They carry her to her room. There is only one doctor in Whitecliffe. He is found and fetched; and leaving Mr. and Mrs. Bickers by the bedside, comes down to the sitting-room where is a man stunned to apparent speechlessness by grief, whom he takes to be the patient's brother. The doctor says he will stay till the end, and for "the end" then substitutes "for the night." There is nothing he can do immediately and by himself. He speaks of the possibility of an operation in the morning, but seemingly has no thought of telegraphing to a surgeon he names who could perform it. She will pass away without recovery of consciousness, he fears. There is not only the injury to her head but of her spine. More than that there is the question of— If the case had been taken to the hospital at Market Redding.... The man whom he takes to be her brother drags with blundering fingers from his pocket a packet of banknotes and thrusts them towards him with a curious action—an action suggestive (were not the idea ridiculous) of their being some horrible thing.
Well, are they not the price of her that was to buy her?
Taking the packet, the doctor flushes. He had judged these people by the rooms they occupy—a clumsy thing to do at the seaside where frequently people must take what accommodation they can find. This man's educated bearing, perceptible despite the grief that scarcely enables him to speak, should have informed him of his mistake. Very well, he will telegraph. He cannot hold out much hope. But convey hope to those poor old folk up-stairs. Indeed, of course one knows of cases.... In these days of aeroplanes one hears of cases where terrible falls, long periods of unconsciousness, have been survived. Eh? Still—and though he is alone in the sitting-room with this the poor girl's brother he drops his voice and tells him....
She lies in her room, Mother and Dad with her. She lies there unconscious and only, under God, to wake to die. He that had stumbled before her bier, directing those who bore her, stumbles now from the house. "Kill me! Kill me!" Ah, cry that pulses as a wound within him; that he desires to cry aloud, and would cry aloud, and does wordlessly groan with his breathing. But there is agony that he endures that of speech bereaves him, of power of movement wherewith to carry out what now alone remains, numbs and denies him. There is a seat without the house upon the parade. He drops upon it, and there endures ... and there endures....
Endures! It is as if there had been discovered to him within him some vital core, some spot, some nucleus of life, some living soul and centre of him, capable of receiving the very quick and apotheosis of torture, such as all his normal body and all his normal mind delivered over to rack and irons could not have felt. There is a point in human pain where pain, numbing the centres of the mind, mercifully defeats itself and can no more. There is discovered to him within him a core, a quick, an essence of him, capable of agony to infinity, down into which, as a blunted knife, drives every thought in writhing agony. In physical agony he writhes beneath them, twisting his legs, driving his nails within his palms, bleeding with his teeth his lips.
In that flash while she fell, and falling saved him: "She has given her life for mine!" In that hour, that age, that all eternity of time while, prone and powerless, rescued upon the cliff he lay: "Twice, twice, I look upon a body lifeless to let mine live!" In that stumbling progression before her bier: "Kill me! Kill me! O vile, O worst, O foulest, unnameable thing, betake thyself to hell, if any hell be vile enough to hold thee!"
Revelation! Revelation! As she fell, as he lay, as he stumbled, as here he writhes in agony—revelation—and all his life in terrible review beneath it. "Kill me! Kill me!" he groans. "O vile, O worst, O foulest, unnameable thing, betake thyself to hell, if any hell be vile enough to hold thee!"
"Not so. Not yet," there answers him. It is as though there speak to him his thoughts with voice that peals imperatively through all his being, reverberating through him in tremendous majesty of doom, as through the aisles reverberates and makes to tremble all the air an organ's swelling thunder.
"Not so! Not yet! Thou hast not strength to move to find thy hell. Rise if thou canst. Stay, for thou must. Revelation is here. Behold thy life beneath it!"
