Chapter XXXI: The House of Mourning

The news which had produced so sudden and startling an effect upon the inmates of No. 7 had been known early in the morning of the same day to the inmates of No. 8. This it was which had prevented either of the young men from paying their ordinary visits; but the wonder was that no rumour should have reached at least the kitchen of Mr. Beresford’s house of the sad news which had arrived next door. Probably the reason was that the servants were all fully occupied, and had no time for conversation. The news had come early, conveyed by Mr. Sommerville personally, and by post from the official head-quarters, for Mr. Meredith was a civil servant of standing and distinction. There was nothing extraordinary or terrible in it. He had been seized with one of the rapid diseases of the climate, and had succumbed like so many other men, leaving everything behind him settled and in order. It was impossible that a well-regulated and respectable household could have been carried on with less reference to the father of the children, and nominal master of the house, than Mrs. Meredith’s was; but perhaps this was one reason why his loss fell upon them all like a thunderbolt. Dead! no one had ever thought of him as a man who could die. The event brought him near them as with the rapidity of lightning. Vaguely in their minds, or at least in the wife’s mind, there had been the idea of some time or other making up to him for that long separation and estrangement--how, she did not inquire, and when, she rather trembled to think of, but some time. The idea of writing a kinder letter than usual to him had crossed her mind that very morning. They did not correspond much; they had mutually found each other incompatible, unsuitable, and lately Mrs. Meredith had been angry with the distant husband, who had been represented as disapproving of her. But this morning, no later, some thrill of more kindly feeling had moved her. She had realised all at once that it might be hard for him to be alone in the world, and without that solace of the boys, which from indifference, or from compunction, he had permitted her to have without interference all these years. She had thought that after all it was cruel, after such a long time, to deny him a share in his own children, and she had resolved, being in a serious mood and agitated state of mind, to make the sacrifice, or to attempt to make the sacrifice more freely, and to write to him to express her gratitude to him for leaving her both the boys so long; had not he a right to them no less than hers?--in the eye of nature no less, and in the eye of the law more. Yet he had been generous to her, and had never disputed her possession of her children. These were the softening thoughts that had filled her mind before she came downstairs. And no sooner had she come down than the news arrived. He was dead. When those die who are the most beloved and cherished, the best and dearest, that calamity which rends life asunder and overclouds the world for us, has seldom in it the same sickening vertigo of inappropriateness which makes the soul sick when someone essentially earthly is suddenly carried away into the unseen, with which he seems to have had nothing to do all his previous life. He! _dead!_ a man so material, of the lower earth. What could dying be to him? What connection had he with the mystery and solemnity of the unseen? The vulgar and commonplace awe us more at these dread portals than the noble or great. What have they to do there? What had a man like Mr. Meredith to do there? Yet he had gone, no one knowing, and accomplished that journey which classes those who have made it, great and small, with the gods. A hundred discordant thoughts entered into his wife’s mind--compunction, and wonder, and solemn trembling. Could he have known what she had been thinking that morning? Was it some dumb approach of his soul to hers which had aroused these more tender thoughts? Had he been aware of all that had gone on in her mind since the time when, she knowing of it, he had died? Nature has always an instinctive certainty, whatever philosophy may say against it, and however little religion may say in favour of it, that this sacred and mysterious event of death somehow enlarges and expands the being of those who have passed under its power. Since we lost them out of our sight, it seems so necessary to believe that they see through us more than ever they did, and know what is passing within the hearts to which they were kindred. Why should the man, who living had concerned himself so little about what his wife did, _know_ now instantaneously all about it, having died? She could not have given a reason, but she felt it to be so. The dark ocean, thousands of miles of it, what was that to an emancipated soul? He had died in India; but he was there, passing mysteriously through the doors, standing by her, ‘putting things into her head,’ in this corner of England. Which of us has not felt the same strange certainty? All at once the house seemed full of him, even to the children, who had scarcely known him. He was dead; passed into a world which mocks at distance, which knows nothing of fatigue. He was as God in some mysterious way, able to be everywhere, able to influence the living unconsciously, seeing, hearing them--simply because he was dead, and had become to mortal vision incapable of either seeing or hearing more.

