MARY OLIVIER:

A LIFE


BY

MAY SINCLAIR


1919


CONTENTS

BOOK ONE     INFANCY (1865-1869)

BOOK TWO     CHILDHOOD (1869-1875)

BOOK THREE   ADOLESCENCE (1876-1879)

BOOK FOUR    MATURITY (1879-1900)

BOOK FIVE    MIDDLE AGE (1900-1910)




BOOK ONE
INFANCY (1865-1869)


I


I.

The curtain of the big bed hung down beside the cot.

When old Jenny shook it the wooden rings rattled on the pole and grey
men with pointed heads and squat, bulging bodies came out of the folds
on to the flat green ground. If you looked at them they turned into
squab faces smeared with green.

Every night, when Jenny had gone away with the doll and the donkey,
you hunched up the blanket and the stiff white counterpane to hide the
curtain and you played with the knob in the green painted iron railing
of the cot. It stuck out close to your face, winking and grinning at
you in a friendly way. You poked it till it left off and turned grey
and went back into the railing. Then you had to feel for it with your
finger. It fitted the hollow of your hand, cool and hard, with a blunt
nose that pushed agreeably into the palm.

In the dark you could go tip-finger along the slender, lashing
flourishes of the ironwork. By stretching your arm out tight you could
reach the curlykew at the end. The short, steep flourish took you to
the top of the railing and on behind your head.

Tip-fingering backwards that way you got into the grey lane where the
prickly stones were and the hedge of little biting trees. When the
door in the hedge opened you saw the man in the night-shirt. He had
only half a face. From his nose and his cheek-bones downwards his
beard hung straight like a dark cloth. You opened your mouth, but
before you could scream you were back in the cot; the room was light;
the green knob winked and grinned at you from the railing, and behind
the curtain Papa and Mamma were lying in the big bed.

One night she came back out of the lane as the door in the hedge was
opening. The man stood in the room by the washstand, scratching his long
thigh. He was turned slantwise from the nightlight on the washstand so
that it showed his yellowish skin under the lifted shirt. The white
half-face hung by itself on the darkness. When he left off scratching
and moved towards the cot she screamed.

Mamma took her into the big bed. She curled up there under the shelter
of the raised hip and shoulder. Mamma's face was dry and warm and
smelt sweet like Jenny's powder-puff. Mamma's mouth moved over her wet
cheeks, nipping her tears.

Her cry changed to a whimper and a soft, ebbing sob.

Mamma's breast: a smooth, cool, round thing that hung to your hands
and slipped from them when they tried to hold it. You could feel the
little ridges of the stiff nipple as your finger pushed it back into
the breast.

Her sobs shook in her throat and ceased suddenly.


II.

The big white globes hung in a ring above the dinner table. At first,
when she came into the room, carried high in Jenny's arms, she could
see nothing but the hanging, shining globes. Each had a light inside
it that made it shine.

Mamma was sitting at the far end of the table. Her face and neck shone
white above the pile of oranges on the dark blue dish. She was dipping
her fingers in a dark blue glass bowl.

When Mary saw her she strained towards her, leaning dangerously out of
Jenny's arms. Old Jenny said "Tchit-tchit!" and made her arms tight
and hard and put her on Papa's knee.

Papa sat up, broad and tall above the table, all by himself. He was
dressed in black. One long brown beard hung down in front of him and
one short beard covered his mouth. You knew he was smiling because his
cheeks swelled high up his face so that his eyes were squeezed into
narrow, shining slits. When they came out again you saw scarlet specks
and smears in their corners.

Papa's big white hand was on the table, holding a glass filled with
some red stuff that was both dark and shining and had a queer, sharp
smell.

"Porty-worty winey-piney," said Papa.

The same queer, sharp smell came from between his two beards when he
spoke.

Mark was sitting up beside Mamma a long way off. She could see them
looking at each other. Roddy and Dank were with them.

They were making flowers out of orange peel and floating them in the
finger bowls. Mamma's fingers were blue and sharp-pointed in the water
behind the dark blue glass of her bowl. The floating orange-peel
flowers were blue. She could see Mamma smiling as she stirred them
about with the tips of her blue fingers.

Her underlip pouted and shook. She didn't want to sit by herself on
Papa's knee. She wanted to sit in Mamma's lap beside Mark. She wanted
Mark to make orange-peel flowers for her. She wanted Mamma to look
down at her and smile.

Papa was spreading butter on biscuit and powdered sugar on the butter.

"Sugary--Buttery--Bippery," said Papa.

She shook her head. "I want to go to Mamma. I want to go to Mark."

She pushed away the biscuit. "No. No. Mamma give Mary. Mark give
Mary."

"Drinky--winky," said Papa.

He put his glass to her shaking mouth. She turned her head away, and
he took it between his thumb and finger and turned it back again. Her
neck moved stiffly. Her head felt small and brittle under the weight
and pinch of the big hand. The smell and the sour, burning taste of
the wine made her cry.

"Don't tease Baby, Emilius," said Mamma.

"I never tease anybody."

He lifted her up. She could feel her body swell and tighten under the
bands and drawstrings of her clothes, as she struggled and choked,
straining against the immense clamp of his arms. When his wet red lips
pushed out between his beards to kiss her she kicked. Her toes drummed
against something stiff and thin that gave way and sprang out again
with a cracking and popping sound.

He put her on the floor. She stood there all by herself, crying, till
Mark came and took her by the hand.

"Naughty Baby. Naughty Mary," said Mamma. "Don't kiss her, Mark."

"No, Mamma."

He knelt on the floor beside her and smiled into her face and wiped it
with his pocket-handkerchief. She put out her mouth and kissed him and
stopped crying.

"Jenny must come," Mamma said, "and take Mary away."

"No. Mark take Mary."