He crouches there. Enormously it thunders all about him. "Revelation! O blind, O purblind miserable! Have not a thousand lights been thrust before thee to proclaim thee this that only now thou seest? Thou seeker after happiness! Thou greatly-to-be-pitied! Thou sufferer! Thou victim of affliction! Thou innocent! Thou greatly wronged! Is it thus thou hast seen thyself? Ah, whining wretch that thou hast been! Ah, blind, ah, purblind fool, that could not see! That first must have a life to show thee! That first must send to death he that in daily sacrifices of thy companionship had shown thee happiness was sacrifice! Blind, blind! Thou must demand death of him to try to rend thy blindness, and still wast blind, still cried to heaven of thy misery, still wast of all men most to be pitied, most oppressed! Ah, whining wretch! To her for more revelation thou must come. By her, daily, hourly revelation is thrust before thee—she, that gay, that sweet, that joyous life, whose every single, smallest thought was thought for others, and still, O soul enmired, enmeshed in blindness, thou couldst not see!—still thou must have the deeper sacrifice! One life doth not suffice thee. Another thou must have. And now thou criest: 'Revelation! Revelation!' What cost? Look, look, thou vilest, now that thine eyes are clear, now that thy soul is stirred at last from all the slime of self, self, self, where thou hast kept it—look now, and count the cost of this thy revelation. Look now! Hold up thy shuddering soul, new from its slime, to look how all thy life is strewed with sacrifices made for thee, how at each step, blind, thou hast demanded more; how two whose every slightest breath was more of beauty than all thy years have made, how two were given thee; how in thy blindness thou rebukedst them both in each devotion, in every act of love, of care, and must press on to have their lives, their broken bodies—he by the sea, she by the cliff—for this thy revelation."
Day comes to evening, evening reaches into night. "Kill me! Kill me!" he moans. "O vile, O worst, O foulest thing, O blind, let me betake myself to hell, if any hell be vile enough to hold me!"
There answers him in dreadful summons, in final roll and crash of sound: "Look back. Look back. Thou hast purchased this thy revelation. Thou hast recovered from its slime thy soul. Two lives and boundless love thou hast demanded for it. Thy price is paid. Look back, look back. Hold up that soul of thine and see the way that thou hast come. Then seek thy hell, if hell will have thee. Hold up thy soul!"
The sound is snatched away. Only its resonance remains, and sharp and piercing streams the air it leaves to silence. In that intensity with new eyes he looks back; and now into this quick, this nucleus of life within him that is made capable of pain transcending human pain, receives each vision that his new eyes reveal. In agony receives them, writhing at their torture. Who had been happy? They that had sacrificed! Happy till when? Till he came! Happy in what? In selflessness, in selflessness.... Who had been happy? That uncouth vagabond that in their every moment together had tended him, cared for him, protected him. O blind, that, mired in self, never till now had realised his strong devotion! In shame, in horror, in grief's abandonment, he cries aloud his uncouth name: "Puddlebox! Puddlebox! For me! O God, for me!" Writhing, he hears his jolly voice: "O ye tired strangers of the Lord: bless ye the Lord." Hears his jolly voice: "Down, loony, down!" ... That was on the wagon, receiving blows that he might escape! ... Hears his jolly voice: "You think too much about yourself, boy, and therefore I name you spooked." ... O blind, O blind that all his life had thought too much about himself, and only of himself—thought only of how to win his own happiness, realised never till now that happiness was in making others happy, and nowhere else, and nowhere else! ... Hears his jolly voice: "Wherefore whatsoever comes against me, boy—heat, cold; storm, shine; hunger, fullness; pain, joy—cause for praise I find in them all and therefore sing: 'O ye world of the Lord; bless ye the Lord.'" ... O blind, blind, that many weeks lived with that creed and never till now realised its meaning.... Hears his jolly voice: "I like you, boy." ... Hears his jolly voice: "Why, what to the devil is the sense of it, boy?"—but doing it, following it, for him! ... O blind, O blind! ... Hears his jolly voice: "I'm to you now, boy! I'm to you, boy. Why, that's my loony!" ... Hears his jolly voice: "Wedge in, boy! Wedge in! Swim! Why, I'd swim that rotten far with my hands tied, and I challenge you or any man—" ... Sees him swing off his hands, and drop, and go, and drown, and die.... O blind, blind, blind!
Deep swings the night about him; deep sounds the murmuring sea. "Kill me! Kill me!" he groans. "O vile, O worst, O foulest thing, let me betake myself to hell, if any hell be vile enough to hold me!"
There answers him: "Not so. Not yet. Look back. Look back. Hold up thy soul, new from its slime of self, self, self, and look along the way that thou hast come. Hold up thy soul and look!"
