The buzz of gossip, the sting of scandalous paragraph, even the
blundering impertinence of the actor-knight were all forgotten the
following afternoon when a telegram arrived from Hampshire to say that
old Mrs. Touchwood was dying. John left London immediately; but when he
reached Ambles he found that his mother was already dead.
"She passed away at five o'clock," Edith sobbed.
Perhaps it was to stop his wife's crying that Laurence abandoned at any
rate temporarily his unbelief and proclaimed as solemnly as if he were
still Vicar of Newton Candover that the old lady was waiting for them
all above. Hilda seemed chiefly worried by the fact that she had never
warned James of their mother's grave condition.
"I did telegraph Eleanor, who hasn't come; and how I came to overlook
James and Beatrice I can't think. They'll be so hurt. But Mama didn't
fret for anybody in particular. No, Hugh sat beside the bed and held her
hand, which seemed to give her a little pleasure, and I was kept
occupied with changing the hot-water bottles."
In the dining-room George was knitting lugubriously.
"You mustn't worry yourself, old chap," he said to John with his usual
partiality for seductive advice. "You can't do anything now. None of us
can do anything till the funeral, though I've written to Eleanor to
bring my top-hat with her when she comes."
The embarrassment of death's presence hung heavily over the household.
The various members sat down to supper with apologetic glances at one
another, and nobody took a second helping of any dish. The children were
only corrected in whispers for their manners, but they were given to
understand by reproachful head-shakes that for a child to put his
elbows on the table or crumble his bread or drink with his mouth full
was at such a time a cruel exhibition of levity. John could not help
contrasting the treatment of children at a death with their treatment at
a birth. Had a baby arrived upstairs, they would have been hustled out
of sight and sound of the unclean event; but over death they were
expected to gloat, and their curiosity was encouraged as the fit
expression of filial piety.
"Yes, Frida, darling, dear Grandmama will have lots and lots of lovely
white flowers. Don't kick the table, sweetheart. Think of dear Grandmama
looking down at you from Heaven, and don't kick the table-leg, my
precious," said Edith in tremulous accents, gently smoothing back her
daughter's indefinite hair.
"Can people only see from Heaven or can they hear?" asked Harold.
"Hush, my boy," his Uncle Laurence interposed. "These are mysteries into
which God does not permit us to inquire too deeply. Let it suffice that
our lightest actions are known. We cannot escape the omniscient eye."
"I wasn't speaking about God," Harold objected. "I was asking about
Grandmama. Does she hear Frida kicking the table, or does she only see
her?"
"At this solemn moment, Harold, when we should all of us be dumb with
grief, you should not persist. Your poor grandmother would be pained to
hear you being persistent like this."
Harold seemed to think he had tricked his uncle into answering the
question, for he relapsed into a satisfied silence; Edith's eyes flashed
gladly through her tears to welcome the return of her husband's truant
orthodoxy. All managed to abstain while they were eating from any more
conspicuous intrusion of the flesh than was inevitable; but there was a
painful scene after supper, because Frida insisted that she was
frightened to sleep alone, and refused to be comforted by the offer of
Viola for company. The terrible increase of Grandmama's powers of
hearing and seeing might extend to new powers of locomotion in the
middle of the night, in which case Viola would be no protection.
"But Grandmama is in Heaven, darling," her mother urged.
"I want to sleep with you. I'm frightened. I want to sleep with you,"
she wailed.
"Laurence!" murmured Edith, appealingly.
"Death is a great leveler," he intoned. Grateful to the chance of being
able to make this observation, he agreed to occupy his daughter's room
and thereby allow her to sleep with her mother.
"You're looking sad, Bertram," John observed, kindly, to his favorite
nephew. "You mustn't take this too much to heart."
"No, Uncle John, I'm not. Only I keep wishing Grandmama had lived a
little longer."
"We all wish that, old man."
"Yes, but I only meant a very little longer, so that I needn't have gone
back for the first week of term."