"Let the little beast take her," said Papa. "If he does he shan't come
back again. Do you hear that, sir?"

Mark said, "Yes, Papa."

They went out of the room hand in hand. He carried her upstairs
pickaback. As they went she rested her chin on the nape of his neck
where his brown hair thinned off into shiny, golden down.


III.

Old Jenny sat in the rocking-chair by the fireguard in the nursery.
She wore a black net cap with purple rosettes above her ears. You
could look through the black net and see the top of her head laid out
in stripes of grey hair and pinky skin.

She had a grey face, flattened and wide-open like her eyes. She held
it tilted slightly backwards out of your way, and seemed to be always
staring at something just above your head. Jenny's face had tiny
creases and crinkles all over it. When you kissed it you could feel
the loose flesh crumpling and sliding softly over the bone. There was
always about her a faint smell of sour milk.

No use trying to talk to Jenny. She was too tired to listen. You
climbed on to her lap and stroked her face, and said "Poor Jenny. Dear
Jenny. Poor Jenny-Wee so tired," and her face shut up and went to
sleep. Her broad flat nose drooped; her eyelids drooped; her long,
grey bands of hair drooped; she was like the white donkey that lived
in the back lane and slept standing on three legs with his ears lying
down.

Mary loved old Jenny next to Mamma and Mark; and she loved the white
donkey. She wondered why Jenny was always cross when you stroked her
grey face and called her "Donkey-Jenny." It was not as if she minded
being stroked; because when Mark or Dank did it her face woke up
suddenly and smoothed out its creases. And when Roddy climbed up with
his long legs into her lap she hugged him tight and rocked him,
singing Mamma's song, and called him her baby.

He wasn't. _She_ was the baby; and while you were the baby you could
sit in people's laps. But old Jenny didn't want her to be the baby.

The nursery had shiny, slippery yellow walls and a brown floor, and a
black hearthrug with a centre of brown and yellow flowers. The greyish
chintz curtains were spotted with small brown leaves and crimson
berries. There were dark-brown cupboards and chests of drawers, and
chairs that were brown frames for the yellow network of the cane. Soft
bits of you squeezed through the holes and came out on the other side.
That hurt and made a red pattern on you where you sat down.

The tall green fireguard was a cage. When Jenny poked the fire you
peeped through and saw it fluttering inside. If you sat still you
could sometimes hear it say "teck-teck," and sometimes the fire would
fly out suddenly with a soft hiss.

High above your head you could just see the gleaming edge of the brass
rail.

"Jenny--where's yesterday and where's to-morrow?"


IV.

When you had run a thousand hundred times round the table you came to
the blue house. It stood behind Jenny's rocking-chair, where Jenny
couldn't see it, in a blue garden. The walls and ceilings were blue;
the doors and staircases were blue; everything in all the rooms was
blue.

Mary ran round and round. She loved the padding of her feet on the
floor and the sound of her sing-song:

"The pussies are blue, the beds are blue, the matches are blue and the
mousetraps and all the litty mouses!"

Mamma was always there dressed in a blue gown; and Jenny was there,
all in blue, with a blue cap; and Mark and Dank and Roddy were there,
all in blue. But Papa was not allowed in the blue house.

Mamma came in and looked at her as she ran. She stood in the doorway
with her finger on her mouth, and she was smiling. Her brown hair was
parted in two sleek bands, looped and puffed out softly round her
ears, and plaited in one plait that stood up on its edge above her
forehead. She wore a wide brown silk gown with falling sleeves.

"Pretty Mamma," said Mary. "In a blue dress."


V.

Every morning Mark and Dank and Roddy knocked at Mamma's door, and if
Papa was there he called out, "Go away, you little beasts!" If he was
not there she said, "Come in, darlings!" and they climbed up the big
bed into Papa's place and said "Good morning, Mamma!"

When Papa was away the lifted curtain spread like a tent over Mary's
cot, shutting her in with Mamma. When he was there the drawn curtain
hung straight down from the head of the bed.




II


I.

White patterns on the window, sharp spikes, feathers, sprigs with
furled edges, stuck flat on to the glass; white webs, crinkled like
the skin of boiled milk, stretched across the corner of the pane;
crisp, sticky stuff that bit your fingers.

Out of doors, black twigs thickened with a white fur; white powder
sprinkled over the garden walk. The white, ruffled grass stood out
stiffly and gave under your feet with a pleasant crunching. The air
smelt good; you opened your mouth and drank it in gulps. It went down
like cold, tingling water.

Frost.

You saw the sun for the first time, a red ball that hung by itself on
the yellowish white sky. Mamma said, "Yes, of course it would fall if
God wasn't there to hold it up in his hands."

Supposing God dropped the sun--


II.

The yellowish white sky had come close up to the house, a dirty
blanket let down outside the window. The tree made a black pattern on
it. Clear glass beads hung in a row from the black branch, each black
twig was tipped with a glass bead. When Jenny opened the window there
was a queer cold smell like the smell of the black water in the butt.

Thin white powder fluttered out of the blanket and fell. A thick
powder. A white fluff that piled itself in a ridge on the window-sill
and curved softly in the corner of the sash. It was cold, and melted
on your tongue with a taste of window-pane.

In the garden Mark and Dank and Roddy were making the snow man.

Mamma stood at the nursery window with her back to the room. She
called to Mary to come and look at the snow man.

Mary was tired of the snow man. She was making a tower with Roddy's
bricks while Roddy wasn't there. She had to build it quick before he
could come back and take his bricks away, and the quicker you built it
the sooner it fell down. Mamma was not to look until it was finished.

"Look--look, Mamma! M-m-mary's m-m-made a tar. And it's _not_ falled
down!"

The tower reached above Jenny's knee.

"Come and look, Mamma--" But Mamma wouldn't even turn her head.