He is searching, he is searching in the days at Pendra. He is wondering, he is wondering. Is there some secret of happiness in life that he has missed? O blind, O purblind in the face of God! Day and night, by countless love, by endless devotion, the secret had been thrust before him. Blind! Of self alone he had thought. The last, the uttermost sacrifice had been presented him. Blind! Enmired, enmeshed in self, it had shown him nothing, left him still whimpering, still wondering, still seeking, still pitying his fate. Who had been happy? Essie! Essie! Happy till when? Till he came! Happy in what? In selflessness! Blind! O blindness black beyond belief, now that with new eyes he sees it. Puddlebox had shown him. Essie not alone had shown him but had told him. On that day of the depth of his misery at the Tower House School, when she had helped and advised him by telling of her way with her own Sunday-school boys: "You jus' try it," she had said. "I mean to say, whatever's the good of anybody if they don't try to make everybody else happy, is there? You jus' try." He had tried. He had made the boys happy. Himself he had touched happiness in theirs. O blind, O blind! She had given the very secret of happiness into his hands, and he had used it and proved it and yet, so chained in self, had never recognised it, but had pressed on for further proof. On past her "Aren't you quiet, though, sometimes? I don't mind, dear." On past her "Oh, won't I keep you quiet just when you're working!" On to her piteous cry: "Oh, didn't I think you loved me truly!" On, on, voracious in his blindness as vampire in its lust, on, on, demanding yet another life until she says: "Well, both of us, dear, what's the sense to it?" Until she lies there, broken, that he might live. Until she lies here unconscious and only, under God, to wake to die.
"Kill me! Kill me!" he groans. "Let me find hell, if any hell is vile enough to hold me. Let me not live but to create hell here on earth for all who come about me. O ye world of the Lord: bless ye the Lord." He had crushed out that praise. "Let's have a laugh!" He had crushed out that laughter.
Kill himself. That was left. That was all. Ah, if he had but killed himself when, on that night countless ages of changed identity ago, he had thrown himself into the river! Who had been saved had he not lived? What of delight had he not robbed the world had he not trailed across it? Who had been saved? Old Puddlebox—old Puddlebox had been alive, jovial, genial, praising. Essie—Essie had been alive, laughing, loving, streaming her sunshine. Who would have missed him? None, none, for there was none in all his life he had brought happiness.
Was there none, indeed? What is this sudden apprehension as of some new dismay that checks and holds him? What new revelation of his depths has that question unlocked, unloosed upon him? What change, what agony is here? What bursts within his heart? What seems to struggle in the air to reach him? What sweeps across that quick, that nucleus of life, that core, that essence, that as deep waters takes his breath and holds him trembling where till now in torture he has writhed?
"Matey! Matey!"
"Captain! Captain!"
Ah, tumult inexpressible as of bursting floods rushing in mist and spray from bondage; ah, surging of immensity of thoughts, of visions. Missed him had he died? There was one, there was one had lost a little happiness had he died when he had tried to die. "Captain! Captain!"
He hears his voice as he had heard it in the ward: "Matey! Matey! Gor' bless yer, Matey!"
He turns about on the seat. He throws his arms upon its rail. He buries his face upon them.
There is a step across the road. A hand touches him. "Arthur? Is that you, Arthur?"
Mr. Bickers, bending above him.
"Is she dead?"
"She's still unconscious. I'm anxious for Mrs. Bickers, Arthur. I want to take her to lie down a little. Would you just come and watch in case our Essie wakes?"
He gets up and goes with Mr. Bickers to the house.
Look where she lies. Never to wake? Unconscious, and only, under God, to wake to die? Surely she but reposes, smiling, smiling there? Look where her face, surrounded by her hair, rests there untouched by scratch or mark or bruise. Surely she only sleeps; and sleeping, surely still pursues those gay young fancies of her joyous life: look how they seem to smile upon those soft, expressive lips of hers. Look where she lies. Look how her tender form, hid of its suffering, lies there so slim and shapely beneath the wrappings drawn about her. Look at her hands, each slightly closed, that lie upon her breast: surely to touch them is to feel responsive their firm, cool clasp? surely to touch them is to wake her? Look where she lies. Never to wake? Unconscious, and only, under God, to wake to die? Surely she but reposes, smiling, smiling there?
Look where she lies. This is her room. Look where here, and here, and here, and here, are all her little trinkets, treasures, trifles, she has brought with her from home for this her jolly holiday. These are her portraits here, in those plush frames, of Mother and of Dad. That is her text she has illumined, taken from her "fav'rit:" "Lift up your heads, O ye gates: and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors." An odd, long text for framing. Those are her copper wire "native" bracelets there. "Oh, you don't have to look half smart on the parade, evenings!" That is her Church-service by her bed. He remembers that first night when he used it. Those are her best gloves, smoothed out there. That old stump of lead pencil lying upon them was his. He remembers it.
