That night Mrs. Britling made the supreme effort of her life to burst
the prison of self-consciousness and inhibition in which she was
confined. Never before in all her life had she so desired to be
spontaneous and unrestrained; never before had she so felt herself
hampered by her timidity, her self-criticism, her deeply ingrained habit
of never letting herself go. She was rent by reflected distress. It
seemed to her that she would be ready to give her life and the whole
world to be able to comfort her husband now. And she could conceive no
gesture of comfort. She went out of the dining-room into the hall and
listened. She went very softly upstairs until she came to the door of
her husband's room. There she stood still. She could hear no sound from
within. She put out her hand and turned the handle of the door a little
way, and then she was startled by the loudness of the sound it made and
at her own boldness. She withdrew her hand, and then with a gesture of
despair, with a face of white agony, she flitted along the corridor to
her own room.
Her mind was beaten to the ground by this catastrophe, of which to this
moment she had never allowed herself to think. She had never allowed
herself to think of it. The figure of her husband, like some pitiful
beast, wounded and bleeding, filled her mind. She gave scarcely a
thought to Hugh. "Oh, what can I _do_ for him?" she asked herself,
sitting down before her unlit bedroom fire.... "What can I say or do?"
She brooded until she shivered, and then she lit her fire....
It was late that night and after an eternity of resolutions and doubts
and indecisions that Mrs. Britling went to her husband. He was sitting
close up to the fire with his chin upon his hands, waiting for her; he
felt that she would come to him, and he was thinking meanwhile of Hugh
with a slow unprogressive movement of the mind. He showed by a movement
that he heard her enter the room, but he did not turn to look at her. He
shrank a little from her approach.
She came and stood beside him. She ventured to touch him very softly,
and to stroke his head. "My dear," she said. "My poor dear!
"It is so dreadful for you," she said, "it is so dreadful for you. I
know how you loved him...."
He spread his hands over his face and became very still.
"My poor dear!" she said, still stroking his hair, "my poor dear!"
And then she went on saying "poor dear," saying it presently because
there was nothing more had come into her mind. She desired supremely to
be his comfort, and in a little while she was acting comfort so poorly
that she perceived her own failure. And that increased her failure, and
that increased her paralysing sense of failure....
And suddenly her stroking hand ceased. Suddenly the real woman cried out
from her.
"I can't _reach_ you!" she cried aloud. "I can't reach you. I would do
anything.... You! You with your heart half broken...."
She turned towards the door. She moved clumsily, she was blinded by her
tears.
Mr. Britling uncovered his face. He stood up astonished, and then pity
and pitiful understanding came storming across his grief. He made a step
and took her in his arms. "My dear," he said, "don't go from me...."
She turned to him weeping, and put her arms about his neck, and he too
was weeping.
"My poor wife!" he said, "my dear wife. If it were not for you--I think
I could kill myself to-night. Don't cry, my dear. Don't, don't cry. You
do not know how you comfort me. You do not know how you help me."
He drew her to him; he put her cheek against his own....
His heart was so sore and wounded that he could not endure that another
human being should go wretched. He sat down in his chair and drew her
upon his knees, and said everything he could think of to console her
and reassure her and make her feel that she was of value to him. He
spoke of every pleasant aspect of their lives, of every aspect, except
that he never named that dear pale youth who waited now.... He could
wait a little longer....
At last she went from him.
"Good night," said Mr. Britling, and took her to the door. "It was very
dear of you to come and comfort me," he said....