Men and Wives Read online

  “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.”

  Chapter XXII

  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 ki
ndly. “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.”

  “That is a feeling, Mrs. Christy, that has anyhow essential force.”

  “I thought I saw such sorrow in the eyes of her children,” said Agatha, with full and womanly concession, “especially I think in those of Matthew, the eldest son. I can imagine the indissoluble thing between him and his mother. I often think the eldest son takes the place of the only son, the special place. Of course for the younger ones it is possible to do more in the way of compensation. It was rather wistfulness and bewilderment and a longing to lean on an older spirit, that I saw in those young faces.”

  Dominic’s attitude could only yield before this light thrown upon hidden truth.

  “Gregory is the one who was most dependent on his mother,” said Polly.

  “Most dependent. Yes,” said Agatha, with impartial and interested weighing of the phrase. “That is a very good expression. Dependent on her, for advice, for understanding, for guidance through some of the intricate mazes of youth.” She smiled at Polly to give her her part in these words. “But not so much involved in the something that can only be given by a mother to a son, that is given perhaps in full measure to the eldest or only son. Now I should never try to take a mother’s place to either of those.”

  “Let us go on to the Haslams’, and see if Mater is there,” said Polly to her sister.

  “It is a good thing she is not here,” said Mellicent.

  “Is it?” said Polly, as if she had thought the opposite.

  “Will you say to Gregory for me, that I hope he will come to tea this afternoon?” said Agatha, stepping towards them. “I think it will hardly be a breach of convention for him to come to me.”

  “We will give the message most certainly,” said Mellicent.

  “Then I think we can count upon him,” said Agatha, returning to the group with an unconscious air of purpose.

  “Do people always stand about and argue after funerals?” asked Polly, proceeding on her sister’s arm.

  “Probably some people,” said Mellicent.

  “Oh, yes, I see,” said Polly. “Mater will be with the Haslams, won’t she?”

  Rachel had sat with Griselda during the service, and came to the door to meet the men on their return.

  “Godfrey, you carry yourself very becomingly as the foremost person in people’s thoughts. I hope Percy watched you and took a lesson, as he will so soon have to do the same. His practice can’t do everything for him. I have been reading in the papers all about Harriet, and I think the accounts are satisfactory and do her justice. Several of them commented on her skill and forethought. She really chose a simple method, but that makes it all the nicer of the papers. You all look very well in funeral clothes, quite your best. I am glad the Press people were there to photograph you, and that Percy did not have to be included.”

  “Shall I be in the photograph?” said Polly from the doorway.

  “I hope not, my child,” said her stepmother.

  “I hadn’t any real black of my own,” Polly exclaimed.

  “My dear, to think it belongs to someone!”

  “So you were with us, little Polly?” said Godfrey.

  “Yes. I hadn’t ever been to a funeral,” said Polly with an open and startled gaze.

  “And do you feel inclined to make a habit of it?” said Gregory.

  “No. I think they ought to have different kinds of funerals for different people.”

  “So they ought,” said Gregory, approaching her. “You must see about it, Polly.”

  “Mrs. Calkin wants you to go to tea this afternoon,” said Polly, bound in duty to deliver this startling statement.

  “And will you come with me, Polly, or shall I have to go by myself?”

  “I think she wanted you by yourself.”

  “You must go with quiet self-restraint,” said Rachel. “You must forget my example of behaving as if my own feelings were important, so uncivilised and like the people in the Bible. Sackcloth and ashes are too ill-behaved. I will begin showing self-restraint at once. Gregory may give Geraldine my love.”

  “You don’t really like any of them, do you?” said Gregory.

  “Well, it is foolish to dislike Agatha for having been married, and Geraldine for not having been, especially when you resent being despised for both yourself. That is what they are disliked for. I don’t dislike them for those reasons at all.”

  “I am afraid of the old one,” said Polly.

  Gregory turned on her interested eyes.

  “My darling, that doesn’t sound enough like the Bible, and really it is too like it,” said Rachel. “I always say you are just like my own child. But you are far too young to go to a funeral. You have missed something in the spirit.”

  Chapter XXIII

  Agatha Did Not follow her custom of coming to the door to welcome Gregory, but waited at her fireside while he approached.

  “This is not the first time I have received you in this trouble. I know you understand that I will do anything that is in me to make it easier for you. Happily you are young enough for compensation.”

  “I wish I could get at Mother’s feelings,” said Gregory, taking his place at her feet, and speaking as if he knew he might open his mind. “She tried to tell me the first time, and I suppose this was something like it, but she herself didn’t seem at all the same. I feel that if I could realise how she felt, I should be more at rest.”

  “Isn’t that a little too like your mother?” said Agatha, stroking his hair.

  “That is the first thing we shall aim at now,” said Gregory.

  “In some things, yes, indeed,” said Agatha, “but there are others in which she would be the last person to wish you to follow her.”

  “The one thing at the end she d
idn’t recommend the first time, but she seems to have thought better even of that. She was quite herself the last day and night, really more natural than when she first came home.” A shadow of condemnation crossed Agatha’s face. “On the whole she believed she had no child on her own plane. She must have known she had not.”

  “Don’t you think,” said Agatha softly, “that you are at a time when we are apt to take pronounced, even exaggerated views of what we have lost? I can remember doing it myself, in those of my sorrows that could bear the light thrown upon them.”

  “I feel as if I were taking the right view for the first time. I don’t know though that that is fair to myself; I think I always took it. But I wonder if Mother knew that I did.”

  “I think that whatever we feel honestly always comes through. I am sure we need not be in any doubt about that. What we do not feel honestly, what we only imagine or wish we felt, will separate itself in the end; and we shall be glad to feel it sorted out, and to lay it aside, knowing that we want only sincerity between ourselves and our dear one. I think I can tell you that for certain.”

  “Did you find that when your husband died?” said Gregory.

  “Oh, that is a different loss,” said Agatha, drawing herself back. “That is a loss we do not compare to any but itself, the loss unique, isolated, supreme. I did not mean that when I spoke about my sorrows; I thought I gave a hint of that. I hope you will never have to face it. That is generally the woman’s lot.”

  “No one knows the difference it makes, when someone has died by her own will.”

  “Ah, that is what you have to face alone. That is where your experience has its own isolation,” said Agatha, seeming to grant the advantage here. “There is the darkness, the hint of tragedy, the shadow of feeling that we must condemn. But in a way, does it not soften the trouble”—she bent down and just looked into his face— “that she left you by her own choice? That she had no will to live to be thwarted? Would not that have been a harder thing? You are spared that.”