THEIR SEVERAL WAYS
As Wilfrid quitted the house, the gate was opened by Jessie Cartwright,
who, accompanied by one of her sisters, was bringing Emily some fine
grapes, purchased, in the Cartwright manner, without regard to expense.
The girls naturally had their curiosity excited by the stranger of
interesting, even of aristocratic, appearance, who, as he hurried by,
east at them a searching look.
'Now, who ever may that be?' murmured Jessie, as she approached the
door.
'A doctor, I dare say,' was her sister's suggestion.
'A doctor! Not he, indeed. He has something to do with Emily, depend
upon it.'
The servant, opening to them, had to report that Miss Hood was too
unwell to-day to receive visitors. Jessie would dearly have liked to ask
who it was that apparently had been an exception, but even she lacked
the assurance necessary to the putting of such a question. The girls
left their offering, and went their way home; the stranger afforded
matter for conversation throughout the walk.
Wilfrid did not go straight to the Baxendales'. In his distracted state
he felt it impossible to sit through luncheon, and he could not
immediately decide how to meet Mrs. Baxendale, whether to take her into
his confidence or to preserve silence on what had happened. He was not
sure that he would be justified in disclosing the details of such an
interview; did he not owe it to Emily to refrain from submitting her
action to the judgment of any third person? If in truth she were still
suffering from the effects of her illness, it was worse than unkind to
repeat her words; if, on the other hand, her decision came of adequate
motives, or such as her sound intelligence deemed adequate, was it
possible to violate the confidence implied in such a conversation
between her and himself? Till his mind had assumed some degree of
calmness, he could not trust himself to return to the house. Turning
from the main road at a point just before the bridge over the river, he
kept on the outskirts of the town, and continued walking till he had
almost made the circuit of Dunfield. His speed was that of a man who
hastened with some express object; his limbs seemed spurred to activity
by the gallop of his thoughts. His reason would scarcely accept the
evidence of consciousness that he had indeed just heard such things from
Emily's lips; it was too monstrous for belief; a resolute incredulity
sustained him beneath a blow which, could he have felt it to be meant in
very earnest, would have deprived him of his senses. She did not, she
could not, know what she had said! Yet she spoke with such cruel
appearance of reasoning earnestness; was it possible for a diseased mind
to assume so convincingly the modes of rational utterance? What
conceivable circumstances could bring her to such a resolution? Her
words, 'I do not love you,' made horrible repetition in his ears; it was
as though he had heard her speak them again and again. _Could they be
true_? The question, last outcome of the exercise of his imagination on
the track of that unimaginable cause, brought him to a standstill,
physically and mentally. Those words had at first scarcely engaged his
thought; it was her request to be released that seriously concerned him;
that falsehood had been added as a desperate means of gaining her end.
Yet now, all other explanations in vain exhausted, perforce he gave heed
to that hideous chime of memory. It was not her father's death that
caused her illness that she admitted, Had some horrible complication
intervened, some incredible change come upon her, since he left England?
He shook off this suggestion as blasphemy. Emily? His high-souled Emily,
upon whose faith he would stake the breath of his life? Was his own
reason failing him?
Worn out, he reached the house in the middle of the afternoon, and went
to his own sitting-room. Presently a servant came and asked whether he
would take luncheon. He declined. Lying on the sofa, he still tormented
himself with doubt whether he might speak with Mrs. Baxendale. That lady
put an end to his hesitation by herself coming to his room. He sprang
up.
'Don't move, don't move!' she exclaimed in her cheery way. 'I have only
come to ask why you resolve to starve yourself. You can't have had lunch
anywhere?'
'No; I am not hungry.'
'A headache?' she asked, looking at him with kind shrewdness.
'A little, perhaps.'
'Then at all events you will have tea. May I ask them to bring it here?'
She went away, and, a few minutes after her return, tea was brought.
'You found Emily looking sadly, I'm afraid?' she said, with one of the
provincialisms which occasionally marked her language.
