But the mistress allowed the girl to keep the hair, because she was touched, and because it no longer confirmed her strength to deny other people the fulfilment of their wishes.
When they had put away the dressmaking scissors, Laura Trevelyan’s desecrated head lolled against the pillows. She was lying with her eyes closed, as she did frequently now, and Dr Kilwinning was taking her pulse, an occupation which filled a gap and prevented the ignorant from talking.
Of all those people who witnessed the removal of the hair, Mr Bonner was most stunned, who had never before seen a woman without her hair. It made him walk softly, and, shortly after the operation, he went out of his niece’s room, calculating that nobody would notice his absence.
When, finally, his wife came down with Dr Kilwinning, there he was, loitering at the foot of the stairs, near the stair cupboard, to be exact, as if he had been an intruder in his own house.
The doctor was for leaving with all speed of his patent-leather boots.
But these fleshy old people, who had wizened in a few days, were hanging upon him. The rather common old woman would have seized him by the cuffs. Alas, his status as fashionable physician failed to protect him from a great many unpleasantnesses. If anything, the fees he charged seemed, rather, to make some individuals aspire to get their money’s worth.
‘But tell me, Doctor, do you consider it to be infectious?’ Mrs Bonner was asking.
‘In a court of law, Mrs Bonner, I would not swear to it, but it would be as well to guard against the possibility of infection, shall we say?’
Dr Kilwinning, whose elastic calves had brought him mercifully to the bottom of the stairs, there encountered Mr Bonner, and they nodded at each other, as if they had only just met.
Mr Bonner hated Dr Kilwinning. He could have punched him on the nose.
‘Oh, dear, then if it is infectious,’ Mrs Bonner was crying, ‘there is the danger of the little girl.’
‘I did not say it was infectious. Indeed, it should not be.’ Dr Kilwinning laughed. ‘But the will of God, you know, has a habit of overruling the opinions of physicians.’
‘Then,’ said Mr Bonner, who could not stand it any longer, ‘there is something wrong somewhere. If the physician receives the fee that some physicians do receive, he should form an opinion that the Almighty would respect. If that is blasphemy, Dr Kilwinning, I cannot help it. You have forced me to it.’
Mrs Bonner was aghast. Dr Kilwinning moistened his rather full lips, that were so fascinating to some women. Then he showed his fine, white teeth.
He said:
‘Please do not blame me for your own nature, Mr Bonner.’
And the front door was rattling.
‘He is gone, at least,’ said the merchant.
‘And very likely will not return. Oh, dear, Mr Bonner, look what you have done. The little girl upon my mind, too. Though I do declare still, it is a simple brain fever, if that can be called simple which people die of. Regularly.’
So that Mrs Bonner remained uncomforted.
She was continually washing her hands, but could not cleanse herself of all her sins. She had Betty walk about the house with a red-hot shovel, on which to burn a compound of saltpetre and vitriol, that was most efficacious, somebody had claimed, although Mrs Bonner had forgotten who. Then, when the fumes rose from Betty’s shovel, the mystery deepened, and everyone in the house was unhappier than before.
Except possibly Mercy, the little girl. Her world was still substantial, when it was not melting into dreams. Particularly she loved Betty’s game of smoke. She would try to catch the smoke. She loved doves. She loved the marbles from the game of solitaire. If she loved her mother less than all these, it was because she had not seen her lately.
But her grandmother did come instead.
In the beginning, Mrs Bonner had taken charge of Laura’s child perhaps as an act of expiation, but soon became enthusiastic. Before going about her duties, she would disinfect herself most rigorously, of course. She would lay aside her rings, trembling all the while, until her impatient skirts hastened through the passages, and she was free at last to snuff up the sweet smell of cleanliness from the nape of the childish neck. This elderly woman would grow quite drunk on kisses, although it was but a mixed happiness that her secret vice brought her, for she would be reminded of her own child, living, but married, and of the several others she had buried in their babyhood.
‘Who am I? Who am I, then?’ she would ask, tickling the child’s stomach, while looking over her shoulder to make certain that nobody had seen or heard. ‘I am your Gran. Your Grand-mother.’
The child knew.
So Mrs Bonner was appeased.
In the first stages of her illness Laura Trevelyan had seemed to forget Mercy, but on the night when they cut off her hair, she roused herself, and said:
‘I would like to see her.’
‘Whom?’ they asked.
‘My little girl.’
‘But it would not he wise, dear,’ said the aunt, ‘on account of the possibility of infection. Dr Kilwinning would bear me out.’
The sick woman was thinking of something. Her face was giving it painful shape.
‘But if it were to be for the last time?’ she asked.
‘That is morbid talk,’ said Aunt Emmy, ‘when Dr Kilwinning is so particularly pleased with your progress.’
Then Laura Trevelyan began to laugh, except that she could not bring it out.
‘Oh, I shall not die,’ she did just manage. ‘Or you will not bury me.’
‘Laura, Laura!’ cried the aunt, horrified by the suffocated words that had struggled out of the scorched lips.
‘Because, you see, I am the only survivor of you all.’
‘Will you take a little cold broth if I bring it?’ asked Mrs Bonner, in self-defence.
Although her niece did not reply, she brought the soup, and was less troubled than usual when it was refused, as if the drinking of it had been but of secondary importance.
Presently Laura said:
‘Let us return to the subject of Mercy. Do you remember those people, those Asbolds?’
‘Only now that you have reminded me,’ Aunt Emmy said, but coughed a little wheezy cough.
Laura was silent again for quite an appreciable space, until Mrs Bonner began to suspect the presence of some terrible danger. There was, moreover, a heavy, cloying smell that had begun to irritate and worry her, inasmuch as she was unable to trace its origin. Her niece’s silence and the musty smell did fill the room with foreboding.
Laura opened her eyes. The aunt had never seen them so fine, nor so revealing. It was just for this reason that Mrs Bonner would not allow herself to look at them. She began to arrange the hairbrushes.
‘If I were to make some big sacrifice,’ Laura was saying. ‘I cannot enough, that is obvious, but something of a personal nature that will convince a wavering mind. If it is only human sacrifice that will convince man that he is not God.’
She began to cough. Mrs Bonner was frightened.
‘Oh, dear, it is my throat. It is the terrible Sun that he is imitating. That is what I must believe. It is a play. For anything else would be blasphemy.’
When her aunt had held water to her lips, again Laura opened her eyes very wide in her molten head.
She said:
‘So we must make this sacrifice, if necessary, over and over, till we are raw and bleeding. When can she go?’
‘Who?’
Mrs Bonner trembled.
‘Mercy.’
Laura Trevelyan moistened her lips.
‘To the Asbolds, as we have arranged. She is such a kind woman. She has such cool cheeks. And plum trees, were they? You see, I am willing to give up so much to prove that human truths are also divine. This is the true meaning of Christ. As Mrs Asbold will tell you. Won’t she? It is the secret we have had between us, all this time, since she would not look at me, and I saw that it was only a question of who should make the sacrifice.’