curled and glistened.
There were yellowish stains about the roots of her black hair. Her mouth
and eyes teased you, mocked you, wouldn't let you alone.

Bertha began: "I know something you don't know."

You listened. You couldn't help listening. You simply had to know. It was
no use to say you didn't believe a word of it. Inside you, secretly, you
knew it was true. You were frightened. You trembled and went hot and cold
by turns, and somehow that was how you knew it was true; almost as if you
had known all the time.

"Oh, shut up! I don't _want_ to hear about it."

"Oh, don't you? You did a minute ago."

"Of course I did, when I didn't know. Who wouldn't? I don't want to know
any more."

"I like that. After I've told you everything. What's the good of putting
your fingers in your ears _now_?"

There was that day; and there was the next day when she was sick of
Bertha. On the third day Bertha went back to Woodford Bridge.


V.

It was dreadful and at the same time funny when you thought of Mr. Batty
and Mr. Propart with their little round hats and their black coats and
their stiff, dignified faces. And there was Uncle Edward and his
whiskers. It couldn't be true.

Yet all true things came like that, with a queer feeling, as if you
remembered them.

Jenny's wedding dress. It would be true even of Jenny. Mamma had said she
would rather see her in her coffin than married to Mr. Spall. That was
why.

But--if it was true of everybody it would be true of Mamma and Papa. That
was what you hated knowing. If only you had gone on looking at the water
instead of listening to Bertha--

Mamma's face, solemn and tender, when you said your prayers, playing with
the gold tassel of her watch-chain. Papa's face, on your birthday, when
he gave you the toy lamb. She wouldn't like you to know about her. Mark
wouldn't like it.

Mark: her mind stood still. Mark's image stood still in clean empty
space. When she thought of her mother and Mark she hated Bertha.

And there was Jimmy. That was why they wouldn't talk about him.

Jimmy. The big water-jump into the plantation. Jimmy's arms, the throb of
the hard muscles as he held you. Jimmy's hand, your own hand lying in it,
light and small. Jimmy's eyes, looking at you and smiling, as if they
said, "It's all right, Minky, it's all right."

Perhaps when Papa was young Mamma thought about him as you thought about
Jimmy; so that it couldn't be so very dreadful, after all.




XIII


I.

Mary was glad when Bertha went away to school. When the new year came and
she was fourteen she had almost forgotten Bertha. She even forgot for
long stretches of time what Bertha had told her. But not altogether.

Because, if it was true, then the story of the Virgin Mary was not true.
Jesus couldn't have been born in the way the New Testament said he was
born. There was no such thing as the Immaculate Conception. You could
hardly be expected to believe in it once you knew why it couldn't have
happened.

And if the Bible could deceive you about an important thing like that, it
could deceive you about the Incarnation and the Atonement. You were no
longer obliged to believe in that ugly business of a cruel, bungling God
appeased with bloodshed. You were not obliged to believe anything just
because it was in the Bible.

But--if you didn't, you were an Infidel.

She could hear Aunt Bella talking to Uncle Edward, and Mrs. Farmer and
Mrs. Propart whispering: "Mary is an Infidel."

She thought: "If I _am_ I can't help it." She was even slightly elated,
as if she had set out on some happy, dangerous adventure.


II.

Nobody seemed to know what Pantheism was. Mr. Propart smiled when you
asked him and said it was something you had better not meddle with. Mr.
Farmer said it was only another word for atheism; you might as well have
no God at all as be a pantheist. But if "pan" meant "all things," and
"theos" was God--

Perhaps it would be in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_. The Encyclopaedia
told you all about Australia. There was even a good long bit about Byron,
too.

Panceput--Panegyric--Pantheism! There you were. Pantheism is "that
speculative system which by absolutely identifying the Subject and Object
of thought, reduces all existence, mental and material, to phenomenal
modifications of one eternal, self-existent Substance which is called by
the name of God.... All things are God."

When you had read the first sentence five or six times over and looked up
"Subject" and "Object" and "Phenomenal," you could see fairly well what
it meant. Whatever else God might be, he was not what they said,
something separate and outside things, something that made your mind
uncomfortable when you tried to think about it.

"This universe, material and mental, is nothing but the spectacle of the
thoughts of God."

You might have known it would be like that. The universe, going on inside
God, as your thoughts go on inside you; the universe, so close to God
that nothing could be closer. The meaning got plainer and plainer.

There was Spinoza. ("Spinning--Spinoza.") The Encyclopaedia man said that
the Jewish priests offered him a bribe of two thousand florins to take
back what he had said about God; and when he refused to take back a word
of it, they cursed him and drove him out of their synagogue.

