Chapter XXXIV: The Widow

The full particulars of Mr. Meredith’s death and Mr. Meredith’s will came by the next mail; and this information acted as a kind of funeral ceremony and conclusion to the melancholy period. All his affairs were in order; his will unassailable, the provisions sufficiently just. There was more money than anyone expected, and it was divided into three unequal shares--the largest for his eldest son, the second for Edward, the least of all for their mother. This arrangement took them all by surprise, and it was with some little difficulty that Mrs. Meredith was brought to see how it affected herself. That there would be any difference to her had not occurred to her. She had thought only of her children. ‘They certainly will not be worse off than they have been,’ she said five minutes before the contents of the will were communicated to her; but any question as to how she herself would be affected had not entered her mind. Even after she had heard it she did not realise it.

‘I am afraid you will scarcely be able to keep up this house unless the boys stay with you, which is not to be expected,’ said old Mr. Sommerville.

She looked at him, taking her handkerchief from her eyes. ‘My house?’ she said, faltering. Mr. Beresford was present and one or two other old friends.

Oswald was playing with a paperknife, balancing it on his finger, and paying no attention. He was thinking of something else with a vague smile on his face. He was as rich almost as he had hoped--made an ‘eldest son’ of, in so far at least that his portion was the biggest; and he was thinking of a house of his own, taking no thought for his mother, and a wife of his own soon to be beguiled out of poke-bonnets and convent cloaks, yet all the more piquant from the comparison. Naturally this was more interesting to him than his mother, and the house that he had been used to for years. But Edward, who, whatever he was himself doing, managed somehow to see what Oswald was about, and who thought he knew what that preoccupation and absorption meant, interposed hastily. ‘Of course my mother will keep her house. It is quite unnecessary to enter into such questions. The economy of the household is unchanged,’ he said.

‘But, my lad, I don’t agree with you,’ said old Sommerville. ‘You may both take to chambers, your brother and you. Most young men do now-a-days, so far as I can see. I will not say whether it’s better for them, or worse for them. Anyhow, your mother must be on her own footing. You must not be dependent on the whimsies of a boy. I would advise you, my dear madam, to look out for a smaller house.’

‘A smaller house?’ she repeated again, in dismay. ‘Why a smaller house?’ Then her eyes fell upon Oswald. ‘Yes, I understand. Oswald will perhaps--marry. It is quite true; but I have lived in this house so long--I am used to it. I do not wish to change.’

‘You will not be able to afford it--on your income, madam,’ said old Sommerville, watching her keenly. He was fond of studying mankind, and to see how a fellow-creature encountered a change of fortune was keenly interesting to the old man.

She looked at him, opening her eyes wider with a curious gaze of surprise; then paused a moment, looking round her as if for some explanation. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘I begin to understand.’ Nobody spoke to her; the other two old friends who were present turned aside and talked to each other. Mr. Beresford looked over a photograph book as earnestly as if he hoped to find a fortune between the pages; only the old spy watched the new-made widow, the admired and beloved woman to whom in this distinct way it was becoming apparent that she had not been so much beloved after all.

And her face was worth a little study--there came over it a momentary gloom. She had been thinking with so much tender kindness of _him_; but he, it was evident, had been less tender in his thoughts of her. But then, he had died, and she lived. No doubt, if it had been she who had died, his mind too would have been softened, and his heart grown tender. The cloud lightened, a soft smile came into her eyes; and then two tears sprang quickly over the smile, because he had slighted her publicly in these last settlements; he had put her down willingly and consciously out of the position she had held as his wife. She felt this sting, for love and honour were the things she prized most. Then her courageous spirit roused up, and this time the smile descended softly, seriously, to touch her mouth.

‘What does it matter?’ she said, with her habitual sweetness. ‘My husband knew I had a little of my own. If I am not able to keep up this house, I must get another house, Mr. Sommerville, that I can keep up.’

‘Madam,’ said Mr. Sommerville, ‘that is the way to take it. I respect you for what you say; many a woman now would have raged at us that cannot help it, would have abused the maker of the will, and made a disturbance.’

‘Made a disturbance?’ said Mrs. Meredith. The smile brightened into a momentary laugh. It was the first time she had allowed herself to stray beyond the gloomy pale of memory which she considered her husband’s due. But the sound of her own laugh frightened her. She shrank a little, saying hastily, ‘Oh, Edward, my dear boy, forgive me!’ He was not her favourite son, or at least he had thought so; but he was the one to whom she clung now.