John nervously hurried his nephew up to bed beyond the scorching of
Laurence's rekindled flames of belief. Downstairs, he tried to extract
from the attitude of the grown-up members of the family the attitude he
would have liked to detect in himself. If a few months ago John had been
told that his mother's death would affect him so little he would have
been horrified by the suggestion; even now he was seriously shocked at
himself. Yet, try as he might, he could not achieve the apotheosis of
the old lady that he would have been so content to achieve. Undoubtedly
a few months ago he would have been able without being conscious of
self-deception to pretend that he believed not only in the reality of
his own grief, but also in that of the others. He would have taken his
part in the utterance of platitudes about life and death, separation and
reunion. His own platitudes would have been disguised with poetic
tropes, and he might have thought to himself how well such and such a
phrase was put; but he would quickly have assured himself that it was
well put because it was the just expression of a deep emotion. Now he
could not make a single contribution to the woeful reflections of those
round him. He believed neither in himself nor in them. He knew that
George was faintly anxious about his top-hat, that Hilda was agitated at
the prospect of having to explain to James and Beatrice her
unintentional slight, that Laurence was unable to resist the opportunity
of taking the lead at this sorrowful time by reverting to his priestly
office. And Hugh, for whom the old lady had always possessed a fond
unreasoning affection, did his countenance express more than a hardly
concealed relief that it was all over? Did he not give the impression
that he was stretching his legs after sitting still in one position for
too long? Edith, to be sure, was feeling some kind of emotion that
required an endless flow of tears, but it seemed to John that she was
weeping more for the coming of death than for the going of her mother.
And the children, how could they be expected to feel the loss of the old
lady? There under the lamp like a cenotaph recording the slow hours of
age stood her patience-cards in their red morocco case; there they would
be allowed to stand for a while to satisfy the brief craving for
reverence, and then one of the children realizing that Grandmama had no
more need of playing would take possession of them; they would become
grubby and dog-eared in younger hands; they would disappear one by one,
and the memory of that placid presence would hardly outlive them.
"It's so nice to think that her little annuity died with her," sighed
Edith. She spoke of the annuity as if it were a favorite pug that had
died out of sympathy with its mistress. "I should hate to feel I was
benefiting from the death of somebody I loved," she explained presently.
John shivered; that remark of his sister's was like a ghostly footstep
upon his own grave, and from a few years hence, perhaps much less, he
seemed to hear the family lawyer cough before he settled himself down to
read the last will and testament of John Touchwood.
"Of course, poor Mama had been dreadfully worried these last weeks,"
Hilda said. "She felt very much the prospect of Hugh's going abroad--and
other things."
John regarded his elder sister, and was on the point of asking what she
meant to insinuate by other things, when a lament from upstairs startled
the assembled family.
"Come to bed, mother, come to bed, I want you," Frida was shrieking over
the balustrade. "The door of Grandmama's room made a noise just now."
"You had better go," said Laurence in answer to his wife's unvoiced
appeal; and Edith went off gratefully.
"It will always be a consolation to me," said Laurence, "that Mama was
able to hear _Thomas_ read to her. Yes, yes, she was so well upon that
memorable evening. So very well. By the way, John, I shall arrange with
the Vicar to read the burial service myself. It will add the last touch
to the intimacy of our common grief."
In his own room that night John tried hard not to criticize anybody
except himself. It was he who was cynical, he who was hard, he who was
unnatural, not they. He tried to evoke from the past early memories of
his mother, but he could not recall one that might bring a tear to his
eye. He remembered that once she had smacked him for something George
had done, that she had never realized what a success he had made of his
life's work, that she was--but he tore the unfilial thoughts from his
brain and reminded himself how much of her personality endured in his
own. George, Edith, and himself resembled her: James, Hilda, and Hugh
resembled their father. John's brothers and sisters haunted the
darkness; and he knew that deep down in himself he blamed his father and
mother for bringing them all into the world; he could not help feeling
that he ought to have been an only child.
