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.