Look where she lies. On the threshold he pauses. That is old Mr. Bickers gone again on his knees against the bed, his white head bowed within his hands. That is Mrs. Bickers kneeling there, her lips moving. Brokenly now, such an odd, deep, trembling sound, comes Mr. Bickers' voice. Brokenly—jumbling his own words with words familiar. It is the prayer he had said was their daily prayer, and he jumbles it with other prayers and into it jumbles his own.
"Lord, now lettest—" Mr. Bickers stops; and there is long silence; and he begins again: "Lord, if it be thy will, if it be thy will, if it be thy will, if our Essie's suffering, if it be thy will, Lord, now lettest this thy servant, thy servant, depart in peace, in peace, in peace, according to ... mine eyes have seen thy ... through the tender mercies of our God whereby the dayspring ... from on high ... hath visited us. Amen. Amen."
Mrs. Bickers says "Amen." Mrs. Bickers collapses where she kneels. Mr. Bickers goes to her and raises her and says: "There, Mother! There, Mother, dear! Come and rest, Mother. Rest just a little while, Mother. Arthur's here. Arthur will stay by her. Arthur will tell us. Just a little while, Mother, dear."
She has no resistance. She is collapsed in his arms.
He supports her from the room. He says to Mr. Wriford: "I'll just lay her on her bed, Arthur. Just across the passage. Doors open. I'll hear you. The doctor's down-stairs. There, Mother! There, there, Mother."
Look where she lies. He is alone with her.
Come to this Mr. Wriford on his knees with her, his hands upon her hand, his head between his outstretched arms. Come to his revelation she has revealed to him; to that which came to him with sudden thought of Captain; come to his prayer.
"This is my dear, my darling, lying here.... I have looked back. I have looked back upon such pitiless review of all my blindness, that to look forward, to live and not destroy myself, is almost heavier than I can bear.... I will bear it.... I see. I understand. I accept. Self has been the cause of all my wreckage—thought of myself, always of myself and of no other. I see that now—clearly, bitterly, I see it. And yet—and yet, O God—in the very moment of seeing it, I still thought to kill myself. That was self again. I am so rooted in self that, in the very hour of my revelation, still only of myself I thought—only of saving myself by death from these my torments, only of ending them because I could not bear to let myself endure them. All my life I have lived in self. Ah, with my eyes open—deeper shame! deeper shame!—I almost had died in self. Ah, even realising that, still I cannot tear self out of me, still I kneel here dreading to live, fearing to live, crying that it is heavier than I can bear, heavier than I can bear! Oh, what a thing is self that with such cunning can prevail, how deeply hidden, in what myriad forms disguised! Help me to see it. Keep my eyes open. Keep my eyes open....
"Well, I accept then. I will not kill myself.... Lord, since I have accepted, use this my dear, my darling, no longer for me.... This is my dear, my darling, lying here beneath thy hand. She has offered her life for mine. Let it suffice, O God. Judge me apart from her. Judge me apart from her. Judge me apart from my darling. One life came to me to open my eyes. I remained blind. He gave the deeper sacrifice—blind in my blindness I remained. Then Essie. Thy servant. My jolly little Essie. If I had killed myself, if by destroying myself I had mocked her sacrifice, mocked Thee, O God, then mightest Thou by closing Thy hand upon her have pursued me even into hell. But I accept—but I accept, O God. Therefore relieve her—therefore relieve her—therefore let suffice that which she has done....
"Am I daring to bargain? Am I stipulating, making terms, advancing a price? Remember, remember that I am new before Thee, long out of prayer, long unaccustomed to Thy ways. It is no bargain, O God. It is only confusion of these my thoughts. All that I ask is this—judge me apart from her, use her no longer for me, judge me no more through her, let that which she has done suffice. Look, I will go away from her and leave her. Whether, beneath Thy wisdom, she lives or dies shall nothing prevail with me. If she may live it shall not strengthen me—no bargain there, O God. If she must die it shall not shake me—O God, no bargain there. Judge me apart from her. I will go out of her life. I will go out from every knowledge of Thy will towards her. I will not even pray for her. I will not even pray for her lest in my heart, beneath my words, beneath my thoughts, it is in cunning that actually I am here—agreeable to forego destruction of myself if I may know that she is spared; resolved to kill myself if I be guilty of her death. Enough—enough. Let me end with that while I have clearness of vision to see it. This is my dear, my darling, lying here. I will go out from all knowledge of her. Judge me apart from her. Let that which she has done suffice."