'Yes,' Wilfrid replied; 'she looked far too ill to be up.'
He had seated himself on the sofa. His hands would not hold the tea-cup
steadily; he put it down by his side.
'I fear there is small chance of her getting much better in that house
of illness,' said Mrs. Baxendale, observing his agitation. 'Can't we
persuade her to go somewhere? Her mother is in excellent hands.'
'I wish we could,' Wilfrid replied, clearly without much attention to
his words.
'You didn't propose anything of the kind?'
He made no answer. A short silence intervened, and he felt there was no
choice but to declare the truth.
'The meeting was a very painful one,' he began. 'It is difficult to
speak to you about it. Do you think that she has perfectly
recovered?--that her mind is wholly--'
He hesitated; it was dreadful to be speaking in this way of Emily. The
sound of his voice reproached him; what words would not appear brutal in
such a case?
'You fear--?'
Wilfrid rose and walked across the room. It seemed impossible to speak,
yet equally so to keep his misery to himself.
'Mrs. Baxendale,' he said at length, 'I am perhaps doing a very wrong
thing in telling you what passed between us, but I feel quite unable to
decide upon any course without the aid of your judgment. I am in a
terrible position. Either I must believe Emily to speak without
responsibility, or something inexplicable, incredible, has come to pass.
She has asked me to release her. She says that something has happened
which makes it impossible for her ever to fulfil her promise, something
which must always remain her secret, which I may not hope to understand.
And with such dreadful appearance of sincerity--such a face of awful
suffering--'
His voice failed. The grave concern on Mrs. Baxendale's visage was not
encouraging.
'Something happened?' the latter repeated, in low-toned astonishment.
'Does she offer no kind of explanation?'
'None--none,' he added, 'that I can bring myself to believe.'
Mrs. Baxendale could only look at him questioningly.
'She said,' Wilfrid continued, pale with the effort it cost him to
speak, 'that she has no longer any affection for me.'
There was another silence, of longer endurance than the last. Wilfrid
was the first to break it.
'My reason for refusing to believe it is, that she said it when she had
done her utmost to convince me of her earnestness in other ways, and
said it in a way--How is it possible for me to believe it? It is only
two months since I saw her on the Castle Hill.'
'I thought you had never been here before?'
'I have never spoken to you of that. I came and left on the same day, It
was to see her before I went to Switzerland.'
'I am at a loss,' said Mrs. Baxendale. 'I can only suggest that she has
had a terrible shock, and that her recovery, or seeming recovery, has
been too rapid. Yet there is no trace of wandering in her talk with me.'
'Nor was there to-day. She was perfectly rational. Think of one's being
driven to hope that she only _seemed_ so!'
'Did you speak of correspondence?'
'No. I said that I could not agree to what she asked of me until she had
repeated it after a time. I left her scarcely knowing what I spoke. What
shall I do? How can I remain in doubt such as this? I said I wished for
your help, yet how can you--how can anyone--help me? Have I
unconsciously been the cause of this?'
'Or has anyone else consciously been so?' asked the lady, with meaning.
'What? You think--? Is it possible?'
'You only hinted that your relatives were not altogether pleased.'
Wilfrid, a light of anger flashing from his eyes, walked rapidly the
length of the room.
'She admitted to me,' he said, in a suppressed voice, 'that her illness
began before her father's death. It was not that that caused it. You
think that someone may have interfered? My father? Impossible! He is a
man of honour; he has written of her in the kindest way.'
But there was someone else. His father was honourable; could the same be
said of Mrs. Rossall? He remembered his conversation with her on the
lake of Thun; it had left an unpleasant impression on his mind--under
the circumstances, explicable enough. Was his aunt capable of dastardly
behaviour? The word could scarcely be applied to a woman's conduct, and
the fact that it could not made disagreeably evident the latitude
conceded to women in consideration of their being compelled to carry on
warfare in underhand ways. Suppose an anonymous letter. Would not Mrs.
