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Page 44
A deep cynicism took hold of the unhappy Scrap. Her inside grew
hoary with disillusionment, while her gracious and charming outside
continued to make the world more beautiful. What had the future in it
for her? She would not be able, after such a preparation, to take hold
of it. She was fit for nothing; she had wasted all this time being
beautiful. Presently she wouldn't be beautiful, and what then? Scrap
didn't know what then, it appalled her to wonder even. Tired as she
was of being conspicuous she was at least used to that, she had never
known anything else; and to become inconspicuous, to fade, to grow
shabby and dim, would probably be most painful. And once she began,
what years and years of it there would be! Imagine, thought Scrap,
having most of one's life at the wrong end. Imagine being old for two
or three times as long as being young. Stupid, stupid. Everything was
stupid. There wasn't a thing she wanted to do. There were thousands
of things she didn't want to do. Avoidance, silence, invisibility, if
possible unconsciousness--these negations were all she asked for a
moment; and here, even here, she was not allowed a minute's peace, and
this absurd woman must come pretending, merely because she wanted to
exercise power and make her go to bed and make her--hideous--drink
castor oil, that she thought she was ill.
"I'm sure," said Mrs. Fisher, who felt the cold of the stone
beginning to come through and knew she could not sit much longer,
"you'll do what is reasonable. Your mother would wish--have you a
mother?"
A faint wonder came into Scrap's eyes. Have you a mother? If
ever anybody had a mother it was Scrap. It had not occurred to her
that there could be people who had never heard of her mother. She was
one of the major marchionesses--there being, as no one knew better than
Scrap, marchionesses and marchionesses--and had held high positions at
Court. Her father, too, in his day had been most prominent. His day
was a little over, poor dear, because in the war he had made some
important mistakes, and besides he was now grown old; still, there he
was, an excessively well-known person. How restful, how
extraordinarily restful to have found some one who had never heard of
any of her lot, or at least had not yet connected her with them.
She began to like Mrs. Fisher. Perhaps the originals didn't know
anything about her either. When she first wrote to them and signed her
name, that great name of Dester which twisted in and out of English
history like a bloody thread, for its bearers constantly killed, she
had taken it for granted that they would know who she was; and at the
interview of Shaftesbury Avenue she was sure they did know, because
they hadn't asked, as they otherwise would have, for references.
Scrap began to cheer up. If nobody at San Salvatore had ever
heard of her, if for a whole month she could shed herself, get right
away from everything connected with herself, be allowed really to
forget the clinging and the clogging and all the noise, why, perhaps
she might make something of herself after all. She might really think;
really clear up her mind; really come to some conclusion.
"What I want to do here," she said, leaning forward in her chair
and clasping her hands round her knees and looking up at Mrs. Fisher,
whose seat was higher than hers, almost with animation, so much pleased
was she that Mrs. Fisher knew nothing about her, "is to come to a
conclusion. That's all. It isn't much to want, is it? Just that."
She gazed at Mrs. Fisher, and thought that almost any conclusion
would do; the great thing was to get hold of something, catch something
tight, cease to drift.
Mrs. Fisher's little eyes surveyed her. "I should say," she
said, "that what a young woman like you wants is a husband and
children."
"Well, that's one of the things I'm going to consider," said
Scrap amiably. "But I don't think it would be a conclusion."
"And meanwhile," said Mrs. Fisher, getting up, for the cold of
the stone was now through, "I shouldn't trouble my head if I were you
with considerings and conclusions. Women's heads weren't made for
thinking, I assure you. I should go to bed and get well."
"I am well," said Scrap.
"Then why did you send a message that you were ill?"
"I didn't."
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