Spinoza said, "There is no substance but God, nor can any other be
conceived." And the Encyclopaedia man explained it. "God, as the infinite
substance, with its infinity of attributes is the _natura naturans_. As
the infinity of modes under which his attributes are manifested, he is
the _natura naturata_."

Nature naturing would be the cause, and Nature natured would be the
effect. God was both.

"God is the immanent"--indwelling--"but not the transient cause of all
things" ... "Thought and Extension are attributes of the one absolute
substance which is God, evolving themselves in two parallel streams, so
to speak, of which each separate body and spirit are but the waves. Body
and Soul are apparently two, but really one and they have no independent
existence: They are parts of God.... Were our knowledge of God capable of
present completeness we might attain to perfect happiness but such is not
possible. Out of the infinity of his attributes only two, Thought and
Extension, are accessible to us while the modes of these attributes,
being essentially infinite, escape our grasp."

So this was the truth about God. In spite of the queer words it was very
simple. Much simpler than the Trinity. God was not three incomprehensible
Persons rolled into one, not Jesus, not Jehovah, not the Father creating
the world in six days out of nothing, and muddling it, and coming down
from heaven into it as his own son to make the best of a bad job. He was
what you had felt and thought him to be as soon as you could think about
him at all. The God of Baruch Spinoza was the God you had wanted, the
only sort of God you cared to think about. Thinking about him--after the
Christian God--was like coming out of a small dark room into an immense
open space filled with happy light.

And yet, as far back as you could remember, there had been a regular
conspiracy to keep you from knowing the truth about God. Even the
Encyclopaedia man was in it. He tried to put you off Pantheism. He got
into a temper about it and said it was monstrous and pernicious and
profoundly false and that the heart of man rose up in revolt against it.
He had begun by talking about "attempts to transgress the fixed
boundaries which One wiser than we has assigned to our intellectual
operations." Perhaps he was a clergyman. Clergymen always put you off
like that; so that you couldn't help suspecting that they didn't really
know and were afraid you would find them out. They were like poor little
frightened Mamma when she wouldn't let you look at the interesting bits
beyond the place she had marked in your French Reader. And they were
always apologising for their God, as if they felt that there was
something wrong with him and that he was not quite real.

But to the pantheists the real God was so intensely real that, compared
with him, being alive was not quite real, it was more like dreaming.

Another thing: the pantheists--the Hindu ones and the Greeks, and Baruch
Spinoza--were heathen, and the Christians had tried to make you believe
that the heathen went to hell because they didn't know the truth about
God. You had been told one lie on the top of another. And all the time
the truth was there, in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.

Who would have thought that the Encyclopaedia could have been so
exciting?

The big puce-coloured books stood in a long row in the bottom shelf
behind her father's chair. Her heart thumped when she gripped the volumes
that contained the forbidden knowledge of the universe. The rough morocco
covers went Rr-rr-rimp, as they scraped together; and there was the sharp
thud as they fell back into their place when she had done with them.
These sounds thrilled her with a secret joy. When she was away from the
books she liked to think of them standing there on the hidden shelf,
waiting for her. The pages of "Pantheism" and "Spinoza" were white and
clean, and she had noticed how they had stuck together. Nobody had opened
them. She was the first, the only one who knew and cared.


III.

She wondered what Mark and her mother would say when they knew. Perhaps
Mark would say she ought not to tell her mother if it meant letting out
that the Bible said things that were not really true. His idea might be
that if Mamma wanted to believe in Jehovah and the Atonement through
Christ's blood, it would be unkind to try and stop her. But who on earth
_would_ want to believe that dreadful sort of thing if they could help
it? Papa might not mind, because as long as he knew that he and Mamma
would get into heaven all right he wouldn't worry so much about other
people. But Mamma was always worrying about them and making you give up
things to them; and she must be miserable when she thought of them
burning in hell for ever and ever, and when she tried to reconcile God's
justice with his mercy. To say nothing of the intellectual discomfort she
was living in. When you had found out the real, happy truth about God, it
didn't seem right to keep it to yourself.

She decided that she would tell her mother.

Mark was in the Royal Field Artillery now. He was away at Shoeburyness.
If she put it off till he came home again she might never do it. When
Mamma had Mark with her she would never listen to anything you had to
say.

Next Sunday was Epiphany. Sunday afternoon would be a good time.

