‘I have to think of my own,’ she said.
She broke free of him. ‘Leave me alone. I am going to my room,’ and she pushed him away and hurried to the door. He followed her out, followed her up the stairs. There was something he wanted to say, and he did not say it, something he wanted to do, and he did not do it. He opened the bedroom door for her, went in behind her. She had gone quite pale, her shoulders heaved, she sat heavily on the bed. He sat beside her.
‘Margiad!’
‘Go away,’ she said, and he went away.
The study door slammed, the house was silent again. Slowly she got up and walked to her dressing-table, and sat down in front of the mirror, staring into this for a long time, and seeing nought save this brother that had changed so violently, heard the laughter that he did not hear. ‘Poor Mervyn. Poor brother.’
She took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. When she opened them again the man in the mirror had vanished, and she saw only the days and places that had once been their peace. Why had they ever come to the town, and suddenly she was hating it, and everything in it. ‘If he had stayed at Hengoed he would be deacon now.’ She thought of Vaughan, she hated Vaughan. ‘Living in the clouds, like she is.’ If only they could both get up and go away, now, this very minute. Yes, if only they could. Mervyn was really a good man at heart. Her thoughts ran riot. He was so obsessed with this woman, so secret, hiding away from others. Hiding from what? And she thought of Tenby and her father over a cliff. When she thought of the morning she covered her face with her hands, and she saw the world raw behind her brother’s broad back. She went to the door and called loudly, ‘Mervyn!’
And he called back from the bottom of the stairs, ‘What is it, sister?’
‘I think I’ll go to bed.’
‘Now?’
‘Now.’
‘Wait a minute, I’m coming.’
She was still seated before the mirror when he came in.
‘What is the matter?’
He stood just inside the door, and she said, ‘Come here, Mervyn,’ and he came. He sat down beside her, wanted to, but did not take her hand.
‘You hate me,’ she said.
‘Hate you?’
‘Because I am decent, and you are not.’
‘I don’t hate you, I don’t hate anyone. Fancy saying such a thing to me, Margiad.’
‘I listened to people this morning and I didn’t even understand their language,’ she said.
A rash moment, rash words, and he could no longer help himself.
‘Perhaps they did not understand yours,’ he said.
‘You are brazen.’
‘You’re becoming impossible, Margiad.’
‘These past weeks I’ve asked myself how on earth you can sit in your study and write the things that you do. The flowers of flesh grow in your skull, Mervyn.’
‘We’re all flesh. It’s a prison.’
‘Come and look at yourself in this mirror, you stupid man, look slowly and carefully. Spell your age.’
‘Leave me alone.’
‘You are left alone.’
‘I’ll meet her one day. You see.’
‘You are mad.’
‘I’m what I am,’ and he closed his eyes for a moment. ‘You appear to have seen a number of people on my behalf.’
There was no reply.
Suddenly he felt her hand warm on his own.
‘Will you promise me, brother, to give it all up? Forget it.’
She moved away, and then he heard her at the window, fiddling with the catch. ‘You don’t even know you’re ill, Mervyn.’
‘For God’s sake leave me alone,’ he cried.
‘You were once an upright man,’ she said.
He sat on the stool, twiddled his fingers.
‘Sordid,’ she shouted, ‘Sordid. Even the place she stays at is sordid. Not even a carpet on the stairs. There are other places. Quite obviously she hasn’t any money, and that Mr Blair pays her starvation wages. God alone knows what she did at Dinbych.’
He got up, went to the window. ‘Dinbych? I thought she came from Melin.’