Rossall regard that as a perfectly legitimate stratagem, if she had set
her mind on resisting this marriage? Easy, infinitely easy was it to
believe this, in comparison with any other explanation of Emily's
behaviour. In his haste to seize on a credible solution of the
difficulty, Wilfrid did not at first reflect that Emily was a very
unlikely person to be influenced by such means, still more unlikely that
she should keep such a thing secret from him. It must be remembered,
however, that the ways of treachery are manifold, and the idea had only
presented it to his mind in the most indefinite form. As it was, it
drove him almost to frenzy. He could not find a calm word, nor was it
indeed possible to communicate to Mrs. Baxendale the suspicion which
occupied him. She, watching him as he stood at a distance, all but
forgot her anxious trouble in admiration of the splendid passion which
had transformed his features. Wilfrid looked his best when thus
stirred--his best, from a woman's point of view. The pale cast of
thought was far from him; you saw the fiery nature asserting itself, and
wondered in what direction these energies would at length find scope.
Mrs. Baxendale, not exactly an impressionable woman, had a moment of
absent-mindedness.
'Come here and sit down,' she said, the motherly insistance of the tone
possibly revealing her former thought.
He threw himself on the couch.
'Of course,' she continued, 'this must remain between Emily and yourself
my own relations to her must be precisely as they have been, as if I had
heard nothing. Now I think we may conclude that the poor girl is
perfectly aware of what she is doing, but I no more than yourself
believe her explanation. In some way she has come to regard it as a duty
to abandon you. Let Emily once think it a duty, and she will go through
with it if it costs her life; so much I know of her; so much it is easy
to know, if one has the habit of observing. May I advise you? Do not try
to see her again, but write briefly, asking her whether the mystery she
spoke of in any way connects itself with you. You will know how to put
it so as to exact the answer you require. Suppose you write such a note
at once; I will send it as soon as it is ready. You are in the torment
of doubts; no misery as bad as that. Does this plan recommend itself to
you?'
'Yes; I will write.'
'Then I will take myself off whilst you do so. Ring the bell and send
for me as soon as you are ready. It is only half-past four; Emily will
have your letter in an hour, and surely will reply at once.'
The letter was written, at greater length perhaps than was quite
necessary, and Mrs. Baxendale speeded it on its way. Wilfrid begged that
he might be excused from attendance at the dinner-table.
'By all means,' was Mrs. Baxendale's reply. 'The more so that we have
politicians again, and I fear you would not be in the mood to make fun
of them as you did the other night.'
'Make fun of them? No, I was in earnest. I got interested in their
subjects, and found I had more to say than I thought.'
'Well, well; that is your politeness. Now lie down again, poor boy. But
you must promise to cat what I send you; we have quite enough illness on
our hands, remember.'
'I may have the answer before then,' Wilfrid said, moodily.
He had; it came in less than two hours from the messenger's departure.
He was alone when the servant brought it to him. Emily wrote:--
'Wilfrid,--The change is in myself, in my heart, in my life. Nothing
have I heard against you; nothing have I imagined against you; the
influence of which I spoke is in no way connected with you. Let this, I
implore you, be final. Forgive me, forgive me, that I seem to inflict
pain on you so heedlessly. I act as I must; my purpose is unchangeable.'
Having been apprised of the messenger's return, Mrs. Baxendale entered
Wilfrid's room as soon as she had dressed for dinner. He sat at the
table, the letter lying open before him. As Mrs. Baxendale approached,
he held the sheet to her.
'Then my last conjecture is fruitless,' she said, letting her hand fall.
'We cannot doubt her word.'
'Doubt it? No. There is nothing for me but to believe all she said.'
He let his face fall upon his hands; the bitterness of fate was entering
his inmost heart.