‘I thought you knew my mother,’ said Edward, proudly, ‘after knowing her so long. That is all; is it not? We can settle among ourselves about houses, &c. I think my mother has had enough of it now.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘oh, no; whatever ought to be done, I am quite able for; if there is any stipulation as to what I must do, or about the boys--if the boys should marry; but to be sure they are of age, they are their own masters,’ she added, with once more a faint smile. ‘Whether their mother is considered wise enough--oh, Edward! no, I am in earnest. Perhaps there is some task for me, something to do.’

This was the only little resentment she showed; and even the sharp-witted old Sommerville scarcely took it for resentment. The friends took luncheon with the family at an early hour, and departed, carrying away the unnecessary papers, and leaving everything as it had been; the blinds were all drawn up, the sunshine coming in as usual. Oswald, with his hat brushed to a nicety and his cigars in his pocket, went out just as usual. The usual subdued domestic sounds were in the house, and in the course of the afternoon four or five visitors were allowed to come in. Everything was as it had been; only Mrs. Meredith’s pretty ribbons, all soft in tint as in texture, her dove-coloured gown, her lace, her Indian shawls and ornaments, were all put away, and crape reigned supreme. There was no further conversation on the subject until after dinner, when Edward and his mother were alone. Oswald was dining with one of his friends; it was hard to hold him to the etiquette of ‘bereavement.’ ‘Besides,’ Mrs. Meredith said, ‘no one thinks of these rules with a young man.’

‘It will be strange to have to leave this house,’ she said, when the servants had left the dining-room. ‘It was the first house I had in England, when I brought you home. Some people thought the country would have been best; but I liked the protection of a town, and to see my friends, and to be near a good doctor; for you were delicate, Edward, when you were a child.’

‘Who, I, mother? I don’t look much like it now.’

‘No, heaven be praised--but you were delicate; two little white-faced things you were, with India written in your little pale cheeks. That was the first thing that brought me home. You could not have stayed in India; and then the question was, Edward, to leave your father, or to leave you--and, oh--you seemed to have so much more need of me!’

‘Do not go over the question again, mother. You did not do it, I am sure, without thought. Let us think of the future now. You are to stay in the house you like, and which is all the home I have ever known; as for a smaller house, or for what you are able to afford, that is simple nonsense. It appears I have a separate income now, not merely an allowance. You don’t mean to turn me out, do you, to the streets?’

‘My dear boy!--of course, wherever I have a roof, there is a place for you.’

‘Very well, mother; this is the place. You don’t want me to go off and live in chambers?’

‘Not unless--you think it necessary; unless--you would like it better, Edward. Oh, I hope not, my dear!’

‘So do I,’ he said, smiling. ‘I hope you don’t mean to turn me out for the sake of something you can afford. We must live together, mother, you and I. I can’t be idle; you know, I must do something; and all the pleasure I shall ever get out of life,’ he added, with the solemnity of youthful conviction, ‘will be to find my home always the same--and my mother. I look for no other happiness.’

‘My dear,’ she said, ‘that is all very well at present, till you see someone who is dearer to you than either your mother or your home. That will come some time; but in the meantime, dear----’

‘The meantime will be always, mother--the other time will never come.’

Mrs. Meredith gave him a sudden look--then checked herself when about to say something, sighed a little, and made a pause; and then she began to talk on another subject between which and this there seemed little connection, though Edward perceived the connection easily enough.

‘We shall have it all to ourselves apparently,’ she said, with a faint smile. ‘Oswald, I suppose, will be thinking of a house for himself; and why should he wait? There is no reason why he should wait. To be sure, they are young. Has he said anything to you, Edward?’

‘Nothing, mother.’

‘Well; they must have their reasons, I presume. One does not like to be left quite out; but it is the thing one ought to expect as one gets old. Old people are supposed not to sympathise with youth. It is a mistake, Edward--a great pity; but I suppose it will be the same as long as the world lasts. I did the same, no doubt, when I was young too.’

He made no reply. So sure as he was that he never could have such secrets to communicate, how could he say anything? and she went on.

‘I am not finding fault with Oswald. He has always been a good boy--both of you,’ she said, smiling upon him. ‘You have never given me any great anxiety. And everything has turned out well hitherto. They will have plenty of money; but so long as Oswald does not say anything, how can I speak to her father, as I should like to do? Men do not notice such things; and it seems uncandid with so good a friend; but till Oswald speaks--I hope he will be an attentive husband, Edward. He will be kind; but there are many little attentions that a fanciful girl expects--and feels the want of when they fail her.’

