The Well of Loneliness (17 page)

Sir Philip lay very still on the snow, and the blood oozed slowly from between his lips. He looked monstrously tall as he lay on that whiteness, very straight, with his long legs stretched out to their fullest, so that Thomas said foolishly: ‘Don’t ‘e be big—I don’t know as I ever noticed before—’

And now someone came scuttling over the snow, panting, stumbling, hopping grotesquely—old Williams, hatless and in his shirt sleeves—and as he came on he kept calling out something: ‘Master, oh, Master!’ And he hopped grotesquely as he came on over the slippery snow. ‘Master, Master—oh, Master!’

They found a hurdle, and with dreadful care they placed the master of Morton upon it, and with dreadful slowness they carried the hurdle over the lawn, and in through the door that Sir Philip himself had left standing ajar.

Slowly they carried him into the hall, and even more slowly his tired eyes opened, and he whispered: ‘Where’s Stephen: I want—the child.’

And old Williams muttered thickly: ‘She’s comin’, Master—she be comin’ down the stairs; she’s here, Sir Philip.’

Then Sir Philip tried to move, and he spoke quite loudly: ‘Stephen! Where are your I want you, child—’

She went to him, saying never a word, but she thought: ‘He’s dying—my Father.’

And she took his large hand in hers and stroked it, but still without speaking, because when one loves there is nothing left in the world to say, when the best beloved lies dying. He looked at her with the pleading eyes of a dog who is dumb, but who yet asks forgiveness. And she knew that his eyes were asking forgiveness for something beyond her poor comprehension; so she nodded, and just went on stroking his hand.

Mr. Hopkins asked quietly: ‘Where shall we take him?’ And as quietly Stephen answered: ‘To the study.’

Then she herself led the way to the study, walking steadily, just as though nothing had happened, just as though when she got there she would find her father lolling back in his armchair, reading. But she thought all the while: ‘He’s dying—my Father—’ Only the thought seemed unreal, preposterous. It seemed like the thinking of somebody else, a thing so unreal as to be preposterous. Yet when they had set him down in the study, her own voice it was that she heard giving orders.

‘Tell Miss Puddleton to go at once to my Mother and break the news gently—I’ll stay with Sir Philip. One of you please send a housemaid to me with a sponge and some towels and a basin of cold water. Burton’s gone for Doctor Evans, you say? That’s quite right. Now I’d like you to go up and fetch down a mattress, the one from the blue room will do—get it quickly. Bring some blankets as well and a couple of pillows—and I may need a little brandy.’

They ran to obey, and before very long she had helped to lift him on to the mattress. He groaned a little, then he actually smiled as he felt her strong arms around him. She kept wiping the blood away from his mouth, and her fingers were stained; she looked at her fingers, but without comprehension—they could not be hers—like her thoughts, they must surely be somebody else’s. But now his eyes were growing more restless—he was looking for someone, he was looking for her mother.

‘Have you told Miss Puddleton, Williams?’ she whispered. The man nodded.

Then she said: ‘Mother’s coming, darling; you lie still,’ and her voice was softly persuasive as though she were speaking to a small, suffering child. ‘Mother’s coining; you lie quite still, darling.’

And she came—incredulous, yet wide-eyed with horror. ‘Philip, oh, Philip!’ She sank down beside him and laid her white face against his on the pillow. ‘My dear, my dear—it’s most terribly hurt you—try to tell me where it hurts; try to tell me, beloved. The branch gave—it was the snow—it fell on you, Philip—but try to tell me where it hurts most, beloved.’

Stephen motioned to the servants and they went away slowly with bowed heads, for Sir Philip had been a good friend; they loved him, each in his or her way, each according to his or her capacity for loving.

And always that terrible voice went on speaking, terrible because it was quite unlike Anna’s—it was toneless, and it asked and re-asked the same question: ‘Try to tell me where it hurts most, beloved.’

But Sir Philip was fighting the battle of pain; of intense, irresistible, unmanning pain. He lay silent, not answering Anna.

Then she coaxed him in words soft with memories of her country. ‘And you the loveliest man,’ she whispered, ‘and you with the light of God in your eyes.’ But he lay there unable to answer.

