Meanwhile the mother and son took their walk. It was a very silent walk,
without much outward trace of that enjoyment which Minnie had felt so
cruelly out of place: but no doubt to both there was a certain pleasure
in it. Mr. Warrender had now been lying in that silent state which the
most insignificant person holds immediately after death, for three days,
and there was still another to come before he could be laid away in the
dark and noisome bed in the family vault, where all the Warrenders made
their last assertion of superiority to common clay. This long and awful
pause in the affairs of life was intolerable to the two people now
walking softly through the paths of the little wood, where the moonbeams
shone through the trees; to the son, because he was of an impatient
nature, and could not endure the artificial gloom which was thus forced
upon him. He had felt keenly all those natural sensations which the
loss of a father calls forth: the breaking of an old tie, the oldest
in the world; the breach of all the habits of his life; the absence
of the familiar greeting, which had always been kind enough, if never
enthusiastic; the general overturn and loss of the usual equilibrium in
his little world. It was no blame to Theo if his feelings went little
further than this. His father had been no active influence in his life.
His love had been passive, expressing itself in few words, without
sympathy in any of the young man's pursuits, or knowledge of them, or
desire to know,--a dull affection because the boy belonged to him, and
satisfaction in that he had never got into any scrapes or given any
trouble. And the return which the son made was in the same kind. Theo
had felt the natural pang of disruption very warmly at the moment; he
had felt a great awe and wonder at sight of the mystery of that pale
and solemn thing which had lately been so unmysterious and unsolemn. But
even these pangs of natural sensation had fallen into a little ache and
weariness of custom, and his fastidious soul grew tired of the bonds
that kept him, or would have kept him, precisely at the same point of
feeling for so many hours and days. This is not possible for any one,
above all for a being of his temper, and he was restless beyond measure,
and eager to get over this enforced pause, and emerge into the common
life and daylight beyond. The drawn blinds somehow created a stifling
atmosphere in his very soul.
Mrs. Warrender felt it was indecorous to begin to speak of plans and
what was to be done afterwards, so long as her dead husband was still
master of the oppressed and melancholy house; but her mind, as may be
supposed, was occupied by them in the intervals of other thoughts. She
was not of the Warrender breed, but a woman of lively feelings; and as
soon as the partner of her life was out of her reach she had begun to
torment herself with fears that she had not been so good to him as she
ought. There was no truth, at least no fact, in this, for there could
have been no better wife or more careful nurse. But yet, as every
individual knows more of his or her self than all the rest of the world
knows, Mrs. Warrender was aware that there were many things lacking in
her conjugal devotion. She had not been the wife she knew how to be; in
her heart she had never given herself credit for fulfilling her duty. Oh
yes, she had fulfilled all her duties. She had been everything to him
that he wanted, that he expected, that he was capable of understanding.
But she knew very well that when all is said, that is not everything
that can be said; and now that he was dead, and could no longer look
in her face with lack-lustre eyes, wondering what the deuce the woman
meant, she threw herself back upon her own standard, and knew that she
had not come up to it. Even now she could not come up to it. Her heart
ought to be desolate; life ought to hold nothing for her but perhaps
resignation, perhaps despair. She ought to be beyond all feeling for
what was to come. Yet she was not so. On the contrary, new ideas, new
plans, had welled up into her mind,--how many, how few hours after she
had laid down the charge, in which outwardly she had been so faithful,
but inwardly so full of shortcomings? These plans filled her mind now as
she went by her son's side through the mossy paths where, even in the
height of summer, it was always a little cold. She could not speak of
them, feeling a horror of herself, an ashamed sense that to betray the
revulsion of her thoughts to her boy would be to put her down from her
position in his respect for ever. Between these mutual reluctances to
betray what was really in them the two went along very silently, as if
they were counting their steps, their heads a little bowed down, the
sound of their feet making far more commotion than was necessary in the
stillness of the place. To be out-of-doors was something for both of
them. They could breathe more freely, and if they could not talk could
at least think, without the sense that they were impairing the natural
homage of all things to the recently dead.
"Take care, Theo," she said, after a long interval of silence. "It is
very damp here."
"Yes, there is a good deal of timber that ought to go." He caught his
breath when he had said this, and she gave a slight shiver. They both
would have spoken quite freely had the father been alive. "The house is
damp, too," said he, taking courage.
"In winter, perhaps, a little, when there is much rain."
And then there was a long pause. When they came within sight of the
pond, which glistened under the moonlight, reflecting all the trees in
irregular masses, and showing here and there a big white water-lily bud
couched upon a dark bank of leaves, he spoke again: "I don't think it
can be very healthy, either, to have the pond so near the house."
"You have always had your health, all of you," she said.
