Maeve Brennan - The Visitor

Whereupon she lost her temper and called loudly to the oldest one, “You are a hateful bloody old bitch.”

She woke excited with the words in her mouth. Katharine was knocking at the door, and calling her sharply.

“Oh, come on in, Katharine,” she cried impatiently. “What is it?”

Katharine came in, weeping.

“Miss Kilbride is dead, the Lord have mercy on her.”

She went to close the window.

“We just got word. The maid found her this morning when she went in with a cup of tea to her. She must have died during the night, all alone there, not a soul near. They’re burying her on Friday.”

Anastasia threw back the bedclothes and pulled on a dressing gown. She sank down on the bed and stared at the floor.

She said, “It’s all very sad.”

She felt nothing but a suffocating impatience with Katharine. She wished that Katharine would go away and leave her alone.

“There’s a letter she left for you,” said Katharine, curiosity lending new life to her voice.

It was addressed in Miss Kilbride’s handwriting, which Anastasia had never seen before. Miss A. King. Deliver at once. Dear Anastasia, dear child, do not forget me. God bless you. Norah K .

Katharine stood close and Anastasia handed the note to her.

“Read it if you like,” she said indifferently. “It’s about some masses she asked me to have said for her, in case of her death.”

“A word from the dead,” said Katharine, and she read it reverently and handed it back. Anastasia folded it and laid it away on the table and stared at it with heavy eyes.

“You know, Katharine,” she said. “I’ll be leaving soon. My grandmother wants me to go back to Paris.”

“Well, now, child,” said Katharine in a soothing voice. “Maybe it’s for the best. Sure, this is no sort of a house for a young girl to be living in, with two old women like your grandmother and me.”

“I don’t know why you’re all so anxious to get rid of me,” cried Anastasia, between tears and anger. “This is my home. I don’t know what harm I’m doing you all, that you object to me so.”

Katharine sat down confidentially on the edge of the bed beside Anastasia.

“Your grandmother is doing what she thinks is best for you, child. You know she wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

Anastasia gave her a look, and got to her feet. She crossed to the dressing table and began to brush her hair.

“Well, there’s no sense talking about it. I have to go, that’s plain enough. And you seem to agree with her, so what chance do I have?”

“You’d better get along down to her, Katharine. She’s probably upset by all this. And take the note. She’ll be wanting to see what’s in it.”

Katharine looked at her helplessly and went out. She stuck her head back into the room.

“Your breakfast will be ready when you are. Your grandmother will be going over to the house this afternoon. Will I tell her you’ll go with her? Miss Kilbride was very fond of you.”

“No.” Anastasia turned on her. “I won’t go over there. I couldn’t bear it. Don’t tell her I’ll go.”

Katharine was shocked.

“You can talk to her about it yourself, downstairs,” she said, in deep disapproval, and closed the door.

After she had gone, Anastasia took the envelope Miss Kilbride’s letter had come in and tore it into little bits. She dressed quickly, found her purse, and left the house without seeing anyone. The thought of her dream of the gardenias returned to her. I think too much about myself, she thought. I think too much about myself. But this idea did not really worry her, for she felt cut off from all the other people in the street around, and more isolated than they.

It was about nine o’clock in the morning, a fine sunless day. People were going to work. She took a bus to a place outside the city, near an old water-filled quarry that was said to be bottomless. She had to walk a way from the bus to get there, but the way was familiar to her. She found that she knew every turn of the road. Some landmarks came sooner than she expected, and some she had entirely forgotten but recognized at once on seeing them. It seemed as though, if she took the time, she could recall some story about every tree along the way. Her mind was disturbed with indistinct memories, but she continued walking and made her way along — it was a rough countryside road, hardly more than a lane — without attempting to trace back any of the thoughts that started up within her. Coming at last to the quarry, she felt as though she had passed through a crowd of old friends, without having paused to call one name to mind.

She went to the very edge, walking cautiously over the stony waste ground that surrounded it. It was the story that a stone dropped there would never stop falling. Little boys playing liked to test the story, throwing stones in there, time and time again. They would hurl with all the strength of their weedy little arms and listen fearfully for the distant sound that should come when the stone hit bottom. There was never any sound, no sound whatever, and only the quiet looping ripples to satisfy them that they had done any throwing at all.

Anastasia took Miss Kilbride’s wedding ring from her purse. It was still wrapped in tissue paper, a tiny package. She tossed it into the water. It made no sound, going. She hardly knew that it had left her hand. There it would fall forever with the falling stones, past and to come. She backed away from the edge and stood a moment abstracted in a stare. Poor little Other Self, she thought, and contemplated the cold thankless water, which shook a little in the wind.

The look of the water was unpleasant, and she left it, walking quietly back to the bus along the quiet hedgebound country road. Occasionally she saw a house, sitting well back in its own land, but there was not a soul in sight. How peaceful it was that morning, without sun or sound.

She thought of her grandmother, entering Miss Kilbride’s house, viewing the body of her friend. She was glad not to be there, pressing through their common grief to smell the new grave flowers. She was glad to be rid of the wedding ring. Yet now her hasty morning bravado deserted her, and she was tormented with flabby disgust of herself and her cowardice, which sucked away at her will and left her weak and bent with humiliation. She gazed upward at the sky in a childish gesture of question. Then she remembered that her decision had been made for her, and the flat in Paris rushed at her, and the thought of her mother’s thin face pinched her heart, and she bowed her head in sickness of memory. The days ahead stretched back to a delirium of loneliness. What to do? What to do? There is no choice, she thought, nodding her head ruefully.

She got up on the bus and paid her fare mechanically. She was being carried back through a stretch of gentle listless countryside, neat fields and hedges and solitary houses with gardens beside them. A quick sentimental sadness touched her, warming her like a soft and familiar coat, sweetening the unhappiness, sweetening it.

It occurred to her, suddenly, that her grandmother might have changed her mind. With Miss Kilbride’s death and all, things might be different. This seemed reasonable, even probable. There was almost no doubt about it. She hurried.

The house was empty. They were over at Miss Kilbride’s. She lighted the fire in the sitting room and sat down beside it to wait, and yawned at the clock. It was exactly noon. The room grew more and more silent. There was the distant ringing that lies at the end of long deep silence, so that one listens, and slips from listening into reverie, and thence by degrees to some place where the mind has no anchor, and the heart ceases to complain, and beats privately back and backward, toward some endlessly distant and gentle beginning.