He withdrew his hands from her hand as though in evidence of detaching himself from her. He thrust them out again to touch her and cried "Essie! Essie!" He then took them to his face.
He said: "Let me speak as a man. I will go out from her. I will live. Let me speak as a man. Let me not make vain promises, offer false protests. This is not religion. Religion, as it is lived, is nothing to me. Let me not delude myself nor seek in cunning to delude Thee. Let me not try to pretend that this that I have suffered converts me suddenly from that which I was to that which Essie is. Let me speak as a man. That is not of a moment. I am not one man in one moment, a new man in the next. I am the same. All my infirmities the same—rooted in me as my bones: bones of my spirit and no more changed than bones of my body that are rooted in my flesh. I am the same. Ay, even as I say it, I am tempted to say that I am not the same but am changed. Rescue me from that cunning. Keep me from that. Let me not even in cunning pretend, in self-delusion believe, that this hour, these thoughts, these torments I have endured will all my life remain with me. I have known penitence before. I have knelt in presence of death before. I have wept. I have vowed. Where are my tears? Where my promises? Let me speak as a man. Time swings on. That which is all the world to-day is less than dust to-morrow, That which is laid, beneath death's shadow, in penitence before Thy feet, is there in ashes, when death has winged away, to mock Thy mercy. Time swings on. Vows made in penitence—they are no more than to the drunkard his drink: delusion, forgetfulness, anodyne, courage until the spirit that has tricked the brain has gone, until the travail that has worn the soul has ebbed. Back then to fear, to baseness, as surely as night succeeds to day....
"What then? What do I purpose? What have I to offer? Lord, there is only this in me that is different: that my eyes are opened to that to which all my life they have been sealed. I have nothing to promise, nothing to vow. I have only to ask: Keep my eyes open; help me to remember this that my eyes have seen; help me to know what is self; help me to rid me of it. All my life—all my life from the beginning it has been self. Back in the London days when I was working day and night, when I was longing to be free, when I thought I was giving up my life to others, it was all self, self that was destroying me. It was not ceaseless work that wrought upon my peace of mind, robbed me of my youth; it was pitying myself, thinking of myself, contrasting my lot with that of others. It is not work nor trouble that kills a man, robs him of sleep, loses him his happiness—it is turning the stress of it inwards upon himself, never forgetting himself when occupied with it, always keeping himself before his eyes, watching himself, pitying himself. Brida knew it. 'You think too much about yourself, Phil,' she used to tell me. That old Puddlebox had the secret of it and told it me plainly. 'You think too much about yourself, boy, and that is what's the matter with you and with most of us.' He told it to me plainly. 'I don't believe a word of it,' he told me when he had heard my story. 'Your story is the same as my story and the same as everybody else's story in this way: that you've never done any thing wrong in all your life, and that all that's happened to you is what other folk have put upon you.' Ay, that was it! I thought I was sacrificing my life; I was grudging every thought of it, every moment of it given away from my own pursuits. How could I be sacrificing when in doing so I was unhappy? That is negation in terms. To sacrifice is happiness. Old Puddlebox showed it me. This my Essie showed it me. To give—to give time, money, life itself, and have compassion for oneself in giving them, that is the very pit of self, worse than self open and wilful. That is the selfishness that all my life has been my curse, my wreckage. All that ever has happened to me I have seen in terms of myself and of no other. Every trouble, every irritation that in those London days those poor things about me brought to me, I at once turned upon myself—looked at with my eyes, not with theirs; thought instantly and always, even while I helped them, how it affected me, not how it affected them. Ah, that is the heart of misery and that is the secret of happiness! To see only with one's own eyes, to judge only from one's own point, to estimate life in terms of self and of no other: that is to goad oneself on from trial to trial, from misery to misery. To see with others' eyes, to judge from their outlook upon life, to estimate life in terms of those upon whom life presses and not in terms of self: that is the secret of happiness, that is the thing in life that I have missed....