There is nothing more usual than to rail at the dreadful and often unduly prolonged moment between death and the final ceremonial which clears us away from cumbering the living soil any longer; but this moment is often a blessing to the survivors. In such a case as this ‘the bereaved family’ did not know what to do. How were they to gain that momentary respite from the common round? If the blinds were drawn down, and the house shut up, according to the usual formula, that would be purely fictitious; for of course he had been buried long ago. Edward paused with the shutter in his hand when about to close it, struck by this reflection, and Oswald gave vent to it plainly--‘What’s the good? he’s in his grave long ago.’ Mrs. Meredith had retired to her room on the receipt of the news, where her maid took her her cup of tea; and the young men sat down again, and ate their breakfast, as it were under protest, ashamed of themselves for the good appetites they had, and cutting off here and there a corner of their usual substantial meal, to prove to themselves that they were not quite without feeling. What were they to do to make the fact evident that they had just heard of their father’s death, and to separate this day, which was to them as the day of his death, from other days? They were very much embarrassed to know how they were to manage this. To abstain altogether from their usual occupations was the only thing which instinctively occurred to them. They sat down after breakfast was over, as though it had been a doubly solemn dolorous Sunday, on which they could not even go to church. Edward was doubtful even about _The Times_, and Oswald hesitated about going to his smoking-room as usual. A cigar seemed a levity when there was a death in the house. On the whole, however, it was Oswald who settled the matter most easily, for he began a copy of verses, ‘To the memory of my Father,’ which was a very suitable way indeed of getting through the first hours, and amusing too.

The house was very still all the morning, and then there was another subdued meal. Meals are a great thing to fall back upon when young persons of healthful appetite, not broken down by grief, feel themselves compelled to decorous appearance of mourning. By this time Oswald and Edward both felt that not to eat was an absurd way of doing honour to their dead father, and accordingly they had an excellent luncheon; though their mother still ‘did not feel able,’ her maid reported, to come down. After this the two young men went out together to take a walk. This, too, was a kind of solemn Sabbatical exercise, which they had not taken in the same way since they were boys at school together. When they met any acquaintance, one of them would bow formally, or stretch out a hand to be shaken, passing on, too grave for talk, while the other paused to explain the ‘bad news’ they had received. When it was a friend of Oswald’s, Edward did this, and when it was Edward’s friend, Oswald did it. This little innocent solemn pantomime was so natural and instinctive that it impressed everyone more or less, and themselves most of all. They began to feel a certain importance in their position, enjoying the sympathy, the kind and pitying looks of all they met as they strolled along slowly arm-in-arm. They had not been so much united, or felt so strong a connection with each other, for years. Then they began to discuss in subdued tones the probable issues. ‘Will it change our position?’ Edward asked.

‘I think not, unless to better it,’ said Oswald. ‘I don’t think you need go to India now unless you like.’

He had just said this, when they were both addressed by someone coming up behind them, as hasty and business-like as they were languid and solemn.

‘I say, can you tell me whereabouts the India Office is?’ said the new comer. ‘Good-morning. I shouldn’t have disturbed you but that I remembered you were going to India too. I’m in for my last Exam., that is, I shall be directly, and I’ve got something to do at the India Office; but the fact is, I don’t know where to go.’

It was Edward who directed him, Oswald standing by holding his brother’s arm. Roger Burchell was very brisk, looking better than usual in the fresh spring sunshine, and Oswald’s eye was caught by his face, which was like someone he had seen recently--he could not remember where--the ruddy, mellow, warmly-toned complexion, brown eyes, and dusky gold of the hair. Who was it? Roger, being out of his depth in London, was glad to see faces he knew, even though he loved them little; and then he had heard that Cara was to return to the Hill, and felt that he had triumphed, and feared them no more.

‘I hope your neighbours are well?’ he said. ‘They are coming back, I hear, to the country. I suppose they don’t care for London after being brought up in a country place? I should not myself.’

‘Mr. Beresford is going abroad,’ said Edward, coldly.

‘Everybody is going abroad, I think; but few people so far as we are. I don’t think I should care for the Continent--just the same old thing over and over; but India should be all fresh. You are going to India too, ain’t you? at least, that is what I heard.’

‘I am not sure,’ said Edward. ‘The truth is, we have had very bad news this morning. My father died at Calcutta----’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ said Roger, who had kind feelings. ‘I should not have stopped you had I known; I thought you both looked grave. I am very sorry. I hope you don’t mind----?’