But Aunt Lavvy came to stay from Saturday to Monday. And it rained. All
morning Mamma and Aunt Lavvy sat in the dining-room, one on each side of
the fireplace. Aunt Lavvy read James Martineau's _Endeavours After the
Christian Life_, and Mamma read "The Pulpit in the Family" out of the
_Sunday At Home_. Somehow you couldn't do it with Aunt Lavvy in the room.

In the afternoon when she went upstairs to lie down--perhaps.

But in the afternoon Mamma dozed over the _Sunday At Home_. She was so
innocent and pretty, nodding her head, and starting up suddenly, and
looking round with a smile that betrayed her real opinion of Sunday. You
couldn't do it while she dozed.

Towards evening it rained again and Aunt Lavvy went off to Ilford for the
Evening Service, by herself. Everybody else stayed at home, and there was
hymn-singing instead of church. Mary and her mother were alone together.
When her mother had sung the last hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light," then she
would do it.

Her mother was singing:

   "'Jesu, Lover of my soul,
      Let me to Thy bosom fly,
    While the nearer wa-a-ters roll,
      While the tempest still is high'"--

She could see the stiff, slender muscles straining in her mother's neck.
The weak, plaintive voice tore at her heart. She knew that her mother's
voice was weak and plaintive. Its thin, sweet notes unnerved her.

   "'Other refuge ha-ave I none:
      Hangs my helpless soul on Thee'"--

Helpless--Helpless. Mamma was helpless. It was only her love of Mark and
Jesus that was strong. Something would happen if she told her--something
awful. She could feel already the chill of an intolerable separation. She
could give up Jesus, the lover of her soul, but she could not give up her
mother. She couldn't live separated from Mamma, from the weak, plaintive
voice that tore at her.

She couldn't do it.


IV.

Catty's eyes twinkled through the banisters. She caught Mary coming
downstairs and whispered that there was cold boiled chicken and trifle
for supper, because of Aunt Lavvy.

Through the door Mary could see her father standing at the table, and the
calm breasts of the cold chicken smoothed with white sauce and decorated
with beetroot stars.

There was a book beside Papa's plate, the book Aunt Lavvy had been
reading. She had left it open on the drawing-room table when she went to
church. She was late for supper and they sat there waiting for her. She
came in, slowly as usual, and looking at the supper things as though they
were not there. When she caught sight of the book something went up and
flickered in her eyes--a sort of triumph.

You couldn't help thinking that she had left it lying about on purpose,
so that Papa should see it.

He stood waiting till she had sat down. He handed the book to her. His
eyes gleamed.

"When you come here," he said, "you will be good enough to leave James
Martineau behind you."

Mamma looked up, startled. "You don't mean to say you've brought that
man's books into the house?"

"You can see for yourself, Caroline," said Aunt Lavvy.

"I don't want to see. No, Mary, it has nothing to do with you."

Mamma was smiling nervously. You would have supposed that she thought
James Martineau funny, but the least bit improper.

"But look, Mamma, it's his _Endeavours After the Christian Life_."

Her mother took up the book and put it down as if it had bitten her.

"Christian Life, indeed! What right has James Martineau to call himself a
Christian? When he denies Christ--the Lord who bought him! And makes no
secret of it. How can you respect an infidel who uses Christ's name to
cover up his blasphemy?"

Aunt Lavvy was smiling now.

"I thought you said he made no secret of it?"

Mamma said, "You know very well what I mean."

"If you knew Dr. Martineau--"

"You've no business to know him," Emilius said, "when your brother Victor
and I disapprove of him."

Emilius was carving chicken. He had an air of kindly, luscious
hospitality, hesitating between the two flawless breasts.

"Dr. Martineau is the wisest and holiest man I ever knew," said Aunt
Lavvy.

"I daresay your sister Charlotte thinks Mr. Marriott the wisest and the
holiest man _she_ ever knew."

He settled the larger breast on Aunt Lavvy's plate and laid on it one
perfect star of beetroot. He could do that while he insulted her.

"Oh--Papa--you _are_ a br--"

Aunt Lavvy shook her gentle head.

"Lavinia dear" (Mamma's voice was gentle), "did you have a nice service?"

"Very nice, thank you."

"Did you go to Saint Mary's, or the Parish church?"

Aunt Lavvy's straight, flat chin trembled slightly. Her pale eyes
lightened. "I went to neither."

"Then---where did you go?"

"If you insist on knowing, Caroline, I went to Mr. Robson's church."

"You went to Mr.--to the Unitarian Chapel?"

"To the Unitarian Chapel."

"Emilius--" You would have thought that Aunt Lavvy had hit Mamma and hurt
her.