"Try me not, O God, in great things. Help me in small. In the small things, in the small, the everyday things, O God, that is where self comes—that is where I shall not see it, that is where, disguised, it will deceive me. To quarrel, to complain, to be impatient—what is it but self? Help me to put myself where each one stands that comes about me. Help me to look with their eyes—how have vexation then? There is no vexation, there is no unhappiness in all this world but what through self a man brings into it. All happiness, this world—in every hour happiness, in every remotest corner happiness. But man lives not in it but in his own world—the world that he himself creates; of which he is the centre; that, however little he be, revolves about him. That is whence is his unhappiness. Others come into his world. Ah, if he can but watch them in it with their own eyes, not with his! God! what a world this world would be if under Thy hand it were governed as man governs the world which he himself creates—as I have governed mine! Tolerance for none but self, pity for none but self, all within it judged, measured, watched in terms of self! Rid me of that! Rid me of self. Help me to see self. Help me to see with others' eyes, not with my own...."
So ends his prayer—so ends his vigil. Mr. Bickers returns, and it is towards daybreak. He looks once more at her, smiling, smiling there. He will not even pray for her. Let that which she has done suffice. Let him be judged apart from her—not strengthened if she may live, not shaken if she must die. He goes down the stairs; out into young morning spreading across the sea.
Not to know—in no way to be prevailed upon in this his return to life by knowledge of whether she lives or has died. In no way to be strengthened—but of himself to live—if life has been permitted her; in no way to be shaken if her life has been required. To be judged apart from her....
Come with this Mr. Wriford while for a year he thus places in proof his acceptance. He takes up his life where on his flight from London he had left it. To do that—not to admit his every impulse which calls upon him to hide, to live in seclusion, and there dwell with his memories, cherish his affliction—is part of his bond pledged by her bedside. The secret of happiness has been purchased for him; let him not mock that which has been paid. He has the secret; let him exercise it. Abandonment to grief—what is that but pity of self? Life in retreat, unable to face the world—what is that but admission that his fate, that which affects himself, is harder than he can bear?
Bound up in this, he takes train immediately from Whitecliffe to London, presently is involved in all the tortures that his welcoming inflicts upon him. His return is made a sensation of the hour by his friends and soon, as he finds, by that larger circle to whom his books have made him known. "Where have you been?" It is a question to which he seems to have to spend every hour of all his days in formulating some kind of answer. It is a question—and all the congratulation and felicitation that goes with it—that often he tells himself he can no longer stand and must escape. "Where have you been?" and all the while it is at Whitecliffe—in that room, among those scenes—that his heart is, and that he desires only to be left alone to keep there. But he does not escape. But he does not keep himself alone. It is self that bids him. It is self he has come out to know and face. He forces himself to see with the eyes of those that do them the kindnesses that are done him. He makes himself respond. He permits himself no shrinking.
He revisits Mr. and Mrs. Filmer. They have "got along very well without him," they tell him.
"I am bound to say," says Mrs. Filmer, "that at the time we thought your conduct showed very little consideration for us. I am bound to say that."
"A mere postcard," says Mr. Filmer, "can relieve much suspense; but one does not of course always think of duties to others, h'm, ha."
"Well, that's just what I am here to think of," Mr. Wriford responds. "Is there anything I can do? Anything you want?"
There is nothing, as it appears, except a manifestation of fear that he proposes to upset the establishment by quartering himself upon them, relief from which expands them somewhat, and they proceed with the news that two of the boys, his nephews, are on their way home on leave.
The boys come, and in their affairs and in their interests he finds better response to the "Anything I can do?" than was received from the Filmers. Till their arrival he has had, in seclusion of his rooms, intervals when he can retreat within his thoughts. There is a holiday home to be made for them, and he takes a flat and occupies himself with them, and these intervals are denied him. The young men are here to have a good time. There are their eyes for him to see with—not his own. He has a trick, they both notice it, of saying: "Well, tell me just how you look at the business." It is a trick that is expressed also in his manner, in a certain inviting, sympathetic way that he has, and it comes to be noticed in the much wider circle of his friends. "Used to be a fearfully reserved chap, Wriford," they say. "Never quite knew whether he was shy or thought himself too good for you. Do you notice how different he is now?"
"Do you ever notice him when he's alone, though—sitting in the club here and not knowing you're looking at him?" another would reply. "There's a look on his face then—he's been through it, Wriford, I'll bet money."