‘Don’t mind my father’s death?’

‘Oh, I mean don’t mind my having stopped you. Perhaps it was rude; but I said to myself, “Here is someone I know.” Don’t let me detain you now. I am very sorry, but I wish you were coming to India,’ said Roger, putting out his big fist to shake hands. Oswald eluded the grip, but Edward took it cordially. He was not jealous of Roger, but divined in him an unfortunate love like his own.

‘Poor fellow!’ Edward said as they went on.

‘Poor fellow!--why poor fellow? he is very well off. He is the very sort of man to get on; he has no feelings, no sensitiveness, to keep him back.’

‘It is scarcely fair to decide on such slight acquaintance that he has no feelings; but he is going to India.’

‘Ned, you are a little bit of a fool, though you’re a clever fellow. Going to India is the very best thing a man can do. My mother has always made a fuss about it.’

‘And yourself----’

‘Myself! I am not the sort of fellow. I am no good. I get dead beat; but you that are all muscle and sinew, and that have no tie except my mother----’

‘That to be sure,’ said Edward with a sigh, and he wondered did his brother now at last mean to be confidential and inform him of the engagement with Cara? His heart began to beat more quickly. How different that real sentiment was from the fictitious one which they had both been playing with! Edward’s breath came quickly. Yes, it would be better to know it--to get it over; and then there would be no further uncertainty; but at the same time he was afraid--afraid both of the fact and of Oswald’s way of telling it. If Cara’s name was spoken with levity, how should he be able to bear it? Needless to say, however, that Oswald had no intention of talking about Cara, and nothing to disclose on that subject at least.

‘You that have no tie--except my mother,’ repeated Oswald, ‘(and of course she would always have me), I would think twice before I gave up India. It’s an excellent career, nothing better. The governor (poor old fellow) did very well, I have always heard, and you would do just as well, or more so, with the benefit of his connection. I wonder rather that my mother kept us out of the Indian set, except the old Spy. Poor old man, I daresay he will be cut up about this. He’ll know better than anyone,’ continued Oswald, with a change of tone, ‘what arrangements have been made.’

‘I wonder if it will be long before we can hear?’ Thus they went on talking in subdued tones, the impression gradually wearing off, and even the feeling of solemn importance--the sense that, though not unhappy, they ought to conduct themselves with a certain gravity of demeanour becoming sons whose father was just dead. They had no very distinct impression about the difference to be made in their own future, and even Oswald was not mercenary in the ordinary sense of the word. He thought it would be but proper and right that he should be made ‘an eldest son;’ but he did not think it likely--and in that case, though he would be absolutely independent, he probably would not be very rich--not rich enough to make work on his own part unnecessary. So the excitement on this point was mild. They could not be worse off than they were--that one thing he was sure of, and for the rest, one is never sure of anything. By this time they had reached the region of Clubs. Oswald thought there was nothing out of character in just going in for half an hour to see the papers. A man must see the papers whoever lived or died. When the elder brother unbent thus far, the younger brother went home. He found his mother still in her own room taking a cup of tea. She had been crying, for her eyes were red, and she had a shawl wrapped round her, the chill of sudden agitation and distress having seized upon her. Mr. Meredith’s picture, which had not hitherto occupied that place of honour, had been placed above her mantelpiece, and an old Indian box, sweet with the pungent odour of the sandal-wood, stood on the little table at her elbow. ‘I was looking over some little things your dear papa gave me, long before you were born,’ she said, with tears in her voice. ‘Oh, my poor John!’

‘Mother, you must not think me unfeeling; but I knew so little of him.’

‘Yes, that was true--yes, that was true. Oh, Edward, I have been asking myself was it my fault? But I could not live in India, and he was so fond of it. He was always well. He did not understand how anyone could be half killed by the climate. I never should have come home but for the doctors, Edward.’

She looked at him so appealingly that Edward felt it necessary to take all the responsibility unhesitatingly upon himself. ‘I am sure you did not leave him as long as you could help it, mother.’

‘No, I did not--that is just the truth--as long as I could help it; but it does seem strange that we should have been parted for so much of our lives. Oh, what a comfort it is, Edward, to feel that whatever misunderstanding there might be, he knows all and understands everything _now_!’

