Men and Wives (28 page)

“We are still before the verdict,” said Gregory.

“Nothing can make any difference,” said Griselda.

“No, but Mother may not have felt as wretched as that,” said Gregory.

“She couldn't have. She would have shown it. She is in her way a transparent person,” said Jermyn, revealing his unchanged image of his mother.

Gregory went into the hall and looked upstairs. Godfrey and Matthew were standing on the landing, silent, and Harriet's door was closed. Presently Matthew came to them.

“Yes, Griselda was right,” he said. “Dufferin thinks that is what it was. He is all but sure. It will be found out for certain later. She must have got it when she went to see him. She evidently knew his room better than he thought. She waited there for some time. We shall never know if she went with that purpose, or if the thought came to her while she was there.”

“But how did she feel before she did it? What made her do it?” said Griselda.

“She could not have been herself,” said Matthew'. “Her searching for it points to that. It was not like her in a natural mood. That sort of secretive skill is sometimes symptomatic.”

“It would be simply necessary. Open blundering would never work,” said Jermyn.

“Oh well, whatever it is,” said Matthew in a weary tone. He turned to the window, and his sister took his arm. He did not repulse her, but stood as if sunk in his thoughts.

Godfrey and Dufferin came on to the silence.

“I must go back to see if there are any of certain tablets gone,” said Dufferin. “Don't be more troubled than you must. She suffered nothing; it was the same as dying in her sleep. Matthew can come with me, and be a witness about the amount that is missing. It is better than doing nothing here, though the rest of you must do your best with it. I am afraid it is clear how it was, though the bottle with the tablets will be a proof. In some manner or another she must have known my ways. The cupboard was locked, and the keys were in a drawer across the room. But after all it
was possible enough for a reasoning and observing person. The thing that will be said, that she was temporarily insane, ought often to be the opposite.”

“Will it all have to come out?” said Jermyn.

“Yes, it will; we can't help that,” said Dufferin. “It is all but out now. But it will do no harm to anyone. It won't be different from other things of its kind. It isn't anything to dwell upon. You have none of you done anything wrong. Keep that in mind, and have an eye on your sister. Matthew and I will be back when we can. You must remain in the house, and answer any questions with the simple truth. The next few days will soon pass.”

“Can't anything be done to keep it secret?” asked Griselda.

“No, my darling. I asked that,” said her father. “It seems it has to be faced. We have that before us. It is a cruel thing that your mother cannot even pass from us in peace. I for one shall never feel ashamed of anything she has done. I shall feel to her simply as my beloved and loving wife, and my children's devoted mother.”

“She didn't seem so unlike herself yesterday,” said Griselda.

“I suppose she saw her life suddenly before her again, and felt she could not face it,” said Gregory.

“She must have felt that, my boy,” said Godfrey miserably. “But I didn't guess it. I didn't know what my wife went through on the last day she lived, the last of our thousands together. She didn't tell me, though she always knew of anything that I suffered. She didn't tell even Gregory. She went through it by herself.”

“Matthew looks very ill,” said Gregory. “I did not know people showed signs of shock so suddenly. From his eyes he might have known the truth all night. He is very like Mother.”

“Ah, he is very like her, I fear,” said his father. “I fear it for his own sake, because of what he may suffer. For myself I feel I have her left to me in one of her children. It is only in them that I can have her now.”

Matthew returned very soon. Dufferin had seen his need to relax, and undertaken himself what had to be done. The young man entered with a lifeless step, and answered questions in an empty tone.

“Yes, there was a tablet missing out of a bottle with three. The things on the shelf were a little out of place. The keys were not returned to quite the same position. It is clear enough.”

He sat down and put his hands on his knees, leaning forward over them.

“My dear boy!” cried Godfrey, hastening towards him. “It has been too much for you, having it all piled on you like this. You have had to face the most. You are your mother's son. Your extra knowledge does not arm you against that. You shall get it off your mind, if you have to burden mine in doing it. Ah, what is it, Buttermere? Matthew, here is a better doctor that I can be to you!”