Ah, he has been through it and daily feels the mark of it. Time swings on. He settles down. The sensation of his return evaporates. His nephews go back to their duties. He settles down. This is his post—here in the hurly-burly. He will not desert it. He takes up his work again. Long days he sits staring at the blank sheets of paper before him. His thoughts are ready. There obtrudes between them and the marshalling of them memories of how it had been planned he again was to resume them: "Won't I keep you quiet just, dear!" ... That is self, pity for himself, grieving for himself. Let him put it away. Let him get to work. Let it return—ah, let her face, her voice, her jolly laughter return to him just for an hour when work is done, just while he lies awake....
Come to this Mr. Wriford when a year is gone. Summer again—June again—the holidays again—again that day. He has lived through a year of it. Through a long year he has proved himself. If he might know certainly that she is dead, he could not fall back again. That is what he has feared at the outset. He does not fear it now. He has lived through a year of it. He is assured of himself now. If he might but make a pilgrimage to Whitecliffe, see where he had walked with her, see where perhaps she lies, permit his spirit to walk those roads, those paths, those fields with her again, suffer it to stand beside her...!
He goes. He goes first, on a sudden fancy, to far Port Rannock and stands beside the mound that marks the grave he knows there.
"Well, you old Puddlebox," says Mr. Wriford, standing there. "Well, you old Puddlebox. How goes it? How goes it now? Well enough with you, old Puddlebox! You knew the secret. I know it now. Too late for me, old Puddlebox. But, if you know, you'll be shouting your praises on it, eh, old Puddlebox? What was it you said as the sea came on to us? 'Well, we've had some rare times together, boy, since first you came down the road.'"
He suddenly cried: "I would to God—I would to God you might shake off this earth, these stones, and come to me face to face for one moment while I clasped your hand!"
So on to Whitecliffe. So to his pilgrimage there. Just such another day awaits him as on that day a year ago. Sunshine and clouded sun, as he walks the parade. Presage of rain, as on through Yexley Green to Whitehouse he goes. Whitehouse still stands empty; he walks the garden, looks through the windows, tries the door, treads again the rooms where last he had walked with her. "Jolly little Essie's room" this was to have been.... This was where he would write.... This was where wouldn't she keep him quiet just! ... She sat there while he told her...
Up the path to the cliff, along the cliff and past that place, paused long upon it, and on to Whitecliffe Church. Here is the churchyard. He knows all these old graves—he had peered here and here and here with Essie, puzzling their quaint inscriptions. It is for a new stone he looks. Yes, there is one. Three sides of the church he walks and only the old stones sees. Come to the porch, a new white cross confronts him. He goes to it. It is not hers! Sense tells him they would not have brought her here, would not have left her here. They would have taken her home. Yes, but that moment while he crossed the turf towards the cross, that moment while its letters came in view—and were not "Essie,"—has shaken him so that his limbs tremble, so that he must somewhere rest ... there is the porch.
A troop of noisy boys come through the gate, and then more boys by ones and twos. An old man who comes from within the church and looks out upon the churchyard for a moment remarks to him first that there is going to be a shower, then, calling out in reproof at a pair of the laughing boys, that it is choir-practice just going to begin. The old man returns to his duties; the last of the boys seem to have arrived: there are sounds within the church and premonitory notes of the organ; some heavy drops of the rain that has been threatening; then in a sudden stream the shower.
From where he sits he can see far up the road beyond the gate. He sees a group that had been approaching shelter beneath a distant tree. The downpour falls in a deluge that is fierce and short, passes and leaves the path in puddles, and with unnoting eyes he sees the group beneath the tree desert its shelter and come hurrying towards the church. The organ is playing now, voices swing in sudden volume of sound; unheeding, as with his eyes he is watching without seeing, he yet is subconsciously aware of the regular rise and fall of psalms.
With his eyes unseeing! They suddenly, as he watches, declare to him that which sets a drumming in his head, a snatching at his breath. The group has reached the gate. It is an old man drawing a wicker bath-chair, an old lady walking behind it. Drumming in his head; it passes; there succeeds to it a rocking of all the ground about his feet, a swimming, a receding, a swift approaching of all the land beyond the porch. That old man is opening the gate, turning his back to draw the bath-chair carefully through, revealing one that sits within it, coming on now ... coming on now ... closer and closer and closer...
This Mr. Wriford simply stands there. He doesn't do anything, and he doesn't say anything. He can't. You see, he has been through a good deal for a good long time. This is the end of a long passage for him. You know how weak he is. You probably despise him. Well, then, despise him now. He has no parts, no qualities, for this. He makes a bungling business of it. He has come to the doorway of the porch and simply stands there. They have seen him. They are staring at him. They are saying things. They are exclaiming. He doesn't hear. He just stands there....
