Rose Godwin told her that home-sickness wore off. It didn't. It came
beating up and up, like madness, out of nothing. The French verbs, grey,
slender as little verses on the page, the French verbs swam together and
sank under the clear-floating images of home-sickness. Mamma's face,
Roddy's, Dan's face. Tall trees, the Essex fields, flat as water, falling
away behind them. Little feathery trees, flying low on the sky-line.
Outside the hallucination the soiled light shut you in.
The soiled light; odours from the warm roots of girl's hair; and Sunday.
Sunday; stale odours of churches. You wrote out the sermon you had not
listened to and had not heard. Somebody told you the text, and you amused
yourself by seeing how near you could get to what you would have heard if
you had listened. After tea, hymns; then church again. Your heart
laboured with the strain of kneeling, arms lifted up to the high pew
ledge. You breathed pew dust. Your brain swayed like a bladder, brittle,
swollen with hot gas-fumes. After supper, prayers again. Sunday was over.
On Monday, the tenth day, she ran away to Dover Harbour. She had thought
she could get to London with two weeks' pocket-money and what was left of
Uncle Victor's tip after she had paid for the eau-de-cologne; but the
ticket man said it would only take her as far as Canterbury. She had
frightened Miss Lambert and made her tremble: all for nothing, except the
sight of the Harbour. It was dreadful to see her tremble. Even the
Harbour wasn't worth it.
A miracle would have to happen.
Two weeks passed and three weeks. And on the first evening of the fourth
week the miracle happened. Rose Godwin came to her and whispered: "You're
wanted in the dining-room."
Her mother's letter lay open on the table. A tear had made a glazed
snail's track down Miss Lambert's cheek; and Mary thought that one of
them was dead--Roddy--Dan--Papa.
"My dear, my dear--don't cry. You're going home."
"Why? Why am I going?"
She could see the dull, kind eyes trying to look clever.
"Because your mother has sent for you. She wants you back again."
"Mamma? What does she want me for?"
Miss Lambert's eyes turned aside slantways. She swallowed something in
her throat, making a funny noise: qualk-qualk.
"It isn't _you_? You aren't sending me away?"
"No; we're not sending you. But we think it's best for you to go. We
can't bear to see your dear, unhappy little face going about the
passages."
"Does it mean that Mamma isn't happy without me?"
"Well--she _would_ miss her only daughter, wouldn't she?"
The miracle. The shining, lovely miracle.
"Mary Olivier is going! Mary Olivier is going!"
Actually the girls were sorry. Too sorry. The compassion in Rose Godwin's
face stirred a doubt. Doubt of the miracle.
She carried her books to the white curtained room where Miss Haynes knelt
by her trunk, packing her clothes with little gentle, tender hands.
"Miss Haynes" (suddenly), "I'm not expelled, am I?"
"Expelled? My dear child, who's talking about expulsion?"
As if she said, When miracles are worked for you, accept them.
She lay awake, thinking what she should say to her mother when she got
home. She would have to tell her that just at first she very nearly _was_
expelled. Then her mother would believe in her unbelief and not think she
was shamming.
And she would have to explain about her unbelief. And about Pantheism.