"I do resent their existence," John thought. "I'm a heartless egotist.
And Miss Hamilton thinks I'm an egotist. Her manner towards me lately
has been distant, even contemptuous. Could that suggestion of Hilda's
have had any truth in it? Was Mama worried to death by Hugh's going
abroad? Did James complain to her about my taking the portraits and the
silver? Is it from any standpoint conceivable that my own behavior did
hasten her end?"
John's self-reproaches were magnified in the darkness, and he spent a
restless and unhappy night, trying to think that the family was more
important than the individual.
"You feel it terribly, don't you, dear Johnnie?" Edith asked him next
morning with an affectionate pressure upon his arm. "You're looking
quite worn out."
"We all feel it terribly," he sighed.
During the three days before the funeral John managed to work himself up
into a condition of sentimentality which he flattered himself was
outwardly at any rate affecting. Continuous reminders of his mother's
existence culminating in the arrival of a new cap she had ordered just
before her last swift illness seemed to induce in him the illusion of
sorrow; and without the least idea of what he intended to do with them
afterwards he collected a quantity of small relics like spectacle-cases
and caps and mittens, which he arranged upon his dressing-table and
brooded over with brimming eyes. He indulged Harold's theories about the
psychical state of his grandmother; he practiced swinging a golf club,
but he never once took out a ball; he treated everybody to magnificent
wreaths, and presented the servants as well as his nephews and nieces
with mourning; he ordered black-edged note-paper; he composed an epitaph
in the manner of Sir Thomas Browne with cadences and subtle
alliterations. Then came the funeral, which ruined the last few romantic
notions of grief that he had been able to preserve.
To begin with, Beatrice arrived in what could only be described as a
towering rage: no less commonplace epithet would have done justice to
the vulgarity of her indignation. That James the eldest son and she his
wife should not have been notified of the dangerous condition of Mama,
but should have been summoned to the obsequies like mere friends of the
family had outraged her soul, or, as Beatrice herself put it, had
knocked her down like a feather. Oh yes, she had always been considered
beneath the Touchwood standard of gentility, but poor Mama had not
thought the worse of her for that; poor Mama had many times gone out of
her way to be specially gracious towards her; poor Mama must have "laid"
there wondering why her eldest daughter-in-law did not come to give her
the last and longest farewell. She had not been lucky enough to be
blessed with children, but poor Mama had sometimes congratulated her
upon that fact; poor Mama had realized only too well that children were
not always a source of happiness. She knew that the undeserved poverty
which had always dogged poor old Jimmie's footsteps had lately caused to
be exacted from him the family portraits and the family silver pressed
upon him by poor Mama herself; but was that a reason for excluding him
from his mother's death-bed? She would not say whom she blamed, but she
had her own ideas, and though Hilda might protest it was her fault, she
knew better; Hilda was incapable of such barbarity. No, she would _not_
walk beside James as wife of the chief mourner; she would follow in the
rear of the funeral procession and hope that at any rate she was not
grudged that humble place. If some people resented her having bought the
largest wreath from a very expensive flower-shop, she was not too proud
to carry the wreath herself; she had carried it all the way from town
first-class to avoid its being crushed by heedless third-class
passengers.
"And when I die," sobbed Beatrice, "I hope that James will remember we
weren't allowed to see poor Mama before she went to Heaven, and will let
me die quite alone. I'm sure I don't want my death to interfere with
other people's amusements."
The funeral party gathered round the open grave; Laurence read the
service so slowly and the wind was so raw that grief was depicted upon
every countenance; the sniffing of many noses, above which rose
Beatrice's sobs of mortification and rage, mingled with the sighing of
the yews and the sexton's asthma in a suitably lachrymose symphony.
"Now that poor Mama has gone," said Hilda to her brother that afternoon,
"I dare say you're anxious for me to be gone too."
"I really don't think you are entitled to ascribe to me such unnatural
sentiments," John expostulated. "Why should I want you to die?"
