Hilda's the sister-in-law. Hilda? Hilda? Hilda Marsh-Hilda the blooming, the full bosomed, the matronly. Hilda stands at the door as the cab draws up, holding a coin. "Poor Minnie, more of a grasshopper than ever-old cloak she had last year. Well, well, with too children these days one can't do more. No, Minnie, I've got it; here you are, cabby-none of your ways with me. Come in, Minnie. Oh, I could carry YOU, let alone your basket!" So they go into the dining-room. "Aunt Minnie, children."
Slowly the knives and forks sink from the upright. Down they get (Bob and Barbara), hold out hands stiffly; back again to their chairs, staring between the resumed mouthfuls. Now, Minnie, the door's shut; Hilda heavily descends to the basement; you unstrap the straps of your basket, lay on the bed a meagre nightgown, stand side by side furred felt slippers. The looking-glass-no, you avoid the looking-glass. Some methodical disposition of hat-pins. Perhaps the shell box has something in it? You shake it; it's the pearl stud there was last year-that's all. And then the sniff, the sigh, the sitting by the window. Three o'clock on a December afternoon; the rain drizzling; one light low in the skylight of a drapery emporium; another high in a servant's bedroom-this one goes out. That gives her nothing to look at. A moment's blankness-then, what are you thinking? (Let me peep across at her opposite; she's asleep or pretending it; so what would she think about sitting at the window at three o'clock in the afternoon? Health, money, bills, her God?) Yes, sitting on the very edge of the chair looking over the roofs of Eastbourne, Minnie Marsh prays to Gods. That's all very well; and she may rub the pane too, as though to see God better; but what God does she see? Who's the God of Minnie Marsh, the God of the back streets of Eastbourne, the God of three o'clock in the afternoon? I, too, see roofs, I see sky; but, oh, dear-this seeing of Gods! More like President Kruger than Prince Albert-that's the best I can do for him; and I see him on a chair, in a black frock-coat, not so very high up either; I can manage a cloud or two for him to sit on; and then his hand trailing in the cloud holds a rod, a truncheon is it?-black, thick, thorned-a brutal old bully-Minnie's God! Did he send the itch and the patch and the twitch? Is that why she prays? What she rubs on the window is the stain of sin. Oh, she committed some crime!
I have my choice of crimes. The woods flit and fly-in summer there are bluebells; in the opening there, when Spring comes, primroses. A parting, was it, twenty years ago? Vows broken? Not Minnie's! . . . She was faithful. How she nursed her mother! All her savings on the tombstone– wreaths under glass-daffodils in jars. But I'm off the track. A crime. . . They would say she kept her sorrow, suppressed her secret-her sex, they'd say-the scientific people. But what flummery to saddle her with sex! No-more like this. Passing down the streets of Croydon twenty years ago, the violet loops of ribbon in the draper's window spangled in the electric light catch her eye. She lingers-past six. Still by running she can reach home. She pushes through the glass swing door. It's sale-time. Shallow trays brim with ribbons. She pauses, pulls this, fingers that with the raised roses on it-no need to choose, no need to buy, and each tray with its surprises. "We don't shut till seven," and then it is seven. She runs, she rushes, home she reaches, but too late. Neighbours-the doctor-baby brother-the kettle-scalded-hospital– dead-or only the shock of it, the blame? Ah, but the detail matters nothing! It's what she carries with her; the spot, the crime, the thing to expiate, always there between her shoulders.
"Yes," she seems to nod to me, "it's the thing I did."
Whether you did, or what you did, I don't mind; it's not the thing I want. The draper's window looped with violet-that'll do; a little cheap perhaps, a little commonplace-since one has a choice of crimes, but then so many (let me peep across again-still sleeping, or pretending sleep! white, worn, the mouth closed-a touch of obstinacy, more than one would think-no hint of sex)-so many crimes aren't your crime; your crime was cheap; only the retribution solemn; for now the church door opens, the hard wooden pew receives her; on the brown tiles she kneels; every day, winter, summer, dusk, dawn (here she's at it) prays. All her sins fall, fall, for ever fall. The spot receives them. It's raised, it's red, it's burning. Next she twitches. Small boys point. "Bob at lunch to-day"-But elderly women are the worst.
Indeed now you can't sit praying any longer. Kruger's sunk beneath the clouds-washed over as with a painter's brush of liquid grey, to which he adds a tinge of black-even the tip of the truncheon gone now. That's what always happens! Just as you've seen him, felt him, someone interrupts. It's Hilda now.
How you hate her! She'll even lock the bathroom door overnight, too, though it's only cold water you want, and sometimes when the night's been bad it seems as if washing helped. And John at breakfast-the children-meals are worst, and sometimes there are friends-ferns don't altogether hide 'em-they guess, too; so out you go along the front, where the waves are grey, and the papers blow, and the glass shelters green and draughty, and the chairs cost tuppence-too much-for there must be preachers along the sands. Ah, that's a nigger-that's a funny man-that's a man with parakeets-poor little creatures! Is there no one here who thinks of God?-just up there, over the pier, with his rod-but no-there's nothing but grey in the sky or if it's blue the white clouds hide him, and the music-it's military music-and what they are fishing for? Do they catch them? How the children stare! Well, then home a back way-"Home a back way!" The words have meaning; might have been spoken by the old man with whiskers-no, no, he didn't really speak; but everything has meaning-placards leaning against doorways-names above shop-windows-red fruit in baskets-women's heads in the hairdresser's-all say "Minnie Marsh!" But here's a jerk. "Eggs are cheaper!" That's what always happens! I was heading her over the waterfall, straight for madness, when, like a flock of dream sheep, she turns t'other way and runs between my fingers. Eggs are cheaper. Tethered to the shores of the world, none of the crimes, sorrows, rhapsodies, or insanities for poor Minnie Marsh; never late for luncheon; never caught in a storm without a mackintosh; never utterly unconscious of the cheapness of eggs. So she reaches home-scrapes her boots.
Have I read you right? But the human face-the human face at the top of the fullest sheet of print holds more, withholds more. Now, eyes open, she looks out; and in the human eye-how d'you define it?-there's a break-a division-so that when you've grasped the stem the butterfly's off-the moth that hangs in the evening over the yellow flower-move, raise your hand, off, high, away. I won't raise my hand. Hang still, then, quiver, life, soul, spirit, whatever you are of Minnie Marsh-I, too, on my flower-the hawk over the down-alone, or what were the worth of life? To rise; hang still in the evening, in the midday; hang still over the down. The flicker of a hand-off, up! then poised again. Alone, unseen; seeing all so still down there, all so lovely. None seeing, none caring. The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages. Air above, air below. And the moon and immortality. . . Oh, but I drop to the turf! Are you down too, you in the corner, what's your name-woman-Minnie Marsh; some such name as that? There she is, tight to her blossom; opening her hand-bag, from which she takes a hollow shell-an egg-who was saying that eggs were cheaper? You or I? Oh, it was you who said it on the way home, you remember, when the old gentleman, suddenly opening his umbrella-or sneezing was it? Anyhow, Kruger went, and you came "home a back way," and scraped your boots. Yes. And now you lay across your knees a pocket-handkerchief into which drop little angular fragments of eggshell-fragments of a map-a puzzle. I wish I could piece them together! If you would only sit still. She's moved her knees-the map's in bits again. Down the slopes of the Andes the white blocks of marble go bounding and hurtling, crushing to death a whole troop of Spanish muleteers, with their convoy-Drake's booty, gold and silver. But to return-