‘Believe me, Margiad, I am genuinely in love with Miss Vaughan. Believe that.’
She flung it back at him. ‘And the world knows. We are both being laughed at. You are mad, Mervyn, you are.’
‘How bitter you are.’
‘You think of nobody but yourself, you’re selfish, selfish. I have feelings, too, Mervyn.’
He threw himself across the bed. ‘I wish I was dead.’
‘That is being too simple.’
His very inertness, the dead silence, disgusted her, and she said again, ‘I have feelings, too, Mervyn. Me. Your sister that has lived a lifetime with you.’
He felt her hand at his shoulder, and all too surprisingly her fingers in his hair, and he knew he had never been so close to her as this.
‘Let’s leave this place, Mervyn, let’s go back where we were happy and peaceful. I’ve come to hate this place, and everything in it,’ and she went on stroking his hair. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘please.’
‘You ask too much.’
‘Nobody calls here now,’ Margiad said. ‘But I hardly think you’d notice that.’
The words sprang to his lips, but he never spoke them.
‘Nobody writes,’ Margiad said.
‘She is too good,’ he thought, ‘too good.’
‘The mornings are so empty,’ she said. ‘It was so different once. People that depended on you, waited, and you always came. They used to come to this very house, and you talked to them in your study, and you helped them, and they looked up to you. There are some things that are nice to remember. And only yesterday I had positively to beg you to call on old Miss Pugh. They are good, simple people, Mervyn, and they do not understand. Now you just sit in your study, hour after hour, day after day.’ She gave a faint sigh, and continued. ‘It’s worse at night. I lie here thinking about it. The house has no warmth, no meaning any more. Sat in the dark when you should be in your bed. There are times, Mervyn, when you don’t even appear to realise that I am here, me, your sister. Oh God! I wish I could help you.’
He drew back, sat up, then abruptly got to his feet.
‘I understand all that you are saying to me, Margiad, but I have no answer for you.’
‘If you haven’t an answer perhaps you have a question?’
‘Leave me alone,’ he said.
As he turned away she got out of bed and followed him to the door. ‘Look at me,’ and he looked at her.
‘Well?’
‘If your father were alive today, I should be sorry for him. Go away and hug your silly dream. One day I shall laugh at you myself,’ and she pushed him out of the room, and leaned all her weight against the door as she closed it, and the room was full of the fallen words. ‘I’ve been his crutch for a lifetime,’ she thought, and got back into bed and switched out the light. She heard him close downstairs windows, heard the bolt shot back on the front door, heard him come upstairs, his bedroom door close. There was nothing more that she could do, nothing more that she wanted to do, and he would get her answer tomorrow. Had he gone to bed? Was he standing at the window, staring out? Was he even thinking of going out again? Was he sat in his chair thinking of her, someone that he had never spoken to? She closed her eyes, she was glad the day had come to an end. ‘Twenty years ago, ten - - - but now - - - -’
She thought of their brother, if only he were here, but he was oceans away. ‘Something has come to an end,’ she said. She got out of bed, knelt down, and prayed for Mervyn, and even the sound of a heavy thud in his room did not disturb her.
‘I will go tomorrow,’ she thought, ‘yes, I will go tomorrow,’ she said and got back into bed. Lying there, she was suddenly aware of a stillness, the very silence of the house, the calm sea after the wreck of the day. She buried her head under the sheet, she could not think of tomorrow. It seemed already torn in two.
In the next room her brother was sat in his chair, facing the wide open window, the blackness within as one with the blackness without. And he heard nothing save the distant murmur of the sea.
8
Garthmeilo opened its eyes to another day. The wind had died down. Even the rain had ceased, though watchful eyes scanned the sky, the still scudding clouds. This was the ritual of the morning. Jones was up promptly at half past six, remembering nothing of the night before. Mrs Gandell rose heavily at half past seven. And at half past eight Miss Vaughan came down to breakfast. Under the dim dining-room light she heard the terribly used words of yesterday circling the room, their echoes following. And Mrs Gandell put on the smile that seemed to survive the voyage from one empty day to another. Had Miss Vaughan slept well? Yes, Miss Vaughan had slept very well. Good. Splendid. The exchanges shot over Jones’s head as he served her in utter silence. Perhaps Jones had not slept well, and once or twice he caught Miss Vaughan staring at him. Later, out of a corner of her eye she watched them eat in silence. They, in turn, watched her at her breakfast, and having finished it, attend to the morning ritual, spectacle cleaning, powdering her nose, examining herself in the tiny mirror, after which she got up and left the room in which only the sound of eating could now be heard. They heard the outer door close. Miss Vaughan had gone off into the world again. Sometimes Garthmeilo watched, and sometimes waited. Curtains moved, and once or twice a shopkeeper took an unusual interest in his own window. They watched her go by, her short sharp steps ringing out on the pavement, her bag tight under her arm, the other swinging vigorously as she drew nearer and nearer to the round of her new day, her head in the air, her purpose resolute and unchanging.
‘Here she comes.’
‘There she is.’
‘They say Thomas’s sister has left him.’
‘Well indeed No? Did she really then?’
‘Terrible row they had, they say she’s off to Glan Ceirw where they used to live.’
‘Think of that.’
‘I saw him yesterday. Ill he looked. Poor man.’
And back at the hotel Mrs Gandell was precise, and as sure as Jones himself was uncertain.
‘The basin in number one is cracked, Jones. Have you noticed it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And those sheets in number two are quite worn, and must be replaced. I think you’d better go into the town and get new ones from Davies.’
‘Yes,’ Jones said, slowly coming clear, being aware, and quite suddenly attentive. ‘The same kind of sheet, Mrs Gandell?’
‘Of course,’ she snapped.