'No, no, you shall not give way,' said his friend, just touching his
fingers. 'It all looks very sad and hopeless, but I will not believe it
is hopeless. Refuse to believe that one worst thing, the only thing for
which there is no remedy. Come, defy yourself to believe it! You are
strong enough for that; there is manhood in you for anything that is
worth bearing, however hard.'
He could not reply to her encouragement; who cannot devise words of
exhortation? and what idler than such words when the heart agonises?
'Try and listen to me, Wilfrid. If I make you angry with me, it is
better than abandoning yourself to despondency. I firmly believe that
this is a matter which time will bring right. Emily is acting hastily; I
am convinced of that. Time is on your side; try and accept him as a
friend. We are not living in a novel; there are no such things as
mysteries which last a lifetime. Your part is to draw upon all the
manliness you own, to have faith in yourself, and to wait. Have faith in
her, too; there are few like her; some day you will see that this only
made her better worth winning.--Now answer me a question.'
Wilfrid raised his head.
'Do you not in your heart believe that she is incapable of folly or
wrongheadedness?'
'I believe that no truer woman lives.'
'And rightly, be sure of it. Believing that, you know she cannot break
her word to you without some reason which you would yourself say was
good and sufficient. She imagines she has such a reason; imagines it in
all sincerity. Time will show her that she has been in error, and she
will confess it. She has all her faculties, no doubt, but a trial such
as this leads her to see things in ways we cannot realise.'
'You forget that it is _not_ this shock that has so affected her.'
'Wilfrid, remember that her father's death is itself mysterious. She may
know more of what led to it than anyone else does. She may very well
have foreseen it; it may have distracted her, the cause, whatever it
was. She could not disclose anything--some secret, perhaps--that nearly
concerned her father; you know how strong were the ties between them.'
Perhaps it was inevitable that a suggestion of this kind should
ultimately offer itself. Wilfrid had not hit upon the idea, for he had
from the first accepted without reflection the reasons for Hood's
suicide which were accepted by everyone who spoke of the subject. Mrs.
Baxendale only delivered herself of the thought in fervour of
kindly-devised argument. She paused, reviewing it in her mind, but did
netlike to lay more stress upon it. Wilfrid, also thoughtful, kept
silence.
'Now, there's the gong,' Mrs. Baxendale continued, 'and I shall have to
go to the politicians. But I think I _have_ given you a grain of
comfort. Think of a prosy old woman inciting _you_ to endure for the
sake of the greatest prize you can aim at? Keep saying to yourself that
Emily cannot do wrong; if she did say a word or two she didn't
mean--well, well, we poor women! Go to bed early, and we'll talk again
after breakfast to-morrow.'
She gave him her hand, and hurried away. Even in his wretchedness,
Wilfrid could not but follow her with his eyes, and _feel_ something
like a blessing upon her strong and tender womanhood.
Fortunate fellow, who had laid behind him thus much of his earthly
journey without one day of grave suffering. Ah, something he should have
sacrificed to the envious gods, some lesser joy, that the essential
happiness of his life might be spared him. Wilfrid had yet to learn that
every sun which rises for us in untroubled sky is a portent of
inevitable gloom, that nature only prolongs our holiday to make the
journey-work of misery the harder to bear. He had enjoyed the way of his
will from childhood upwards; he had come to regard himself as exempt
from ill-fortune, even as he was exempt from the degradation of material
need; all his doings had prospered, save in that little matter of his
overtaxed health, and it had grown his habit to map the future with a
generous hand, saying: Thus and thus will I take my conquering course.