Matthew had raised his eyes with the look of an animal afraid, but the next moment sprang to his feet. Camilla rushed past him, and flung herself on Godfrey's breast.

“Oh, dear Sir Godfrey, it is too impossible to bear! I loved her better than I ever loved anyone. I wanted so to belong to her; I was counting the days. I admired her more than any human being in the world. I wish she had known; I never had a chance to tell her. And Matthew with your eyes like hers! I couldn't love you for anything better than that. I will give you the love I was keeping for her. She would have liked you to have it. No, she wouldn't, the poor, anxious one! Well, I will be the woman she would have wished. Sir Godfrey, I will be the wife for Matthew his mother would have chosen.”

“I have no fears on that score, Camilla. My wife would not have had them either, if she had had time to know you. And now I am going to put Matthew into your care. He needs it as much as he will ever need it.”

“My poor dear boy, I will tend you as if I were already your wife, as if I had never been anyone else's. Your room
is upstairs on the second floor. You see I display a wife's knowledge. We will go up together hand in hand. That is her room, isn't it? Let us stop just one minute. She is lying in there. May I just go in and look at her? I must see her once again. I saw her so much too seldom while she was alive. I never made the most of her. She looks wonderful, Matthew, young and innocent, and with such a peace on her dear, powerful face. I wish I were her kind of woman. I wish I could try to be.”

Camilla broke off, for Matthew was leaning against the door, cowering away from the bed.

“What is it, dearest? There is nothing to be afraid of? Of course it is your mother, and even for a doctor that is different. But it is only the shell, the beautiful casket where the spirit has flown. They won't have a postmortem, will they? I couldn't bear for her to be spoiled. Don't let them have it, if you can help it. You want to go upstairs? We have left the door ajar. It must not be seen like that. I will go back and shut it. There is no need for quite such haste. Oh, close it gently, Matthew. Poor lamb, you are not yourself. You are bound to be restless until the next few days are over. I shall be so glad for you when they are, though for myself I can't wish her to be put away out of sight. Will your father get over this, do you think?”

“Yes, after the few days,” said Matthew.

“Talk like yourself, my darling. Don't be bitter. You may feel it the most, but other people are suffering.”

“You need not pity them. It is only I who need your pity.”

“What about Gregory?”

“Pity him least of all. Thinking about Mother will always be pleasant for him, going over his life with her from the first moment to the last.”

“And for you, when you are equal to it.”

“Don't talk to me about my life with her from the first moment to the last, the last!” cried Matthew, sitting on his bed and raising his hands to his head.

“You are very wrought up, Matthew. I shan't like to leave you alone. The news was sent to Lady Hardisty as well as to us. Do you suppose she will be coming to you? I should go with an easier mind.”

“She won't do for me instead of you,” said Matthew.

“For all that I hope she will come. It is no kindness to you for me to stay. I always do sick people more harm than good; they suffer more and not less because of me. I couldn't bear to do you harm just now. I should always look back on it.”

“You can't bear to do anything for me just now. I shall always look back on it too,” said Matthew.

It was later in the day when Rachel came. She looked worn and altered, but her voice was her own.

“Godfrey, I am so ashamed of not coming at once. I know that people with deep feelings go about just as usual, only with an older look and a smile that is different. But an older look would not do for me; perhaps it would not be possible. And I was so startled by Harriet's meeting with success, when it is not in mortals to command it, and they may do more, deserve it. Of course she became immortal by doing what she did, and she did deserve success the second time. She couldn't do more than try twice. And she may have been in an imperious mood when she commanded success.”

“Ah, Rachel, I am really widowed now. My children are really orphans.”

“And I am really without a woman friend, and it is an established disgrace to be without friends of your own sex. You have the dignity of sorrow, not its disgrace.”