He could indeed ask this, for such an event would inevitably connote his
adoption of Harold.
"I didn't mean you wanted me to die," said Hilda, crossly. "I meant you
would like me to leave Ambles."
"Not at all. I'm delighted for you to stay here so long as it suits your
convenience. And that applies equally to Edith. Also I may say to
George," he added with a glance at Eleanor, who had taken the
opportunity of mourning to equip herself with a new set of black
bearskin furs. Eleanor shook herself like a large animal emerging from
the stream.
"And to me?" she asked with a challenge in her eyes.
"You must judge for yourself, Eleanor, how far my hospitality is likely
to be extended willingly to you after last week," replied John, coldly.
He had not yet spoken to his sister-in-law about the interference of Sir
Percy Mortimer with his private affairs, and he now awaited her excuses
of reproaches with a curiosity that was very faintly tinged with
apprehension.
"Oh, I'm not at all ashamed of what I did," she declared. "George can't
speak up for himself, and it was my duty to do all I could to help him
in a matter of life and death."
John's cheeks flushed with stormy rose like a menacing down, and he was
about to break over his sister-in-law in thunder and lightning when
Laurence, entering the room at the moment and only hearing imperfectly
her last speech, nodded and sighed:
"Yes, yes. Eleanor is indeed right. Yes, yes. In the midst of life...."
Everybody hurried to take advantage of the diversion; a hum of
platitudes rose and fell upon the funereal air. John in a convulsion of
irritability ordered the dog-cart to drive him to the station. He was
determined to travel back to town alone; he feared that if he stayed any
longer at Ambles his brother-in-law would revive the discussion about
his play; he was afraid of Hugh's taking advantage of his mother's death
to dodge British Honduras and of James' trading upon his filial piety to
recover the silver and the family portraits.
When John got back to Church Row he found a note from Miss Hamilton to
say she had influenza and was unlikely to be back at work for at least a
week--if indeed, she added, she was able to come back at all. This
unpleasant prospect filled him with genuine gloom, and it was with great
difficulty that he refrained from driving immediately to Camera Square
in order to remonstrate with her in person. His despondency was not
lightened by Mrs. Worfolk's graveside manner and her assumption of a
black satin dress hung with jet bugles that was usually reserved to mark
the more cheerful festivals of the calendar. Worn thus out of season
hung it about the rooms like a fog, and its numerous rustlings coupled
with the housekeeper's sighs of commiseration added to the lugubrious
atmosphere a sensation of damp which gave the final touch to John's
depression. Next morning the weather was really abominable; the view
over London from his library window showed nothing but great cobwebs of
rain that seemed to be actually attached to a sky as gray and solid as a
dusty ceiling. Action offered the only hope of alleviating life upon
such a day, and John made up his mind to drive over to Chelsea and
inquire about his secretary's health. He found that she was better,
though still in bed; being anxious to learn more about her threatened
desertion he accepted the maid's invitation to come in and speak to Mrs.
Hamilton. The old lady looked more like a clown than ever in the
forenoon while the rice-powder was still fresh upon her cheeks, and John
found her humor as irritating as he would have found the humor of a real
clown in similar circumstances. Her manner towards him was that of a
person who is aware of, but on certain terms is willing to overlook a
grave indiscretion, and she managed most successfully to make him feel
that he was on his defense.
"Yes, poor Doris has been very seedy. And her illness has unluckily
coincided with mine."
"Oh, I'm sorry ..." he began.
"Thank you. I'm used to being ill. I am always ill. At least, as luck
will have it, I usually feel ill when Doris has anything the matter with
her."
This John was ready to believe, but he tried to look at once shocked and
sympathetic.
"Do not let us discuss my health," Mrs. Hamilton went on scorching her
eyebrows in the aureole of martyrdom she wore. "Of what importance is my
health? Poor Doris has had a very sharp attack, a very sharp attack
indeed."
"I'm afraid that the weather...."