"I'm looking at the snow man," she said.

Something swelled up, hot and tight, in Mary's body and in her face.
She had a big bursting face and a big bursting body. She struck the
tower, and it fell down. Her violence made her feel light and small
again and happy.

"Where's the tower, Mary?" said Mamma.

"There isn't any tar. I've knocked it down. It was a nashty tar."


III.

Aunt Charlotte--

Aunt Charlotte had sent the Isle of Skye terrier to Dank.

There was a picture of Aunt Charlotte in Mamma's Album. She stood on a
strip of carpet, supported by the hoops of her crinoline; her black
lace shawl made a pattern on the light gown. She wore a little hat
with a white sweeping feather, and under the hat two long black curls
hung down straight on each shoulder.

The other people in the Album were sulky, and wouldn't look at you.
The gentlemen made cross faces at somebody who wasn't there; the
ladies hung their heads and looked down at their crinolines. Aunt
Charlotte hung her head too, but her eyes, tilted up straight under
her forehead, pointed at you. And between her stiff black curls she
was smiling--smiling. When Mamma came to Aunt Charlotte's picture she
tried to turn over the page of the Album quick.

Aunt Charlotte sent things. She sent the fat valentine with the lace
paper border and black letters printed on sweet-smelling white satin
that Papa threw into the fire, and the white china doll with black
hair and blue eyes and no clothes on that Jenny hid in the nursery
cupboard.

The Skye terrier brought a message tied under his chin: "Tib. For my
dear little nephew Dan with Aunt Charlotte's fond love." He had
high-peaked, tufted ears and a blackish grey coat that trailed on the
floor like a shawl that was too big for him. When you tried to stroke
him the shawl swept and trailed away under the table. You saw nothing
but shawl and ears until Papa began to tease Tib. Papa snapped his
finger and thumb at him, and Tib showed little angry eyes and white
teeth set in a black snarl.

Mamma said, "Please don't do that again, Emilius."

And Papa did it again.


IV.

"What are you looking at, Master Daniel?" said Jenny.

"Nothing."

"Then what are you looking like that for? You didn't ought to."

Papa had sent Mark and Dank to the nursery in disgrace. Mark leaned
over the back of Jenny's chair and rocked her. His face was red but
tight; and as he rocked he smiled because of his punishment.

Dank lay on the floor on his stomach, his shoulders hunched, raised on
his elbows, his chin supported by his clenched fists. He was a dark
and white boy with dusty eyelashes and rough, doggy hair. He had
puckered up his mouth and made it small; under the scowl of his
twisted eyebrows he was looking at nothing.

"It's no worse for you than it is for Master Mark," said Jenny.

"_Isn't_ it? Tib was my dog. If he hadn't been my dog Papa wouldn't have
teased him, and Mamma wouldn't have sent him back to Aunt Charlotte, and
Aunt Charlotte wouldn't have let him be run over."

"Yes. But what did you say to your Papa?"

"I said I wish Tib _had_ bitten him. So I do. And Mark said it would
have served him jolly well right."

"So it would," said Mark.

Roddy had turned his back on them. Nobody was taking any notice of
him; so he sang aloud to himself the song he was forbidden to sing:

   "John Brown's body lies a-rotting in his grave,
    John Brown's body lies a-rotting in his grave--"

The song seemed to burst out of Roddy's beautiful white face; his pink
lips twirled and tilted; his golden curls bobbed and nodded to the tune.

   "John Brown's body lies a-rotting in his grave,
    As we go marching on!"

"When I grow up," said Dank, "I'll kill Papa for killing Tibby. I'll
bore holes in his face with Mark's gimlet. I'll cut pieces out of him.
I'll get the matches and set fire to his beard. I'll--I'll _hurt_ him."

"I don't think _I_ shall," said Mark. "But if I do I shan't kick up a
silly row about it first."

"It's all very well for you. You'd kick up a row if Tibby was your dog."

Mary had forgotten Tibby. Now she remembered.

"Where's Tibby? I want him."

"Tibby's dead," said Jenny.

"What's 'dead'?"

"Never you mind."

Roddy was singing:

   "'And _from_ his nose and _to_ his chin
     The worms crawled out and the worms crawled in'--

"_That's_ dead," said Roddy.


V.

You never knew when Aunt Charlotte mightn't send something. She forgot
your birthday and sometimes Christmas; but, to make up for that, she
remembered in between. Every time she was going to be married she
remembered.

Sarah the cat came too long after Mark's twelfth birthday to be his
birthday present. There was no message with her except that Aunt
Charlotte was going to be married and didn't want her any more.
Whenever Aunt Charlotte was going to be married she sent you something
she didn't want.

Sarah was a white cat with a pink nose and pink lips and pink pads
under her paws. Her tabby hood came down in a peak between her green
eyes. Her tabby cape went on along the back of her tail, tapering to
the tip. Sarah crouched against the fireguard, her haunches raised, her
head sunk back on her shoulders, and her paws tucked in under her
white, pouting breast.

Mark stooped over her; his mouth smiled its small, firm smile; his eyes
shone as he stroked her. Sarah raised her haunches under the caressing
hand.

Mary's body was still. Something stirred and tightened in it when she
looked at Sarah.

"I want Sarah," she said.

"You can't have her," said Jenny. "She's Master Mark's cat."

She wanted her more than Roddy's bricks and Dank's animal book or
Mark's soldiers. She trembled when she held her in her arms and kissed
her and smelt the warm, sweet, sleepy smell that came from the top of
her head.

"Little girls can't have everything they want," said Jenny.

"I wanted her before you did," said Dank. "You're too little to have a
cat at all."

He sat on the table swinging his legs. His dark, mournful eyes watched
Mark under their doggy scowl. He looked like Tibby, the terrier that
Mamma sent away because Papa teased him.

