A Life's Morning

by George Gissing

  Perhaps to relieve her worthy aunt of any lingering anxiousness, Beatrice, throughout the day, wore an appearance of much contentment, and to Wilfrid was especially condescending, even talking with him freely on a subject quite unconnected with her pet interests. That evening two gentlemen, politicians, dined at the house; Beatrice, under cover of their loud discussions in the drawing-room, exchanged certain remarks with Wilfrid.

  ‘My aunt was so good as to apologise to me on your behalf this morning,’ she began.

  ‘Apologise? What have I been guilty of?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. She doesn’t appreciate the freemasonry between us. It occurred to her that your remarks on my—well, my predilections, might have troubled me. Judge how amused I was!’

  She did not look at him from the first, and appeared to be examining, even whilst she spoke, a book of prints.

  ‘I sincerely hope,’ Wilfrid replied, ‘that I have uttered no thoughtless piece of rudeness. If I have, I beg you to forgive me.’

  She glanced at him. He appeared to speak seriously, and it was the kind of speech he would never have dreamed of making to her in former days, at all events in this tone.

  ‘You know perfectly well,’ she answered, with slow voice, bending to look more closely at a page, ‘that you never said anything to me which could call for apology.’

  ‘I am not so sure of that,’ Wilfrid replied, smiling.

  ‘Then take my assurance now,’ said Beatrice, closing her book, and rising to move towards her aunt. As she went, she cast a look back, a look of curious blankness, as if into vacancy.

  She sang shortly after, and the souls of the politicians were stirred within them. For Wilfrid, he lay back with his eyes closed, his heart borne on the flood of music to that pale-windowed room of sickness, whose occupant must needs be so sadly pale. The security he felt in the knowledge that Emily grew better daily made him able to talk cheerfully and behave like one without preoccupation, but Emily in truth was never out of his mind. He lived towards the day when he should kneel at her feet, and feel once more upon his forehead those cold, pure lips. And that day, as he believed, was now very near.

  To her aunt’s secret surprise, Beatrice allowed the end of the week to come and go without any allusion to the subject of departure. It was all the more strange, seeing that the girl’s show of easy friendliness with Wilfrid had not lasted beyond the day; she had become as distant and self-centred as before. But on the morning of the following Tuesday, as Mrs. Baxendale sat reading not long after breakfast, Beatrice entered the room in her light travelling garb, and came forward, buttoning her glove.

  ‘You are going out?’ Mrs. Baxendale asked, with some misgiving.

  ‘Yes—to London. They are calling a cab. You know how I dislike preparatory miseries.’

  Her aunt kept astonished silence. She looked at the girl, then down at her book.

  ‘Well,’ she said at length, ‘it only remains to me to remember the old proverb. But when is the train? Are you off this moment?’

  ‘The train leaves in five-and-twenty minutes. May I disturb uncle, do you think?’

  ‘Ah, now I understand why you asked if he would be at home through the morning. I’ll go and fetch him.’

  She went quickly to the library. Mr. Baxendale sat there alone.

  ‘Beatrice is going,’ she said, coming behind his chair. ‘Will you come and say good-bye?’

  Mr. Baxendale jumped up.

  ‘Going? Leaving?’

  His wife nodded.

  ‘Why? What is it? You haven’t quarrelled with her about the prayer-meetings?’

  ‘No. It’s a fancy of hers, that’s all. Come along; she’s only twenty minutes to catch the train.’

  When they reached the drawing-room, Beatrice was not there. Upon Mrs. Baxendale’s withdrawal she had gone to Wilfrid’s door and knocked at it. Wilfrid was pacing about in thought. It surprised him to see who his visitor was; yet more, when she advanced to him with her hand extended, saying a simple ‘Good-bye.’

  ‘Good-bye? Wherefore?’

  Her attire explained. Beatrice possessed the beauty of form and face which makes profit of any costume; in the light-brown cape, and hat to match, her tall, lithe figure had a womanly dignity which suited well with the unsmiling expressiveness of her countenance. The ‘good-bye’ was uttered briefly and without emphasis, as one uses any insignificant form of speech.