"It's not the weather, Mr. Touchwood. It is overwork." And before John
could say a word she was off. "You must remember that Doris is not used
to hard work. She has spent all her life with me, and you can easily
imagine that with a mother always at hand she has been spared the least
hardship. I would have done anything for her. Ever since my husband
died, my life has been one long buffer between Doris and the world. You
know how obstinately she has refused to let me do all I wanted. I refer
to my brother-in-law, Mr. Hamilton of Glencockie. And this is the
result. Nervous prostration, influenza, a high temperature--and sharp
pains, which between ourselves I'm inclined to think are perhaps not so
bad as she imagines. People who are not accustomed to pains," said the
old lady, jealously, "are always apt to be unduly alarmed and to
attribute to them a severity that is a leetle exaggerated. I suffer so
much myself that I cannot take these pains quite as seriously as Doris
does. However, the poor child really has a good deal to put up with, and
of course I've insisted that she must never attempt such hard work
again. I don't suppose you meant to be inconsiderate, Mr. Touchwood. I
don't accuse you of deliberate callousness. Please do not suppose that I
am suggesting that the least cruelty in your behavior; but you _have_
overworked her. Moreover, she has been worried. One or two of our
friends have suggested more in joke than in earnest that she might be
compromised by her association with you. No doubt this was said in joke,
but Doris lacks her mother's sense of humor, and I'm afraid she has
fretted over this. Still, a stitch in time saves nine, and her illness
must serve as an excuse for what with a curiously youthful
self-importance she calls 'leaving you in the lurch.' As I said to her,
'Do not, my dear child, worry about Mr. Touchwood. He can find as many
secretaries as he wants. Probably he thought he was doing you a good
turn, and you've overstrained yourself in trying to cope with duties to
which you have not been accustomed. You cannot expect to fly before you
can walk.'"
The old lady paused to fan back her breath, and John seized the
conversation.
"Does Miss Hamilton herself wish to leave me like this, or is it only
you who think that she ought to leave me?"
"I will be frank with you," the old lady panted. "Doris has not yet made
up her mind."
"As long as she is allowed to make up her own mind," said John, "I have
nothing to say. But I hope you are not going to overpersuade her. After
all she is old enough to know what she wants to do."
"She is not as old as her mother."
He shook his head impatiently.
"Could I see her?"
"See her?" the old lady answered in amazement. "See her, Mr. Touchwood?
Didn't I explain that she was in bed?"
"I beg your pardon. I'd forgotten."
"Men are apt to forget somewhat easily. Come, come, do not let us get
bitter. I took a great fancy to you when I met you first, and though I
have been a little disappointed by the way in which you have taken
advantage of Doris's eagerness for new experiences I don't really bear
you any deep grudge. I don't believe you meant to be selfish. It is only
a mother who can pierce a daughter's motives. You with your recent loss
should be able to appreciate that particularly now. Poor Doris! I wish
she were more like me."
"If you really think I have overworked her," said John, "I'm extremely
sorry. I dare say her enthusiasm carried me away. But I cannot
relinquish her services without a struggle. She has been, and she _is_
invaluable," he added, warmly.
"Yes, but we must think of her health. I'm sorry to seem so
_intransigente_, but I am only thinking of her."
John was not at all taken in by the old lady's altruism, but he was
entirely at a loss how to argue in favor of her daughter's continuing to
work for him. His perplexity was increased by the fact that she herself
had written to express her doubtfulness about returning; it might
conceivably be that she did not want to return and that he was
misjudging Mrs. Hamilton's sincerity. Yet when he looked at the old lady
he could not discover anything but a cold egotism in every fold of those
flabby cheeks where the powder lay like drifted snow in the ruts of a
sunless lane. It was surely impossible that Doris should willingly have
surrendered the liberty she enjoyed with him; she must have written
under the depressing effects of influenza.
While John was pondering his line of action Mrs. Hamilton had fanned
herself into a renewed volubility; finding that it was impossible to
cross the torrent of words that she was now pouring forth, he sat down
by the edge of it, confused and deafened, and sometimes gasping a faint
protest when he was splashed by some particularly outrageous argument.
