For a little while she was entirely absorbed in plain and purl, slip one and knit two together, make one and repeat. But at last the enthralling business was over and she had before her the long, dull strip of plain knitting which was to cover the sole of Michael’s abnormally long foot. This was not enough to occupy her mind. She could do it mechanically. And then the silence of the room, the loneliness, so painfully kept at bay, rushed in upon her once more.
She thought, as she always thought in November, that next year she would contrive not to spend the whole winter in the country. She would save up and take a little flat in London, where she could be near the children and go to the theatre sometimes in the evening. She did not like London much, but these long winter nights were very hard to get through. It was so quiet, sitting there with only her needles and the ticking clock for company. The wireless was all very well. It knew a great deal and was more entertaining than any human visitor could ever be, but it had its shortcomings. It did not answer when, at ten o’clock, she would fain have said to someone … anyone:
“Well? What about bed?”
Sometimes she thought of asking Maude to come and live with her. It would be kind. For Maude had been left very badly off when Barny died, and she was far from strong, poor thing. But then the children would not have enjoyed coming down to Carey’s End in the same way if Maude had been there. It was so nice for them all to have this country house to come to. Whatever she did, she must keep up Carey’s End.
And to-night, as she remembered, more cheerfully, she would not be alone. She would have her dear Hope. And next week-end Michael would be bringing a friend. It was only in the middle of the week that she would play with the idea of inviting Maude. And she ought to go up and see if Hope’s fire had been properly lighted.
She found it burning brightly but she piled on fresh logs and drew the window curtains. The bed was already turned down because Maggie went out before supper on Sundays. Hope’s night-gown lay spread out, and Ellen looked at it admiringly:
“Pretty!” she thought. “How pretty their things are nowadays!”
Her own trousseau night-gowns had lasted for twenty years, and her daughters had laughed at them, with their frills, their high necks and their profusion of Swiss embroidery. When they wore out she had made herself new ones of thick washing silk, and was very proud of them, thinking how unheard-of silk night-gowns would have been in her youth. She had had silk petticoats, which rustled, but everything else had been of linen and long-cloth. This diaphanous and scanty garment of Hope’s would not have been considered respectable. Her only criticism was that it was chilly. There would be nothing to curl your toes in if they got cold.
For a time she fidgeted about the room, putting the flowers straight on the dressing-table and rolling up a pair of stockings which Hope had left lying on the floor. She had better slip these inside the suit-case, or Hope might forget them in the morning. Lifting the lid, she was really quite shocked at Hope’s untidy ways. With all the empty drawers and shelves in the spare room at her disposal, she ought to have taken the trouble to unpack rather more. Books, cigarettes, underclothes and an evening blouse lay tumbled together. And it was so like Hope to bring such a large book away with her, when there were plenty of books at Carey’s End already.
Ellen picked it up and felt a little disagreeable shock as she saw the title:
The Story of My Life. By Elissa Koebel.
She remembered now that she had seen something, an advertisement or a review or something, in the papers.
Elissa Koebel!
That queer woman who used to come to the island, in that queer summer, long ago, when Barny had appendicitis. She took the book over to the light and turned the pages. The print looked small and uninviting, and she had left her glasses downstairs. In any case she did not suppose that she would care for it. There had been something unpleasant about Elissa Koebel. A silly woman, she was, and more than silly. Not a nice woman. A phrase caught her eye:
“My soul had become a battlefield. I was torn between Byron, Jesus Christ, and Edward Carpenter …”
A very silly woman.
She put the book back into the suit-case and smiled to herself as she shut the lid, remembering how once she had made Kerran laugh with an imitation of Elissa’s accent singing English songs:
“Birrts in the high hall garden
Ven tvilight vas falling,
Mautt! Mautt! Mautt! Mautt! …”
Oh, that summer on the island! How that moment of Kerran laughing sprang out of a mist of forgotten things! Her smile faded as she thought how long ago it all was, and how little she had kept in her heart of those times when she had been so happy because Dick and Peter were still with her. If she had known that she must lose them, would she not have stored up every trivial moment? The regret for happiness squandered overcame her, the regret which is inseparable from our thoughts of the dead, the remorse for caresses not given, for want of patience, want of tenderness, for the love that can never, never again be told.
She had been worried about Dick. But how foolishly, since he was still alive and with her! And Peter had been a little boy, locked safely away in childhood, the war and early death an untold story. Now they had vanished and her desolate soul cried out to their memory:
“Oh, Dick! Oh, Peter! I loved you.”
Peter had made her laugh once. She could not remember much about Peter on the island. But once he had made her laugh when she was trying to scold him. He had always been able to do that. He made her laugh when they were getting ready for a picnic, the picnic, the only clear memory which stayed with her, a thing so distinct that she never thought of it in the past at all but as something that was still going on. But it had happened then, that summer on the island. They all climbed up a hot valley to a place where there was a beautiful view. And somebody said: To glorify God! …
So often and often had she thought of it since. And when she did not think of it she felt it, like an echo, going on and on, through all the clamour and lamentation of the years. If it had not been for that echo she would not have known what to do, now that she was alone. She would have been quite lost.
But she was still listening. She still believed that she must hear those words again, and that their meaning, comprehended for a moment and then lost, would be made plain to her for ever.
“It happened then,” she thought. “That summer on the island. A very long time ago. But I remember that as if it happened yesterday.”
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Copyright © Margaret Kennedy 1932
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First published in Great Britain by William Heinemann in 1932
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