“Indeed no,” said Godfrey. “Indeed we have no disgrace! If anyone uses that word to me in connection with my wife, I shall rise up and confute him. But, Rachel, why did she not tell me? All those days we were together. And we were on our old footing. Believe me, we were. And she did that without a word. Why did she want to leave me?”

“I don't know, Godfrey; you say she didn't tell you.
And it wouldn't have been kind of her to tell any of us that. I think she behaved wonderfully. We must idealise her, as people always do their dead. We need not have remorse for not doing it while she was alive, because she could hardly have done it to us, as you suggest. I hope the people at the inquest will do it. I have noticed they do when they can.”

“Ah, we have all that before us,” said Godfrey. “It can't last for ever; that is one thing. It will all pass as in a dream now.”

It Passed As Godfrey said. With sureness and convention matters came to their end, the verdict of suicide while temporarily insane. Harriet's former attempt on her own life, her recent mental illness, her visit to Dufferin's house, the disturbance of his closet and keys, the tablet missing of the kind that had caused her death—nothing was wanting to the chain, and events moved swiftly to her burial.

Bellamy rose to the occasion with feeling as real as his dramatic gift. Godfrey stood pale and withdrawn at his wife's grave. Matthew was behind him, stooping and shaken, with Camilla weeping at his side. Agatha caught a glimpse of Gregory's face, and showed a contraction of her own that was not compassion. Sir Percy and Dufferin stood with Harriet's family, and the rest of the mourners were gathered a little apart. When the party for the house had driven away, the same group formed at a distance from the church.

Agatha broke the silence in a quiet, measured tone. “We must feel it an oppressive ending to a valuable life, this sudden vanishing in shock and violence. It seems that our passing should be a thing of dignity and peace. It is indeed a heavy trial for her family.”

“There can't be any doubt of that, can there?” said Polly, pressing forward.

Agatha gave her a gentle look, and glanced at Mellicent in unspoken comment on the youthful presence.

“There couldn't be anything worse,” said Polly.

“There couldn't,” said Agatha kindly. “That is what I said, isn't it?”

“What I feel is, that it will make such a terrible blank
in all our lives,” said Mrs. Christy, coming to the front of the group. “I shall feel it myself with peculiar force, and not only because of the actual connection that was merely the coping-stone of our intercourse.”

“There must be the difference for ourselves in the miss we feel for different people,” said Agatha, with reminiscence and resignation.

“It is a good thing that Sir Godfrey and his family have some experience of managing alone,” said Geraldine.

“Do you know, I think that makes it all the sadder?” said Agatha. “To look back on the time when they did without her, that was to culminate in their coming together, and to feel that this time the self-sought separation must have no end! To my mind that gives a peculiarly tragic flavour.”

“It must to everyone,” said Polly.

“I wonder if they feel very much about her taking her life herself,” said Geraldine, beginning in a carrying voice and dropping it at the last words. “Of course it was brought in as insanity, but that in itself is not a thing people welcome in the family.”

“What I should be concerned about, is how poor Lady Haslam felt before she worked herself up to do it,” said Agatha, with a touch of open grimness. “That is what would be on my mind, if I were anyone near to her.”

“What seems to me is, that we ought to be so careful lest we do poor Lady Haslam an injustice,” said Mrs. Christy, looking flushed and disturbed. “I am not biased by any personal feeling, even though I felt myself almost of her family circle. I feel simply that it is such a tragic thing that that large spirit was under a cloud, and had to grope about for its own release. To me everything else is swallowed up in the dignity of its suffering.”

“Mrs. Christy,” said Dominic in a downright tone, “you could not more fitly express what is in all our hearts.”

“Well, I think any aptness may be an echo from Lady Haslam herself,” said Mrs. Christy, her tone steadying.
“There was about her such a peculiar literary felicity. So often there fell from her the happy phrase, the sudden flash of cultured memory, that I think something may remain behind and colour any thoughts and words that relate to her. I really feel that may be the case.”