It was a quiet autumn afternoon when I stopped at the solitary station,
and set forth alone on foot by the well-remembered road. The waning
sun was shining faintly through thin white clouds—the air was warm
and still—the peacefulness of the lonely country was overshadowed and
saddened by the influence of the falling year.
I reached the moor—I stood again on the brow of the hill—I looked
on along the path—and there were the familiar garden trees in the
distance, the clear sweeping semicircle of the drive, the high white
walls of Limmeridge House. The chances and changes, the wanderings and
dangers of months and months past, all shrank and shrivelled to nothing
in my mind. It was like yesterday since my feet had last trodden the
fragrant heathy ground. I thought I should see her coming to meet me,
with her little straw hat shading her face, her simple dress fluttering
in the air, and her well-filled sketch-book ready in her hand.
Oh death, thou hast thy sting! oh, grave, thou hast thy victory!
I turned aside, and there below me in the glen was the lonesome grey
church, the porch where I had waited for the coming of the woman in
white, the hills encircling the quiet burial-ground, the brook bubbling
cold over its stony bed. There was the marble cross, fair and white, at
the head of the tomb—the tomb that now rose over mother and daughter
alike.
I approached the grave. I crossed once more the low stone stile, and
bared my head as I touched the sacred ground. Sacred to gentleness and
goodness, sacred to reverence and grief.
I stopped before the pedestal from which the cross rose. On one side
of it, on the side nearest to me, the newly-cut inscription met my
eyes—the hard, clear, cruel black letters which told the story of her
life and death. I tried to read them. I did read as far as the name.
“Sacred to the Memory of Laura——” The kind blue eyes dim with tears—the
fair head drooping wearily—the innocent parting words which implored me
to leave her—oh, for a happier last memory of her than this; the memory
I took away with me, the memory I bring back with me to her grave!
A second time I tried to read the inscription. I saw at the end the
date of her death, and above it——
Above it there were lines on the marble—there was a name among them
which disturbed my thoughts of her. I went round to the other side of
the grave, where there was nothing to read, nothing of earthly vileness
to force its way between her spirit and mine.
I knelt down by the tomb. I laid my hands, I laid my head on the broad
white stone, and closed my weary eyes on the earth around, on the light
above. I let her come back to me. Oh, my love! my love! my heart may
speak to you NOW! It is yesterday again since we parted—yesterday,
since your dear hand lay in mine—yesterday, since my eyes looked their
last on you. My love! my love!
* * * * * * * * * *
Time had flowed on, and silence had fallen like thick night over its
course.
The first sound that came after the heavenly peace rustled faintly like
a passing breath of air over the grass of the burial-ground. I heard it
nearing me slowly, until it came changed to my ear—came like footsteps
moving onward—then stopped.