She lookedblankly at the canvas, with its
uncompromising white stare; from thecanvas to the garden. It was not easy or snug
thisworld she had known for close on seventy years.
She had come late last night when it was all
mysterious, dark. For she felt a sudden emptiness; a frustration.
Some of the locks hadgone, so the doors banged. It
had taken him the best part ofhis youth to get boots made as they should be made.
Thus occupied he seemed to her a figure ofinfinite pathos.
They are also the mostobstinate and perverse of
mankind. She had left them in the hall last night.
She saved aplate of soup for Maggie; a bite of ham,
sometimes; whatever was over.
She rejected one brush; she choseanother. With
equal complacence she saw his misery, his meanness, andhis torture.
She turned the key in thelock, and left the house
alone, shut up, locked. What does one send to the Lighthouse indeed!
George, Mrs Bastsson, caught the rats, and cut the
grass. And, theyadded, how beautiful she looked! They came, lagging, side byside, a
serious, melancholy couple.
The house, the place, the morning, allseemed
strangers to her. She saved aplate of soup for Maggie; a bite of ham, sometimes;
whatever was over.
But what does one send to the Lighthouse? But all
she didwas to ward him off a moment.
She clutched at her blankets as a faller clutches
at the turf on theedge of a cliff. There had been sometalk of her marrying William
Bankes once, but nothing had come of it.
But what does one send to the Lighthouse?