Emilius took up his table napkin and wiped his moustache carefully. He
was quite horribly calm.

"You will oblige me by not going there again," he said.

"You forget that I went every Sunday when we were in Liverpool."

"You forget that is the reason why you left Liverpool."

"Only one of the reasons, I think."

"Can you tell me what reason you have for going now? Beyond your desire
to make yourself different from other people."

"Aren't Unitarians other people?"

She poured out a glass of water and drank. She was giving herself time.

"My reason," she said, "is that I have joined the Unitarian Church."

Mamma put down her knife and fork. Her lips opened and her face turned
suddenly sharp and sallow as if she were going to faint.

"You don't mean to say you've gone over? Then God help poor Charlotte!"

Emilius steadied himself to speak. "Does Victor know?" he said.

"Yes. He knows."

"You have consulted him, and you have not consulted me?"

"You made me promise not to talk about it. I have kept my promise."

Mary was sure then that Aunt Lavvy had left the book open on purpose. She
had laid a trap for Emilius, and he had fallen into it.

"If you will hold infamous opinions you must be made to keep them to
yourself."

"I have a perfect right to my opinions."

"You have no right to make an open profession of them."

"The law is more tolerant than you, Emilius."

"There is a moral law and a law of honour. You are not living by
yourself. As long as you are in Victor's house the least you can do is to
avoid giving offence. Have you no consideration for your family? You say
you came here to be near us. Have you thought of us? Have you thought of
the children? Do you expect Caroline to go to Victor's house if she's to
meet the Unitarian minister and his wife?"

"You will be cutting yourself off completely, Lavinia," Mamma said.

"From what?"

"From everybody. People don't call on Nonconformists. If there were no
higher grounds--"

"Oh--Caroline--" Aunt Lavvy breathed it on a long sigh.

"It's all very well for you. But you might think of your sister
Charlotte," Mamma said.

Papa's beard jerked. He drew in his breath with a savage guttural noise.
"A-ach! What's the good of talking?"

He had gone on eating all the time. There was a great pile of chicken
bones on his plate.

Aunt Lavvy turned. "Emilius--for thirty-three years"--her voice broke as
she quivered under her loaded anguish--"for thirty-three years you've
shouted me down. You haven't let me call my soul my own. Yet it _is_ my
own--"

"There, please--_please_," Mamma said, "don't let us have any more of
it," just as Aunt Lavvy was beginning to get a word in edgeways.

"Mamma, that isn't fair, you must let her speak."

"Yes. You must let me speak." Aunt Lavvy's voice thickened in her throat.

"I won't have any discussion of Unitarianism here," said Papa.

"It's you who have been discussing it, not I."

"It is, really, Papa. First you began. Then Mamma."

Mamma said, "If you've finished your supper, Mary, you can go."

"But I haven't. I've not had any trifle yet."

She thought: "They don't want me to hear them; but I've a right to sit
here and eat trifle. They know they can't turn me out. I haven't done
anything."

Aunt Lavvy went on. "I've only one thing to say, Emilius. You've asked me
to think of Victor and Charlotte, and you and Caroline and the boys and
Mary. Have you once--in thirty-three years--for a single minute--thought
of _me_?"

"Certainly I have. It's partly for your own sake I object to your
disgracing yourself. As if your sister Charlotte wasn't disgrace enough."

Aunt Lavvy drew herself up stiff and straight in her white shawl like a
martyr in her flame. "You might keep Charlotte out of it, I think."

"I might. Charlotte can't help herself. You can."

At this point Mamma burst into tears and left the room.

"Now," he said, "I hope you're satisfied."

Mary answered him.

"I think _you_ ought to be, Papa, if you've been bullying Aunt Lavvy for
thirty-three years. Don't you think it's about time you stopped?"

Emilius stared at his daughter. His face flushed slowly. "I think," he
said, "it's time you went to bed."

"It isn't my bed-time for another hour yet."

(A low murmur from Aunt Lavvy: "Don't, Mary, don't.")

She went on. "It was you who made Mamma cry, not Aunt Lavvy. It always
frightens her when you shout at people. You know Aunt Lavvy's a perfect
saint, besides being lots cleverer than anybody in this house, except
Mark. You get her by herself when she's tired out with Aunt Charlotte.
You insult her religion. You say the beastliest things you can think
of--"

Her father pushed back his chair; they rose and looked at each other.

"You wouldn't dare to do it if Mark was here!"

He strode to the door and opened it. His arm made a crescent gesture that
cleared space of her.

"Go! Go upstairs. Go to bed!"