Knowing love for the first time, he had met with love in return, love to
the height of his desire, and with a wave of the hand he had swept the
trivial obstacles from his path. Now that the very sum of his exultant
youth offered itself like a wine-cup to his lips, comes forth the
mysterious hand and spills relentlessly that divine draught. See how he
turns, with the blaze of royal indignation on his brow I Who of gods or
men has dared thus to come between him and his bliss? He is not wont to
be so thwarted; he demands that the cup shall be refilled and brought
again; only when mocking laughter echoes round him, when it is but too
plain that the spirits no longer serve him, that where he most desires
his power is least, does his resentment change by cold degrees to that
chill anguish of the abandoned soul, which pays the debt of so many an
hour of triumph. For the moment, words of kindness and sustaining hope
might seem to avail him; but there is the night waiting in ambush for
his weakness, that season of the sun's silence, when the body denuded of
vestment typifies the spirit's exposure to its enemies. Let him live
through his fate-imposed trial in that torture-chamber of ancient
darkness. He will not come forth a better man, though perchance a wiser;
wisdom and goodness are from of old at issue. Henceforth he will have
eyes for many an ugly spot in his own nature, hidden till now by the
veil of happiness. Do not pity him; congratulate him rather that the
inevitable has been so long postponed.
He put on a bold face at breakfast next morning, for he could not
suppose that Mrs. Baxendale would feel any obligation to keep his secret
from her husband, and it was not in his character to play the knight of
the dolorous visage. You saw the rings round his eyes, but he was able
to discuss the latest electioneering intelligence, and even to utter one
or two more of those shrewd remarks by which he had lately been proving
that politics were not unlikely to demand more of his attention some
day. But he was glad when he could get away to the drawing-room, to
await Mrs. Baxendale's coming. He tried to read in a volume of Boswell
which lay out; at other times the book was his delight, now it had the
succulence of a piece of straw. He was in that state of mind when five
minutes of waiting is intolerable. He had to wait some twenty before
Mrs. Baxendale appeared. Only a clinging remnant of common-sense kept
him from addressing her sourly. Wilfrid was not eminently patient.
'Well, what counsel has sleep brought?' she asked, speaking as if she
had some other matter on her mind--as indeed she had--a slight
difficulty which had just arisen with the cook.
'I should not be much advanced if I had depended upon sleep,' Wilfrid
replied cheerlessly. Always sensitive, he was especially so at this
moment, and the lady seemed to him unsympathetic. He should have allowed
for the hour; matters involving sentiment should never be touched till
the day has grown to ripeness. The first thing in the morning a poet is
capable of mathematics.
'I fear you are not the only one who has not slept,' said Mrs.
Baxendale.
Wilfrid, after waiting in vain, went on in a tone very strange to him:
'I don't know what to do; I am incapable of thought. Another night like
the last will drive me mad. You tell me I must merely wait; but I cannot
be passive. What help is there? How can I kill the time?'
Mrs. Baxendale was visibly harder than on the previous evening. A
half-smile caused her to draw in her lips; she played with the
watch-chain at her girdle.
'I fear,' she said, 'we have done all that can be done. Naturally you
would find it intolerable to linger here.'
'I must return to London?'
'Under any other circumstances I should be the last to wish it, but I
suppose it is better that you should.'
He was prepared for the advice, but unreason strove in him desperately
against the facts of the situation. It was this impotent quarrel with
necessity which robbed him of his natural initiative and made Mrs.
Baxendale wonder at his unexpected feebleness. To him it seemed
something to stand his ground even for a few minutes. He could have
eased himself with angry speech. Remember that he had not slept, and
that his mind was sore with the adversary's blows.
'I understand your reluctance,' Mrs. Baxendale pursued. 'It's like a
surrendering of hope. But you know what I said last night; I could only
repeat the same things now. Don't be afraid; I will not.'
'Yes,' he murmured, 'I must go to London.'
'It would be far worse if you had no friend here. You shall hear from me
constantly. You have an assurance that the poor thing can't run away.'
In the expressive vulgar phrase, Wilfrid 'shook himself together.' He
began to perceive that his attitude lacked dignity; even in our misery
we cannot bear to appear ignoble.
'I will leave you to-day,' he said, more like his old self. 'But there
are other things that we must speak of. What of Emily's practical
position?'