"Well, I'll write to her," he said at last.
"I beg you will do nothing of the kind. In the present feeble state of
her health a letter will only agitate her. I hope to persuade her to
come with me to Glencockie where her uncle will, I know, once more
suggest adopting her as his heiress...."
The old lady flowed on with schemes for the future of Doris in which
there was so much talk of Scotland that in the end his secretary
appeared to John like an advertisement for whisky. He saw her
rosy-cheeked and tam-o-shantered, smiling beneath a fir-tree while
mockingly she quaffed a glass to the health of her late employer. He saw
her as a kind of cross between Flora Macdonald and Highland Mary by the
banks of Loch Lomond. He saw her in every guise except that in which he
desired to see her--bending with that elusive and ironical smile over
the typewriter they had purchased together. Damn!
John made hurried adieus and fled to his taxi from the little house in
Camera Square. The interview with Mrs. Hamilton had cost him
half-a-crown and his peace of mind: it had cost the driver one halfpenny
for the early edition of the _Star_. How much happier was the life of a
taxi-driver than the life of a playwright!
"I wouldn't say as how Benedictine mightn't win at Kempton this
afternoon," the driver observed to John when he alighted. "I reckon I'll
have half-a-dollar on, any old way. It's Bolmondeley's horse and bound
to run straight."
Benedictine did win that afternoon at six to one: indubitably the life
of a taxi-driver was superior to his own, John thought as he turned with
a shudder from the virgin foolscap upon his writing-desk and with a late
edition of the _Star_ sank into a deep armchair.
"A bachelor's life is a very lonely one," he sighed. For some reason
Maud had neglected to draw the curtains after tea, and the black yawning
window where the rain glistened drearily weighed upon his heart with a
sense of utter abandonment. Ordinarily he would have rung the bell and
pointed reproachfully to the omission; but this afternoon, he felt
incapable of stirring from his chair to ring a bell. He could not even
muster enough energy to poke the fire, which would soon show as little
life as himself. He listened vainly for the footsteps of Maud or Mrs.
Worfolk that he might call out and be rescued from this lethargy of
despair; but not a sound was audible except the dripping rain outside
and the consumptive coughs of the moribund fire.
"Perhaps I'm feeling my mother's death," said John, hopefully.
He made an effort to concentrate his mind upon an affectionate
retrospect of family life. He tried to convince himself that the death
of his mother would involve a change in the attitude of his relations.
Technically he might not be the eldest son, and while his mother had
been alive he had never assumed too definitely the rights of an eldest
son. Practically, however, that was his status, and his acquisition of
the family portraits and family silver could well be taken as the
visible sign of that status; with his mother's death he might surely
consider himself in the eyes of the world the head of the family. Did he
want such an honor? It would be an expensive, troublesome, and
ungrateful post like the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland. Why didn't Maud
come and draw those curtains? A thankless job, and it would be more
congenial to have a family of his own. That meant marriage. And why
shouldn't he get married? Several palmists had assured him he would be
married one day: most of them indeed had assured him he was married
already.