"I don't care where I go now I've said it."

Upstairs in her bed she still heard Aunt Lavvy's breaking voice:

"For thirty-three years--for thirty-three years--"

The scene rose again and swam before her and fell to pieces.
Ideas--echoes--images. Religion--the truth of God. Her father's voice
booming over the table. Aunt Lavvy's voice, breaking--breaking. A pile of
stripped chicken bones on her father's plate.


V.

Aunt Lavvy was getting ready to go away. She held up her night gown to
her chin, smoothing and folding back the sleeves. You thought of her
going to bed in the ugly, yellow, flannel night gown, not caring, lying
in bed and thinking about God.

Mary was sorry that Aunt Lavvy was going. As long as she was there
you felt that if only she would talk everything would at once become
more interesting. She thrilled you with that look of having something--
something that she wouldn't talk about--up her sleeve. The Encyclopaedia
man said that Unitarianism was a kind of Pantheism. Perhaps that was it.
Perhaps she knew the truth about God. Aunt Lavvy would know whether she
ought to tell her mother.

"Aunt Lavvy, if you loved somebody and you found out that their religion
wasn't true, would you tell them or wouldn't you?"

"It would depend on whether they were happy in their religion or not."

"Supposing you'd found out one that was more true and much more
beautiful, and you thought it would make them happier?"

Aunt Lavvy raised her long, stubborn chin. In her face there was a cold
exaltation and a sudden hardness.

"No religion was ever more true or more beautiful than Christianity," she
said.

"There's Pantheism. Aren't Unitarians a kind of Pantheists?"

Aunt Lavvy's white face flushed. "Unitarians Pantheists? Who's been
talking to you about Pantheism?"

"Nobody. Nobody knows about it. I had to find out."

"The less you find out about it the better."

"Aunt Lavvy, you're talking like Mr. Propart. Supposing I honestly think
Pantheism's true?"

"You've no right to think anything about it," Aunt Lavvy said.

"Now you're talking like Papa. And I did so hope you wouldn't."

"I only meant that it takes more time than you've lived to find out what
honest thinking _is_. When you're twenty years older you'll know what
this opinion of yours is worth."

"I know what it's worth to me, now, this minute."

"Is it worth making your mother miserable?"

"That's what Mark would say. How did you know I was thinking of Mamma?"

"Because that's what my brother Victor said to me."


VI.

The queer thing was that none of them seemed to think the truth could
possibly matter on its own account, or that anything mattered besides
being happy or miserable. Yet everybody, except Aunt Lavvy, was
determined that everybody else should be happy in their way by believing
what they believed; and when it came to Pantheism even Aunt Lavvy
couldn't live and let live. You could see that deep down inside her it
made her more furious than Unitarianism made Papa.

Mary saw that she was likely to be alone in her adventure. It appeared to
her more than ever as a journey into a beautiful, quiet yet exciting
country where you could go on and on. The mere pleasure of being able to
move enchanted her. But nobody would go with her. Nobody knew. Nobody
cared.

There was Spinoza; but Spinoza had been dead for ages. Now she came to
think of it she had never heard anybody, not even Mr. Propart, speak of
Spinoza. It would be worse for her than it had ever been for Aunt Lavvy
who had actually known Dr. Martineau. Dr. Martineau was not dead; and if
he had been there were still lots of Unitarian ministers alive all over
England. And in the end Aunt Lavvy had broken loose and gone into her
Unitarian Chapel.

She thought: "Not till after Grandmamma was dead. Till years after
Grandmamma was dead."

She thought: "Of course I'd die rather than tell Mamma."


VII.

Aunt Lavvy had gone. Mr. Parish had taken her away in his wagonette.

At lessons Mamma complained that you were not attending. But she was not
attending herself, and when sewing time came she showed what she had been
thinking about.

"What were you doing in Aunt Lavvy's room this morning?"

She looked up sharply over the socks piled before her for darning.

"Only talking."

"Was Aunt Lavvy talking to you about her opinions?"

"No, Mamma."

"Has she ever talked to you?"

"Of course not. She wouldn't if she promised not to. I don't know even
now what Unitarianism is.... What _do_ Unitarians believe in?"

"Goodness knows," her mother said. "Nothing that's any good to them, you
may be sure."

Mary went on darning. The coarse wool of the socks irritated her fingers.
It caught in a split nail, setting her teeth on edge.

If you went on darning for ever--if you went on darning--Mamma would be
pleased. She had not suspected anything.


VIII.