"That is true; but not very much of it. We are a subdued sort of family,
mother."
"That is because the Warrenders----" She stopped here, feeling the
inappropriateness of what she was about to say. It very often happens
that a wife has but little opinion of the race to which her husband
belongs. She attributes the defects of her own children to that side
instinctively. "It is character," she said, "not health."
"But all the same, if we had a little more air and a little less
shade----"
He was becoming bolder as he went on.
"Theo," she said tremulously, "it is too soon to begin to talk of that."
And then there was a pause again. When they came to the edge of the
pond, and stopped to look at the water-lilies, and at the white flood
of the moonlight, and all the clustering masses of the trees that hung
round as if to keep it hidden and sheltered, it was she who spoke: "Your
father was very fond of this view. Almost the last time he was out we
brought him here. He sat down for a long time, and was quite pleased. He
cared for beautiful things much more than he ever said."
The thought that passed through Theo's mind was very rapid, that it
might well be so, seeing nothing was ever said on the subject; but his
remark was, "Very likely, mother," in a soft and soothing voice.
"I should be very sorry to see any--I mean I hope you will not make much
alteration here."
"It is too soon," he said hastily, "to speak of that."
"Much too soon," she replied, with a quick sense of shame, taking
her son's arm as they turned back. Even to turn back made the burden
heavier, and dispelled the little advantage which they had got by the
walk.
"There will be, I suppose, a great number of people--on Friday."
"Yes, I think a great number; everybody about."
"What a nuisance! People might have sense enough to know that at such a
moment we don't want a lot of strange faces peering at us, finding out
how we bear up."
"My dear, it would have pleased him to know everybody would be there."
"I suppose so," said Theo, in a tone which was half angry and half
resigned.
"We will have to take a little thought how they are to go. Lord Markland
must come first, after the relations."
"Why? They never took much notice of us, and my father never liked him.
I don't see why he should come at all."
"Oh yes, he will come, and your dear father would have liked it. The
Warrenders have always thought a great deal of such things."
"I am a Warrender, I hope, and I don't."
"Ah, Theo, you! But you are much more like my family," she said, with a
little pressure of his arm.
This did not give him so much pleasure as it did her; for, after all,
however near a man may be to his mother's family, he generally prefers
his own, and the name which it is his to bear. They got back under the
thick shadow of the trees when the conversation came to this point, and
once more it was impressed upon both that the path was very damp, and
that even in June it was difficult to get through without wet feet; but
Mrs. Warrender had felt herself checked by her son's reply about the
alterations, and Theo felt that to betray how much he was thinking of
them would be horrifying to his mother: so they both stepped into the
marshy part without a word.
"You are still decided to go on Friday,--you and the girls?"
"Surely, Theo: we are all in good health, Heaven be praised! I should
not feel that I had done everything if I did not go."
"You are sure it will not be too much for you, mother?"
This question went to her heart. She knew that it ought to be too much
for her. Had she been the wife she ought to have been, the widow with a
broken heart, then, perhaps, there might have been a doubt. But she knew
also that it would not be too much for her. Her heart ached for the
ideal anguish, which nobody looked for, nor would have understood. "He
would have liked it," she said, in a subdued voice. That, at least, was
quite true: and to carry out all his wishes thus faithfully was something,
although she could not pay him the homage which was his due,--the supreme
compliment of a broken heart.
At last Friday came. It was a dull day, of the colour most congenial to
such a ceremony. A gentle shower fell upon the wreaths and crosses that
covered the coffin. There was a large assembly from all the country
round, for Mr. Warrender had been a man who never harmed anybody, which
is perhaps a greater title to respect than those possess who have taken
more trouble. When you try to do good, especially in a rural place, you
are sure to stir up animosities; but Mr. Warrender had never stirred up
anybody. He was greatly respected. Lord Markland was what the farmers
called "a wild young sprig," with little regard to the proprieties; but
he was there, and half the clergymen of the diocese, and every country
gentleman on the west side of the county. The girls from behind their
crape veils watched the procession filing into church, and were deeply
gratified; and Mrs. Warrender felt that he would have liked it, and that
everything was being done according to his wishes. She said to herself
that this was what he would have done for her if she had died first; and
immediately there rose before her eyes (also behind her crape veil) a
picture of what might have been, had the coffin in the middle of the
church been hers; how he would have stepped and looked, and the way in
which he would have held out his hand silently to each of the company,
and the secret pleasure in the fulfilment of all that was just and
right which would have been in his mind. It was instantaneous, it was
involuntary, it made her smile against her will; but the smile recalled
her to herself, and overwhelmed her with compunction and misery.