  Wilfrid resolved at once to accept her whim; after all, it was but another instance of frequent eccentricities.

  ‘Who is going to the station with you?’ he asked.

  ‘No one. I hate partings on the platform.’

  She moved away almost as far as the door, then turned again.

  ‘You will be in town before going back to Oxford?’

  Wilfrid hesitated.

  ‘Oh, never mind,’ she said; and was gone.

  Ten minutes later Wilfrid went to the drawing-room. Mr. and Mrs. Baxendale were talking together; they became silent as he entered.

  ‘Has Miss Redwing gone?’ he asked.

  ‘She took leave of you, didn’t she?’ replied the lady.

  ‘Yes. But it was So unprepared for, I half thought it might be a joke.’

  ‘Oh, she’s fond of these surprises,’ Mrs. Baxendale said, in a tone of good-natured allowance. ‘On the whole I sympathise with her; I myself prefer not to linger over such occasions.’

  Later in the day Mrs. Baxendale drove out to Banbrigg, this time alone. On her return, she sought Wilfrid and found him in his room. There was concern on her face.

  ‘I have heard something very painful from Mrs. Hood,’ she began. ‘It seems that Emily is in ignorance of her father’s death.’

  Wilfrid looked at her in astonishment.

  ‘I told you,’ Mrs. Baxendale pursued, ‘that she had not been altogether well just before it happened, but it now appears that the dreadful incident of her entering the room just when the body was brought in must have taken place when she was delirious. The poor woman has had no suspicion of that; but it is proved by Emily’s questions, now that she begins to talk. Of course it makes a new anxiety. Mrs. Hood has not dared to hint at the truth, but it cannot be concealed for long.’

  ‘But this is most extraordinary,’ Wilfrid exclaimed, ‘What, then, was the origin of her illness?’

  ‘That is the mystery. Mrs. Hood’s memory seems to be confused, but I got her to allow that the feverish symptoms were declared even the night before the death was known. I hardly like to hint it, but it really seemed to me as if she were keeping something back. One moment she said that Emily had been made ill by anxiety at her father’s lateness in coming home that night, and the next she seemed, for some reason, unwilling to admit that it was so. The poor woman is in a sad, sad state, and no wonder. She wishes that somebody else might tell Emily the truth; but surely it will come most easily from her.’

  Wilfrid was deeply distressed.

  ‘It is the very worst that still remains,’ he said, ‘and we thought the worst was over. What does the doctor say? Can she bear it yet? It is impossible to let her continue in ignorance.’

  It was at length decided that Mrs. Baxendale should visit the doctor, and hear his opinion. She had got into her mind a certain distrust of Mrs. Hood, and even doubted whether Emily ought to be left in her hands during convalescence; there was clearly no want of devotion on the mother’s part, but it appeared to Mrs. Baxendale that the poor woman had been overtaxed, and was herself on the point of illness, perhaps of mental failure. From going well things had suddenly taken an anxious turn.

  CHAPTER XVI

  RENUNCIATION

  When Emily returned from the wastes of ravaged mind, and while yet the images of memory were hardly distinguished from the ghosts of delirious dream, the picture that haunted her with most persistency, with an objective reality the more impressive the clearer her thought became, was one which she could least comprehend or account for. She saw lying before her a closely muffled form, th
e outline seeming to declare it that of a man. The struggle of newborn consciousness was to associate such a vision with the events which had preceded her illness. Perchance for a day, perchance only for an hour, however long the unmeasured transition from darkness to the dawn of self-knowledge, she suffered the oppression of this mechanical questioning. At length the presence of her mother by the bedside became a fact, and it led on to the thought of her father. Her eyes moved in search for him.