And now she seemed to forget Stephen’s presence, for she spoke as one lover will speak with another—foolishly, fondly, inventing small names, as one lover will do for another. And watching them Stephen beheld a great marvel, for he opened his eyes and his eyes met her mother’s, and a light seemed to shine over both their poor faces, transfiguring them with something triumphant, with love—thus those two rekindled the beacon for their child in the shadow of the valley of death.

2

It was late afternoon before the doctor arrived; he had been out all day and the roads were heavy. He had come the moment he received the news, come as fast as a car clogged with snow could bring him. He did what he could, which was very little, for Sir Philip was conscious and wished to remain so; he would not permit them to ease his pain by administering drugs. He could speak very slowly.

‘No—not that—something urgent—I want—to say. No drugs—I know I’m—dying—Evans.’

The doctor adjusted the slipping pillows, then turning he whispered carefully to Stephen. ‘Look after your mother. He’s going, I think—it can’t be long now. I’ll wait in the next room. If you need me you’ve only got to call me.’

‘Thank you,’ she answered’ ‘if I need you, I’ll call you.’

Then Sir Philip paid even to the uttermost farthing, paid with stupendous physical courage for the sin of his anxious and pitiful heart; and he drove and he goaded his ebbing strength to the making of one great and terrible effort: ‘Anna—it’s Stephen—listen.’ They were holding his hands. ‘It’s—Stephen—our child—she’s, she’s—it’s Stephen—not like—’

His head fell back rather sharply, and then lay very still upon Anna’s bosom.

Stephen released the hand she was holding, for Anna had stopped and was kissing his lips, desperately, passionately kissing his lips, as though to breathe back the life into his body. And none might be there to witness that thing, save God—the God of death and affliction, Who is also the God of love. Turning away she stole out of their presence, leaving them alone in the darkening study, leaving them alone with their deathless devotion—hand in hand, the quick and the dead.

BOOK TWO

Sir Philip’s death deprived his child of three things; of companionship of mind born of real understanding, of a stalwart barrier between her and the world, and above all of love—that faithful love that would gladly have suffered all things for her sake, in order to spare her suffering.

Stephen, recovering from the merciful numbness of shock and facing her first deep sorrow, stood utterly confounded, as a child will stand who is lost in a crowd, having somehow let go of the hand that has always guided. Thinking of her father, she realized how greatly she had leant on that man of deep kindness, how sure she had felt of his constant protection, how much she had taken that protection for granted. And so together with her constant grieving, with the ache for his presence that never left her, came the knowledge of what real loneliness felt like. She would marvel, remembering how often in his lifetime she had thought herself lonely, when by stretching out a finger she could touch him, when by speaking she could hear his voice, when by raising her eyes she could see him before her. And now also she knew the desolation of small things, the power to give infinite pain that lies hidden in the little inanimate objects that persist, in a book, in a well-worn garment, in a half-finished letter, in a favourite armchair.

She thought: ‘They go on—they mean nothing at all, and yet they go on,’ and the handling of them was anguish, and yet she must always touch them. ‘How queer, this old armchair has outlived him, an old chair—’ And feeling the creases in its leather, the dent in its back where her father’s head had lain, she would hate the inanimate thing for surviving, or perhaps she would love it and find herself weeping.

Morton had become a place of remembering that closed round her and held her in its grip of remembrance. It was pain, yet now more than ever she adored it, every stone, every blade of grass in its meadows. She fancied that it too grieved for her father and was turning to her for comfort. Because of Morton the days must go on, all their trifling tasks must be duly accomplished. At tunes she might wonder that this should be so, might be filled with a fleeting sense of resentment, but then she would think of her home as a creature dependent upon her and her mother for its needs, and the sense of resentment would vanish.

Very gravely she listened to the lawyer from London. ‘The place goes to your mother for her lifetime,’ he told her; ‘on her death, of course, it becomes yours, Miss Gordon. But your father made a separate provision; when you’re twenty-one, in about two years’ time, you’ll inherit quite a considerable income.’

She said: ‘Will that leave enough money for Morton?’ ‘More than enough,’ he reassured her, smiling.