Smile--when it was he who lay there in the coffin, under that black
pall, expecting from her the last observances, and that homage which
ought to come from a breaking heart!
The blinds were drawn up when they returned home, the sunshine pouring
in, the table spread. Minnie, leading Chatty with her, not without a
slight struggle on that young lady's part, retired to her room, and lay
down a little, which was the right thing to do. She had a tray brought
upstairs, and was not disinclined for her luncheon: mercifully, their
presence at the funeral had not been too much for them. And all the
mourning was complete and everything in order, even so far as to the
jet necklaces which the girls put on when they went down to tea. Mrs.
Warrender had been quite overcome on re-entering the house, feeling,
though she had so suffered from the long interval before the funeral,
that to come back to a place from which he had now been solemnly shut
out for ever was more miserable than all that had gone before; for it
will be perceived that she was not of the steady mettle of the others,
but a fantastic woman, who changed her mind very often, and whose
feelings were always betraying her. The funeral had been early, and the
distant visitors had been able to leave in good time, so that there was
no need for a large luncheon party; and the lawyer and a cousin of Mr.
Warrender's were the only strangers who shared that meal with the mother
and son. Then, as a proper period had now been arrived at, and as
solicitors rush in where heirs fear to tread, open questions were asked
about the plans of the family and what Theo meant to do. He said at
once, "I see no need for plans. Why should there be any discussion of
plans? So far as outward circumstances go, what change is there? My
mother and the girls will just go on as usual, and I, of course, will go
back to Oxford. It will be more than a year before I can take my
degree."
He thought--but no doubt he must have been mistaken--that a blank look
came over his mother's face; but it was so impossible that she could
have thought of anything else that he dismissed the idea from his mind.
She said nothing, but Mr. Longstaffe replied--
"At present that is no doubt the wisest way; but I think it is always
well that people should understand each other at once and provide for
all emergencies, so that there may be no wounded feeling, or that sort
of thing, hereafter. You know, Mrs. Warrender, that the house in
Highcombe has always been the jointure house?"
"Yes," she said, with a certain liveliness in her answer, almost
eagerness. "My husband has often told me so."
"We are authorised to put it in perfect repair, and you are authorised
to choose whatever you please out of the furniture at the Warren to make
it according to your taste. Perhaps we had better do that at once, and
put it into your hands. If you don't live there, you can let it, or lend
it, or make some use of it."
"It might be convenient," Mrs. Warrender said, with a slight hesitation,
"if Theodore means, as I suppose he does, to carry out improvements
here."
And yet she had implored him yesterday not to make many alterations!
Theo felt a touch of offence with his mother. He began to think there
was something in the things the girls used to say, that you never knew
when you had mamma, or whether she might not turn upon you in a moment.
She grew much more energetic, all at once, and even her figure lost the
slight stoop of languor that was in it. "If you are going to cut any
trees, or do any drainage, Theo, we could all live there while the works
went on."
He gave a slight start in person, and a much greater in spirit, and a
fastidious curve came to his forehead. "I don't know that I shall cut
any trees now. You know you said the other day, We can talk of that
after."
"Oh yes, it is early days," said the lawyer. "Of course it is not as if
there were other heirs coming in, or any compulsory division were to be
made. You can take your time. But I have always observed that things went
smoother when it was understood from the first, in case of a certain
emergency arising, or new conditions of any kind, so and so should
follow. You understand what I mean."
"It is always wisest," said the Warrender cousin, "to have it all put
down hard and fast, so that nobody may be disappointed, whatever should
happen. Of course Theo will marry."
"I hope so," said his mother, permitting herself to smile.
"Of course he will marry," said the lawyer.
"But he had better take his degree first," the cousin added, feeling
that he had distinguished himself; "and in the meantime the girls and
you will have time to look about you. Highcombe is rather a dull place.
And then the house is large. You could not get on in it with less than
four or five servants."
"Four would do," said Mr. Longstaffe.
"And supposing my cousin kept a pony chaise, or something? She could not
get on without a pony chaise. That means another."
Theodore pushed back his chair from the table with a harsh peremptoriness,
startling them all. "I am sure my mother doesn't want to go into these
calculations," he said; "neither do I. Leave us alone to settle what we
find to be best."
"Dear me," said cousin Warrender, "I hope you don't imagine me to have
any wish to interfere." Theo did not make any reply, but gave his mother
his arm, and led her upstairs.
"I did not wish you to be troubled with business at all; certainly not
to-day," he said to her, half apologetically. But there was something
in her face which he did not quite understand, as she thanked him and
smiled, with an inclination to cry. Was it possible that she was a
little disappointed to have the discussion stopped, and that she took
much interest in it, and contemplated not at all with displeasure the
prospect of an entire change in her life?