   "'Full fathom five thy father lies,
       Of his bones are coral made,
     Those are pearls that were his eyes.
       Nothing of him that doth fade
     But doth suffer a sea-change
     Into something rich and strange.'"

Between the lovely lines she could hear Mamma say, "They all scamp their
work. You would require a resident carpenter and a resident glazier--"

And Mrs. Farmer's soft drawl spinning out the theme: "And a resident
plumber. Yes, Mrs. Olivier, you really wou-ould."

Mr. and Mrs. Farmer had called and stayed to tea. Across the room you
could see his close, hatchet nose and straggly beard. Every now and then
his small, greenish eyes lifted and looked at you.

Impossible that you had ever enjoyed going to Mrs. Farmer's to see the
baby. It was like something that had happened to somebody else, a long
time ago. Mrs. Farmer was always having babies, and always asking you to
go and see them. She couldn't understand that as you grew older you left
off caring about babies.

   "'--We are such stuff
     As dreams are made of--'"

"The Bishop--Confirmation--opportunity."

Even Mamma owned that Mr. Farmer never knew when it was time to go.

   "'As dreams are made of, and our little life
     Is rounded with a sleep--'"

The universe is nothing but the spectacle of the dreams of God. Or was it
the thoughts of God?

"Confirmation--Parish Church--Bishop--"

Confirmation. She had seen a Confirmation once, years ago. Girls in white
dresses and long white veils, like brides, shining behind the square
black windows of the broughams. Dora and Effie Draper. Effie leaned
forward. Her pretty, piercing face looked out through the black pane, not
seeing anything, trying greedily to be seen. Big boys and girls knelt
down in rows before the Bishop, and his sleeves went flapping up and down
over them like bolsters in the wind.

Mr. Farmer was looking at her again, as if he had an idea in his head.


IX.

The Church Service was open at the Thirty-Nine Articles. Mamma had pushed
Dr. Smith's "History of England" away.

"Do you think," she said, "you could say the Catechism and the Athanasian
Creed straight through without stopping?"

"I daresay I could if I tried. Why?"

"Because Mr. Farmer will want to examine you."

"Whatever for?"

"Because," her mother said, "there's going to be a Confirmation. It's
time you were thinking about being confirmed."

"Confirmed? _Me_?"

"And why not you?"

"Well--I haven't got to be, have I?"

"You will have, sooner or later. So you may as well begin to think about
it now."

Confirmation. She had never thought about it as a real thing that might
happen to her, that would happen, sooner or later, if she didn't do
something to stop Mr. Farmer and Mamma.

"I _am_ thinking. I'm thinking tight."

Tight. Tight. Her mind, in agony, pinned itself to one point: how she
could stop her mother without telling her.

Beyond that point she couldn't see clearly.

"You see--you see--I don't _want_ to be confirmed."

"You don't want? You might as well say you didn't want to be a
Christian."

"Don't worry, Mamma darling. I only want to stay as I am."

"I must worry. I'm responsible for you as long as you're not confirmed.
You forget that I'm your godmother as well as your mother."

She had forgotten it. And Papa and Uncle Victor were her godfathers.
"What did your godfathers and godmothers then for you?--They did promise
and vow three things in my name--" they had actually done it. "First:
that I should renounce"--renounce--renounce--"Secondly: that I should
believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith--"

The Christian Faith--the Catholic Faith. "Which Faith except everyone do
keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly"--

--"And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity and
Trinity in Unity."

They had promised and vowed all that. In her name. What right had they?
What right had they?

"You're not a baby any more," her mother said.

"That's what I mean. I was a baby when you went and did it. I knew
nothing about it. You _can't_ make me responsible."

"It's we who are responsible," her mother said.

"I mean for your vows and promises, Mamma darling. If you'll let me off
my responsibility I'll let you off yours."

"Now," her mother said, "you're prevaricating."

"That means you'll never let me off. If I don't do it now I'll have to do
it next year, or the next?"

"You may feel more seriously about it next year. Or next week," her
mother said. "Meanwhile you'll learn the Thirty-Nine Articles. Read them
through first."

"--'Nine. Of Original or Birth-sin. Original Sin ... is the fault and
corruption of the Nature of every man ... whereby man is far gone from
original righteousness and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that
the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every
person born into this world it deserveth God's wrath and damnation.'"

"Don't look like that," her mother said, "as if your wits were
wool-gathering."

"Wool?" She could see herself smiling at her mother, disagreeably.

Wool-gathering. Gathering wool. The room was full of wool; wool flying
about; hanging in the air and choking you. Clogging your mind. Old grey
wool out of pew cushions that people had sat on for centuries, full of
dirt.

