CHANGES.
I met no one at the house-door, or in the kitchen, and walked straight
up the stair to my uncle’s room. The blinds were down, and the curtains
were drawn, and I could but just see the figure of my aunt seated
beside the bed. She rose, and, without a word of greeting, made way for
me to approach the form which lay upon it stretched out straight and
motionless. The conviction that I was in the presence of death seized
me; but instead of the wretchedness of heart and soul which I had
expected to follow the loss of my uncle, a something deeper than any
will of my own asserted itself, and as it were took the matter from me.
It was as if my soul avoided the sorrow of separation by breaking with
the world of material things, asserting the shadowy nature of all the
visible, and choosing its part with the something which had passed
away. It was as if my deeper self said to my outer consciousness: ‘I
too am of the dead--one with them, whether they live or are no more.
For a little while I am shut out from them, and surrounded with things
that seem: let me gaze on the picture while it lasts; dream or no
dream, let me live in it according to its laws, and await what will
come next; if an awaking, it is well: if only a perfect because
dreamless sleep, I shall not be able to lament the endless
separation--but while I know myself, I will hope for something better.’
Like this, at least, was the blossom into which, under my
after-brooding, the bud of that feeling broke.
I laid my hand upon my uncle’s forehead. It was icy cold, just like my
grannie’s when my aunt had made me touch it. And I knew that my uncle
was gone, that the slow tide of the eternal ocean had risen while he
lay motionless within the wash of its waves, and had floated him away
from the shore of our world. I took the hand of my aunt, who stood like
a statue behind me, and led her from the room.
‘He is gone, aunt,’ I said, as calmly as I could.
She made no reply, but gently withdrew her hand from mine, and returned
into the chamber. I stood a few moments irresolute, but reverence for
her sorrow prevailed, and I went down the stair and seated myself by
the fire. There the servant told me that my uncle had never moved since
they laid him in his bed. Soon after the doctor arrived, and went
up-stairs; but returned in a few minutes, only to affirm the fact. I
went again to the room, and found my aunt lying with her face on the
bosom of the dead man. She allowed me to draw her away, but when I
would have led her down, she turned aside and sought her own chamber,
where she remained for the rest of the day.
I will not linger over that miserable time. Greatly as I revered my
uncle, I was not prepared to find how much he had been respected, and
was astonished at the number of faces I had never seen which followed
to the churchyard. Amongst them were the Coninghams, father and son;
but except by a friendly grasp of the hand, and a few words of
condolence, neither interrupted the calm depression rather than grief
in which I found myself. When I returned home, there was with my aunt a
married sister, whom I had never seen before. Up to this time she had
shown an arid despair, and been regardless of everything about her; but
now she was in tears. I left them together, and wandered for hours up
and down the lonely playground of my childhood, thinking of many
things--most of all, how strange it was that, if there were a
_hereafter_ for us, we should know positively nothing concerning it;
that not a whisper should cross the invisible line; that the something
which had looked from its windows so lovingly should have in a moment
withdrawn, by some back-way unknown either to itself or us, into a
region of which all we can tell is that thence no prayers and no tears
will entice it to lift for an instant again the fallen curtain, and
look out once more. Why should not God, I thought, if a God there be,
permit one single return to each, that so the friends left behind in
the dark might be sure that death was not the end, and so live in the
world as not of the world?
[Illustration: I went again to the room, and found my aunt lying with
her face on the bosom of the dead man]
When I re-entered, I found my aunt looking a little cheerful. She was
even having something to eat with her sister--an elderly
country-looking woman, the wife of a farmer in a distant shire. Their
talk had led them back to old times, to their parents and the friends
of their childhood; and the memory of the long dead had comforted her a
little over the recent loss; for all true hearts death is a uniting,
not a dividing power.
‘I suppose you will be going back to London, Wilfrid?’ said my aunt,
who had already been persuaded to pay her sister a visit.
‘I think I had better,’ I answered. ‘When I have a chance of publishing
a book, I should like to come and write it, or at least finish it,
here, if you will let me.’
‘The place is your own, Wilfrid. Of course I shall be very glad to have
you here.’
‘The place is yours as much as mine, aunt,’ I replied. ‘I can’t bear to
think that my uncle has no right over it still. I believe he has, and
therefore it is yours just the same--not to mention my own wishes in
the matter.’
She made no reply, and I saw that both she and her sister were shocked
either at my mentioning the dead man, or at my supposing he had any
earthly rights left. The next day they set out together, leaving in the
house the wife of the head man at the farm, to attend to me until I
should return to town. I had purposed to set out the following morning,
but I found myself enjoying so much the undisturbed possession of the
place, that I remained there for ten days; and when I went, it was with
the intention of making it my home as soon as I might: I had grown
enamoured of the solitude so congenial to labour. Before I left I
arranged my uncle’s papers, and in doing so found several early
sketches which satisfied me that he might have distinguished himself in
literature if his fate had led him thitherward.
Having given the house in charge to my aunt’s deputy, Mrs Herbert, I at
length returned to my lodging in Camden Town. There I found two letters
waiting me, the one announcing the serious illness of my aunt, and the
other her death. The latter was two days old. I wrote to express my
sorrow, and excuse my apparent neglect, and having made a long journey
to see her also laid in the earth, I returned to my old home, in order
to make fresh arrangements.