"Sarah isn't your cat either, Master Daniel. Your Aunt Charlotte gave
her to your Mamma, and your Mamma gave her to Master Mark."

"She ought to have given her to me. She took my dog away."

"_I_ gave her to you," said Mark.

"And I gave her to you back again."

"Well then, she's half our cat."

"I want her," said Mary. She said it again and again.

Mamma came and took her into the room with the big bed.

The gas blazed in the white globes. Lovely white lights washed like
water over the polished yellow furniture: the bed, the great high
wardrobe, the chests of drawers, the twisted poles of the
looking-glass. There were soft rounds and edges of blond light on the
white marble chimney-piece and the white marble washstand. The drawn
curtains were covered with shining silver patterns on a sleek green
ground that shone. All these things showed again in the long, flashing
mirrors.

Mary looked round the room and wondered why the squat grey men had gone
out of the curtains.

"Don't look about you," said Mamma. "Look at me. Why do you want
Sarah?"

She had forgotten Sarah.

"Because," she said, "Sarah is so sweet."

"Mamma gave Sarah to Mark. Mary mustn't want what isn't given her. Mark
doesn't say, 'I want Mary's dollies.' Papa doesn't say, 'I want Mamma's
workbox.'"

"But _I_ want Sarah."

"And that's selfish and self-willed."

Mamma sat down on the low chair at the foot of the bed.

"God," she said, "hates selfishness and self-will. God is grieved every
time Mary is self-willed and selfish. He wants her to give up her
will."

When Mamma talked about God she took you on her lap and you played with
the gold tassel on her watch chain. Her face was solemn and tender. She
spoke softly. She was afraid that God might hear her talking about him
and wouldn't like it.

Mary knelt in Mamma's lap and said "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild," and
"Our Father," and played with the gold tassel. Every day began and
ended with "Our Father" and "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild."

"What's hallowed?"

"Holy," said Mamma. "What God is. Sacred and holy."

Mary twisted the gold tassel and made it dance and run through the loop
of the chain. Mamma took it out of her hands and pressed them together
and stooped her head to them and kissed them. She could feel the kiss
tingling through her body from her finger-tips, and she was suddenly
docile and appeased.

When she lay in her cot behind the curtain she prayed: "Please God keep
me from wanting Sarah."

In the morning she remembered. When she looked at Sarah she thought:
"Sarah is Mark's cat and Dank's cat."

She touched her with the tips of her fingers. Sarah's eyes were
reproachful and unhappy. She ran away and crept under the chest of
drawers.

"Mamma gave Sarah to Mark."

Mamma was sacred and holy. Mark was sacred and holy. Sarah was sacred
and holy, crouching under the chest of drawers with her eyes gleaming
in the darkness.


VI.

It was a good and happy day.

She lay on the big bed. Her head rested on Mamma's arm. Mamma's face
was close to her. Water trickled into her eyes out of the wet pad of
pocket-handkerchief. Under the cold pad a hot, grinding pain came from
the hole in her forehead. Jenny stood beside the bed. Her face had
waked up and she was busy squeezing something out of a red sponge into
a basin of pink water.

When Mamma pressed the pocket-handkerchief tight the pain ground
harder, when she loosened it blood ran out of the hole and the
pocket-handkerchief was warm again. Then Jenny put on the sponge.

She could hear Jenny say, "It was the Master's fault. She didn't ought
to have been left in the room with him."

She remembered. The dining-room and the sharp spike on the fender and
Papa's legs stretched out. He had told her not to run so fast and she
had run faster and faster. It wasn't Papa's fault.

She remembered tripping over Papa's legs. Then falling on the spike.
Then nothing.

Then waking in Mamma's room.

She wasn't crying. The pain made her feel good and happy; and Mamma was
calling her her darling and her little lamb. Mamma loved her. Jenny
loved her.

Mark and Dank and Roddy came in. Mark carried Sarah in his arms. They
stood by the bed and looked at her; their faces pressed close. Roddy
had been crying; but Mark and Dank were excited. They climbed on to the
bed and kissed her. They made Sarah crouch down close beside her and
held her there. They spoke very fast, one after the other.

"We've brought you Sarah."

"We've given you Sarah."

"She's your cat."

"To keep for ever."

She was glad that she had tripped over Papa's legs. It was a good and
happy day.


VII.

The sun shone. The polished green blades of the grass glittered. The
gravel walk and the nasturtium bed together made a broad orange blaze.
Specks like glass sparkled in the hot grey earth. On the grey flagstone
the red poppy you picked yesterday was a black thread, a purple stain.

She was happy sitting on the grass, drawing the fine, sharp blades
between her fingers, sniffing the smell of the mignonette that tingled
like sweet pepper, opening and shutting the yellow mouths of the
snap-dragon.

The garden flowers stood still, straight up in the grey earth. They
were as tall as you were. You could look at them a long time without
being tired.

The garden flowers were not like the animals. The cat Sarah bumped her
sleek head under your chin; you could feel her purr throbbing under her
ribs and crackling in her throat. The white rabbit pushed out his nose
to you and drew it in again, quivering, and breathed his sweet breath
into your mouth.

The garden flowers wouldn't let you love them. They stood still in
their beauty, quiet, arrogant, reproachful. They put you in the wrong.
When you stroked them they shook and swayed from you; when you held
them tight their heads dropped, their backs broke, they shrivelled up
in your hands. All the flowers in the garden were Mamma's; they were
sacred and holy.

You loved best the flowers that you stooped down to look at and the
flowers that were not Mamma's: the small crumpled poppy by the edge of
the field, and the ears of the wild rye that ran up your sleeve and
tickled you, and the speedwell, striped like the blue eyes of Meta, the
wax doll.

When you smelt mignonette you thought of Mamma.

