Explore "Mary Olivier: a Life" by May Sinclair on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Mamma whispered to Mrs. Draper, and Aunt Bella whispered to Mamma: "Fourteen. " They always made a mystery about being fourteen. They ought to have told her.
Her thoughts about her mother went up and down. Mamma was not helpless. She was not gentle. She was not really like a wounded bird. She was powerful and rather cruel. You could only appease her with piles of hemmed sheets and darned stockings. If you didn't take care she would get hold of you and never rest till she had broken you, or turned and twisted you to her own will. She would say it was God's will. She would think it was God's will.