Alone in her room once more, memories of the past crowded upon her. The
last years fled from her mind and Bertha saw vividly again the first
days of her love, the visit to Edward at his farm, the night at the gate
of Court Leys when he asked her to marry him. She recalled the rapture
with which she had flung herself into his arms. Forgetting the real
Edward who had just died, she remembered the tall strong youth who had
made her faint with love; and her passion returned, overwhelming. On the
chimney-piece stood a photograph of Edward as he was then; it had been
before her for years, but she had never noticed it. She took it and
pressed it to her heart, and kissed it. A thousand things came back and
she saw him again standing before her as he was, manly, strong, so that
she felt his love a protection against all the world.
But what was the use now?
“I should be mad if I began to love him again when it is too late.”
Bertha was appalled by the regret which she felt rising within her, a
devil that wrung her heart in an iron grip. Oh, she could not risk the
possibility of grief, she had suffered too much and she must kill in
herself the springs of pain. She dared not leave things which in future
years might be the foundations of a new idolatry. Her only chance of
peace was to destroy everything that might recall him.
She seized the photograph and without daring to look again, withdrew it
from the frame and rapidly tore it in pieces. She looked round the room.
“I musn’t leave anything,” she muttered.
She saw on a table an album containing pictures of Edward at all ages,
the child with long curls, the urchin in knickerbockers, the schoolboy,
the lover of her heart. She had persuaded him to be photographed in
London during their honeymoon, and he was there in half-a-dozen
different positions. Bertha thought her heart would break as she
destroyed them one by one, and it needed all the strength she had to
prevent her from covering them with passionate kisses. Her fingers ached
with the tearing, but in a little while they were all in fragments in
the fireplace. Then, desperately, she added the letters Edward had
written to her; and applied a match. She watched them curl and frizzle
and burn; and presently they were ashes.
She sank on a chair, exhausted by the effort, but quickly roused
herself. She drank some water, nerving herself for a more terrible
ordeal; for she knew that on the next few hours depended her future
peace.
By now the night was late, a stormy night with the wind howling through
the leafless trees. Bertha started when it beat against the windows with
a scream that was nearly human. A fear seized her of what she was about
to do, but she was driven by a greater fear. She took a candle, and
opening the door, listened. There was no one; the wind roared with its
long monotonous voice, and the branches of a tree beating against a
window in the passage gave a ghastly tap-tap, as if unseen spirits were
near.
The living, in the presence of death, feel that the whole air is full of
something new and terrible. A greater sensitiveness perceives an
inexplicable feeling of something present, or of some horrible thing
happening invisibly. Bertha walked to her husband’s room and for a while
dared not enter. At last she opened the door, she lit the candles on the
chimney-piece and on the dressing-table, then went to the bed. Edward
was lying on his back, with a handkerchief bound round his jaw to hold
it up, his hands crossed in front.
Bertha stood in front of the corpse and looked. The impression of the
young man passed away, and she saw him as in truth he was, stout,
red-faced, with the venules of his cheeks standing out distinctly in a
purple network; the sides of his face were prominent as of late years
they had become; and he had little side whiskers. His skin was lined
already and rough, the hair over the front of his head was scanty, and
the scalp was visible, shiny and white. The hands which once had
delighted her by their strength, so that she compared them with the
porphyry hands of an unfinished statue, now were repellent in their
coarseness. For a long time their touch had a little disgusted her. This
was the image Bertha wished to impress upon her mind. It was a stranger
lying dead before her, a man to whom she was indifferent.
At last turning away, she went out and returned to her own room.
Three days later was the funeral. All the morning wreaths and crosses of
beautiful flowers had poured in, and now there was a crowd in the drive
in front of Court Leys. The Blackstable Freemasons (Lodge No. 31,899),
of which Edward at his death was Worshipful Master, had signified their
intention of attending, and lined the road, two and two, in white gloves
and aprons. There were likewise representatives of the Tercanbury Lodge
(4169), of the Provincial Grand Lodge, the Mark Masons, and the Knights
Templars. The Blackstable Unionist Association sent one hundred
Conservatives, who walked two and two after the Freemasons. There were a
few words as to precedence between Brother G. W. Hancock (P.W.M.), who
led the Blackstable Lodge (31,899), and Mr. Atthill Bacot, who marched
at the head of the politicians; but it was finally settled in favour of
the Lodge, as the older established body. Then came the members of the
Local District Council, of which Edward had been chairman, and after
these the carriages of the gentry. Mrs. Mayston Ryle sent a landau and
pair, but Mrs. Branderton, the Molsons, and the rest, only sent
broughams. It needed a prodigious amount of generalship to marshal these
forces, and Arthur Branderton lost his temper because the Conservatives
would start before they were wanted to.
“Ah,” said Brother A. W. Rogers (the landlord of the _Pig and
Whistle_), “they want Craddock here now. He was the best organiser I’ve
ever seen; he’d have got the procession into working order and the
funeral over by this time.”
The last carriage disappeared, and Bertha, alone at length, lay down by
the window on the sofa. She was devoutly grateful to the old convention
which prevented the widow’s attendance at the funeral.
