Day followed day. Brocklehurst had been buried in the village
churchyard; his father and one of his brothers (all of his family who
had come over) were returned home again; the blinds were drawn up;
the quiet flow of life, so harshly and unexpectedly interrupted, had
dropped back into its accustomed channel; only for one boy a light had
gone out for ever from the sky; a glory and a beauty, as he had known
them once, had vanished from the world.
All day long he tried to be alone, tried to avoid his father; and
whenever an opportunity presented itself he would escape to his own
room or to some solitary place out of doors. It was almost as if he
were afraid of human companionship, afraid of the sound of his own
voice. And a curious unwillingness to mention Harold’s name, or to
allude to him in any way whatever, seemed to have taken possession of
him, though he spent daily a longer and longer time at the boy’s grave,
remaining there for hours, until his father, who knew of these visits,
grew anxious for his health and wished to take him away from home,
offered to take him abroad――France, Italy, Greece――anywhere he liked.
But Graham pleaded so desperately to be allowed to stay where he was
that Mr. Iddesleigh had not the heart to refuse him――feared, indeed,
that in his present state of mind it might do him more harm than good.
Little wonder that the boy’s health began to give way; that he looked
so pale and tired! The holidays were now almost over, but as yet
nothing had been said about his going back to school, though Graham
himself lived in secret dread of what he knew could not be put off
for much longer. How, on the other hand, could he possibly resume the
old life? The thought of what had been and never would be again――oh!
that, he felt, he should not be able to bear――the dreariness, the
loneliness, the hopelessness. Doubtless when he had first gone to
school he had also been alone――but the difference, the difference now
would be incalculable. There were days, in truth, when it almost seemed
to him that it would have been better if he had never been given his
happiness, since so soon it was to be snatched from him; and even
though deep in his heart he knew he would not forget it if he could,
there were days when he thought it would be well if all the past could
be effaced from his mind, rubbed out as figures are rubbed from a
child’s slate.
* * * * *
One afternoon he was sitting with his father in the library. It had
been raining for the greater part of the day, and a fine drizzle was
still falling, though the sky was beginning to clear. It had been
raining, and the soft sound of the rain――the soft, dripping sound,
and the sight of the blurred landscape, had somehow a soothing effect
upon him. On his knee he held an open book over which his head was
bent closely. A lassitude, mental and physical, was visible in his
every little movement, even in the way he sat; and between his eyes
and the printed page he looked at, there floated a dead boy’s face. A
physical weakness weighed heavily upon him, a kind of stagnation of
the very sources of his life, the vital elements, sapping all power
to rise above a certain fixed and gloomy train of thought;――it was
as if some spring within him had been choked, dried up.... It was
finished!――finished!――finished! The word repeated itself wearily in
his mind, like the monotonous beating of a metronome. He felt hot and
feverish, and there was a dull pain at the back of his head. It was
almost as if he were sickening for something....
Tired out, for his sleep of late was become very restless and broken,
presently he fell into a kind of doze, from which he awakened, a few
minutes later, to find his father gazing anxiously at him; and with
sudden contrition he saw how selfish he had been in giving way thus to
his grief.
‘Are you very tired?’ Mr. Iddesleigh asked gently. ‘Come over here and
sit by me.’ He drew his son to him as he spoke, and Graham sat down on
a stool at his feet.
‘What were you doing all this morning? Were you in the cemetery?’
Graham nodded.
Mr. Iddesleigh laid his hand on the boy’s head. ‘You go there so often!’
he expostulated. ‘It is not good for you, Graham. What do you think
about when you go there all alone? What do you go there for?’
Graham hesitated. He clasped his hands about his knees, while he sat
gazing out of the window. The rain had ceased and a pale sun was
beginning to peep out between the heavy clouds. For some moments he
did not answer his father. The familiarity of everything about him was
borne into his mind. How often he and his father had sat just as they
were sitting now!――in this same room! It seemed to him that his life
had been moving in a circle, and that he was beginning to return on a
path he already knew. For a little the wings of some great spirit had
drooped softly about his head.... ‘Too like the lightning....’ His eyes
filled and he bent down to hide his face.
‘What is the matter?’ Mr. Iddesleigh asked, but still without getting
any reply. ‘Tell me, Graham, are you thinking about Harold?’
‘Do you wonder I never speak of him?’
‘Is it too near?... But your silence makes you brood over it all the
more.’
‘I cannot help thinking of him,’ Graham whispered. ‘He gave me his
life.’ He rose from his stool, and walking to the window pressed his
forehead against the cold glass.
The rain was still dripping from the trees, and there was a damp smell
in the air; but the sky was clearing, and the sun was growing stronger
and stronger. Presently, and without further word, the boy left the
room.