Then he begins. He jolts down off the step of the porch. He stumbles along the few paces to the bath-chair. She that is seated there gives a kind of laugh and a kind of cry. He falls on his knees, kneeling in puddles, and puts his arms out, and takes her in them, and catches her to him, and buries his face against her, and holds her, holds her—and has nothing at all that he can say, not even her name.
Well, nor has she. She just has her arms about him.... When at last she speaks, Mr. and Mrs. Bickers have gone—into the church, or into the air, or into the ground—gone somewhere for some reason. And even then it is not at first speech but some odd little sound that she makes, and at that he looks up and she stoops to him—and there they are, her cheek against his cheek.
"My back's a fair old caution," says Essie then. "They don't think I'll ever walk again."
He stammers something about "I'll carry you, dear. I'll carry you."
Each in the other's arms, her cheek against his cheek.
"Just going to Whitehouse, we were," says Essie. "My goodness, if it hadn't rained and made us come for shelter!"
He says something about: "It's empty—it's still empty for us—Whitehouse."
Some one opens the church door. Young voices and music that have been muffled come streaming through towards them—
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord: or who shall rise up in his holy place?
Even he that hath clean hands and a pure heart: and that hath not lift up his mind unto vanity, nor sworn to deceive his neighbour.
A sound escapes him. He feels a sudden moisture from her face to his. The singing goes deeper; then with triumphant surge and sweep breaks out again:
"Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors...."
"What, are you crying too?" says Essie. "Aren't we a pair of us, though?"
THE END
By the author of "The Clean Heart"
THE HAPPY WARRIOR
By A. S. M. HUTCHINSON
Author of "The Clean Heart" and "Once aboardthe Lugger——"
Frontispiece $1.35 net.
The plot of "The Happy Warrior" is unusual, its love interest is sweet and pure, and there is a fight of which it is truthfully said that there is nothing more virile and tense in literature.
Shows the touch of the master hand ... Mr. Hutchinson is nothing if not original. His own strong individuality is apparent in his method and in his style.—New York Times.
Mr. Hutchinson has a newer and a better grasp of style, which manifests itself in clear, forcible English, and a really fine intermixture of humor and pathos. We have here a sweet and pure love story.—St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
"The Happy Warrior" is a remarkable publication ... Mr. Hutchinson establishes himself as a master of characterization, keen observer with a fine sense of the dramatic, and as fine a prose poet as we have had since Meredith.—Chicago Post.
A brilliant piece of work.... Its author takes his place at once among living novelists whose work is something more than a successful commercial product. "The Happy Warrior" establishes Mr. Hutchinson among the artists.—London Daily Telegraph.
... His romance and his humor are all his own, and the story is shot through and through with a fleeting romance and humor that is all the more effective because it is so evanescent. Few novels exist in which the characters are as viable as Mr. Hutchinson's.—Boston Transcript.
By the author of "The Clean Heart."
ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER——
By A. S. M. HUTCHINSON
Author of "The Clean Heart" and "The Happy Warrior."
327 pages. $1.30 net.
This is the novel that gave Mr. Hutchinson a conspicuous place among the younger English authors who have so recently achieved literary distinction. It is not a sea story, as its title would appear to indicate, but a delightful comedy of English life, containing the most romantic of love stories, written with such rare humor that it stands apart from the great mass of present-day fiction. It is a novel to read and reread, for through all the laughter and quaintness shines the reality of life.
At once serious in its mockery of seriousness and touched with genuine sentiment in its sympathy with the emotions of youth ... Altogether it is refreshing.—Everybody's Magazine.
A light, humorous and clever romance.... Mr. Hutchinson's name is new to American readers but he is a writer of parts. To the right readers it will be warmly welcomed.—Springfield Republican.
As real and dainty as anything which has been written for years. It is a book to please every sort of reader, for it is full of wit and wisdom. The best praise that one can write of it, however, is that after reading it you will want to own it, for a desire to reread parts of it is sure to come.—San Francisco Call.
It is written in the highest of high spirits, in a vein of persistent humor, and it moves along with an alertness and vivacity that is a perpetual joy to the reader. A new humorist as well as a new novelist has arisen in Mr. Hutchinson. He never fails to be entertaining. It is vitally and significantly human.—Boston Transcript.
LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON