章 25: Chapter XXV
The two Misses Aldouin had been sitting at their father's bedside for half a night. Looking up from her brocade, Elaine softly commented that the clock had past two, and how quiet and eerie the street seemed to her. Mathilda made a noncommittal noise. Her sister's eyes darted from her handiwork to the bedpost, to the light overhead and back to her hands. Elaine was anxious and clearly wished to talk in order to settle her nerves, but Mathilda disliked such fretful talkers, no matter whether they were her sister.
Mathi had been reading the same page for heaven knew how long, and was wondering whether something about the typographic layout of her copy of Mallarmé's 'Un coup de des jamais n'abolira le hasard' was off, or she was just that tired — yet was unable to close the work as it would force her to do exactly that. Converse. Something she feared she could not do without breaking the tranquil facade she so carefully put up. She was not aware that her sister very well knew her distant attitude to hide her fright, but Elaine, wary of her sisters nervousness, and fearful to lose her own composure were she to witness her otherwise equable sister to lose hers, knew well enough to remain silent.
Mathilda was not easy to get along with. That was a fact.
The eldest Miss Aldouin now stood up, lay her book upon the chair she had been seated on and informed her sister she was to look upon their mother. Mathi had been glad when she finally sought some rest.
She closed the door as gently as possible and fisted her skirt in silent self-assurance as she walked the corridor. In the past hours, Mathi had not allowed herself to think of what was to come, or how it would end. She had braced herself to keep a tight rein on her feelings for hours on end, but now it seemed to her that she would fail.
They're tired, she decided. I'm tired; we're all tired. It's been going on too long already. Mathilda exhaled, and flung her head up in defiance, afraid she could not bear it, that she would burst into tears or run away.
The first hour had been the worst. But after that hour there had been another hour, two hours, three, until after five hours, they were still awake at his bedside; and they were still bearing it all because there was nothing to be done but bear it. It was exhausting. Every minute she remained in that room Mathilda felt as if she had reached her limit. The minutes had passed by and then the hours, and still there were more hours to come, and Mathilda's misery and horror grew.
The new electric lamps her father had installed last summer were turned down. A single candleholder poised on the armoire was slowly extinguishing; the feeble lights flirting with death the same certain way her father was in the next room. The carpet revealed dust and in the corner at the end of the hallway she could discern a lonesome bucket left there by the personnel.
The silence was disquieting but she thought it fitting. Perhaps she even invited it. It was far more comforting than the nervous disposition of Elaine.
Mathilda found her mother awake in her bedchamber, reading by the light of a lamppost with perfect soft tassels. The brass perpetual calendar on the table by her elbow stood stuck on the 18th of July, and the curtains were only partially drawn. At Mathilda's entry, she looked up from her reading with a swollen face, first bewildered and in agony, then smiling and trying to reassure her and Mathi did her best to return her smile:
"I thought you were sleeping," she said.
Her mother gestured for her to sit down beside her. "The bed's too big. And too cold."
Mathilda sat down and allowed her mother to pull her against her, a hand in her hair, cupping the back of her head, warm and welcome and unpleasantly invasive all at once. Her mother closed the volume in her lap. "Won't you pray with me, my darling?"
Mathilda face contorted. But there were times for these things, and her mother didn't need her objections, now. What was wrong in her finding solace in her faith? Still, something profane yet honest erupted: "Maman, such things won't help us."
Mathi lifted her head to regard her as she spoke. And with her hands hanging exhausted on the quilt draped over lower body, looking worn and spend, her mother looked at her in silence and tried to smile, and could not: "I see—" she sighed but didn't remove her hand as she laid the book next to the brass calendar. "How can you say that even now—? You are too headstrong. Are your own ideas all there is?" She regarded her kindly once more.
Mathilda made her no reply. Her mother disliked her disregard towards religion, but in truth Mathilda knew her mother would also dislike the fact if she felt her daughter did not care to show her all her heart. Mathilda did in fact conceal most of her views and feelings but concealed them not because she didn't respect or love her mother, but simply because she was her mother. She would have revealed them to anyone sooner than to her mother.
"Maman, I just don't think like that. I don't believe in—"
"You're young..."
"Maman!"
"Don't shout! Let us pray now," she said, and closing her eyes, she began praying, as Mathilda gathered from her silence. She simply regarded her mother, and the expressions which in the past had seemed to her, if not foolish, at least exaggerated, now seemed to her consolatory. A faint wrinkle appeared upon her mother's forehead as she prayed. A fondness settled in Mathi's heart. And Mathi smiled.
The cold, empty heard on the south wall of her parents' bedroom had been in disuse for many years, but Mathi vividly remembered moments where it had been alighted, as she had played on the Aubusson carpet before it. Cold winter evenings where her mother would sit in that very same chair and work on her handiwork or take her by the hand to the drawing-room to play cards when her father came home. She knew one of the corners of the carpet to be slightly ajar, as she had once attempted to push her hairpin between the treads; and on the other end there was a soft red spot, where Elaine had stepped on her mother's lipstick.
A soft sigh resounded from beside her. Her mother was regarding her, her face not so much dour as concerned.
"How do you do it?" Said she.
"Do what?" Mathilda said.
"Live with it all."
"Not now, Maman, please."
"I didn't tell you the truth, when I said I'm not afraid for him."
"You said he's going straight to heaven, so…"
"That's what I believe, but I'm human."
"So you know you may be wrong. How do you do what you do, then?"
Her mother looked away. Her eyes drowned in melancholy and with difficulty she seemed to focus on some point in front of her, "that's why we have beliefs, my dear. So we can still see the right thing to do when we're blinded with doubt and fear. Our beliefs define us. If we lose them, who are we?"
Mathi frowned. She found it delusive to imply that people didn't have the ability to be good without a system of belief but wasn't sure whether she should impart a rebuke when her mother was in such a state. Thankfully, Mathi was spared from hurting her mother as the door was gently opened, and a restless Elaine entered.
"Maman, will you come?" She said, "he's awake," Elaine's voice was hoarse and her eyes momentarily returned to the guestroom down the hall, "he's been asking for you."
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