The asters had come. She had carried out the long, shallow boxes into the
garden. She had left her mother kneeling beside them, looking with
adoration into the large, round, innocent faces, white and purple, mauve
and magenta and amethyst and pink. If the asters had not come the memory
of the awful things they had said to each other would have remained with
them till bed-time; but Mamma would be happy with the asters like a child
with its toys, planning where they were to go and planting them.
She went up to her room. After thirteen years she had still the same
childish pleasure in the thought that it was hers and couldn't be taken
from her, because nobody else wanted it.
The bookshelves stretched into three long rows on the white wall above
her bed to hold the books Mr. Sutcliffe had given her; a light blue row
for the Thomas Hardys; a dark blue for the George Merediths; royal blue
and gold for the Rudyard Kiplings. And in the narrow upright bookcase in
the arm of the T facing her writing-table, Mark's books: the Homers and
the Greek dramatists. Their backs had faded from puce colour to drab.
Mark's books.--When she looked at them she could still feel her old,
childish lust for possession, her childish sense of insecurity, of
defeat. And something else. The beginning of thinking things about Mamma.
She could see herself standing in Mark's bedroom at Five Elms and Mamma
with her hands on Mark's books. She could hear herself saying, "You're
afraid."
"What did I think Mamma was afraid of?"
Mamma was happy out there with the asters.
There would be three hours before dinner.
She began setting down the fragments of the "Dream-Play" that had come to
her: then the outlines. She saw very clearly and precisely how it would
have to be. She was intensely happy.
* * * * *
She was still thinking of it as she went across the Green to the post
office, instead of wondering why the postmistress had sent for her, and
why Miss Horn waited for her by the house door at the side, or why she
looked at her like that, with a sort of yearning pity and fear. She
followed her into the parlour behind the post office.
Suddenly she was awake to the existence of this parlour and its yellow
cane-bottomed chairs and round table with the maroon cloth and the white
alabaster lamp that smelt. The orange envelope lay on the maroon cloth.
Miss Horn covered it with her hand.
"It's for Mr. Dan," she said. "I daren't send it to the house lest your
mother should get it."
She gave it up with a slow, unwilling gesture.
"It's bad news, Miss Mary."
"_Your Brother Died This Evening_."