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.