'I don't think we need trouble about that. Mr. Baxendale tells me he has
no doubt that the house in Barnhill can be sold at all events for a sum
that will leave them at ease for the present. As soon as Mrs. Hood gets
better, they must both go away. You can trust me to do what can be
done.'
'It is my fear that Emily will find it difficult to accept your
kindness.'
'It will require tact. Only experience can show what my course must be.'
'I sincerely hope the house _will_ be sold. Otherwise, the outlook is
deplorable.'
'I assure you it will be. My husband does not give up anything he has
once put his hand to.'
'I shall keep my own counsel at home,' Wilfrid said.
'Do so, certainly. And you will return to Oxford?'
'I think so. I shall find it easier to live there--if, indeed, I can
live anywhere.'
'I had rather you hadn't added that,' said Mrs. Baxendale with
good-natured reproof. 'You know that you will only work the harder just
to forget your trouble. That, depend upon it, is the only way of killing
the time, as you said; if we strike at him in other ways we only succeed
in making him angry.'
'Another apophthegm,' said Wilfrid, with an attempt at brightness. 'You
are the first woman I have known who has that gift of neatness in
speech.'
'And you are the first man who ever had discernment enough to compliment
me on it. After that, do you think I shall desert your cause?'
Wilfrid made his preparations forthwith, and decided upon a train early
in the afternoon. At luncheon, Mr. Baxendale was full of good-natured
regrets that his visit could not be prolonged till the time of the
election--now very near.
'When your constituents have sent you to Westminster,' said Wilfrid, 'I
hope you will come and report to me the details of the fight?'
So he covered his retreat and retrieved in Mrs. Baxendale's eyes his
weakness of the morning. She took him to the station in her brougham,
but did not go on to the platform. Their parting was very like that of
lovers, for it ended with mutual promises to 'write often.' Mrs.
Baxendale was down-hearted as she drove home--in her a most unusual
thing.
Two days later she went to Banbrigg, carrying the satisfactory news that
at last a sale of the Barnhill property had been negotiated. To Emily
this intelligence gave extreme relief; it restored her independence.
Having this subject to speak of made the meeting easier on both sides
than it could otherwise have been. Emily was restlessly anxious to take
upon herself the task of nursing her mother; with the maid to help her,
she declared herself able to bear all responsibilities, and persisted so
strongly that Mrs. Baxendale had no choice but to assent to the nurse
who had remained being withdrawn. She could understand the need of
activity which possessed the girl, but had grave fears of the result of
an undertaking so disproportioned to her strength.
'Will you promise me,' she said, 'to give it up and get help if you find
it is trying you excessively?'
'Yes,' Emily replied, 'I will promise that. But I know I shall be better
for the occupation.'
'And you will let me still come and see you frequently?'
'I should miss you very much if you ceased to,' was Emily's answer.
Both felt that a difficulty had been surmounted, though they looked at
it from different sides.
