Not possible to conceive of rarer beauty than that which clung about the
summer day three years ago when first we had the news of the poor Herds.
Loveliness was a net of golden filaments in which the world was caught.
It was gravity itself, so tranquil; and it was a sort of intoxicating
laughter. From the top field that we crossed to go down to their
cottage, all the far sweep of those outstretched wings of beauty could be
seen. Very wonderful was the poise of the sacred bird, that moved
nowhere but in our hearts. The lime-tree scent was just stealing out
into air for some days already bereft of the scent of hay; and the sun
was falling to his evening home behind our pines and beeches. It was no
more than radiant warm. And, as we went, we wondered why we had not been
told before that Mrs. Herd was so very ill. It was foolish to
wonder--these people do not speak of suffering till it is late. To
speak, when it means what this meant loss of wife and mother--was to
flatter reality too much. To be healthy, or--die! That is their creed.
To go on till they drop--then very soon pass away! What room for states
between--on their poor wage, in their poor cottages?
We crossed the mill-stream in the hollow--to their white, thatched
dwelling; silent, already awed, almost resentful of this so-varying
Scheme of Things. At the gateway Herd himself was standing, just in from
his work. For work in the country does not wait on illness--even death
claims from its onlookers but a few hours, birth none at all, and it is
as well; for what must be must, and in work alone man rests from grief.
Sorrow and anxiety had made strange alteration already in Herd's face.
Through every crevice of the rough, stolid mask the spirit was peeping, a
sort of quivering suppliant, that seemed to ask all the time: "Is it
true?" A regular cottager's figure, this of Herd's--a labourer of these
parts--strong, slow, but active, with just a touch of the untamed
somewhere, about the swing and carriage of him, about the strong jaw, and
wide thick-lipped mouth; just that something independent, which, in great
variety, clings to the natives of these still remote, half-pagan valleys
by the moor.
We all moved silently to the lee of the outer wall, so that our voices
might not carry up to the sick woman lying there under the eaves, almost
within hand reach. "Yes, sir." "No, sir." "Yes, ma'am." This, and the
constant, unforgettable supplication of his eyes, was all that came from
him; yet he seemed loath to let us go, as though he thought we had some
mysterious power to help him--the magic, perhaps, of money, to those who
have none. Grateful at our promise of another doctor, a specialist, he
yet seemed with his eyes to say that he knew that such were only
embroideries of Fate. And when we had wrung his hand and gone, we heard
him coming after us: His wife had said she would like to see us, please.
Would we come up?
An old woman and Mrs. Herd's sister were in the sitting-room; they showed
us to the crazy, narrow stairway. Though we lived distant but four
hundred yards of a crow's flight, we had never seen Mrs. Herd before, for
that is the way of things in this land of minding one's own business--a
slight, dark, girlish-looking woman, almost quite refined away, and with
those eyes of the dying, where the spirit is coming through, as it only
does when it knows that all is over except just the passing. She lay in
a double bed, with clean white sheets. A white-washed room, so low that
the ceiling almost touched our heads, some flowers in a bowl, the small
lattice window open. Though it was hot in there, it was better far than
the rooms of most families in towns, living on a wage of twice as much;
for here was no sign of defeat in decency or cleanliness. In her face,
as in poor Herd's, was that same strange mingling of resigned despair and
almost eager appeal, so terrible to disappoint. Yet, trying not to
disappoint it, one felt guilty of treachery: What was the good, the
kindness, in making this poor bird flutter still with hope against the
bars, when fast prison had so surely closed in round her? But what else
could we do? We could not give her those glib assurances that naive
souls make so easily to others concerning their after state.
Secretly, I think, we knew that her philosophy of calm reality, that
queer and unbidden growing tranquillity which precedes death, was nearer
to our own belief, than would be any gilt-edged orthodoxy; but
nevertheless (such is the strength of what is expected), we felt it
dreadful that we could not console her with the ordinary presumptions.
"You mustn't give up hope," we kept on saying: "The new doctor will do a
lot for you; he's a specialist--a very clever man."
And she kept on answering: "Yes, sir." "Yes, ma'am." But still her eyes
went on asking, as if there were something else she wanted. And then to
one of us came an inspiration:
"You mustn't let your husband worry about expense. That will be all
right."
She smiled then, as if the chief cloud on her soul had been the thought
of the arrears her illness and death would leave weighing on him with
whom she had shared this bed ten years and more. And with that smile
warming the memory of those spirit-haunted eyes, we crept down-stairs
again, and out into the fields.
It was more beautiful than ever, just touched already with evening
mystery--it was better than ever to be alive. And the immortal wonder
that has haunted man since first he became man, and haunts, I think, even
the animals--the unanswerable question,--why joy and beauty must ever be
walking hand in hand with ugliness and pain haunted us across those
fields of life and loveliness. It was all right, no doubt, even
reasonable, since without dark there is no light. It was part of that
unending sum whose answer is not given; the merest little swing of the
great pendulum! And yet----! To accept this violent contrast without a
sigh of revolt, without a question! No sirs, it was not so jolly as all
that! That she should be dying there at thirty, of a creeping malady
which she might have checked, perhaps, if she had not had too many things
to do for the children and husband, to do anything for herself--if she
had not been forced to hold the creed: Be healthy, or die! This was no
doubt perfectly explicable and in accordance with the Supreme Equation;
yet we, enjoying life, and health, and ease of money, felt horror and
revolt on, this evening of such beauty. Nor at the moment did we derive
great comfort from the thought that life slips in and out of sheath, like
sun-sparks on water, and that of all the cloud of summer midges dancing
in the last gleam, not one would be alive to-morrow.
It was three evenings later that we heard uncertain footfalls on the
flagstones of the verandah, then a sort of brushing sound against the
wood of the long, open window. Drawing aside the curtain, one of us
looked out. Herd was standing there in the bright moonlight, bareheaded,
with roughened hair. He came in, and seeming not to know quite where he
went, took stand by the hearth, and putting up his dark hand, gripped the
mantelshelf. Then, as if recollecting himself, he said: "Gude evenin',
sir; beg pardon, M'm." No more for a full minute; but his hand, taking
some little china thing, turned it over and over without ceasing, and
down his broken face tears ran. Then, very suddenly, he said: "She's
gone." And his hand turned over and over that little china thing, and
the tears went on rolling down. Then, stumbling, and swaying like a man
in drink, he made his way out again into the moonlight. We watched him
across the lawn and path, and through the gate, till his footfalls died
out there in the field, and his figure was lost in the black shadow of
the holly hedge.
And the night was so beautiful, so utterly, glamourously beautiful, with
its star-flowers, and its silence, and its trees clothed in moonlight.
All was tranquil as a dream of sleep. But it was long before our hearts,
wandering with poor Herd, would let us remember that she had slipped away
into so beautiful a dream.
The dead do not suffer from their rest in beauty. But the living---!
1911.