She looked with tired and listless eyes at the long avenue of elm-trees,
bare of leaf. The sky was gray and the clouds heavy and low. Bertha now
was a pale woman of thirty, still beautiful, with curling, abundant
hair; but her dark eyes had under them still darker lines, and their
fire was half gone. Between her brows was a little vertical line, and
her lips had lost the joyousness of youth, the corners of her mouth
turned down with a melancholy expression. The face was thin and
extremely pale; but what chiefly struck one was that she seemed so
utterly weary. Her features remained singularly immobile, and there was
in her eyes an apathy that was very painful. Her eyes said that she had
loved and found love wanting, that she had been a mother and that her
child had died, and that now she desired nothing very strongly but to be
left in peace.
Bertha was indeed tired out, in body and mind, tired of love and hate,
tired with friendship and knowledge, tired with the passing years. Her
thought wandered to the future and she decided to leave Blackstable, and
let Court Leys, so that in no moment of weakness might she be tempted to
return. And first she intended to travel, wishing to live in places
where she was unknown, so as more easily to forget the past. Bertha’s
memory brought back Italy, the land of those who suffer in unfulfilled
desire, the lotus land. She would go there and she would go farther,
ever towards the sun; for now she had no ties on earth, and at last, at
last she was free.
The melancholy day closed in the great clouds hanging overhead darkened
with approaching night. Bertha remembered how ready in her girlhood she
had been to pour herself out to the world. Feeling intense fellowship
with all human beings, she wished to throw herself into their arms,
thinking that they would be outstretched to receive her. Her life seemed
to overflow into the lives of others, becoming one with theirs as the
water of rivers becomes one with the sea. But very soon the power she
had felt of doing all this departed; she recognised a barrier between
herself and human kind, and felt that they were strangers. Hardly
understanding the impossibility of what she desired, she placed all her
love, all her faculty of expansion, on one person, on Edward, making a
final effort, as it were, to break the barrier of consciousness and
unite her soul with his. She drew him towards her with all her might,
Edward the man, seeking to know him in the depths of his heart, yearning
to lose herself in him. But at last she saw that what she had striven
for was unattainable. _I myself stand on one side and the rest of the
world on the other._ There is an abyss between, that no power can cross,
a strange barrier more insuperable than a mountain of fire. Not even the
most devoted lovers know the essentials of one another’s selves. However
ardent their passion, however intimate their union, they are always
strangers; scarcely more to one another than chance acquaintance.
And when she discovered this, with many tears and after bitter
heartache, Bertha retired into herself. But soon she found solace. In
her silence she built a world of her own, and kept it from the eyes of
every living soul, knowing that none could understand it. And then all
ties were irksome, all earthly attachments unnecessary.
Confusedly thinking these things, Bertha’s thoughts reverted to Edward.
“If I had been keeping a diary of my emotions, I should close it to-day,
with the words, ‘My husband has broken his neck.’”
But she was pained at her own callousness.
“Poor fellow,” she murmured. “He was honest and kind and forbearing. He
did all he could, and tried always to act like a gentleman. He was very
useful in the world, and, in his own way, he was fond of me. His only
fault was that I loved him--and ceased to love him.”
By her side lay the book she had read while waiting for Edward when he
was hunting. Bertha had put it on the table open, face-downwards, when
she rose from the sofa to receive the expected visitor; and it had
remained as she left it. She was tired of thinking; and taking it now,
began to read quietly.
THE END
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
ampel time=> ample time {pg 23}
a bunch a dahlias=> a bunch of dahlias {pg 26}
scroundrel=> scoundrel {pg 31}
Itatly for six weeks=> Italy for six weeks {pg 71}
his infinitesmal salary=> his infinitesimal salary {pg 77}
speak to the Craddocks aftewards=> speak to the Craddocks afterwards {pg
79}
you want to go, Eddie, I’ll come to=> you want to go, Eddie, I’ll come
too {pg 81}
so that is became a thing of pride=> so that it became a thing of pride
{pg 102}
failed to understatnd= failed to understand> {pg 111}
squandered their substatnce=> squandered their substance {pg 112}
how uncomfortably it makes you=> how uncomfortable it makes you {pg 134}
and his closed eys.=> and his closed eyes. {pg 137}
worse that a finger-ache=> worse than a finger-ache {pg 141}
But she as too unhappy=> But she was too unhappy {pg 202}
you mustn’s be alarmed=> you musn’t be alarmed {pg 153}
an athiest=> an atheist {pg 160}
on her bran-new bonnet=> on her brand-new bonnet {pg 161}
The plains facts=> The plain facts {pg 204}
passing tactiturity=> passing taciturnity {pg 208}
Bertha was dumbfoundered=> Bertha was dumbfounded {pg 219}
your Aunt Betty beseeches me too look=> your Aunt Betty beseeches me to
look {pg 238}
Gray warehauses=> Gray warehouses {pg 258}
to tihnk=> to think {pg 264}
aproached almost timidly=> approached almost timidly {pg 265}
Yearning suddenly for soceity=> Yearning suddenly for society {pg 285}
it nice to know=> it’s nice to know {pg 293}
heard the impeteuous sobs=> heard the impetuous sobs {pg 306}