October passed, and the first half of November. Mrs. Hood had not risen
from her bed, and there seemed slight chance that she ever would; she
was sinking into hopeless imbecility. Emily's task in that sick-room was
one which a hospital nurse would have found it burdensome to support;
she bore it without a sign of weariness or of failure in physical
strength. Incessant companionship with bodily disease was the least
oppressive of her burdens; the state of her mother's mind afflicted her
far more. Occasionally the invalid would appear in full possession of
her intellect, and those were the hardest days; at such times she was
incessantly querulous; hours long she lay and poured forth complaints
and reproaches. When she could speak no more for very weariness, she
moaned and wept, till Emily also found it impossible to check the tears
which came of the extremity of her compassion. The girl was superhuman
in her patience; never did she speak a word which was not of perfect
gentleness; the bitterest misery seemed but to augment the tenderness of
her devotion. Scarcely was there an hour of the day or night that she
could claim for herself; whilst it was daylight she tended the sufferer
ceaselessly, and her bed was in the same room, so that it often happened
that she lay down only to rise before she could sleep. Her task was
lighter when her mother's mind strayed from the present; but even then
Mrs. Hood talked constantly, and was irritated if Emily failed in
attention. The usual subject was her happiness in the days before her
marriage; she would revive memories of her school, give long accounts of
her pupils, even speak of proposals of marriage which she had had the
pleasure of declining. At no time did she refer to Hood's death, but
often enough she uttered lamentations over the hardships in which her
marriage had resulted, and compared her lot with what it might have been
if she had chosen this or that other man. Emily was pained unspeakably
by this revelation of her mother's nature, for she knew that it was idle
to explain such tendencies of thought as the effect of disease; it was,
in truth, only the emphasising of the faults she had always found it so
hard to bear with. She could not understand the absence of a single note
of affection or sorrow in all these utterances, and the fact was indeed
strange, bearing in mind Mrs. Hood's outburst of loving grief when her
husband was brought home, and the devotedness she had shown throughout
Emily's illness. Were the selfish habits of years too strong for those
better instincts which had never found indulgence till stirred by the
supreme shock? Thinking over the problem in infinite sadness, this was
the interpretation with which Emily had to satisfy herself, and she saw
in it the most dreadful punishment which a life-long fault could have
entailed.
Though to her mother so sublimely forbearing, in her heart she knew too
well the bitterness of revolt against nature's cruelty; her own causes
of suffering became almost insignificant in her view of the tragedy of
life. Was not this calamity upon her surviving parent again a result of
her own action? Was it possible to avoid a comparison between this
blasted home and the appearance it might at this moment have presented
if she had sacrificed herself? What crime had she ever been guilty of
that such expiation could be demanded of her? She mocked at her misery
for so questioning; as if causes and effects were to be thus discerned
in fate's dealings. Emily had never known the phase of faith which finds
comfort in the confession of native corruptness, nor did the desolation
of her life guide her into that orthodox form of pessimism. She was not
conscious of impurity, and her healthy human intelligence could only see
injustice in the woe that had befallen her. From her childhood up she
had striven towards the light, had loved all that is beautiful, had
worshipped righteousness; out of this had it issued that her life was
sunk in woe unfathomable, hopeless of rescue for ever. She was the
sacrifice of others' wrong-doing; the evil-heartedness of one man, the
thoughtless error of another, had brought this upon her.
Her character, like the elemental forces of earth, converted to
beneficent energy the burden of corruption thrust upon it. Active at
first because she dreaded the self-communings of idleness, she found in
her labour and her endurance sources of stern inspiration; her
indestructible idealism grasped at the core of spiritual beauty in a
life even such as this. She did not reason with herself hysterically of
evil passions to be purified by asceticism, of mysterious iniquities to
be washed out in her very life's blood; but the great principles of
devotion and renunciation became soothing and exalting presences, before
which the details of her daily task lost their toilsome or revolting
aspect in a hallowed purpose. Her work was a work of piety, not only to
the living, but to the beloved dead. If her father could know of what
she was now doing, he would be comforted by it; if he knew that she did
it for his sake it would bring him happiness. This truth she saw: that
though life be stripped of every outward charm there may yet remain in
the heart of it, like a glorious light, that which is the source of all
beauty--Love. She strove to make Love the essence of her being. Her
mother, whom it was so hard to cherish for her own sake, she would and
could love because her father had done so; that father, whose only
existence now was in her own, she loved with fervour which seemed to
grow daily. Supreme, fostered by these other affections, exalted by the
absence of a single hope for self, reigned the first and last love of
her woman-soul. Every hard task achieved for love's sake rendered her in
thought more worthy of him whom she made the ideal man. He would never
know of the passion which she perfected to be her eternal support; but,
as there is a sense of sweetness in the thought that we may be held dear
by some who can neither come near us nor make known to us their
good-will, so did it seem to Emily that from her love would go forth a
secret influence, and that Wilfrid, all unknowing, would be blest by her
faithfulness.