§ 13

It was a very different packing from that before Mary’s departure eighteen months ago. There was no soft-treading Gisèle, and her clothes, though she had been at Leasan six months, were fewer than when she had come for a Christmas visit. They were still beautiful, however, and Mary still loved them—it hurt her to see Jenny tumbling and squeezing them into the trunk. But she must not be critical, it was as well perhaps that she had someone to pack for her who did not really care for clothes and did not waste time in smoothing and folding ... because she must get out of the house quickly, before the rest of the family had time to find out what she was about. It was undignified, she knew, but her many defeats had brought her a bitter carelessness.

The sisters did not talk much during the packing. But Mary knew that Jenny approved of what she was doing. Perhaps Jenny herself would like to be starting out on a flight from Alard. She wondered a little how Jenny’s own affair was going—that unacknowledged yet obsessing affair. She realised rather sadly that she had lost her sister’s confidence—or perhaps had never quite had it. Her own detachment, her own passion for aloofness and independence had grown up like a mist between them. And now when her aloofness was destroyed, when some million citizens of England were acquainted with her heart, when all the golden web she had spun round herself was torn, soiled and scattered, her sister was gone. She stood alone—no longer set apart, no longer veiled from her fellows by delicate self-spun webs—but just alone.

“Shall I ring for Pollock?” said Jenny.

“No, I’d much rather you didn’t.”

“Then how shall we manage about your trunk?—it’s too heavy for us to carry down ourselves.”

“Can’t Gervase carry it?”

“Yes—I expect he could.”

She called her brother up from the hall, and he easily swung up the trunk on his shoulder. As he did so, and Mary saw his hands with their broken nails and the grime of the shop worked into the skin, she realised that they symbolised a freedom which was more actual than any she had made. Gervase was the only one of the family who was really free, though he worked ten hours a day for ten shillings a week. Doris was not free, for she had accepted the position of idle daughter, and was bound by all the ropes of a convention which had no substance in fact. Peter was not free because he had, Mary knew, married away from his real choice, and was now bound to justify his new choice to his heart—George was not free, he was least free of all, because individual members of the family had power over him as well as the collective fetish. Jenny was not free, because she must love according to opportunity. Slaves ... all the Alards were slaves ... to Alard—to the convention of the old county family with its prosperity of income and acres, its house, its servants, its ancient name and reputation—a convention the foundations of which were rotten right through, which was bound to topple sooner or later, crushing all those who tried to shelter under it. So far only two had broken away, herself and Gervase—herself so feebly, so painfully, in such haste and humiliation, he so calmly and carelessly and sufficiently. He would be happy and prosperous in his freedom, but she ... she dared not think.

However, Jenny was thinking for her.

“What will you do, Mary?” she asked, as they crossed the hall—“where are you going?”

“I’m going back to London. I don’t know yet what I’ll do.”

“Have you enough money? I can easily lend you something—I cashed a cheque yesterday.”

“Oh, I’m quite all right, thanks.”

“Do you think you’ll go abroad?”

“I’ll try to. Meg is going again next month. I expect I could go with her.”

They were outside. Mary’s box was on the back of the lorry, and Gervase already on the driver’s seat. It was rather a lowly way of leaving the house of one’s fathers. Mary had never been on the lorry before, and had some difficulty in climbing over the wheel.

Jenny steadied her, and for a moment kept her hand after she was seated.

“Of course you know I think you’re doing the only possible thing.”

“Yes ... thank you, Jenny; but I wish I’d done it earlier.”

“How could you?”

“Refused to defend the case—spared myself and everybody all this muck.”

“It’s very difficult, standing up to the family. But you’ve done it now. I wish I could.... Goodbye, Mary dear, and I expect we’ll meet in town before very long.”

“Goodbye.”

The Ford gargled, and they ran round the flower-bed in the middle of Conster’s gravel sweep. Jenny waved farewell from the doorstep and went indoors. Gervase began to whistle; he seemed happy—“I wonder,” thought Mary, “if it’s true that he’s in love.”