"If I get married I can no longer be expected to bother about my
relations. Of course in that case I should give back the portraits and
the silver. My son would be junior to Bertram. My son would occupy an
altogether inconspicuous position in the family, though he would always
take precedence of Harold. But if my son had a child, Harold would
become an uncle. No, he wouldn't. Harold would be a first cousin once
removed. Harold cannot become an uncle unless Hilda marries again and
has another child who has another child. Luckily, it's all very
improbable. I'm glad Harold is never likely to be an uncle: he would
bring the relationship into an even greater disrepute. Still, even now
an uncle is disreputable enough. The wicked uncle! It's proverbial, of
course. We never hear of the wicked cousin or the nefarious aunt. No,
uncles share with stepmothers the opprobrium and with mothers-in-law the
ridicule of the mob. Unquestionably, if I do marry, I shall still be an
uncle, but the status may perhaps be merged in paternity. Suppose I
marry and never have any children? My wife will be pitied by Hilda,
Edith, and Eleanor and condoled with by Beatrice. She would find her
position intolerable. My wife? I wish to goodness Maud would come in and
draw those curtains. My wife? That's the question. At this stage the
problem of her personality is more important than theoretical
speculation about future children. Should I enjoy a woman's bobbing in
and out of my room all the time? Suppose I were married at this moment,
it would be my wife's duty to correct Maud for not having drawn those
curtains. If I were married at this moment I should say, 'My dear, Maud
does not seem to have drawn the curtains. I wonder why.' And my wife
would of course ring the bell and remonstrate with Maud. But suppose my
wife were upstairs? She might be trying on a new hat. Apparently wives
spend a great deal of time with hats. In that case I should be no better
off than I am at present. I should still have to get out of this chair
and ring for Maud. And I should have to complain twice over. Once to
Maud herself and afterwards all over again to my wife about Maud. Then
my wife would have to rebuke Maud. Oh, it would be a terribly
complicated business. Perhaps I'm better off as a bachelor. It's an odd
thing that with my pictorial temperament I should never yet have
visualized myself as a husband. My imagination is quite untrammeled in
most directions. Were I to decide to-morrow that I would write a play
about Adam and Eve, I should see myself as Adam and Eve and the Serpent
and almost as the Forbidden Fruit itself without any difficulty. Why
can't I see myself as a husband? When I think of the number of people
and things I've been in imagination it really does seem extraordinary I
should never have thought of being a husband. Apparently Maud has
completely forgotten about the curtains. It looks as if I should have to
give up all hope now of her coming in to draw them of her own accord.
Poor Miss Hamilton! I do trust that horrible old clown of a mother isn't
turning somersaults round her room at this moment and sending up her
temperature to three figures. Of course, she must come back to me. She
is indispensable. I miss her very much. I've accustomed myself to a
secretary's assistance, and naturally I'm lost without her. These morbid
thoughts about matrimony are due to my not having done a stroke of work
all day. I will count seventeen and rise from this chair."
John counted seventeen, but when he came to the fatal number he found
that his will to move was still paralyzed, and he went on to
forty-nine--the next fatal number in his private cabbala. When he
reached it he tightened every nerve in his body and leapt to his feet.
Inertia was succeeded by the bustle of activity: he rang for Maud; he
poked the fire; he brushed the tobacco-ash from his waistcoat; he blew
his nose; he sat down at his desk.
My dear Miss Hamilton, [he wrote,] I cannot say how distressed I was to
hear the news of your illness and still more to learn from your mother
that you were seriously thinking of resigning your post. I'm also
extremely distressed to hear from her that there are symptoms of
overwork. If I've been inconsiderate I must beg your forgiveness and ask
you to attribute it to your own good-will. The fact is your example has
inspired me. With your encouragement I undoubtedly do work much harder
than formerly. Today, without you, I have not written a single word, and
I feel dreadfully depressed at the prospect of your desertion. Do let me
plead for your services when you are well again, at any rate until I've
finished Joan of Arc, for I really don't think I shall ever finish that
play without them. I have felt the death of my poor mother very much,
but I do not ascribe my present disinclination for work to that. No, on
the contrary, I came back from the funeral with a determination to bury
myself--that might be expressed better--to plunge myself into hard work.
Your note telling me of your illness was a great shock, and your
mother's uncompromising attitude this morning has added to my dejection.
I feel that I am growing old and view with horror the approach of age.
I've been sitting by the fire indulging myself in very morbid thoughts.
You will laugh when I tell you that amongst them was the idea--I might
call it the chimera of marriage. Do please get well soon and rescue me
from myself.
Yours very sincerely,
JOHN TOUCHWOOD.
I do not, of course, wish to disturb the relationship between yourself
and your mother, but my own recent loss has reminded me that mothers do
not live forever.