Three Sisters Flew Home by Mary Fitt

Author:Mary Fitt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moonstone Press
Published: 2022-10-05T12:55:55+00:00

19

Claribel waited. Five minutes, ten, passed by.

She sat on the bench, forlorn, childlike, all her bravado gone. She was not thinking, except perhaps occasionally that Gilbert would have finished laying the table, and would probably come to see where she was, quite soon. It would be another grievance, that she had left him to do everything alone. Ordinarily he would not have resented this. But in his present mood it might make him still more peevish. Even he, little though he asked of her, required to be kept going with occasional doses of praise and a show of affection, if he was not to flag in his service. But this was only at the back of her mind; she could not bother to worry about it very greatly. In the chaos of her mind it was swept round like a straw in a whirlpool.

What was happening? Was this a nightmare, or was it really true – that she had lost Marcus for ever? For Gilbert, bitter though he was – and his bitterness was new and strange to her, like a sudden slap from a tender nurse from whom one has grown to expect nothing but warmth and love – Gilbert could, if she exerted all her strength, be won over. But Marcus, if he had changed, had changed for good. She recognized this by immediate perception. And if Marcus was lost, where was she? Half an hour ago it had seemed of no importance. She had actually intended to let him know how often, during the twelve years of their intimacy, he had bored her with his ponderous talk; and many other spiteful things she had meant to say, such as that she had found him slow even as a lover. Humourless, thick-skinned, solemn, obtuse: she had thought of many hard words. Doubtless he would only have laughed; they had quarrelled before, and she had never before succeeded in making him really angry, until to-night. She knew this, because she had never before seen him like that: angry with her, not as herself the exasperating, but always adorable, Claribel; but as a thing, an obstacle that stood in his way; an enemy that had seized a chance to get the better of him, and whom he must defeat by guile.

Yes, that was it: an enemy. And suddenly she realized that in this house, which she had thought filled with her friends, she was surrounded by enemies. Marcus, Gilbert, Markakis, all turned against her; even Carraway and Sylens, if not hostile, at least not interested any more; and the rest, unknown quantities, probably indifferent, but with no great reason to take her side. What had happened? What had caused it? What influence was at work? And, above all, what madness had made her offend Marcus when most she needed his aid? If she had kept him, even his ordinary friendship, nothing else would have mattered. Marcus was an army in himself: whoever had him on his side need fear nothing, for he breathed strength, indomitable courage, and unshakable loyalty.

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