Edward said nothing to all this; how could he? He winced, but bore it stoutly, though he could not make any reply. It was better to accustom himself to have it talked about; but he could not himself enter upon the subject. ‘Will you mind if I leave this evening, for a little?’ he said.

‘No, dear; certainly not--but, Edward,’ she said, coming round to him as she rose from the table, and laying her hand on his arm, ‘are you sure it is good for you, my dear boy? are you not making it harder for yourself?’

‘Let me alone, mother--so long as I can,’ he said, hoarsely. ‘No; it does not make it harder; and it can’t last long now.’

‘No--there is no reason why they should wait. I wish--I wish he may not be a careless husband, Edward. Why should he spend all his evenings away? There is something in it I cannot understand.’

‘He has always been the happy one, mother. Whatever he has wished for has come to him. He does not know what it is to be so fortunate--nothing has cost him any trouble--not even this.’

‘Still, he should not be away every evening,’ said the mother, shaking her head; and she drew him down to her and kissed his cheek tenderly. ‘_My_ boy! we must comfort each other,’ she said, with soft tears in her eyes. Her heart bled for him in the troubles she divined, and she was one of the women who never lose their interest in the trials of youthful love. Yet, sympathetic as she was, she smiled too as she went upstairs. He thought this would last for ever--that he would never change his mind, nor suffer a new affection to steal into his heart. She smiled a little, and shook her head all by herself. How short-lived were their nevers and for evers! She went up to the drawing-room, where she had spent so many quiet evenings, pleased to think that her boys were happy, though they were not with her; where she had thought of them at school, at college, in all the different places they had passed through, trying to follow them in her thoughts, anxiously wondering what they were doing, often pausing to breathe out a brief, silent prayer for them in the midst of her knitting, or when she closed her book for a moment. This had become so habitual to her, that she would do it almost without thinking. ‘Oh, bless my boys; keep them from evil!’--between how many sentences of how many books--in the pauses of how many conversations--woven through and through how many pieces of wool, had those simple supplications gone!

By-and-by she heard the door close of the next house, the bell ring in her own, the familiar step on the stair, and the neighbour came in and took his usual place. They sat on each side of the fireplace, in which still glimmered a little fire, though the season was warm. It irked her that she could not continue with him the conversation she had been having with Edward; but till Oswald spoke what could she say? and they had plenty to talk about.

‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘if it was a bad dream when I was sent away--not knowing why, or where to go?’

‘Where were you going? I never wished it. How I should have missed you now! It is in trouble that we want our friends most. Edward has been so good and kind. He says he will never leave me; that we must live together. And he thinks he will always think so--poor boy! I have not the heart to tell him that he will soon change.’

‘Why should he change? He may search far enough before he will find such another home. If I were he, I would not change either. He is more to be trusted than Oswald.’

‘Oh, you are mistaken. My boy is----’

‘I am not saying ill of him. If I ever wish to do that, I will not come to his mother with it. But Oswald thinks more of himself. Where is he to-night? He has left you alone, to bear all your loneliness, to think over everything.’

‘You know I never taught my children that they were to keep by me. I might have liked it, but I did not think it right. They are very, very good; but no one can upbraid me with keeping them at my apron-strings.’

‘That is one thing I object to in women,’ said Mr. Beresford. ‘The most sensible are so sensitive about those wretched little things that people say. What does it matter what people say who know nothing? Do you think a club is so much better than your apron-strings, as you call them? Why should you care for such vulgar reproach?’

‘I don’t know why; we are made so, I suppose; and if women are sensitive, you must know the best of men will talk about our apron-strings; when all we are thinking of is what is best for the children--trembling, perhaps, and wondering what is best--giving all our hearts to it--some careless fool will spoil all we are planning with his old joke about our apron-strings--or some wise man will do it. It is all the same. But, never mind; I have locked up all my tremblings in my own mind, and left them free.’

‘And you have not repented? You have more confidence in them now than if you had been less brave. But I wish Oswald had stayed at home with you to-night.’

