The air of the drawing-room braced her like the rigour of a cold bath.
Her heartache loosened and lost itself in the long shiver of chilled
flesh.
The stone walls were clammy with the sweat of the thaw; they gave out a
sour, sickly smell. Grey smears of damp dulled the polished lid of the
piano.
They hadn't used the drawing-room since Papa died. It was so bright, so
heartlessly cheerful compared with the other rooms, you could see that
Mamma would think you unfeeling if you wanted to sit in it when Papa was
dead. She had told Catty not to light the fire and to keep the door shut,
for fear you should be tempted to sit in it and forget.
The piano. Under the lid the keys were stiffening with the damp. The
hammers were swelling, sticking together. She tried not to think of the
piano.
She turned her back on it and stood by the side window that looked out on
to the garden. Mamma's garden. It mouldered between the high walls
blackened by the thaw. On the grass-plot the snow had sunk to a thin
crust, black-pitted. The earth was a black ooze through ulcers of grey
snow.
She had a sudden terrifying sense of desolation.
Her mind clutched at this feeling and referred it to her father. It sent
out towards him, wherever he might be, a convulsive emotional cry.
"You were wrong. I do care. Can't you see that I can never be happy
again? Yet, if you could come back I would be happy. I wouldn't mind
your--your little funny ways."
It wasn't true. She _would_ mind them. If he were really there he would
know it wasn't true.
She turned and looked again at the piano. She went to it. She opened the
lid and sat down before it. Her fingers crept along the keyboard; they
flickered over the notes of the Sonata _Appassionata_, a ghostly, furtive
playing, without pressure, without sound.
And she was ashamed as if the piano were tempting her to some cruel,
abominable sin.