bright now? No, not a bit – “Yes, my dear, there’s no denying it, you really are a lovely little thing” – At the words her breast lifted, she took a long breath, smiling with delight, half closing her eyes as if she held a sweet sweet bouquet up to her face – a fragrance that made her faint. But even as she looked the smile faded from her lips and eyes – and oh God! There she was, back again, playing the same old game – False, false as ever! False as when she’d written to Nan Fry – False even when she was alone with herself now. What had that creature in the glass to do with her really and why on earth was she staring at her? She dropped down by the side of her bed and buried her head in her arms. “Oh,” she said “I’m so miserable, so frightfully miserable. I know I’m silly and spiteful and vain. I’m always acting a part, I’m never my real self for a minute” – And plainly, plainly she saw her false self running up and down the stairs, laughing a special trilling laugh if they had visitors, standing under the lamp if a man came to dinner so that he should see how the light shone on her hair, pouting and pretending to be a little girl when she was asked to play the guitar – Why she even kept it up for Stanley’s benefit! Only last night when he was reading the paper – she had stood beside him and leaned against him on purpose and she had put her hand over his pointing out something and said at the same time – “Heavens! Stanley how brown your hands are” – only that he should notice how white hers were! How despicable! Her heart grew cold with rage! “It’s marvellous how you keep it up!” said she to her false self! but then it was only because she was so miserable – so miserable! If she’d been happy – if she’d been living her own life all this false life would simply cease to be – and now she saw the real Beryl a radiant shadow . . . a shadow . . . Faint and unsubstantial shone the real self – what was there of her except that radiance? And for what tiny moments she was really she. Beryl could almost remember every one of them – she did not mean that she was exactly happy then it was a “feeling” that overwhelmed her at certain times —— certain nights when the wind blew with a forlorn cry and she lay cold in her bed wakeful and listening certain lovely evenings when she passed down a road where there were houses and big gardens and the sound of a piano came from one of the houses – and then certain Sunday nights in Church, when the glass flickered and the pews were shadowy and the lines of the hymns were almost too sweet and sad to bear. And rare rare times, rarest of all, when it was not the voice of outside things that had moved her so – she remembered one of them, when she had sat up one night with Linda. Linda was very ill – she had watched the pale dawn come in through the blinds and she had seen Linda – lying, propped up high with pillows, her arms outside the quilt and the shadow of her hair dusky against the white – and at all these times she had felt: Life is wonderful – life is rich and mysterious. But it is good too and I am rich and mysterious and good. Perhaps that is what she might have said – but she did not say those things – then she knew her false self was quite quite gone and she longed to be always as she was just at that moment – to become that Beryl forever – “Shall I? How can I? and did I ever not have a false self?” But just when she had got that far she heard the sound of wheels coming up the drive and little steps running along the passage to her door and Kezia’s voice calling “Aunt Beryl. Aunt Beryl!” She got up – Botheration! How she had crumpled her skirt. Kezia burst in. “Aunt Beryl – Mother says will you please come down because Father’s home and lunch is ready –” “Very well Kezia.” She went over to the dressing table and powdered her nose. Kezia crossed over too and unscrewed a
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