Mary Olivier: A Life

Mary Olivier: A Life

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Title: Mary Olivier: A Life
Author: May Sinclair
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MARY OLIVIER:
A LIFE
BY
MAY SINCLAIR
1919
CONTENTS
BOOK ONE INFANCY (1865-1869)
BOOK TWO CHILDHOOD (1869-1875)
BOOK THREE ADOLESCENCE (1876-1879)
BOOK FOUR MATURITY (1879-1900)
BOOK FIVE MIDDLE AGE (1900-1910)

BOOK ONE INFANCY (1865-1869)

I
I.
The curtain of the big bed hung down beside the cot.
When old Jenny shook it the wooden rings rattled on the pole and grey
men with pointed heads and squat, bulging bodies came out of the folds
on to the flat green ground. If you looked at them they turned into
squab faces smeared with green.
Every night, when Jenny had gone away with the doll and the donkey,
you hunched up the blanket and the stiff white counterpane to hide the
curtain and you played with the knob in the green painted iron railing
of the cot. It stuck out close to your face, winking and grinning at you
in a friendly way. You poked it till it left off and turned grey and went
back into the railing. Then you had to feel for it with your finger. It
fitted the hollow of your hand, cool and hard, with a blunt nose that
pushed agreeably into the palm.
In the dark you could go tip-finger along the slender, lashing flourishes
of the ironwork. By stretching your arm out tight you could reach the
curlykew at the end. The short, steep flourish took you to the top of the
railing and on behind your head.
Tip-fingering backwards that way you got into the grey lane where the
prickly stones were and the hedge of little biting trees. When the door
in the hedge opened you saw the man in the night-shirt. He had only
half a face. From his nose and his cheek-bones downwards his beard
hung straight like a dark cloth. You opened your mouth, but before you
could scream you were back in the cot; the room was light; the green
knob winked and grinned at you from the railing, and behind the
curtain Papa and Mamma were lying in the big bed.
One night she came back out of the lane as the door in the hedge was
opening. The man stood in the room by the washstand, scratching his
long thigh. He was turned slantwise from the nightlight on the
washstand so that it showed his yellowish skin under the lifted shirt.

The white half-face hung by itself on the darkness. When he left off
scratching and moved towards the cot she screamed.
Mamma took her into the big bed. She curled up there under the shelter
of the raised hip and shoulder. Mamma's face was dry and warm and
smelt sweet like Jenny's powder-puff. Mamma's mouth moved over her
wet cheeks, nipping her tears.
Her cry changed to a whimper and a soft, ebbing sob.
Mamma's breast: a smooth, cool, round thing that hung to your hands
and slipped from them when they tried to hold it. You could feel the
little ridges of the stiff nipple as your finger pushed it back into the
breast.
Her sobs shook in her throat and ceased suddenly.
II.
The big white globes hung in a ring above the dinner table. At first,
when she came into the room, carried high in Jenny's arms, she could
see nothing but the hanging, shining globes. Each had a light inside it
that made it shine.
Mamma was sitting at the far end of the table. Her face and neck