‘With larger, other eyes than ours,’ said Edward piously, and the boy believed it in the confidence of his youth. But how the narrow-minded commonplace man who had been that distinguished civil servant, John Meredith, should all at once have come to this godlike greatness by the mere fact of dying, neither of them could have told. Was it nature in them that asserted it to be so? or some prejudice of education and tradition so deeply woven into their minds that they did not know it to be anything but nature? But be it instinct or be it prejudice, what more touching sentiment ever moved a human bosom? He had not been a man beloved in his life; but he was as the gods now.

By-and-by, however--for reverential and tender as this sentiment was, it was neither love nor grief, and could not pretend to the dominion of these monarchs of the soul--the mother and son fell into talk about secondary matters. She had sent for her dressmaker about her mourning, and given orders for as much crape as could be piled upon one not gigantic female figure, and asked anxiously if the boys had done their part--had got the proper depth of hatbands, the black studs, &c., that were wanted. ‘I suppose you may have very dark grey for the mourning; but it must be _very_ dark,’ she said.

‘And you, mother, must you wear that cap--that mountain of white stuff?’

‘Certainly, my dear,’ said Mrs. Meredith with fervour. ‘You don’t think I would omit any sign of respect? And what do I care whether it is becoming or not? Oh, Edward, your dear papa has a right to all that we can do to show respect.’

There was a faltering in her lip as of something more she had to say, but decorum restrained her. That first day nothing ought to be thought of, nothing should be mentioned, she felt, in which consolation had a part. But when the night came after that long, long day, which they all felt to be like a year, the secret comfort in her heart came forth as she bade her boy good-night. ‘Edward, oh, I wish you had gone years ago, when you might have been a comfort to him! but now that there is no need----’ Here she stopped and kissed him, and looked at him with a smile in her wet eyes, which, out of ‘respect,’ she would no more have suffered to come to her lips than she would have worn pink ribbons in her cap, and said quickly, ‘You need not go to India now.’

This was the blessing with which she sent him away from her. She cried over it afterwards, in penitence looking at her husband’s portrait, which had been brought out of a corner in the library downstairs. Poor soul, it was with a pang of remorse that she felt she was going to be happy in her widow’s mourning. If she could have restrained herself, she would have kept in these words expressive of a latent joy which came by means of sorrow. She stood and looked at the picture with a kind of prayer for pardon in her heart--Oh, forgive me! with once more that strange confidence that death had given the attributes of God to the man who was dead. If he was near, as she felt him to be, and could hear the breathing of that prayer in her heart, then surely, as Edward said, it was with ‘larger, other eyes’ that he must look upon her, understanding many things which up to his last day he had not been able to understand.

But they were all very glad when the day was over--that first day which was not connected with the melancholy business or presence of death which ‘the family’ are supposed to suffer from so deeply, yet which proves a kind of chapel and seclusion for any grief which is not of the deepest and most overwhelming kind. The Merediths would have been glad even of a mock funeral, a public assuming of the trappings of woe, a distinct period after which life might be taken up again. But there was nothing at all to interrupt their life, and the whole affair remained unauthentic and strange to them. Meanwhile, in the house next door these strange tidings had made a sudden tumult. The packings had been stopped. The servants were angry at their wasted trouble; the ladies both silenced and startled, with thoughts in their minds less natural and peaceful than the sympathy for Mrs. Meredith, which was the only feeling they professed. As for Mr. Beresford himself, it would be difficult to describe his feelings, which were of a very strange and jumbled character. He was glad to have the bondage taken off his own movements, and to feel that he was free to go where he pleased, to visit as he liked; and the cause of his freedom was not really one which moved him to sorrow though it involved many curious and uncomfortable questions. How much better the unconscious ease of his feelings had been before anyone had meddled! but now so many questions were raised! Yet his mind was relieved of that necessity of immediate action which is always so disagreeable to a weak man. Yes, his mind was entirely relieved. He took a walk about his room, feeling that by-and-by it would be his duty to go back again to Mrs. Meredith’s drawing-room to ask what he could do for her, and give her his sympathy. Not to-night, but soon; perhaps even to-morrow. The cruel pressure of force which had been put upon him, and which he had been about to obey by the sacrifice of all his comforts, relaxed and melted away. It was a relief, an undeniable relief; but yet it was not all plain-sailing--the very relief was an embarrassment too.