It was her birthday. Mark had given her a little sumach tree in a red
pot. They took it out of the pot and dug a hole by the front door steps
outside the pantry window and planted it there.

Papa came out on to the steps and watched them.

"I suppose," he said, "you think it'll _grow_?"

Mamma never turned to look at him. She smiled because it was her
birthday. She said, "Of course it'll grow."

She spread out its roots and pressed it down and padded up the earth
about it with her hands. It held out its tiny branches, stiffly, like a
toy tree, standing no higher than the mignonette. Papa looked at Mamma
and Mark, busy and happy with their heads together, taking no notice of
him. He laughed out of his big beard and went back into the house
suddenly and slammed the door. You knew that he disliked the sumach
tree and that he was angry with Mark for giving it to Mamma.

When you smelt mignonette you thought of Mamma and Mark and the sumach
tree, and Papa standing on the steps, and the queer laugh that came out
of his beard.

When it rained you were naughty and unhappy because you couldn't go out
of doors. Then Mamma stood at the window and looked into the front
garden. She smiled at the rain. She said, "It will be good for my
sumach tree."

Every day you went out on to the steps to see if the sumach tree had
grown.


VIII.

The white lamb stood on the table beside her cot.

Mamma put it there every night so that she could see it first thing in
the morning when she woke.

She had had a birthday. Suddenly in the middle of the night she was
five years old.

She had kept on waking up with the excitement of it. Then, in the dark
twilight of the room, she had seen a bulky thing inside the cot,
leaning up against the rail. It stuck out queerly and its weight
dragged the counterpane tight over her feet.

The birthday present. What she saw was not its real shape. When she
poked it, stiff paper bent in and crackled; and she could feel
something big and solid underneath. She lay quiet and happy, trying to
guess what it could be, and fell asleep again.

It was the white lamb. It stood on a green stand. It smelt of dried hay
and gum and paint like the other toy animals, but its white coat had a
dull, woolly smell, and that was the real smell of the lamb. Its large,
slanting eyes stared off over its ears into the far corners of the
room, so that it never looked at you. This made her feel sometimes that
the lamb didn't love her, and sometimes that it was frightened and
wanted to be comforted.

She trembled when first she stroked it and held it to her face, and
sniffed its lamby smell.

Papa looked down at her. He was smiling; and when she looked up at him
she was not afraid. She had the same feeling that came sometimes when
she sat in Mamma's lap and Mamma talked about God and Jesus. Papa was
sacred and holy.

He had given her the lamb.

It was the end of her birthday; Mamma and Jenny were putting her to
bed. She felt weak and tired, and sad because it was all over.

"Come to that," said Jenny, "your birthday was over at five minutes
past twelve this morning."

"When will it come again?"

"Not for a whole year," said Mamma.

"I wish it would come to-morrow."

Mamma shook her head at her. "You want to be spoiled and petted every
day."

"No. No. I want--I want--"

"She doesn't know what she wants," said Jenny.

"Yes. I do. I _do_."

"Well--"

"I want to love Papa every day. 'Cause he gave me my lamb."

"Oh," said Mamma, "if you only love people because they give you
birthday presents--"

"But I don't--I don't--really and truly--"

"You didn't ought to have no more birthdays," said Jenny, "if they make
you cry."

Why couldn't they see that crying meant that she wanted Papa to be
sacred and holy every day?

The day after the birthday when Papa went about the same as ever,
looking big and frightening, when he "Baa'd" into her face and called
out, "Mary had a little lamb!" and "Mary, Mary, quite contrary," she
looked after him sorrowfully and thought: "Papa gave me my lamb."


IX.

One day Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella came over from Chadwell Grange.
They were talking to Mamma a long time in the drawing-room, and when
she came in they stopped and whispered.

Roddy told her the secret. Uncle Edward was going to give her a live
lamb.

Mark and Dank said it couldn't be true. Uncle Edward was not a real
uncle; he was only Aunt Bella's husband, and he never gave you
anything. And anyhow the lamb wasn't born yet and couldn't come for
weeks and weeks.

Every morning she asked, "Has my new lamb come? When is it coming? Do
you think it will come to-day?"

She could keep on sitting still quite a long time by merely thinking
about the new lamb. It would run beside her when she played in the
garden. It would eat grass out of her hand. She would tie a ribbon
round its neck and lead it up and down the lane. At these moments she
forgot the toy lamb. It stood on the chest of drawers in the nursery,
looking off into the corners of the room, neglected.

By the time Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella sent for her to come and see
the lamb, she knew exactly what it would be like and what would happen.
She saw it looking like the lambs in the Bible Picture Book, fat, and
covered with thick, pure white wool. She saw Uncle Edward, with his
yellow face and big nose and black whiskers, coming to her across the
lawn at Chadwell Grange, carrying the lamb over his shoulder like
Jesus.

It was a cold morning. They drove a long time in Uncle Edward's
carriage, over the hard, loud roads, between fields white with frost,
and Uncle Edward was not on his lawn.

Aunt Bella stood in the big hall, waiting for them. She looked much
larger and more important than Mamma.

"Aunt Bella, have you got my new lamb?"

She tried not to shriek it out, because Aunt Bella was nearly always
poorly, and Mamma told her that if you shrieked at her she would be
ill.

Mamma said "Sh-sh-sh!" And Aunt Bella whispered something and she heard
Mamma answer, "Better not."

"If she _sees_ it," said Aunt Bella, "she'll understand."

Mamma shook her head at Aunt Bella.

"Edward would like it," said Aunt Bella. "He wanted to give it her
himself. It's _his_ present."

Mamma took her hand and they followed Aunt Bella through the servants'
hall into the kitchen. The servants were all there, Rose and Annie and
Cook, and Mrs. Fisher, the housekeeper, and Giles, the young footman.
They all stared at her in a queer, kind way as she came in.

