"Why are you always going to the Sutcliffes'?" Mark said suddenly.
"Because I like them."
They were coming down the fields from Greffington Edge in sight of the
tennis court.
"You oughtn't to like them when they weren't nice to poor Papa. If Mamma
doesn't want to know them you oughtn't to."
Mark, too. Mark saying what Mamma said. Her heart swelled and tightened.
She didn't answer him.
"Anyhow," he said, "you oughtn't to go about all over the place with old
Sutcliffe." When he said "old Sutcliffe" his eyes were merry and insolent
as they used to be. "What do you do it for?"
"Because I like him. And because there's nobody else who wants to go
about with me."
"There's Miss Heron."
"Dorsy isn't quite the same thing."
"Whether she is or isn't you've got to chuck it."
"Why?"
"Because Mamma doesn't like it and I don't like it. That ought to be
enough." (Like Papa.)
"It isn't enough."
"Minky--why are you such a brute to little Mamma?"
"Because I can't help it ... It's all very well for you--"
Mark turned in the path and looked at her; his tight, firm face tighter
and firmer. She thought: "He doesn't know. He's like Mamma. He won't see
what he doesn't want to see. It would be kinder not to tell him. But I
can't be kind. He's joined with Mamma against me. They're two to one.
Mamma must have said something to make him hate me." ...Perhaps she
hadn't. Perhaps he had only seen her disapproving, reproachful face ...
"If he says another word--if he looks like that again, I shall tell him."
"It's different for you," she said. "Ever since I began to grow up I felt
there was something about Mamma that would kill me if I let it. I've had
to fight for every single thing I've ever wanted. It's awful fighting
her, when she's so sweet and gentle. But it's either that or go under."
"Minky--you talk as if she hated you."
"She does hate me."
"You lie." He said it gently, without rancour.
"No. I found that out years ago. She doesn't _know_ she hates me. She
never knows that awful sort of thing. And of course she loved me when I
was little. She'd love me now if I stayed little, so that she could do
what she liked with me; if I'd sit in a corner and think as she thinks,
and feel as she feels and do what she does."
"If you did you'd be a much nicer Minx."
"Yes. Except that I _should_ be lying then, the whole time. Hiding my
real self and crushing it. It's your _real_ self she hates--the thing she
can't see and touch and get at--the thing that makes you different. Even
when I was little she hated it and tried to crush it. I remember
things--"
"You don't love her. You wouldn't talk like that about her if you loved
her."
"It's _because_ I love her. Her self. _Her_ real self. When she's working
in the garden, planting flowers with her blessed little hands, doing what
she likes, and when she's reading the Bible and thinking about God and
Jesus, and when she's with _you_, Mark, happy. That's her real self. I
adore it. Selves are sacred. You ought to adore them. Anybody's self.
Catty's.... I used to wonder what the sin against the Holy Ghost was.
They told you nobody knew what it was. _I_ know. It's that. Not adoring
the self in people. Hating it. Trying to crush it."
"I see. Mamma's committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, has she?"
"Yes."
He laughed. "You mustn't go about saying those things. People will think
you mad."
"Let them. I don't care--I don't care if _you_ think I'm mad. I only
think it's beastly of you to say so."
"You're not madder than I am. We're all mad. Mad as hatters. You and me
and Dank and Roddy and Uncle Victor. Poor Charlotte's the sanest of the
lot, and she's the only one that's got shut up."
"Why do you say she's the sanest?"
"Because she knew what she wanted."
"Yes. She knew what she wanted. She spent her whole life trying to get
it. She went straight for that one thing. Didn't care a hang what anybody
thought of her."
"So they said poor Charlotte was mad."
"She was only mad because she didn't get it."
"Yes, Minx.... Would poor Minky like to be married?"
"No. I'm not thinking about that. I'd like to write poems. And to get
away sometimes and see places. To get away from Mamma."
"You little beast."
"Not more beast than you. You got away. Altogether. I believe you knew."
"Knew what?"
Mark's face was stiff and red. He was angry now.
"That if you stayed you'd be crushed. Like Roddy. Like me."
"I knew nothing of the sort."
"Deep down inside you you knew. You were afraid. That's why you wanted to
be a soldier. So as not to be afraid. So as to get away altogether."
"You little devil. You're lying. Lying."
He threw his words at you softly, so as not to hurt you. "Lying. Because
you're a beast to Mamma you'd like to think I'm a beast, too."
"No--no." She could feel herself making it out more and more. Flash after
flash. Till she knew him. She knew Mark.
"You _had_ to. To get away from her, to get away from her sweetness and
gentleness so that you could be yourself; so that you could be a man."
She had a tremendous flash.
"You haven't got away altogether. Half of you still sticks. It'll never
get away.... You'll never love anybody. You'll never marry."
"No, I won't. You're right there."
"Yes. Papa never got away. That was why he was so beastly to us."
"He wasn't beastly to us."
"He was. You know he was. You're only saying that because it's what Mamma
would like you to say.... He couldn't help being beastly. He couldn't
care for us. He couldn't care for anybody but Mamma."
"That's why I care for _him_," Mark said.
"I know.... None of it would have mattered if we'd been brought up right.
But we were brought up all wrong. Taught that our selves were beastly,
that our wills were beastly and that everything we liked was bad. Taught
to sit on our wills, to be afraid of our selves and not trust them for a
single minute.... Mamma was glad when I was jilted, because that was one
for _me_."
"Were you jilted?"
"Yes. She thought it would make me humble. I always was. I am. I'm afraid
of my self _now_. I can't trust it. I keep on asking people what they
think when _I_ ought to _know_.... But I'm going to stop all that. I'm
going to fight."
"Fight little Mamma?"
"No. Myself. The bit of me that claws on to her and can't get away. My
body'll stay here and take care of her all her life, but my _self_ will
have got away. It'll get away from all of them. It's got bits of them
sticking to it, bits of Mamma, bits of Papa, bits of Roddy, bits of Aunt
Charlotte. Bits of you, Mark. I don't _want_ to get away from you, but I
shall have to. You'd kick me down and stamp on me if you thought it would
please Mamma. There mayn't be much left when I'm done, but at least it'll
be me."
"Mad. Quite mad, Minx. You ought to be married."
"And leave little Mamma? ... I'll race you from the bridge to the top
of the hill."
He raced her. He wasn't really angry. Deep down inside him he knew.