In the evening they sat together, John Morrison and his mother, with
the curtains drawn, and the clear fire glowing on the red bricks of
the fireplace. The old lady, after her custom, was prone to silence.
Since Hilda's death she had said little, sparing the occasion the
triviality of useless words. That afternoon she had ridden with her
son to the funeral, holding him up with her strength, fortifying him
with her courage. But now that his wife was gone for ever, and the
pleasant house was overcast with its haunting emptiness, it seemed
that her power was gone.
She had a piece of knitting to occupy her fingers, and over it she
watched her son. He had been stunned when Hilda died, bewildered and
uncomprehending; for no young man fully grasps the meaning of death.
Now, as he sat, he seemed to be convincing himself. He had brought
down his dead wife's work-basket and a drawer from her dressing-
table. He sat in a low arm-chair, and had them beside him on the
floor, and fingered deliberately among their contents for definite
things, little landmarks of lost days that stabbed him with their
associations. But what stirred his mother was not the sorrow of his
loss so much as the uncertainty of parted lips and knitted brows that
softened his thin, aquiline face, so strongly in contrast with his
habit of brisk assurance.
She spoke at last. "John, dear, you should go to bed now," she said.
"It's past eleven, my boy; and I'm afraid you'll wear yourself out."
He had a small silver-backed hand-mirror in his hands. He had been
staring into the glass of it for ten minutes. He looked up now and
shook his head. "I couldn't," he answered. "I couldn't, mother.
There's no sleep in me."
"But John----" began the mother again.
"Please don't bother about me," he interrupted. "I couldn't sleep,
really. And I couldn't bear to lie awake--alone." His eyes dropped
toward the mirror again. "You know," he said, "it's only now, mother,
that I realize that Hilda is really gone. I can't explain it very
well, but before this evening it seemed--well, it seemed idiotic to
think that my wife was dead. It felt impossible, somehow."
"My poor boy!" said the old lady gently.
"And even now," he went on, with bowed head, "I have fancies."
"What fancies, John?" asked Mrs. Morrison.
He laid the mirror down on the floor, and glanced over his shoulder
toward the door of the room before he answered. Then he looked at his
mother squarely.
"I'll tell you," he said. And then he sat for some seconds in
thought. "You know, mother, how close together we lived--Hilda and I.
I suppose it's the same with all husbands and wives who are young and
love one another. We had a world of familiar little household jokes
and tricks of our own. There was one in particular. Whenever I was
in here, and Hilda came in, she'd tiptoe through the door and try to
get close and surprise me before I heard her. Does it sound foolish
to you, mother? If it does, you don't understand at all."
Mrs. Morrison picked up her knitting and worked a dozen quick
stitches. "No; it doesn't seem foolish. I understand it all, my
dear," she replied.
He nodded. "Well," he said, "that's what my fancies are about. There
are moments when I seem to hear something; and I feel quite sure--
absolutely, utterly certain--that if I turn round I shall see her
there, coming up behind me, all sparkling with laughter. But I've
looked, and----"
He dropped his head into his hands, and his shoulders heaved.
Mrs. Morrison laid her knitting down and went over to him. "John,
dear," she said, laying a hand lightly on his arm--"John, dear, this
won't do at all. I want to help you, my boy. You know that, don't
you? But I can't let you comfort yourself with these dreams, dear.
They're bad--very bad for you. It's not that way that we shall see
our Hilda again, John."
"Oh, I know," he answered. "I know, mother." He sat up again, and put
her hand away with a warm pressure of thanks.
The old lady went back to her chair with a grave face, and for a
while they sat again in silence. The fire was burning now a little
dull, and about the room were sober shadows. John fell again to
handling trifles from the work-basket and the drawer, lifting each to
look at it carefully, and laying it aside again.
"Are you looking for something, dear?" asked Mrs. Morrison at last.
"Eh? Oh no," he answered absently. "But I was thinking."
"Don't think too much, my boy," she said.
"It was nothing much," he said, frowning. "But, mother, what horrible
things these are!" He pointed with a sharp thrust of his finger to
the trinkets on the floor. "She used them, mother. She had them
about her every day. She handled them, and used them for her
momentary purposes and necessities and there is no trace of her on
any one of them."
"John, John!" Mrs. Morrison appealed to him with an outstretched
hand, for he spoke with a kind of passion that hurt her like an
impropriety.
He went on as though he had heard nothing. "Look at this thing," he
said. "It was the silver mirror. She used it a dozen times a day. Her
face was bright in it a thousand times--when she put up her hair, and
when she let it down in a cascade over her shoulders. She was
beautiful, and it was the companion of her beauty. And--yet it's
empty now, as empty as her bed, as empty as all this stricken house.
As though she had never lived, mother--as though there had been no
Hilda."
He dropped the mirror beside him, and rose from his chair, to pace up
and down the room with quick, nervous strides.
Mrs. Morrison rose too. "John, dear," she said, stopping him with
outstretched hands, "don't talk like that. We know better--you and I.
The mirror can tell us nothing, nor any of those things you are
torturing yourself with. She gave them nothing, my boy; it was for us
she lived, not them. Our love, dear, and the pain of our loss, and
all our memories; these are Hilda's witnesses. They remain to prove
her to us and fulfil the beauty and goodness of her life. Don't speak
as though Hilda had been wasted on us, dear."
"Wasted!" He started at the word. "Wasted! Oh God!"
She took him by the arm and drew him back to his chair by the fire.
But even as he sat down he glanced again over his shoulder at the
door. To all her entreaties to go to bed he remained obdurate.
"Do you know that I am very tired, John?" she said at last.
He looked up quickly. "Then you go to bed, mother," he urged. "I--I
wish you would. I'd like to be alone for a little.
"If I leave you, will you promise you will not stay long?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "All right. I'll promise, mother."
When she had left him he stood for a while in the centre of the
floor, hands in pockets, his head drooping, in deep thought. He was a
spare man, lean and tall, bred to composure, and serenity. Thus when
there came a tragedy to overwhelm his training, he had few reserves;
his propriety of demeanor lost, his soul was raw. His very attitude,
as he stood, was eloquent of pain and helplessness. He had been
married a little more than a year, and it seemed now as though that
year stood vignetted on a broad border of sadness.
The fire rustled and clicked as the coals spent themselves. He had a
feeling of chill and faintness, and he went back slowly to his
chair. Seated there again, the silver toys were all round him,
gleaming slyly at him with a sort of suggestiveness. He packed up the
mirror, once more, and looked into the oval glass at it. He was
feeling a little dizzy, these last days had burdened him heavily, and
the afternoon had been a long stress of emotion. Thus, for a space of
minutes he sat, the glass before him, his eyes half closed.
It seemed to him that he must have dozed, for he sat up with the
start of a man who arrests himself on the brink of sleep. The mirror
was in his hand. He stared at it with wide eyes, thrusting it at
arm's length before him. For in it he saw--not a flicker of the
firelight swaying on the wall, but a face that moved across from the
door--the face of his dead wife.
He saw it cross the field of the little mirror, reflected in profile,
and pass beyond it. He sat yet a moment, enthralled in senseless
amazement, then let the glass fall from his outstretched hand, and
turned where he sat.