‘Oh, you must not blame Oswald,’ she cried, doubly anxious not to have her son blamed, and not to allow Cara’s father to conceive any prejudice against him. ‘It is in the evening he sees his friends; he is always ready when I want him--during the day. It would not be good for the boy to let him shut himself up. Indeed, it is my own doing,’ said Mrs. Meredith, smiling upon him, with one of those serene and confident lies which the sternest moralist cannot condemn.

Mr. Beresford shook his head a little; but he could not undeceive the mother about her son, any more than she could confess how well she was aware of all Oswald’s selfishnesses. They were selfishnesses, to be sure; or, at least, the outside world would naturally call them so. To her the boy’s conduct bore a different appearance. He thought of himself--this was how she explained it. And how natural that was for anyone so watched over and cared for as he had been! Was it not, indeed, her fault, who had always supplied every want, satisfied every wish she knew of, and trained him, so to speak, to have everything his own way, and to think that every other way should yield to his? It was _her_ fault; and as he grew older, and his mind enlarged, he would grow out of it. This, though with an uneasy twinge now and then, Mrs. Meredith believed, and though as clear-sighted as anyone to her boy’s faults, thought less hardly, and perhaps more truly, of them than strangers did. But there was a little pause after this, and a sense in her mind that she had not convinced this critic, who considered himself more clear-sighted than Oswald’s mother, and internally half pitied, had smiled at her blindness. If critics in general only knew! for who is so sharp-sighted to all these imperfections as the parent who thus endeavours to convince them of the excellence of a child!

‘Edward gives up India, then!’ said Mr. Beresford. ‘I do not wonder; but it is a fine career, and with his connections and antecedents----’

Mrs. Meredith gave a little shiver. ‘Do you think he should still go?’ she asked, anxiously. ‘Indeed, I have not persuaded him. I have held my tongue. And he never liked the idea. He did it for duty only. But he does not mean to sink into idleness--he will work here.’

‘At what will he work? The Bar? Every young man I ever meet is going to the Bar. There will soon be nobody left to make the necessary mischief, and provide work for them. But if a man wants a fine career, India is the place. You are going to stay in this house, notwithstanding your old adviser?’

‘It does not matter to me,’ she said. ‘I can be as happy in one house as another. It is Edward who wishes it.’

‘And then, if he sees someone he likes--and marries, and leaves you in the lurch? Boys who are independent so young are sure to marry young.’

She shook her head. ‘Ah! how I wish it might be so! I would forgive him for leaving me--if only my boy was happy.’

Mr. Beresford got up, and walked about the room. It was nothing extraordinary, but only a way he had, and did not suggest to his friend any _accès_ of excitement.

‘You think marriage, then, so much the happiest condition?’ he said.

Mrs. Meredith made a pause before she replied. ‘Is that the question? How can I answer at my age, and in--the circumstances you know. We have not to settle abstract happiness. Feelings of that kind die out, and I am not the person to speak. I think a woman--at one time of life--loves her children more than ever she loved _man_.’

‘Some women----’

‘But it is not marrying in the abstract. My boy would be happy if he could get--what he wants. But he never will get that,’ she added, with a sigh.

‘What is so tragic about Edward’s love affairs?’ he asked, half laughing; ‘is it ever so serious at two-and-twenty?’

‘Ah, you laugh! but you would not have laughed, at his age, if you had seen someone you were fond of secured by--another--who was not half so true a lover perhaps; or, at least, you thought so.’

‘No,’ he said, growing grave. ‘That was different, certainly.’ And the mind of the man travelled suddenly off, like a flash of lightning, back to the flowery land of youth, that lay so far behind. The mind of the woman took no such journey. Her love had ended, not in the anguish of a death parting, but in estrangement, and coldness, and indifference. She remained where she was, thinking only, with a sigh, how willingly she would give a bit of her life, if she could--a bit of her very heart--to get happiness for her boy; yet believing that to make one happy would be to ruin the other, and standing helpless between the two. This was the only complication in her mind. But in this the complications were many. Why did she say this, and send him back to the days of young romance and passion? just when his mind was full of the calmer affections and expedients of middle age, and the question whether--to secure such a tender companion as herself, whom he loved in a way, and whose absence impoverished life beyond bearing--he should endeavour to return into the traditions of the other love which was past for him as for her. Was it her friendly, gentle hand, so unconscious of what he was meditating, that put him thus back at a touch into the old enchanted world, and showed him so plainly the angel at the gates of that faded, unfading Paradise; an angel, not with any naming sword, but with the stronger bar of soft uplifted hands! Impossible! So it was--and yet what else could be?