  The act of speech, in health a mere emphasis of thought, was only to be attained by repetition of efforts; several times she believed herself to have spoken whilst silence still pressed her lips. Only when the recollection of her last waking day was complete, and when the absence of her father from the room linked itself to memory of her anguished waiting for him, did she succeed in uttering the words which represented her fear. Her mother was bending over her, aware of the new light in her questioning eyes.

  ‘Where’s father?’ Emily asked.

  ‘You shall see him, dear,’ was the reply. ‘Don’t speak.’

  ‘He came home?’

  ‘Yes, he came home.’

  Emily fell back into thought; this great fear allayed, the only now, like an angel coming from afar over dark waters, past continued to rebuild itself within her mind. And now, there gleamed the image of her love. It had been expelled from memory by the all-possessing woe of those last hours; it returned like a soothing warmth, an assuagement of pain. As though soul-easing music sounded about her, she again lost her hold on outward things and sank into a natural sleep.

  Mrs. Hood feared the next waking. The question about her father, she attributed to Emily’s incomplete command of her faculties, for she had not doubted that the muffled figure on the couch had been consciously seen by the girl and understood. Yet with waking the error prolonged itself; it became evident at length that Emily knew nothing of her coming down to the sitting-room, and still had to learn that her father no longer lived. It was a new suffering under which the poor woman gave way. Already her natural affliction was complicated with a sense of painful mysteries; in her delirium, Emily had uttered words which there was no explaining, but which proved that there had been some hidden connection between her mental trouble and her father’s failure to return at the usual hour. Dagworthy’s name she had spoken frequently, and with words which called to mind the sum of money her father had somehow procured. Mrs. Hood had no strength to face trials such as these. As long as her child’s life seemed in danger, she strove with a mother’s predominant instinct to defend it; but her powers failed as Emily passed out of peril. Her outlook became blank; physical exhaustion joined with mental suffering began to render her incapable of further efforts. Fortunately, Mrs. Baxendale perceived this in time. A nurse was provided, in addition to the one who had assisted Mrs. Hood, and the mother became herself the object of care.

  Emily had been told that her father was ill, but this fiction it was soon impossible to maintain. Three days after the last reported conversation between Wilfrid and Mrs. Baxendale, it was determined that the latter must take upon herself the office of telling Emily the truth. Mrs. Hood implored her to do so; the poor mother was sinking into a state which scarcely left her the command of her mind, and, though she could not sustain the duty herself, it was her harassing desire that it might quickly be performed. So at length the revelation was made, made with all the forbearance and strengthening tenderness of which a strong-souled woman is capable. But the first syllables prepared Emily for the whole truth. A secret dread, which she had not dared to confess to herself on that last evening, though probably it brought about the crisis in her suffering, and which the false assurances recently given her had perhaps not wholly overcome, rushed forth as soon as evil was hinted at. The softened statement that her father had been stricken down by a natural malady did not for a moment deceive her. She closed her eyes; the pillows which supported her were scarcely whiter than her face. But she was soon able to speak with perfect self-control.

  ‘Was he brought home wrapped in something?’ she asked. ‘With his face covered?’

  ‘He was, Emily.’

  ‘How and where did I see him? For I know I did see him.’

  ‘Your mother has told me that you rose from your bed, and went to the room below. She did not realise that you were unconscious; she believed that you knew of this.’

  This was her dread vision. As if to protect herself from it, she raised her hand and laid it across her eyes. Then it fell again to the coverlet—thin, flower-like hand, which in its translucency of flesh seemed to have been created by spirit for its chosen abode.

  When silence had lasted some moments—

  ‘Now that I know he is dead,’ Emily resumed—oh, the sad music of the last word!—’I can bear to hear the manner of it without disguise. Will you tell me the whole truth, Mrs. Baxendale?’

  It was spoken like herself. Ever clinging to sincerity, ever ready to face the truth of things, in how many a matter of less moment had the girl spoken with just this directness, inspiring respect in all who heard her clear, candid voice.

  Mrs. Baxendale sank her eyes, and hesitated.

  ‘He died by his own hand,’ Emily said, below her breath.