A low screen was drawn close round one corner of the fireplace; Uncle
Edward and Pidgeon, the bailiff, were doing something to it with a
yellow horse-cloth.

Uncle Edward came to her, looking down the side of his big nose. He led
her to the screen and drew it away.

Something lay on the floor wrapped in a piece of dirty blanket. When
Uncle Edward pushed back the blanket a bad smell came out. He said,
"Here's your lamb, Mary. You're just in time."

She saw a brownish grey animal with a queer, hammer-shaped head and
long black legs. Its body was drawn out and knotted like an enormous
maggot. It lay twisted to one side and its eyes were shut.

"That isn't my lamb."

"It's the lamb I always said Miss Mary was to have, isn't it, Pidgeon?"

"Yes, Squoire, it's the lamb you bid me set asoide for little Missy."

"Then," said Mary, "why does it look like that?"

"It's very ill," Mamma said gently. "Poor Uncle Edward thought you'd
like to see it before it died. You _are_ glad you've seen it, aren't
you?"

"No."

Just then the lamb stirred in its blanket; it opened its eyes and
looked at her.

She thought: "It's my lamb. It looked at me. It's _my_ lamb and it's
dying. My _lamb's_ dying."

The bad smell came again out of the blanket. She tried not to think of
it. She wanted to sit down on the floor beside the lamb and lift it out
of its blanket and nurse it; but Mamma wouldn't let her.

When she got home Mamma took down the toy lamb from the chest of
drawers and brought it to her.

She sat quiet a long time holding it in her lap and stroking it.

The stiff eyes of the toy lamb stared away over its ears.




III


I.

Jenny was cross and tugged at your hair when she dressed you to go to
Chadwell Grange.

"Jenny-Wee, Mamma says if I'm not good Aunt Bella will be ill. Do you
think it's really true?"

Jenny tugged. "I'd thank you for some of your Aunt Bella's illness,"
she said.

"I mean," Mary said, "like Papa was in the night. Every time I get
'cited and jump about I think she'll open her mouth and begin."

"Well, if she was to you'd oughter be sorry for her."

"I _am_ sorry for her. But I'm frightened too."

"That's not being good," said Jenny. But she left off tugging.

Somehow you knew she was pleased to think you were not really good at
Aunt Bella's, where Mrs. Fisher dressed and undressed you and you were
allowed to talk to Pidgeon.

Roddy and Dank said you ought to hate Uncle Edward and Pidgeon and Mrs.
Fisher, and not to like Aunt Bella very much, even if she was Mamma's
sister. Mamma didn't really like Uncle Edward; she only pretended
because of Aunt Bella.

Uncle Edward had an ugly nose and a yellow face widened by his black
whiskers; his mouth stretched from one whisker to the other, and his
black hair curled in large tufts above his ears. But he had no beard;
you could see the whole of his mouth at once; and when Aunt Bella came
into the room his little blue eyes looked up off the side of his nose
and he smiled at her between his tufts of hair. It was dreadful to
think that Mark and Dank and Roddy didn't like him. It might hurt him
so much that he would never be happy again.

About Pidgeon she was not quite sure. Pidgeon was very ugly. He had
long stiff legs, and a long stiff face finished off with a fringe of
red whiskers that went on under his chin. Still, it was not nice to
think of Pidgeon being unhappy either. But Mrs. Fisher was large and
rather like Aunt Bella, only softer and more bulging. Her round face
had a high red polish on it always, and when she saw you coming her
eyes twinkled, and her red forehead and her big cheeks and her mouth
smiled all together a fat, simmering smile. When you got to the black
and white marble tiles you saw her waiting for you at the foot of the
stairs.

She wanted to ask Mrs. Fisher if it was true that Aunt Bella would be
ill if she were naughty; but a squeezing and dragging came under her
waist whenever she thought about it, and that made her shy and ashamed.
It went when they left her to play by herself on the lawn in front of
the house.

Aunt Bella's house was enormous. Two long rows of windows stared out at
you, their dark green storm shutters folded back on the yellow brick
walls. A third row of little squeezed-up windows and little squeezed-up
shutters blinked in the narrow space under the roof. All summer a sweet
smell came from that side of the house where cream-coloured roses hung
on the yellow walls between the green shutters. There was a cedar tree
on the lawn and a sun-dial and a stone fountain. Goldfish swam in the
clear greenish water. The flowers in the round beds were stiff and
shining, as if they had been cut out of tin and freshly painted. When
you thought of Aunt Bella's garden you saw calceolarias, brown velvet
purses with yellow spots.

She could always get away from Aunt Bella by going down the dark walk
between the yew hedge and the window of Mrs. Fisher's room, and through
the stable-yard into the plantation. The cocks and hens had their black
timber house there in the clearing, and Ponto, the Newfoundland, lived
all by himself in his kennel under the little ragged fir trees.

When Ponto saw her coming he danced on his hind legs and strained at
his chain and called to her with his loud, barking howl. He played with
her, crawling on his stomach, crouching, raising first one big paw and
then the other. She put out her foot, and he caught it and held it
between his big paws, and looked at it with his head on one side,
smiling. She squealed with delight, and Ponto barked again.

The stable bell would ring while they played in the plantation, and
Uncle Edward or Pidgeon or Mrs. Fisher would come out and find her and
take her back into the house. Ponto lifted up his head and howled after
her as she went.

At lunch Mary sat quivering between Mamma and Aunt Bella. The squeezing
and dragging under her waist had begun again. There was a pattern of
green ivy round the dinner plates and a pattern of goats round the
silver napkin rings. She tried to fix her mind on the ivy and the goats
instead of looking at Aunt Bella to see whether she were going to be
ill. She _would_ be if you left mud in the hall on the black and white
marble tiles. Or if you took Ponto off the chain and let him get into
the house. Or if you spilled the gravy.