In the quiet old house there was discipline and order, death had come and gone, yet these things persisted. Like the well-worn garment and favourite chair, discipline and order had survived the great change, filling the emptiness of the rooms with a queer sense of unreality at times, with a new and very bewildering doubt as to which was real, life or death. The servants scoured and swept and dusted. From Malvern, once a week, came a young clock-winder, and he set the clocks with much care and precision so that when he had gone they all chimed together—rather hurriedly they would all chime together, as though flustered by the great importance of time. Puddle added up the books and made lists for the cook. The tall under-footman polished the windows—the iridescent window that looked out on the lawns and the semicircular fanlight he polished. In the gardens work progressed just as usual. Gardeners pruned and hoed and diligently planted. Spring gained in strength to the joy of the cuckoos, trees blossomed, and outside Sir Philip’s study glowed beds of the old-fashioned single tulips he had loved above all the others. According to custom the bulbs had been planted, and now, still according to custom, there were tulips. At the stables the hunters were turned out to grass, and the ceilings and walls had a fresh coat of whitewash. Williams went into Upton to buy tape for the plaits which the grooms were now engaged upon making; while beyond, in a paddock adjoining the beech wood, a couple of mares gave birth to strong foals—thus were all things accomplished in their season at Morton.

But Anna, whose word was now absolute law, had become one of those who have done with smiling; a quiet, enduring, grief-stricken woman, in whose eyes was a patient, waiting expression. She was gentle to Stephen, yet terribly aloof; in their hour of great need they must still stand divided these two, by the old, insidious barrier. Yet Stephen clung closer and closer to Morton; she had definitely given up all idea of Oxford. In vain did Puddle try to protest, in vain did she daily remind her pupil that Sir Philip had set his heart on her going; no good, for Stephen would always reply:

‘Morton needs me; Father would want me to stay, because he taught me to love it.’

And Puddle was helpless. What could she do, bound as she was by the tyranny of silence? She dared not explain the girl to herself, dared not say: ‘For your own sake you must go to Oxford, you’ll need every weapon your brain can give you; being what you are you’ll need every weapon,’ for then certainly Stephen would start to question, and her teacher’s very position of trust would forbid her to answer those questions.

Outrageous, Puddle would feel it to be, that wilfully selfish tyranny of silence evolved by a crafty old ostrich of a world for its own wellbeing and comfort. The world hid its head in the sands of convention, so that seeing nothing it might avoid Truth. It said to itself: ‘If seeing’s believing, then I don’t want to see—if silence is golden, it is also, in this case, very expedient.’ There were moments when Puddle would feel sorely tempted to shout out loud at the world.

Sometimes she thought of giving up her post, so weary was she of fretting over Stephen. She would think: What’s the good of my worrying myself sick? I can’t help the girl, but I can help myself—seems to me it’s a matter of pure self-preservation.’ Then all that was loyal and faithful in her would protest: ‘Better stick it, she’ll probably need you one day and you ought to be here to help her.’ So Puddle decided to stick it.

They did very little work, for Stephen had grown idle with grief and no longer cared for her studies. Nor could she find consolation in her writing, for sorrow will often do one of two things—it will either release the springs of inspiration, or else it will dry up those springs completely, and in Stephen’s case it had done the latter. She longed for the comforting outlet of words, but now the words would always evade her.

‘I can’t write any more, it’s gone from me, Puddle—he’s taken it with him.’ And then would come tears, and the tears would go splashing down on to the paper, blotting the poor inadequate lines that meant little or nothing as their author well knew, to her own added desolation.

There she would sit like a woebegone child, and Puddle would think how childish she seemed in this her first encounter with grief, and would marvel because of the physical strength of the creature, that went so ill with those tears. And because her own tears were vexing her eyes she must often speak rather sharply to Stephen. Then Stephen would go off and swing her large dumb-bells, seeking the relief of bodily movement, seeking to wear out her muscular body because her mind was worn out by sorrow.

August came and Williams got the hunters in from grass. Stephen would sometimes get up very early and help with the exercising of the horses, but in spite of this the old man’s heart misgave him, she seemed strangely averse to discussing the hunting.