  The lady kept silence. Emily again closed her eyes, and, as she so lay, felt warm lips touch her forehead.

  Mrs. Baxendale believed for a moment that the sufferer had lost consciousness, but the utterance of her name caused Emily to raise her lids.

  ‘Why did he do this?’ she asked, regarding her friend fixedly.

  ‘No one can say, dear.’

  Emily drew a deep sigh; a gleam passed over her face.

  ‘There was an inquest?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it possible for me to see a newspaper in which it was reported?’

  ‘If you really desire it,’ said Mrs. Baxendale, with hesitation.

  ‘I do; I wish to read it. Will you do me that great kindness?’

  ‘I will bring it you in a day or two. But would it not be better to delay—’

  ‘Is there anything,’ Emily asked quickly, ‘that you have kept from me?’

  ‘Nothing; nothing.’

  ‘Then I need not put off reading it. I have borne the worst.’

  As Mrs. Baxendale left the house, she was passed at a short distance along the road by a man on horseback. This rider gave a sign to the coachman to stop, and a moment after presented himself at the window of the brougham. It was Dagworthy; he wished to have news of Mrs. and Miss Hood. The lady gave him full information.

  ‘I fear I could not see Mrs. Hood?’ Dagworthy said.

  ‘Oh, she is far too ill!’ was the reply.

  Having assured himself on this point, Dagworthy took his leave, and, when the carriage was remote, rode to the house. He made fast the reins to the gate, entered, and knocked at the door. A girl who did subordinate work for the nurses opened.

  ‘I want you,’ Dagworthy said, ‘to give this note at once to Miss Hood. You understand?—to Miss Hood. Will you do so?’

  ‘I will, sir.’

  He went away, and, immediately after, Emily was reading these lines:

  ‘I wish to tell you that no one has heard, and no one ever will, of the circumstances you would desire to have unknown. I send this as soon as you are able to receive it. You will know from whom it comes.’

  She knew, and the message aided her. The shook of what she had just heard was not, in its immediate effect, as severe as others had feared it would be. Perhaps Emily’s own sojourn at the gates of death lessened the distance between her and him who had passed them; perhaps the vast misery which lay behind her, the darkness threatening in the future, brought first to her mind death’s attribute of deliverance. This, in the hours that followed, she strove to dwell upon nothing could touch her father now, he was safe from trouble. But, as the current in her veins grew warmer, as life held her with a stronger hand and made her once more participant in his fears and desires, that apparit
ion of the motionless veiled form haunted her with access of horror. If she slept it came into her dreams, and her waking thoughts strove with hideous wilfulness to unmuffle that dead face. When horror failed, its place was taken by a grief so intense that it shook the fabric of her being. She had no relapse in health, but convalescence was severed from all its natural joys; she grew stronger only to mourn more passionately. In imagination she followed her father through the hours of despair which must have ensued on his interview with Dagworthy. She pictured his struggle between desire to return home, to find comfort among those he loved, and the bitter shame which forbade it. How had he spent the time? Did he wander out of the town to lonely places, until daylight failed? Did he then come back under the shadow of the night, come back all but to the very door of his dwelling, make one last effort to face those within, pass on in blind agony? Was he on the heath at the very hour when she crossed it to go to Dagworthy’s house? Oh, had that been his figure which, as she hurried past, she had seen moving in the darkness of the quarry?

  A pity which at times grew too vast for the soul to contain absorbed her life, the pity which overwhelms and crushes, which threatens reason. That he should have lived through long years of the most patient endurance, keeping ever a hope, a faith, so simple-hearted, so void of bitter feeling, so kindly disposed to all men—only to be vanquished at length by a moment of inexplicable weakness, only to creep aside, and hide his shame, and die. Her father, whom it was her heart’s longing to tend and cherish through the brighter days of his age—lying there in his grave, where no voice could reach him, remote for ever from the solace of loving kindness, his death a perpetuation of woe. The cruelty of fate had exhausted itself; what had the world to show more pitiful than this?