Aunt Bella's face was much pinker and richer and more important than
Mamma's face. She thought she wouldn't have minded quite so much if
Aunt Bella had been white and brown and pretty, like Mamma.

There--she had spilled the gravy.

Little knots came in Aunt Bella's pink forehead. Her face loosened and
swelled with a red flush; her mouth pouted and drew itself in again,
pulled out of shape by something that darted up the side of her nose
and made her blink.

She thought: "I know--I know--I _know_ it's going to happen."

It didn't. Aunt Bella only said, "You should look at your plate and
spoon, dear."

After lunch, when they were resting, you could feel naughtiness coming
on. Then Pidgeon carried you on his back to the calf-shed; or Mrs.
Fisher took you up into her bedroom to see her dress.

In Mrs. Fisher's bedroom a smell of rotten apples oozed through the
rosebud pattern on the walls. There were no doors inside, only places
in the wall-paper that opened. Behind one of these places there was a
cupboard where Mrs. Fisher kept her clothes. Sometimes she would take
the lid off the big box covered with wall-paper and show you her Sunday
bonnet. You sat on the bed, and she gave you peppermint balls to suck
while she peeled off her black merino and squeezed herself into her
black silk. You watched for the moment when the brooch with the black
tomb and the weeping willow on it was undone and Mrs. Fisher's chin
came out first by the open collar and Mrs. Fisher began to swell. When
she stood up in her petticoat and bodice she was enormous; her breasts
and hips and her great arms shook as she walked about the room.

Mary was sorry when she said good-bye to Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella
and Mrs. Fisher.

For, always, as soon as she got home, Roddy rushed at her with the same
questions.

"Did you let Uncle Edward kiss you?"

"Yes."

"Did you talk to Pidgeon?"

"Yes."

"Did you kiss Mrs. Fisher?"

"Yes."

And Dank said, "Have they taken Ponto off the chain yet?"

"No."

"Well, then, that shows you what pigs they are."

And when she saw Mark looking at her she felt small and silly and
ashamed.


II.

It was the last week of the midsummer holidays. Mark and Dank had gone
to stay for three days at Aunt Bella's, and on the second day they had
been sent home.

Mamma and Roddy were in the garden when they came. They were killing
snails in a flower-pot by putting salt on them. The snails turned over
and over on each other and spat out a green foam that covered them like
soapsuds as they died.

Mark's face was red and he was smiling. Even Dank looked proud of
himself and happy. They called out together, "We've been sent home."

Mamma looked up from her flower-pot.

"What did you _do_?" she said.

"We took Ponto off the chain," said Dank.

"Did he get into the house?"

"Of course he did," said Mark. "Like a shot. He got into Aunt Bella's
bedroom, and Aunt Bella was in bed."

"Oh, _Mark_!"

"Uncle Edward came up just as we were getting him out. He was in an
awful wax."

"I'm afraid," Dank said, "I cheeked him."

"What did you say?"

"I told him he wasn't fit to have a dog. And he said we weren't to come
again; and Mark said that was all we _had_ come for--to let Ponto
loose."

Mamma put another snail into the flower-pot, very gently. She was
smiling and at the same time trying not to smile.

"He went back," said Mark, "and raked it up again about our chasing his
sheep, ages ago."

"_Did_ you chase the sheep?"

"No. Of course we didn't. They started to run because they saw Pidgeon
coming, and Roddy ran after them till we told him not to. The mean
beast said we'd made Mary's lamb die by frightening its mother. When he
only gave it her because he knew it wouldn't live. _Then_ he said we'd
frightened Aunt Bella."

Mary stared at them, fascinated.

"Oh, Mark, was Aunt Bella ill?"

"Of course she wasn't. She only says she's going to be to keep you
quiet."

"Well," said Mamma, "she won't be frightened any more. He'll not ask
you again."

"We don't care. He's not a bit of good. He won't let us ride his horses
or climb his trees or fish in his stinking pond."

"Let Mary go there," said Dank. "_She_ likes it. She kisses Pidgeon."

"I don't," she cried. "I hate Pidgeon. I hate Uncle Edward and Aunt
Bella. I hate Mrs. Fisher."

Mamma looked up from her flower-pot, and, suddenly, she was angry.

"For shame! They're kind to _you_," she said. "You little naughty,
ungrateful girl."

"They're _not_ kind to Mark and Dank. That's why I hate them."

She wondered why Mamma was not angry with Mark and Dank, who had let
Ponto loose and frightened Aunt Bella.




IV


I.

That year when Christmas came Papa gave her a red book with a gold
holly wreath on the cover. The wreath was made out of three words: _The
Children's Prize_, printed in letters that pretended to be holly
sprigs. Inside the holly wreath was the number of the year, in fat gold
letters: 1869.

Soon after Christmas she had another birthday. She was six years old.
She could write in capitals and count up to a hundred if she were left
to do it by herself. Besides "Gentle Jesus," she could say "Cock-Robin"
and "The House that Jack Built," and "The Lord is my Shepherd" and "The
Slave in the Dismal Swamp." And she could read all her own story books,
picking out the words she knew and making up the rest. Roddy never made
up. He was a big boy, he was eight years old.

The morning after her birthday Roddy and she were sent into the
drawing-room to Mamma. A strange lady was there. She had chosen the
high-backed chair in the middle of the room with the Berlin wool-work
parrot on it. She sat very upright, stiff and thin between the twisted
rosewood pillars of the chair. She was dressed in a black gown made of
a great many little bands of rough crape and a few smooth stretches of
merino. Her crape veil, folded back over her hat, hung behind her head
in a stiff square. A jet necklace lay flat and heavy on her small
chest. When you had seen all these black things she showed you,
suddenly, her white, wounded face.

Mamma called her Miss Thompson.

