her own sorrow and slow death. Sorrow and slow death, because a man
had _not_ married her. Wretched man, what is he to do with these
exigeant and never-to-be-satisfied women? Our mothers pined because
our fathers drank and were rakes. Our wives pine because we are
virtuous but inadequate. Who is this sphinx, this woman? Where is
the Oedipus that will solve her riddle of happiness, and then
strangle her?--only to marry his own mother!
In the months that followed her mother's death, Alvina went on the
same, in abeyance. She took over the housekeeping, and received one
or two overflow pupils from Miss Frost, young girls to whom she gave
lessons in the dark drawing-room of Manchester House. She was
busy--chiefly with housekeeping. There seemed a great deal to put in
order after her mother's death.
She sorted all her mother's clothes--expensive, old-fashioned
clothes, hardly worn. What was to be done with them? She gave them
away, without consulting anybody. She kept a few private things, she
inherited a few pieces of jewellery. Remarkable how little trace her
mother left--hardly a trace.
She decided to move into the big, monumental bedroom in front of the
house. She liked space, she liked the windows. She was strictly
mistress, too. So she took her place. Her mother's little
sitting-room was cold and disused.
Then Alvina went through all the linen. There was still abundance,
and it was all sound. James had had such large ideas of setting up
house, in the beginning. And now he begrudged the household
expenses, begrudged the very soap and candles, and even would have
liked to introduce margarine instead of butter. This last
degradation the women refused. But James was above food.
The old Alvina seemed completely herself again. She was quiet,
dutiful, affectionate. She appealed in her old, childish way to Miss
Frost, and Miss Frost called her "Dear!" with all the old protective
gentleness. But there was a difference. Underneath her appearance of
appeal, Alvina was almost coldly independent. She did what she
thought she would. The old manner of intimacy persisted between her
and her darling. And perhaps neither of them knew that the intimacy
itself had gone. But it had. There was no spontaneous interchange
between them. It was a kind of deadlock. Each knew the great love
she felt for the other. But now it was a love static, inoperative.
The warm flow did not run any more. Yet each would have died for the
other, would have done anything to spare the other hurt.
Miss Frost was becoming tired, dragged looking. She would sink into
a chair as if she wished never to rise again--never to make the
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