Wool, spun out, wound round you, woven in a net. You were tangled and
strangled in a net of unclean wool. They caught you in it when you were a
baby a month old. Mamma, Papa and Uncle Victor. You would have to cut and
tug and kick and fight your way out. They were caught in it themselves,
they couldn't get out. They didn't want to get out. The wool stopped
their minds working. They hated it when their minds worked, when
anybody's mind worked. Aunt Lavvy's--yours.

"'Thirteen. Of Works before Justification. Works done before the grace of
Christ, and the Inspiration of His Spirit, are not pleasant to God,
forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ...: yea, rather,
for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be
done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin.'"

"Do you really believe that, Mamma?"

"Of course I believe it. All our righteousness is filthy rags."

--People's goodness. People's kindness. The sweet, beautiful things they
did for each other. The brave, noble things, the things Mark did: filthy
rags.

_This_--this religion of theirs--was filthy; ugly, like the shiny black
covers of their Bibles where their fingers left a grey, greasy smear.
Filthy and frightful; like funerals. You might as well be buried alive,
five coffins deep in a pit of yellow clay.

Mamma couldn't really believe it. You would have to tell her it wasn't
true. Not telling her meant that you didn't think she cared about the
truth. You insulted her if you supposed she didn't care. Mark would say
you insulted her. Even if it hurt her a bit at first, you insulted her if
you thought she couldn't bear it. And afterwards she would be happy,
because she would be free.

"It's no use, Mamma. I shan't ever want to be confirmed."

"Want--want--want! You ought to want, then. You say you believe the
Christian Faith--"

Now--now. A clean quick cut. No jagged ends hanging.

"That's it. I don't believe a single word of it."

She couldn't look at her mother. She didn't want to see her cry.

"You've found that out, have you? You've been mighty quick about it."

"I found it out ages ago. But I didn't mean to tell you."

Her mother was not crying.

"You needn't tell me now," she said. "You don't suppose I'm going to
believe it?"

Not crying. Smiling. A sort of cunning and triumphant smile.

"You just want an excuse for not learning those Thirty-Nine Articles."




XIV


I.

Mamma was crying.

Papa had left the dining-room. Mary sat at the foot of the table, and her
mother at the head. The space between was covered and piled with Mark's
kit: the socks, the pocket-handkerchiefs, the vests, the fine white
pyjamas. The hanging white globes of the gaselier shone on them. All day
Mary had been writing "M.E. Olivier, M.E. Olivier," in clear, hard
letters, like print. The iridescent ink was grey on the white linen and
lawn, black when you stamped with the hot iron: M.E. Olivier. Mamma was
embroidering M.E.O. in crimson silk on a black sock.

Mark was in the Army now; in the Royal Field Artillery. He was going to
India. In two weeks, before the middle of April, he would be gone. They
had known this so long that now and then they could forget it; they could
be glad that Mark should have all those things, so many more, and more
beautiful, than he had ever had. They were appeased with their labour of
forming, over and over again, the letters, clear and perfect, of his
name.

Then Papa had come in and said that Dan was not going to live at home any
more. He had taken rooms in Bloomsbury with young Vickers.

Dan had not gone to Cambridge when he left Chelmsted, as Mamma had
intended. There hadn't been enough money.

Uncle Victor had paid for Mark's last year at Woolwich and for his outfit
now. Some day Mamma would pay him back again.

Dan had gone first into Papa's office; then into Uncle Edward's office.
He was in Uncle Victor's office now. Sometimes he didn't get home till
after midnight. Sometimes when you went into his room to call him in the
morning he wasn't there; but there were the bed-clothes turned down as
Catty had left them, with his nightshirt folded on the top.

Her mother said: "I hope you're content now you've finished your work."

"_My_ work?" her father said.

"Yes, yours. You couldn't rest till you'd got the poor boy out of your
office, and now you've turned him out of the house. I suppose you thought
that with Mark going you'd better make a clean sweep. It'll be Roddy
next."

"I didn't turn him out of the house. But it was about time he went. The
young cub's temper is getting unbearable."

"I daresay. You ruined Dan's temper with your silly
tease--tease--tease--from morning till night. You can't see a dog without
wanting to make it snap and snarl. It was the same with all the children.
And when they turned you bullied them. Just because you couldn't break
Mark's spirit you tried to crush Dan's. It's a wonder he has any temper
left."

Emilius stroked his beard.

"That's right. Stroke your beard as if nothing mattered but your
pleasure. You'll be happy enough when Mark's gone."

