Imagined Corners. Willa Muir

the minister, the Reverend William, she could not despise, for he was unremitting in his duty, although his duty seemed to her at times a queerly unpractical business. Still, all men were queer and unaccountable. But even the worst and wildest of them were not so unaccountable as her younger brother Ned, whose conduct was driving Teenie into hysterics and forcing Sarah herself to realize that human energy is not inexhaustible. She was tired, her head ached, and the mere tho ght of Ned exasperated her. Besides the way he carried on during the day he was wasting the gas every night in a sinful manner, and even after he was in bed she could not go to sleep until she had peeped through the crack of his door to see that the gas was turned off. William’s salary could not stand it. It was all so unreasonable. What made him do it? What on earth made him do it?

      But from this question, against which she had battered herself in vain for months, her mind now turned resolutely away. If there was any meaning at all in life Ned was bound to come to his senses again. Of course.

      ‘We’ll give it another week, then, Teenie. Mr Ned’s bound to get better. I must say I don’t see how he could get any worse.’

      Sarah smiled wryly, and even the effort of smiling strengthened her returning faith in the reasonableness of life. She gave herself a shake and set about the business of the day.

      On the first floor the Reverend William Murray, awakening slowly as he always did, was also strengthened by faith, but not by faith in the reasonableness of life. His faith grew out of the peace which surrounded him in that half-suspended state between sleeping and waking wherein his spirit lingered every morning, freed from the blankness of sleep and not yet limited by the checks and obstacles of perception. His eyes were shut, and his vision was not prejudiced by the straight lines of roof and walls; his ears were shut, and in their convulsions there reverberated only the vibrations of that remote sea on which he had been cradled, unstirred by desire or regret, at one with his God. Slowly, almost reluctantly, his spirit returned to inform his body, ebbing and shrinking into the confines of consciousness. He lay still, scarcely breathing, trying to prolong the transitory sense of communion with the infinite; but his awareness spread out in concentric rings around him, and he knew himself as William Murray, lying in bed in the manse of St James’s United Free Church, Calderwick. Even then he did not open his eyes. His thoughts would presently follow him and rise into their place, the first thoughts of the morning which were sent to him as a guidance for the day.

      During the past fortnight his first thoughts had been more and more conditioned by the existence of his brother Ned, and on this morning too it was with an indefinite but pervading sense of reference to Ned that the thought came to him: yonder there is no forgiveness, for there is no sin. It was an immediate crystallization of experience, and he felt its truth. In that other world forgiveness was superfluous, for there was no sin. There was neither good nor evil…. That startled his newly awakened consciousness. He opened his eyes and got up.

      The thought persisted, however, as he shaved. No sin; that was the state he was striving to attain, a life wholly within the peace of God. But neither good nor evil? That meant the suspension of all judgment as well as of all passion. Yet he was uplifted by the mere idea that the peace of God was neither good nor evil…. To know all is to forgive all, someone had said. He stared at his own reflection in the mirror. How much better simply to accept without forgiveness! Could he meet Ned on that plane perhaps he could cure the boy’s sick spirit….

      ‘Ned’s still asleep,’ said Sarah, as she poured out tea, this time China tea from the silver teapot. ‘I’m going to leave him till he wakens. It was half-past three when he put out the gas.’

      William said nothing. He looked so absent and so pleased that Sarah could not resist giving him a tug.

      ‘Teenie’s threatened to go, William, if this lasts much longer. It’s got on her nerves.’

      ‘Teenie? Oh, surely not. Tell her to keep her heart up; I don’t think it’ll last much longer. I think …’

      He paused. It was difficult to explain to Sarah.

      ‘I have an idea,’ he went on, ‘but I haven’t quite thought it out. Still, I believe …’

      Sarah felt so irritated by the way his spoon was wandering round and round in his teacup that she knew her nerves were sorely stretched as well as Teenie’s.

      ‘William, it mustn’t go on!’ she said. ‘In the first place, we’ll be ruined. What with the gas, and a fire on all day in his room – we can’t do it much longer. If he doesn’t come to his senses soon we’ll have to – to send him away.’

      Her words were indefinite, but as she and William looked at each other neither doubted what was meant. William stopped stirring his tea. With unexpected force he said in a loud tone: ‘No! That would be inhuman. That would be unchristian. What can you be thinking of, Sarah?’

      Sarah covered her eyes with her hands.

      ‘I’m so tired! You don’t hear him at night, but he’s just over my head, and the tramping up and down, up and down’ (unconsciously she echoed Teenie’s words) ‘drives through and through me.’

      William rose from the table to bend awkwardly over her.

      ‘My poor Sarah, my poor lassie. Of course you’re tired, but bear up just a little longer; we’ll do it yet. He’s our own brother; he’s bound to be all right.’

      God never forsakes his people, he was thinking to himself.

      Sarah dropped a tear on his hand and looked up.

      ‘Could you take him for a walk this afternoon? I’ve promised Teenie an afternoon in bed, and I think I could do with a rest myself.’

      ‘I’ll take him out this afternoon,’ William’s voice was confident. ‘It’s only Friday, I can finish my sermon tomorrow. But can’t you take a rest now?’

      ‘No; I have to get flannelette and stuff for the Ladies’ Work Party, from Mary Watson’s.’

      Teenie could give Ned his breakfast when he came down, she was thinking. He was nicer to Teenie than to his own sister….

      Before letting herself out Sarah mentally rehearsed her various errands and the number of yards of flannelette she needed. She never simply went out on impulse, nor did she expect to be surprised by anything in the streets. She could have predicted what was to be seen at any hour of the day. It was now ten o’clock, and as if noting the answer to a sum she observed that the baker’s van was precisely at the head of the street and that the buckets of house-refuse were still waiting by twos and threes at the kerb for the dust-cart. She would have been disturbed had things been otherwise. It was a satisfaction to her that everything had its time and place; that streets were paved and gardens contained within iron railings, that children were in school, infants in their perambulators, and hundreds of shopkeepers waiting behind clean counters for the thousands of housewives who like herself were shopping. The orderly life of Calderwick was keeping pace with the ordered march of the sun. She could hear the prolonged whistle of the express from King’s Cross as it pulled out of the station. Punctual to the minute.

      III

      At about the same time, in the same town of Calderwick, and only round the corner from the manse, young Mrs John Shand was buttoning her gloves and tilting her head to study, in the long mirror, the hang of her new coat. It had a perfect line, she decided; most women, of course, wouldn’t have the shoulders for it. Whatever Hector’s wife had on, bride or no bride, she would be put in the shade by such elegance.

      Mabel Shand smiled to her own reflection, an approving smile. Her teeth were strong, white and even; her skin was naturally fresh and finely textured. She bent her knee slightly and admired the fall of her garments; most women’s thighs were too short, but she had a long and graceful curve from the hip to the knee. She felt that she was marked out for superiority, unlike the majority of the Calderwick women, botched and clumsy creatures who should be thankful for anything they could get.

      Her gloves were buttoned.