Miss Thompson's face was so light and thin that you thought it would
break if you squeezed it. The skin was drawn tight over her jaw and the
bridge of her nose and the sharp naked arches of her eye-bones. She
looked at you with mournful, startled eyes that were too large for
their lids; and her flat chin trembled slightly as she talked.

"This is Rodney," she said, as if she were repeating a lesson after
Mamma.

Rodney leaned up against Mamma and looked proud and handsome. She had
her arm round him, and every now and then she pressed it tighter to
draw him to herself.

Miss Thompson said after Mamma, "And this is Mary."

Her mournful eyes moved and sparkled as if she had suddenly thought of
something for herself.

"I am sure," she said, "they will be very good."

Mamma shook her head, as much as to say Miss Thompson must not build on
it.

Every weekday from ten to twelve Miss Thompson came and taught them
reading, writing and arithmetic. Every Wednesday at half-past eleven
the boys' tutor, Mr. Sippett, looked in and taught Rodney "_Mensa_: a
table."

Mamma told them they must never be naughty with Miss Thompson because
her mother was dead.

They went away and talked about her among the gooseberry bushes at the
bottom of the garden.

"I don't know how we're going to manage," Rodney said. "There's no
sense in saying we mustn't be naughty because her mother's dead."

"I suppose," Mary said, "it would make her think she's deader."

"We can't help that. We've got to be naughty some time."

"We mustn't begin," Mary said. "If we begin we shall have to finish."

They were good for four days, from ten to twelve. And at a quarter past
twelve on the fifth day Mamma found Mary crying in the dining-room.

"Oh, Mary, have you been naughty?"

"No; but I shall be to-morrow. I've been so good that I can't keep on
any longer."

Mamma took her in her lap. She lowered her head to you, holding it
straight and still, ready to pounce if you said the wrong thing.

"Being good when it pleases you isn't being good," she said. "It's not
what Jesus means by being good. God wants us to be good all the time,
like Jesus."

"But--Jesus and me is different. He wasn't able to be naughty. And I'm
not able to be good. Not _all_ the time."

"You're not able to be good of your own will and in your own strength.
You're not good till God makes you good."

"Did God make me naughty?"

"No. God couldn't make anybody naughty."

"Not if he tried _hard_?"

"No. But," said Mamma, speaking very fast, "he'll make you good if you
ask him."

"Will he make me good if I don't ask him?"

"No," said Mamma.


II.

Miss Thompson--

She was always sure you would be good. And Mamma was sure you wouldn't
be, or that if you were it would be for some bad reason like being
sorry for Miss Thompson.

As long as Roddy was in the room Mary was sorry for Miss Thompson. And
when she was left alone with her she was frightened. The squeezing and
dragging under her waist began when Miss Thompson pushed her gentle,
mournful face close up to see what she was doing.

She was afraid of Miss Thompson because her mother was dead.

She kept on thinking about Miss Thompson's mother. Miss Thompson's
mother would be like Jenny in bed with her cap off; and she would be
like the dead field mouse that Roddy found in the lane. She would lie
on the bed with her back bent and her head hanging loose like the dear
little field mouse; and her legs would be turned up over her stomach
like his, toes and fingers clawing together. When you touched her she
would be cold and stiff, like the field mouse. They had wrapped her up
in a white sheet. Roddy said dead people were always wrapped up in
white sheets. And Mr. Chapman had put her into a coffin like the one he
was making when he gave Dank the wood for the rabbit's house.

Every time Miss Thompson came near her she saw the white sheet and
smelt the sharp, bitter smell of the coffin.

If she was naughty Miss Thompson (who seemed to have forgotten) would
remember that her mother was dead. It might happen any minute.

It never did. For Miss Thompson said you were good if you knew your
lessons; and at the same time you were not naughty if you didn't know
them. You might not know them to-day; but you would know them to-morrow
or the next day.

By midsummer Mary could read the books that Dank read. If it had not
been for Mr. Sippett and "_Mensa_: a table," she would have known as
much as Roddy.

Almost before they had time to be naughty Miss Thompson had gone. Mamma
said that Roddy was not getting on fast enough.




V


I.

The book that Aunt Bella had brought her was called _The Triumph Over
Midian_, and Aunt Bella said that if she was a good girl it would
interest her. But it did not interest her. That was how she heard Aunt
Bella and Mamma talking together.

Mamma's foot was tapping on the footstool, which showed that she was
annoyed.

"They're coming to-morrow," she said, "to look at that house at
Ilford."

"To live?" Aunt Bella said.

"To live," Mamma said.

"And is Emilius going to allow it? What's Victor thinking of, bringing
her down here?"

"They want to be near Emilius. They think he'll look after her."

"It was Victor who _would_ have her at home, and Victor might look
after her himself. She was his favourite sister."

"He doesn't want to be too responsible. They think Emilius ought to
take his share."

Aunt Bella whispered something. And Mamma said, "Stuff and nonsense! No
more than you or I. Only you never know what queer thing she'll do
next."

Aunt Bella said, "She was always queer as long as I remember her."

Mamma's foot went tap, tap again.

"She's been sending away things worse than ever. Dolls. Those naked
ones."

Aunt Bella gave herself a shake and said something that sounded like
"Goo-oo-sh!" And then, "Going to be married?"

Mamma said, "Going to be married."

And Aunt Bella said "T-t-t."

They were talking about Aunt Charlotte.

Mamma went on: "She's packed off all her clothes. Her new ones. Sent
them to Matilda. Thinks she won't have to wear them any more."

"You mustn't expect me to have Charlotte Olivier in my house," Aunt
Bella said. "If anybody came to call it would be most unpleasant."

"I wouldn't mind," Mamma said, tap-tapping, "if it was only Charlotte.
But there's Lavvy and her Opinions."