Emilius left off stroking his beard.

"You say I turned him out of the office," he said. "Did he stay with
Edward?"

"Nobody could stay with Edward. You couldn't yourself."

"Ask Victor how long he thinks he'll keep him."

"What do you mean, Emilius?"

He didn't answer. He stood there, his lips pouting between his moustache
and beard, his eyes smiling wickedly, as if he had just found out he
could torment her more by not saying what he meant.

"If Dan went to the bad," she said, "I wouldn't blame him. It would serve
you right.

"Unless," she added, "that's what you want."

And she began to cry.

She cried as a child cries, with spasms of sobbing, her pretty mouth
spoiled, stretched wide, working, like india-rubber; dull red blotches
creeping up to the brown stains about her eyes. Her tears splashed on to
the fine, black silk web of the sock and sparkled there.

Emilius had gone from the room, leaving the door open. Mary got up and
shut it. She stood, hesitating. The helpless sobbing drew her, frightened
her, stirred her to exasperation that was helpless too. Her mother had
never been more intolerably dear.

She went to her. She put her arm round her.

"Don't, Mamma darling. Why do you let him torture you? He didn't turn Dan
out of the office. He let him go because he can't afford to pay him
enough."

"I know that as well as you," her mother said surprisingly.

She drew herself from the protecting arm.

"Well, then--But, oh, what a brute he is. _What_ a brute!"

"For shame to talk that way of your father. _You've_ no right. You're the
one that always goes scot-free."

And, beginning to cry again, she rose and went out, grasping Mark's sock
in her convulsive hand.

"Mary, did you hear your mother say I bullied you?"

Her father had come back into the room.

"Yes," she said.

"Have I ever bullied you?"

She looked at him steadily.

"No. You would have done if Mamma had loved me as much as she loves Mark.
I wish you had. I wish you'd bullied the life out of me. I shouldn't have
cared. I wish you'd hated me. Then I should have known she loved me."

He looked at her in silence, with round, startled eyes. He understood.


II.

"Ubique--"

The gunner's motto. Mark's motto, stamped on all the letters he would
write. A blue gun on a blue gun-carriage, the muzzle pointing to the
left. The motto waving underneath:

"UBIQUE."

At soldiers' funerals the coffin was carried on a gun-carriage and
covered with a flag.

"_Ubique quo fas et gloria ducunt_." All through the excitement of the
evening it went on sounding in her head.

It was Mark's coming of age party in the week before he went. The first
time she could remember being important at a party. Her consciousness of
being important was intense, exquisite. She was Sub-Lieutenant Mark
Olivier's sister. His only one.

And, besides, she looked nice.

Last year's white muslin, ironed out, looked as good as new. The blue
sash really was new; and Mamma had lent her one of her necklets, a
turquoise heart on a thin gold chain. In the looking-glass she could see
her eyes shining under her square brown fringe: spots of gold darting
through brown crystal. Her brown hair shone red on the top and gold
underneath. The side pieces, rolled above her ears and plaited behind,
made a fillet for her back hair. Her back hair was too short. She tried
to make it reach to her waist by pulling the curled tips straight; but
they only sprang back to her shoulder-blades again. It was unfortunate.

Catty, securing the wonderful fillet with a blue ribbon told her not to
be unhappy. She would "do."

Mamma was beautiful in her lavender-grey silk and her black jet cross
with the diamond star. They all had to stand together, a little behind
her, near the door, and shake hands with the people as they came in. Mary
was surprised that they should shake hands with her before they shook
hands with Mark; it didn't seem right, somehow, when it was his birthday.

Everybody had come except Aunt Charlotte; even Mr. Marriott, though he
was supposed to be afraid of parties. (You couldn't ask Aunt Charlotte
because of Mr. Marriott.) There were the two Manistys, looking taller and
leaner than ever. And there was Mrs. Draper with Dora and Effie. Mrs.
Draper, black hawk's eyes in purple rings; white powder over crushed
carmines; a black wing of hair folded over grey down. Effie's pretty,
piercing face; small head poised to strike. Dora, a young likeness of
Mrs. Draper, an old likeness of Effie, pretty when Effie wasn't there.

When they looked at you you saw that your muslin was not as good as new.
When they looked at Mamma you saw that her lavender silk was
old-fashioned and that nobody wore black jet crosses now. You were frilly
and floppy when everybody else was tight and straight in Princess
dresses.

Mamma was more beautiful than Mrs. Draper; and her hair, anyhow, was in
the fashion, parted at the side, a soft brown wing folded over her left
ear.