Mary Olivier: A Life · Book IV · Chapter XXVII · Chapter 27 14

It couldn’t be true.

You knew it when you dined with them, when you saw the tranquil Regency faces looking at you from above the long row of Sheraton chairs, the pretty Gainsborough lady smiling from her place above the sideboard.

As you sat drinking coffee out of the dark blue coffee cups with gold linings you knew it couldn’t be true. You were reassured by the pattern of the chintzes⁠—pink roses and green leaves on a pearl-grey ground⁠—by the crystal chains and pendants of the chandelier, by the round black mirror sunk deep in the bowl of its gilt frame.

They couldn’t go; for if they went, the quiet, gentle life of these things would be gone. The room had no soul apart from the two utterly beloved figures that sat there, each in its own chintz-covered chair.

“It isn’t true,” she said, “that you’re going?”

She was sitting on the polar bear hearthrug at Mrs. Sutcliffe’s feet.

“Yes, Mary.”

The delicate, wrinkled hand came out from under the cashmere shawl to stroke her arm. It kept on stroking, a long, loving, slow caress. It made her queerly aware of her arm⁠—white and slender under the big puff of the sleeve⁠—lying across Mrs. Sutcliffe’s lap.

“He’ll be happier in his garden at Agaye.”

She heard herself assenting. “He’ll be happier.” And breaking out. “But I shall never be happy again.”

“You mustn’t say that, my dear.”

The hand went on stroking.

“There’s no place on earth,” she said, “where I’m so happy as I am here.”

Suddenly the hand stopped; it stiffened; it drew back under the cashmere shawl.

She turned her head towards Mr. Sutcliffe in his chair on the other side of the hearthrug.

His face had a queer, strained look. His eyes were fixed, fixed on the white, slender arm that lay across his wife’s lap.

And Mrs. Sutcliffe’s eyes were fixed on the queer, strained face.