Mary Olivier: a Life. Sinclair May

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

       Table of Contents

      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