A Country Gentleman and his Family. Oliphant Margaret
into it so strangely, so closely, that she could never be separated from his thoughts. She might break violently the visionary tie between them, – she might break it, angry to have been drawn into so close a relation to any strangers, – but it never could be shaken off.
He drove quickly down the long bare avenue, where all was so naked and clear, and put his head out of the carriage window to look back at the house, standing out bare and defenceless in the full moonlight, showing faintly, through the white glory which blazed all around, a little pitiful glimmer of human lights in the closed windows, the watch-lights of the dead. It seemed a long time to the young man since in his own house these watch-lights had been extinguished. The previous event seemed to have become dim to him, though he was so much more closely connected with it, in the presence of this, which was more awful, more terrible. He tried to return to the thoughts of the morning, when his father was naturally in all things his first occupation, but it was impossible to do it. Instead of the thoughts which became him, as being now in his father's place, with the fortunes and comfort of his family more or less depending upon him, all that his mind would follow were the events of this afternoon, so full of fate. He saw Lady Markland stand, with the child clinging to her, in the dim room, the shrouded bed and indistinct attendant figures behind, the dimly flickering lights. Why had she so claimed his aid, asked for his service, with that certainty of being obeyed? Her every word trembled in his ear still: – they were very few; but they seemed to be laid up there in some hidden repository, and came out and said themselves over again when he willed, moving him as he never had been moved before. He made many efforts to throw off this involuntary preoccupation as the carriage rolled quickly along; the tired horse quickening its pace as it felt the attraction of home, the tired coachman letting it go almost at its own pleasure, the broad moonlight fields, with their dark fringes of hedge, spinning past. Then the village went past him, with all its sleeping houses, the church standing up like a protecting shadow. He looked out again at this, straining his eyes to see the dark spot where his father was lying, the first night in the bosom of the earth: and this thought brought him back for a moment to himself. But the next, as the carriage glided on into the shadow of the trees, and the overgrown copses of the Warren received him into their shadow, this other intrusive tragedy, this story which was not his, returned and took possession of him once more. To see her standing there, speaking so calmly, with the soft tones that perhaps would have been imperious in other circumstances: "Do it for me." No question whether it could be done, or if he could do it. One thing only there was that jarred throughout all, – the child that was always there, forming part of her. "If ever I have anything to do with that boy" – Warrender said to himself; and then there was a moment of dazzle and giddiness, and the carriage stopped, and a door opened, and he found himself standing out in the fresh, soft night with his mother, on the threshold of his own home. There was a light in the hall behind her, where she stood, with the whiteness of the widow's cap, which was still a novelty and strange feature in her, waiting till he should return. It was far on in the night, and except herself the household was asleep. She came out to him, wistfully looking in his face by the light of the moon.
"You did everything for her, Theo?"
"All that I could. I saw him laid upon his bed. There was nothing more for me to do."
"Are you very tired, my boy? You have done so much."
"Not tired at all. Come out with me a little. I can't go in yet. It is a lovely night."
"Oh, Theo, lovely and full of light! – the trees, and the bushes, and every blade of grass sheltering something that is living; and yet death, death reigning in the midst."
She leaned her head upon his arm and cried a little, but he did not make any response. It was true, no doubt, but other thoughts were in his mind.
"She will have great trouble with that child, when he grows up," he said, as if he had been carrying on some previous argument. "It is ridiculous to have him always hanging about her, as if he could understand."
Mrs. Warrender started, and the movement made his arm which she held tremble, but he did not think what this meant. He thought she was tired, and this recalled his thoughts momentarily to her. "Poor mother!" he said; "you sat up for me, not thinking of your own fatigue and trouble, and you are over-tired. Am I a trouble to you, too?" His mind was still occupied with the other train of thinking, even when he turned to subjects more his own.
"Do you know," she said, not caring to reply, "it is the middle of the night?"
"Yes, and you should be in bed. But I couldn't sleep. I have never had anything of the kind to do before, and it takes all desire to rest out of one. It will soon be daylight. I think I shall take my bath, and then get to work."
"Oh no, Theo. You would not work, – you would think; and there are some circumstances in which thinking is not desirable. Come out into the moonlight. We will take ten minutes, and then, my dear boy, good-night."
"Good-morning, you mean, mother, and everything new, – a new life. It has never been as it will be to-morrow. Have you thought of that?" She gave a sudden pressure to his arm, and he perceived his folly. "That I should speak so to you, to whom the greatest change of all has come!"
"Yes," she said, with a little tremor. "It is to me that it will make the most difference. And that poor young creature, so much younger than I, who might be my child!"
"Do you think, when she gets over all this, that it will be much to her? People say – "
"That is a strange question to ask," she said, with agitation, – "a very strange question to ask. When we get over all this, – that is, the shock, and the change, and the awe of the going away, – what will it be then, to all of us? We shall just settle down once more into our ordinary life, as if nothing had happened. That is what will come of it. That is what always comes of it. There is nothing but the common routine, which goes on and on for ever."
She was excited, and shed tears, at which he wondered a little, yet was compassionate of, remembering that she was a woman and worn out. He put his hand upon hers, which lay on his arm. "Poor mother!" he murmured, caressing her hand with his, and feeling all manner of tender cares for her awake in him. Then he added softly, returning in spite of himself to other thoughts, "The force of habit and of the common routine, as you say, cannot be so strong when one is young."
"No," she said; and then, after a pause, "If it is poor Lady Markland you are thinking of, she has her child."
This gave him a certain shock, in the softening of his heart. "The child is the thing I don't like!" he exclaimed, almost sharply. Then he added, "I think the dawn must be near; I feel very chilly. Mother, come in; as you say, it is the best thing not to think, but to go to bed."
CHAPTER VII
The morning rose, as they had said to each other, upon a new life.
How strange it is to realise, after the first blow has fallen, that this changed life is still the same! When it brings with it external changes, family convulsions, the alteration of external circumstances, although these secondary things increase the calamity, they give it also a certain natural atmosphere; they are in painful harmony with it. But when the shock, the dreadful business of the moment, is all over, when the funeral has gone away from the doors and the dead has been buried, and everything goes on as before, this commonplace renewal is, perhaps, the most terrible of all to the visionary soul. Minnie and Chatty got out their work, – the coloured work, which they had thought out of place during the first week. They went in the afternoon for a walk, and gathered fresh flowers, as they returned, for the vases in the drawing-room. When evening came they asked Theo if he would not read to them. It was not a novel they were reading; it was a biography, of a semi-religious character, in which there were a great many edifying letters. They would not, of course, have thought of reading a novel at such a time. Warrender had been wandering about all day, restless, not knowing what to do with himself. He was not given to games of any kind, but he thought to-day that he would have felt something of the sort a relief, though he knew it would have shocked the household. In the afternoon, on a chance suggestion of his mother's, he saw that it was a sort of duty to walk over to Markland and ask how Lady Markland was. Twelve miles – six there and six back again – is a long walk for a student. He sent up his name, and asked whether