He brought her to the fire, made her comfortable, and she sat stiffly, awkwardly, as though this house and this room and this chair were strange to her. He leaned over her. ‘How long have you been standing out there, sister?’
She turned her head to the fire, and said quietly, ‘I didn’t notice.’
‘Could have caught your death of cold out there, Margiad.’
He offered a smile, saying, ‘I’ll go and make a pot of tea.’
‘Don’t bother.’
‘I want to,’ he said.
She remained silent, and he went off to the kitchen. When later he returned with two cups, and handed her one, she shook her head, and he took it back to the kitchen again. When she looked at him she knew that he was looking, not at her, but through the open window of his own relief. And here he was, back again, sitting opposite her, casually stirring his tea, as though nothing in the world had ever happened, no single blow from anywhere against the peace of the day. His very calmness disturbed her, and once he even essayed a smile. But suppose she had not come back. Suppose she had gone off to Hengoed, and stayed there. Shyly, tentatively, he looked at her, and said in a low voice, ‘Margiad! Margiad!’ but it only prompted her to immediate action, and she picked up her work basket, and began rummaging through its contents.
‘You really - - - are - - - angry, sister,’ he said. The needles began to click, he watched the fingers that were lively, grow livelier still.
‘How very calm she is,’ he thought, and after a while, the silence angered him; it seemed to hold in it both teeth and gall.
‘Margiad!’
She ignored him. He simply was not there. She heard his cup sound on the hearth, heard the match struck, and felt the room fill with the shag smell.
‘I shall go to my study,’ Mervyn said, not going, not wanting to, dreading a move, as he sat, as he watched the busy, but now infuriating fingers, that seemed to spell an indifference across the whole room. He contemplated upon the stiffness with which she sat, and the downcast head. His voice seemed strangulated as he asked, ‘Are you never going to say anything to me, sister.’ And again waited, again hoped. ‘Shall I say it for you?’ She turned her head away, she would not answer. And then he was stood over her. ‘I am suddenly a man, and you call it a sin.’
The moment she looked at him he lowered his eyes.
‘Where do you go at night?’ she asked.
‘Where do I go at night? I go out for a walk.’
‘Walk?’
‘Walk,’ he said, ‘I go for a walk, and I think about my life.’
‘What about your life?’ and he felt the harshness in the words.
He leaned even closer, and heaved it out, angrily, passionately, ‘It’s empty.’
‘It won’t stop you from becoming a fool,’ she said, ‘and nobody from laughing.’
‘I don’t - - - care.’
She dropped the knitting, spat it in his face. ‘I do.’
She felt his fingers on her knees, felt them pressing down.
‘Your respectability turns good intention into slime,’ he said. There was a long silence, and they stared each other out.
‘Mervyn Thomas, I will never forgive you for that. Never.’
‘Then don’t,’ he shouted in her face, ‘Don’t,’ and rushed back to his chair and huddled in it, closing his eyes, refusing to listen, refusing to look, heard her returning her things to the work basket. When the heavy sigh came his shoulders slumped; the moment had brought its cringe. He heard her get up and cross the room, heard her fiddling with the window catch.
‘I stood out there,’ she said, ‘thinking of how peaceful and good our life once was. It is a great pity, Mervyn, a great pity.’
He spoke in such a low voice that she had to strain her ears for the words, as he said with a complete calm, ‘I would marry Miss Vaughan tomorrow, Margiad. Is that a crime?’
‘She is married.’
He gave a violent jerk in the chair. ‘Is married?’
‘Is married,’ Margiad said.
‘To who?’
‘To herself. She loves herself.’
‘What on earth are you talking about, sister?’ and she knew he was right behind her. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Ask Mr Blair,’ she said.
‘Mr Blair?’
‘Mr Blair,’ she said. ‘I saw him this morning.’
‘You - - you - - you seem to have been seeing everyone on my behalf.’
‘I was having a cup of coffee in a cafe, and he was there. That’s all.’
He turned her violently round. ‘You’re enjoying this,’ he said. ‘What right have you to interfere with my life?’
