November, and Mark's last morning. He had got promotion. He was going
back to India with a new battery. He would be stationed at Poona, a place
he hated. Nothing ever happened as he wanted it to happen.
She was in Papa's room, helping him to pack. The wardrobe door gave out
its squeaking wail again and again as he opened it and threw his things
on to the bed. Her mother had gone away because she couldn't bear to see
them, his poor things.
They were all folded now and pressed down into the boxes and
portmanteaus. She sat on the bed with Mark's sword across her knees,
rubbing vaseline on the blade. Mark came and stood before her, looking
down at her.
"Minky, I don't like going away and leaving Mamma with you.... When I
went before you promised you'd be kind to her."
"What do I do?"
There was a groove down the middle of the blade for the blood to run in.
"Do? You do nothing. Nothing. You don't talk to her. You don't want to
talk to her. You behave as if she wasn't there."
The blade was blunt. It would have to be sharpened before Mark took it
into a battle. Mark's eyes hurt her. She tried to fix her attention on
the blade.
"What makes you?"
"I don't know," she said. "Whatever it is it was done long ago."
"She hasn't got anybody," he said. "Roddy's gone. Dan's no good to her.
She won't have anybody but you."
"I know, Mark. I shall never go away and leave her."
"Don't talk about going away and leaving her!"
* * * * *
He didn't want her to see him off at the train. He wanted to go away
alone, after he had said good-bye to Mamma. He didn't want Mamma to be
left by herself after he had gone.
They stood together by the shut door of the drawing-room. She and her
mother stood between Mark and the door. She had said good-bye a minute
ago, alone with him in Papa's room. But there was something they had
missed--
She thought: "We must get it now, this minute. He'll say good-bye to
Mamma last. He'll kiss her last. But I must kiss him again, first."
She came to him, holding up her face. He didn't see her; but when his arm
felt her hand it jerked up and pushed her out of his way, as he would
have pushed anything that stood there between him and Mamma.