Mary Olivier: A Life | Page 6

is. Sacred and holy."
Mary twisted the gold tassel and made it dance and run through the
loop of the chain. Mamma took it out of her hands and pressed them
together and stooped her head to them and kissed them. She could feel
the kiss tingling through her body from her finger-tips, and she was
suddenly docile and appeased.
When she lay in her cot behind the curtain she prayed: "Please God
keep me from wanting Sarah."
In the morning she remembered. When she looked at Sarah she thought:
"Sarah is Mark's cat and Dank's cat."
She touched her with the tips of her fingers. Sarah's eyes were
reproachful and unhappy. She ran away and crept under the chest of
drawers.
"Mamma gave Sarah to Mark."
Mamma was sacred and holy. Mark was sacred and holy. Sarah was
sacred and holy, crouching under the chest of drawers with her eyes
gleaming in the darkness.
VI.
It was a good and happy day.
She lay on the big bed. Her head rested on Mamma's arm. Mamma's
face was close to her. Water trickled into her eyes out of the wet pad of
pocket-handkerchief. Under the cold pad a hot, grinding pain came
from the hole in her forehead. Jenny stood beside the bed. Her face had
waked up and she was busy squeezing something out of a red sponge
into a basin of pink water.

When Mamma pressed the pocket-handkerchief tight the pain ground
harder, when she loosened it blood ran out of the hole and the
pocket-handkerchief was warm again. Then Jenny put on the sponge.
She could hear Jenny say, "It was the Master's fault. She didn't ought to
have been left in the room with him."
She remembered. The dining-room and the sharp spike on the fender
and Papa's legs stretched out. He had told her not to run so fast and she
had run faster and faster. It wasn't Papa's fault.
She remembered tripping over Papa's legs. Then falling on the spike.
Then nothing.
Then waking in Mamma's room.
She wasn't crying. The pain made her feel good and happy; and
Mamma was calling her her darling and her little lamb. Mamma loved
her. Jenny loved her.
Mark and Dank and Roddy came in. Mark carried Sarah in his arms.
They stood by the bed and looked at her; their faces pressed close.
Roddy had been crying; but Mark and Dank were excited. They
climbed on to the bed and kissed her. They made Sarah crouch down
close beside her and held her there. They spoke very fast, one after the
other.
"We've brought you Sarah."
"We've given you Sarah."
"She's your cat."
"To keep for ever."
She was glad that she had tripped over Papa's legs. It was a good and
happy day.
VII.

The sun shone. The polished green blades of the grass glittered. The
gravel walk and the nasturtium bed together made a broad orange blaze.
Specks like glass sparkled in the hot grey earth. On the grey flagstone
the red poppy you picked yesterday was a black thread, a purple stain.
She was happy sitting on the grass, drawing the fine, sharp blades
between her fingers, sniffing the smell of the mignonette that tingled
like sweet pepper, opening and shutting the yellow mouths of the
snap-dragon.
The garden flowers stood still, straight up in the grey earth. They were
as tall as you were. You could look at them a long time without being
tired.
The garden flowers were not like the animals. The cat Sarah bumped
her sleek head under your chin; you could feel her purr throbbing under
her ribs and crackling in her throat. The white rabbit pushed out his
nose to you and drew it in again, quivering, and breathed his sweet
breath into your mouth.
The garden flowers wouldn't let you love them. They stood still in their
beauty, quiet, arrogant, reproachful. They put you in the wrong. When
you stroked them they shook and swayed from you; when you held
them tight their heads dropped, their backs broke, they shrivelled up in
your hands. All the flowers in the garden were Mamma's; they were
sacred and holy.
You loved best the flowers that you stooped down to look at and the
flowers that were not Mamma's: the small crumpled poppy by the edge
of the field, and the ears of the wild rye that ran up your sleeve and
tickled you, and the speedwell, striped like the blue eyes of Meta, the
wax doll.
When you smelt mignonette you thought of Mamma.
It was her birthday. Mark had given her a little sumach tree in a red pot.
They took it out of the pot and dug a hole by the front door steps
outside the pantry window