By midday his mother was dead. The word met him at the pit-mouth. As he
had known, inwardly, it was not a shock to him, and yet he trembled. He
went home quite calmly, feeling only heavy in his breathing.
Miss Louisa was still at the house. She had seen to everything
possible. Very succinctly, she informed him of what he needed to know.
But there was one point of anxiety for her.
“You _did_ half expect it—it’s not come as a blow to you?” she asked,
looking up at him. Her eyes were dark and calm and searching. She too
felt lost. He was so dark and inchoate.
“I suppose—yes,” he said stupidly. He looked aside, unable to endure
her eyes on him.
“I could not bear to think you might not have guessed,” she said.
He did not answer.
He felt it a great strain to have her near him at this time. He wanted
to be alone. As soon as the relatives began to arrive, Louisa departed
and came no more. While everything was arranging, and a crowd was in
the house, whilst he had business to settle, he went well enough, with
only those uncontrollable paroxysms of grief. For the rest, he was
superficial. By himself, he endured the fierce, almost insane bursts of
grief which passed again and left him calm, almost clear, just
wondering. He had not known before that everything could break down,
that he himself could break down, and all be a great chaos, very vast
and wonderful. It seemed as if life in him had burst its bounds, and he
was lost in a great, bewildering flood, immense and unpeopled. He
himself was broken and spilled out amid it all. He could only breathe
panting in silence. Then the anguish came on again.
When all the people had gone from the Quarry Cottage, leaving the young
man alone with an elderly housekeeper, then the long trial began. The
snow had thawed and frozen, a fresh fall had whitened the grey, this
then began to thaw. The world was a place of loose grey slosh. Alfred
had nothing to do in the evenings. He was a man whose life had been
filled up with small activities. Without knowing it, he had been
centralized, polarized in his mother. It was she who had kept him. Even
now, when the old housekeeper had left him, he might still have gone on
in his old way. But the force and balance of his life was lacking. He
sat pretending to read, all the time holding his fists clenched, and
holding himself in, enduring he did not know what. He walked the black
and sodden miles of field-paths, till he was tired out: but all this
was only running away from whence he must return. At work he was all
right. If it had been summer he might have escaped by working in the
garden till bedtime. But now, there was no escape, no relief, no help.
He, perhaps, was made for action rather than for understanding; for
doing than for being. He was shocked out of his activities, like a
swimmer who forgets to swim.
For a week, he had the force to endure this suffocation and struggle,
then he began to get exhausted, and knew it must come out. The instinct
of self-preservation became strongest. But there was the question:
Where was he to go? The public-house really meant nothing to him, it
was no good going there. He began to think of emigration. In another
country he would be all right. He wrote to the emigration offices.
On the Sunday after the funeral, when all the Durant people had
attended church, Alfred had seen Miss Louisa, impassive and reserved,
sitting with Miss Mary, who was proud and very distant, and with the
other Lindleys, who were people removed. Alfred saw them as people
remote. He did not think about it. They had nothing to do with his
life. After service Louisa had come to him and shaken hands.
“My sister would like you to come to supper one evening, if you would
be so good.”
He looked at Miss Mary, who bowed. Out of kindness, Mary had proposed
this to Louisa, disapproving of herself even as she did so. But she did
not examine herself closely.
“Yes,” said Durant awkwardly, “I’ll come if you want me.” But he
vaguely felt that it was misplaced.
“You’ll come tomorrow evening, then, about half-past six.”
He went. Miss Louisa was very kind to him. There could be no music,
because of the babies. He sat with his fists clenched on his thighs,
very quiet and unmoved, lapsing, among all those people, into a kind of
muse or daze. There was nothing between him and them. They knew it as
well as he. But he remained very steady in himself, and the evening
passed slowly. Mrs Lindley called him “young man”.
“Will you sit here, young man?”
He sat there. One name was as good as another. What had they to do with
him?
Mr Lindley kept a special tone for him, kind, indulgent, but
patronizing. Durant took it all without criticism or offence, just
submitting. But he did not want to eat—that troubled him, to have to
eat in their presence. He knew he was out of place. But it was his duty
to stay yet awhile. He answered precisely, in monosyllables.
When he left he winced with confusion. He was glad it was finished. He
got away as quickly as possible. And he wanted still more intensely to
go right away, to Canada.
Miss Louisa suffered in her soul, indignant with all of them, with him
too, but quite unable to say why she was indignant.