Potterism Part 13

'My poor little girl,' I murmured. 'Cry, darling. Cry, and you will feel better.'

Clare was always more obedient than Jane. She did cry. She broke suddenly into the most terrible pa.s.sion of tears. I tried to hold her, but she pulled away from me and laid her head upon her arms and sobbed.

I stayed beside her and comforted her as best I could, and finally went to Jane's medicine cupboard and mixed her a dose of sal volatile.

When she was a little quieter, I said, 'Tell me nothing more than you feel inclined to, darling. But if it would make you happier to talk to me about it, do.'

'I c-can't talk about it,' she sobbed.

'My poor pet!... Did it happen after you got here, or before?'

I felt her stiffen and grow tense, as at a dreadful memory.

'After.... But I was in my room; I wasn't there.'

'You heard the fall, I suppose....'

She shuddered, and nodded.

'And you came out....' I helped her gently, 'as Jane did, and found him....'

She burst out crying afresh. I almost wished I had not suggested this outlet for her horror and grief.

'Don't, mother,' she sobbed. 'I can't talk about it--I can't.'

'My pet, of course you can't, and you shan't. It was thoughtless of me to think that speech would be a relief. Lie down on your bed, dear, and have a good rest, and you will feel better presently.'

But she opposed that too.

'I can't stay here. I want to go home _at once. At once_, mother.'

'My dearest child, you must wait for me. I can't let you go alone in this state, and I can't, of course, go myself until Jane is ready to come with me.'

'I'm going,' she repeated. 'I can go alone. I'm going now, at once.'

And she began feverishly cramming her things into her suit-case.

I was anxious about her, but I did not like to thwart her in her present mood. Then I heard Frank's voice in the drawing-room, and I thought I would get him to accompany her, at least to the station. Frank and Clare have always been fond of one another, and she has a special reliance on clergymen.

I went into the drawing-room, and found Frank and Johnny both there, with Jane and Percy. So that dreadful Jew must have gone.

I told Frank that Clare was in a terrible state, and entrusted her to his care. Frank is a good unselfish brother, and he went to look after her.

Johnny, silent and troubled, and looking as if death was out of his line, though, Heaven knows, he had seen enough of it during the last five years, was fidgeting awkwardly about the room. His awkwardness was, no doubt, partly due to the fact that he had never much cared for Oliver.

This does make things awkward, in the presence of the Great Silencer.

Percy had to leave us now, in order to go to the _Haste_ and see about things there. He said he would be back in the afternoon. He would, of course, take over the business of making the last sad arrangements, which Jane called, rather crudely, 'seeing about the funeral'; the twins would always call spades 'spades.'

Presently I made the suggestion which I had for some time had in my mind.

'May I, dear?' I asked very softly, half rising.

Jane rose, too.

'See Oliver, you mean? Oh, yes. He's in his room.'

I motioned her back. 'Not you, darling. Johnny will take me.'

Johnny didn't want to much, I think; it is the sort of strain on the emotions that he dislikes, but he came with me.

8

What had been Oliver lay on the bed, stretched straight out, the beautiful face as white and delicate as if modelled in wax. One saw no marks of injury; except for that waxy pallor he might have been sleeping.

In the presence of the Great White Silence I bowed my head and wept. He was so beautiful, and had been so alive. I said so to Johnny.

'He was so alive,' I said, 'so short a time ago.'

'Yes,' Johnny muttered, staring down at the bed, his hands in his pockets. 'Yesterday, of course. Rotten bad luck, poor old chap. Rotten way to get pipped.'

For a minute longer I kept my vigil beside that inanimate form.

'Peace, peace, he is not dead,' I repeated to myself. 'He sleeps whom men call dead.... The soul of Adonais, like a star, beckons from the abode where the eternal are.'

Death is wonderful to me; not a horrible thing, but holy and high. Here was the lovely mortal sh.e.l.l, for which 'arrangements' had to be made; but the spirit which had informed it was--where? In what place, under what conditions, would Oliver Hobart now fulfil himself, now carry on the work so faithfully begun on earth? What word would he be able to send us from that Place of Being? Time would (I hoped) show.

As we stood there in the shadow of the Great Mystery, I heard Frank talking to Clare, whose room was next door.

'It is wrong to give way.... One must not grieve for the dead as if one would recall them. We know--you and I know, don't we, Clare--that they are happier where they are. And we know too, that it is G.o.d's will, and that He decides everything for the best. We must not rebel against it.... If you really want to catch the 12.4 to Potter's Bar, we ought to start now.'

Conventional phraseology! It would never have been adequate for me; I am afraid I have an incurable habit of rebelling against the orthodox dogma beloved of clergymen, but Clare is more docile, less 'tameless and swift and proud.'

I touched Johnny's arm. 'Let us come away,' I murmured.

Clare, her face beneath her veil swollen with crying, went off with Frank, who was going to see her into the train. I, of course, was going to stop with Jane until the funeral, as she called it; I would not leave her alone in the house. So I asked Frank if Peggy would go down to Potter's Bar and be with Clare, who was certainly not fit for solitude, poor child, until my return. Peggy is a dear, cheerful girl, if limited, and she and Clare have always been great friends. Frank said he was sure Peggy would do this, and I went back to Jane, who was writing necessary letters in the drawing-room.

Johnny said to her, 'Well, if you're sure I can't be any use just now, old thing, I suppose I ought to go to the office,' and Jane said, 'Yes, don't stay. There's nothing,' and he went.

I offered to help Jane with the letters, but she said she could easily manage them, and I thought the occupation might be the best thing for her, so I left her to it and went down to speak to Emily, Jane's nice little maid. Emily is a good little thing, and she was obviously terribly, though not altogether unpleasantly, shocked and stirred (maids are) by the tragedy.

She told me much more about the terrible evening than Jane or Clare had.

It was less effort, of course, for her to speak. Indeed, I think she really enjoyed opening out to me. And I liked to hear. I always must get a clear picture of events: I suppose it is the story-writer's instinct.

'I went up to bed, my lady,' she said, 'feeling a bit lonely now cook's on her holiday, soon after Miss Clare came in. And I was just off to sleep when I heard Mrs. Hobart come in, with Mr. Gideon; they were talking as they came up to the drawing-room, and that woke me up.'

'Mr. Gideon!' I exclaimed in surprise. 'Was he there?'

'Yes, my lady. He came in with Mrs. Hobart. I knew it was him, by his voice. And soon after the master came in, and they was all talking together. And then I heard the mistress come upstairs to her bedroom. And then I dozed off, and I was woke by the fall.... Oh, dear, my lady, how I did scream when I came down and saw.... There was the poor master laying on the bottom stair, stunned-like, as I thought, I'm sure I never knew he was gone, and the mistress and Miss Clare bending over him, and the mistress calling to me to telephone for the doctor. The poor mistress, she was so white, I thought she'd go off, but she kept up wonderful; and Miss Clare, she was worse, all scared and white, as if she'd seen a ghost. I rang for Dr. Armes, and he came round at once, and I got hot-water bottles and put them in the bed, but the doctor wouldn't move him for a bit, he examined him where he lay, and he found the back was broke. He told the mistress straight out. "His back's broke," he said.