Keeling went to his office on the following Monday morning, with his
mind already made up about the extension of his business. He had an
option on a big building site at the neighbouring manufacturing town of
Nalesborough, and this he determined to exercise at once, and have put
in hand, without delay, the erection of his new premises. His trade
seemed to have reached its high-water mark here in Bracebridge, but the
creation of a similar business elsewhere would occupy him for a dozen
years yet, and what was more to his immediate purpose, give him a piece
of critically important work now. Last summer he had more than half
resolved to turn the Bracebridge Stores into a company, and, leaving
Hugh as the director, himself retire from business, and enjoy among his
books the leisure of which all his life he had had so little. Now his
one desire was to set this new enterprise going, and thereby gain for
himself not the leisure that lately he coveted, but the absorption which
he hoped the work of organisation would bring him. It would be an
immense task, and that was why he undertook it, for he had no desire any
more for unoccupied hours, in which he could browse in the pastures of
his secret garden. What he wanted was work, work of the kind that kept
him so busy all day, that he had no further energy left for thought. He
proposed to continue directing the course of his Bracebridge business
also: with these two to superintend, he surely would find stupefaction
for those bees of the brain whose bitter honey-making he had no use for.
He had made an excursion into fairy land--that was how he framed the
matter to himself. There had been The Cedars and work for him before,
there would be work and The Cedars for him afterwards. Those who have
drunk of the metheglin never perhaps afterwards are wholly free from the
reminiscence of the sweet draught brewed magically from the heather and
the honey, but they go back after their sojourn among the little people,
and behave like ordinary mortals again, and eat the home-brewed bread,
and move about their appointed ways. But the nights and days they have
spent in the secret places of the earth will, till they die, be more
vivid to them than all the actual experiences that they go through
afterwards and went through before they penetrated the enchanted glen;
the remembrance will colour their idle moments with the ensanguined hue
of dream; that baseless fabric, that vision of hidden doors thrown open
and the things that lurk within, is more rich, just because to them it
is more real than the sober tonelessness of their profession or
pursuit. Therefore if they are wise, the best thing they can do is, like
Prospero, to drown the magic book beneath the waters of absorbing
employment. Often it will float up again to the surface, and each time
it must be prodded back with averted eyes. So, for Keeling, a love that
could not be realised once crowned the hill-tops of his nature; now that
citadel and the very hill-tops themselves had been shaken down and
strewn over the plains. He had now one paramount need--that of
forgetting, and, since he could not forget, the need resolved itself
into the effort to remember as little as possible, to use up in other
ways the energy which was his, and the leisure that he could command if
he chose.
He let himself into his office, where his letters were already being
opened by the girl he had sent for to take over Norah’s work. On the
little table by the window there still stood Norah’s typewriting
machine, which it appeared she had altogether forgotten: her brother
must be asked to take it away. By it was the pile of letters which dealt
with businesses not yet concluded: all were in order with dockets of the
affairs contained in them. Probably, before she quitted the office for
the last time on Friday afternoon, she had foreseen that she would not
return, and had left everything so that her successor might take up the
work without difficulty. Nothing was omitted or left vague; she had
finished everything with the most meticulous care. He searched through
these papers to see if there was any private word for him. But there was
nothing: this was office work, and such private words as she had for him
had all been said in the bluebell wood.
Her successor, a rasping young woman with strong knuckles, proved
herself very efficient, and before long she retired to the small room
adjoining with her sheaf of shorthand notes. Her typewriting machine was
already installed there, and soon the clack of the keys proclaimed her a
swift worker. For a few minutes only the sound worried him: there was a
new touch, a new note, (one that meant nothing to him except that it
told him that his work was going forward) to get accustomed to. But very
soon he was absorbed in the mass of affairs which his new venture
brought with it. There was twelve years’ work before him: here he was in
the first hour of it. It stretched endlessly away, but he gave no
attention to the enormous perspective. All he desired was to attend to
the immediate foreground; he would progress inch by inch, detail by
detail, till the perspective began to grow. He would look neither
forwards nor backwards.
He left his office late that night after a long day’s uninterrupted
work, and, still busy with some problem, took without thinking the path
through the Cathedral graveyard, which farther on led past the house
where Norah had lived. But before he got there, he remembered, and
turned off so as to avoid it. And then he paused, and retraced his steps
again. Was it weak to avoid it, or was it weak to let himself walk by
it? Perhaps the stronger course was just to get used to it. Sometime,
perhaps, he would be able to go by it without noticing....
It was already the dinner-hour when he arrived home, and he went into
his wife’s boudoir to tell her to begin without waiting for him. To his
astonishment he found her not yet dressed, and as he entered, she
hastily picked up her handkerchief, which was on the floor, and applied
it to her eyes.
‘Why, Emmeline, what’s the matter?’ he said.
She did not seem to him to be actually crying, but the ritual of crying
was there, and had to be respected.
‘Oh, my dear Thomas, you haven’t heard the terrible news then?’ she
said. ‘I thought you would be sure to have seen it placarded somewhere.
Alice went straight to her room, and I haven’t seen her since, though I
repeatedly knocked at the door, which she has locked on the inside, and
I’m sure it’s most unnatural of her not to let her own mother comfort
her. It all happened in a moment: I have always said those great
motor-cars shouldn’t be allowed to career about the streets, especially
when they are all paved with cobbles as they are at Easton Haven, which
are so slippery when it’s wet. He slipped, and it went over him in a
moment.’
‘Will you please tell me whom it went over?’ asked Keeling, as his wife
paused for a second.
‘Why, poor Mr Silverdale, and to think that it was only last Friday that
we had such fun over the slippers. I declare I shall never want to see a
slipper again. He was crushed to a jelly, and I’m sure I hope the driver
will be well hung for it, though they are certain to prove that it
wasn’t his fault, which is so easy now that poor Mr Silverdale can’t
give his account of the matter. It was all over in a moment, though I
know quite well you didn’t like him, and said many sarcastic things
about him and the young ladies whom he inspired. I’m sure I never said a
hard thing about him, nor thought it either, though he didn’t ask Alice
to be his wife. But I am convinced he would have if he had been spared,
that’s one comfort. If only he had, all this might have been avoided,
for they would be on their honeymoon now, let me see, February, March,
April, or if they had come back, he wouldn’t have wanted to set out on
this mission just yet, and so the van wouldn’t have been there. And what
are we all to do now?’
These pathetic reflections had the effect of really working on Lady
Keeling’s feelings, and her throat tied itself into knots.
‘His shepherd’s crook!’ she said. ‘All his delightful ways, though, as I
say, you never liked him. The muffins he has eaten sitting on the floor
before this very fire! The way he used to run, like a boy! The Gregorian
chants which he used to call so ripping! All that beautiful music! I
declare I shall never want to go to church again. And pray what are we
to do now? What’s to happen to Alice, if she won’t unlock her door.’
‘The best thing we can do is to leave Alice alone for the present,’ he
said. ‘I’ll go up to her after dinner.’
‘She won’t see you,’ said Lady Keeling confidently. ‘She wouldn’t see
me, who have always been so sympathetic about Mr Silverdale, so what
chance is there of her seeing you?’
‘That is what I shall find out. Now it’s late already; I have been
detained at the office, so let us go into dinner as we are.’
Lady Keeling sighed.
‘I couldn’t eat a morsel,’ she said, ‘though I know it is the duty of
all of us to keep our strength up. There is hare soup too: he was so
fond of hare soup. But I must run upstairs first, and put on a black
_fichu_ or something. I could not sit down to table without some little
token of respect like that.’
Lady Keeling performed this duty of keeping her strength up with her
usual conscientiousness, and after dinner her husband sent a note up to
Alice, saying that he would be alone in his library if she would like to
come down. While they were still in the dining-room over coffee, the
answer came back that she would do so, and presently he went in there,
while Lady Keeling, in a great state of mystification as to how Alice
could want to see her father, went back in what may be called dudgeon to
the plush and mirrors of the drawing-room. It seemed to her very
unnatural conduct on Alice’s part, but no doubt the poor girl’s head was
so ‘turned’ with grief that she hardly knew what she was doing. Her
mother could think of no other possible explanation. She indulged in a
variety of conjectures about the funeral, and presently, exhausted by
these imaginative efforts, fell asleep.
* * * * *
Keeling, when he went into his library, found Alice already there,
sitting limply in front of the fire. She turned round when her father
entered, and fixed on him a perfectly vacant and meaningless stare. Till
then he had no notion what he should say to her: now when he saw that
blank tragic gaze, he knew there was no necessity to think at all. He
understood her completely, for he knew what it was to lose everything
that his soul desired. And his heart went out to her in a manner it had
never done before. She sat there helpless with her grief, and only some
one like himself, helpless also, could reach her. Her silliness, her
excited fussinesses had been stripped off her, and he saw the simplicity
of her desolation. From him had fallen his hardness, and in him she
divined a man who, for some reason, could reach her and be with her.
Before he had walked across the room to her, her expression changed:
there came some sort of human gleam behind the blankness of her eyes,
and she rose.
‘Father,’ she said, and then she ran to him, stumbling over her dress,
and put her hands on his shoulders.
That grim mouth, which she had always thought so forbidding and
unsympathetic, suddenly wore to her a perfectly new aspect: it was
strong and tender.
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘I am so glad you have let me come to you. You are
in deep waters, poor girl.’
‘I loved him,’ she said.
‘I know you did. That’s why you’re right to come to me. I can
understand. I can’t do anything for you except understand. I’ve loved
too: I’ve lost too. I know what it’s like.’
‘I felt you did: I don’t know why,’ she said.
‘Well, you felt right. We’re together, my dear.’
Since she had heard the news, she had sat dry-eyed and motionless in her
bedroom. Now in the sense of a companionship that comprehended, the
relief of tears came, and with head buried on his shoulder, she clung to
him while the storm raged. He just let her feel the pressure of his arm,
and for the rest stood there braced and firm in body and steadfast
soul. There was none who could help him, but comfortless himself he
could comfort, and he waited with that live and infinite patience which
is the gift only of the strong and masterful.
‘There, my dear,’ he said at length, ‘you have cried enough, and you’re
better for it. Now you’re going to be very good and dry your eyes, and
sit down again by the fire, while I fetch you something to eat. You’ve
had nothing.’
‘I couldn’t eat,’ she said.
‘Oh, yes, you could. Now do just as I tell you, Alice. When you’ve
eaten, we’ll talk again.’
Quietly and firmly he disengaged her arm from his, and putting her into
her chair again, he presently returned, bringing a tray for her. Then,
gently insisting, he made her eat and drink.
‘Ought I to see mother?’ she asked at length.
‘Just wish her good-night when you go upstairs. I’m going to pack you
off to bed in half an hour.’
‘But she won’t talk and cry--and--and not understand?’ asked Alice.
‘No, she shan’t talk and cry. I’ll take care of that. I’ll act
policeman. But I can’t promise you that she’ll understand. I should
think nothing more unlikely.’
Alice had a faint smile for this.
‘I never knew you before to-night, father,’ she said.
‘No, but we must try to be friends now.’
Alice moved aside the table which carried her tray. ‘You never liked
him,’ she said. ‘How is it you can help me like this? How can you
understand, if you didn’t like him?’
‘I know you did. That is all that concerns me.’
‘Yes, but you thought him silly, and you thought me silly.’
He smiled at her.
‘Yes, I often thought you both extraordinarily silly, if you will have
it so,’ he said. ‘But I respect love.’
Alice’s face began slowly to get misshapen and knotted. He spoke to her
rather firmly.
‘Don’t begin crying again, Alice,’ he said. ‘You’ve had your cry.’
‘But it’s all so hopeless. There’s nothing left for me. All the things
we planned together----’
He interrupted.
‘You’ve got to carry them out alone. Set yourself to do them, my dear.
Don’t leave out one. That’s the thing. Make yourself busy: occupy
yourself.’
He got up, speaking to himself as much as to her.
‘That’s what we have both got to do,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to work
instead of snivelling, we’ve got to set our teeth and go ahead. I’m
going to be busier than I’ve been for years. I’m going to start a new
Stores in Nalesborough, and see after them and the Stores here myself.’
‘But you were thinking of giving up your business altogether,’ said
she.
‘I was, but I have reconsidered that. I’m going to be busier than ever:
let us see which of us can be the busiest. I can’t forget, nor can you,
but we can leave as little time as possible for remembering.’
Suddenly their rôles were reversed, and she found herself in the
position of sympathiser, if not comforter.
‘But I thought you were so full of energy and happiness,’ she said.
‘What has happened?’
‘Nothing that I can tell you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to speak of
myself.’
She got up too.
‘Poor father,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, whatever it is.’
‘Thank you, my dear. Don’t try to guess. And now I’ll take you in to
your mother, just to say good-night. She shan’t bother you. And we’ve
got to bite on the bullet, Alice.’
* * * * *
A few minutes later he returned alone to his library. All round him were
the shelves, now packed from floor to ceiling with book cases half
filled projecting into the room, and on the table lay the three volumes
of the catalogue. From all round thoughts and associations and memories
gathered and swarmed, and, forming into a wave of pent-up bitterness,
they roared over him. Everything he cared about had crumbled and
disappeared. Here was his secret garden, which from boyhood he had
tended and cultivated with ever-increasing care, and now each shelf was
to him only a reminder of Norah, propping open the door he was resolved
to shut. He had dreamed of leisure hours here, free from the sound of
the grinding millstone of business, and now he only wanted to get back
into the roar and thump of the wheels. He had wanted the society and
companionship of men who would appreciate and sympathise, now they had
shown that they did not want him, and indeed he wanted them no longer;
his contractors and wholesale merchants and dealers would supply all the
society he had any use for for years to come. He had let himself seek
love, and he had found love, and just because it was love and no mere
sensual gratification that he had sought, it had, with the full consent
of all in him that was worthy of it, been plucked from him. And with its
vanishing his secret garden had blossomed with bitter herbs, rosemary
for rose and rue. Perhaps if he had looked he might find dim violets for
remembrance, and if he waited and was patient there might spring up
pansies for thoughts. But that at present was beyond the region of his
desire: were he to seek for flowers, he would but seek poppies for
forgetfulness.
The room was intolerable to him, he stifled and struggled in its air of
bitter longings. His dreams had built a pavilion in his garden, and hung
it with tapestries, and fate, terrible as an army with banners, had
torn them down and trampled upon them in its relentless march. He could
at least refuse to look on the ruins any more.
He turned to leave the room, looking round it once more, even as last
Friday Norah had looked round his office, knowing that she would not see
it again. There was nothing here that belonged to the life that
stretched in front of him: all was part of the past. The most he could
do was to exercise the fortitude he had enjoined on Alice, and banish
from sight the material things round which, close as the tendrils of
ivy, were twined the associations of what he had missed. All that his
books had to say to him was pitched in the tones of the voice that he
must remember as little as possible, for now if he opened one and read,
it was Norah whom he heard reading. She filled the room....
It was late: a long day’s work was behind him, another lay in front of
him, and he went out turning the key in the lock. He hung it on one of
the chamois-horns tipped with brass, that formed the hat-rack.
GLASGOW: W. COLLINS SONS AND CO. LTD.