She gave him her hand, and hurried away. Even in his wretchedness, Wilfrid could not but follow her with his eyes, and feel something like a blessing upon her strong and tender womanhood.
Fortunate fellow, who had laid behind him thus much of his earthly journey without one day of grave suffering. Ah, something he should have sacrificed to the envious gods, some lesser joy, that the essential happiness of his life might be spared him. Wilfrid had yet to learn that every sun which rises for us in untroubled sky is a portent of inevitable gloom, that nature only prolongs our holiday to make the journey-work of misery the harder to bear. He had enjoyed the way of his will from childhood upwards; he had come to regard himself as exempt from ill-fortune, even as he was exempt from the degradation of material need; all his doings had prospered, save in that little matter of his overtaxed health, and it had grown his habit to map the future with a generous hand, saying: Thus and thus will I take my conquering course. Knowing love for the first time, he had met with love in return, love to the height of his desire, and with a wave of the hand he had swept the trivial obstacles from his path. Now that the very sum of his exultant youth offered itself like a wine-cup to his lips, comes forth the mysterious hand and spills relentlessly that divine draught. See how he turns, with the blaze of royal indignation on his brow I Who of gods or men has dared thus to come between him and his bliss? He is not wont to be so thwarted; he demands that the cup shall be refilled and brought again; only when mocking laughter echoes round him, when it is but too plain that the spirits no longer serve him, that where he most desires his power is least, does his resentment change by cold degrees to that chill anguish of the abandoned soul, which pays the debt of so many an hour of triumph. For the moment, words of kindness and sustaining hope might seem to avail him; but there is the night waiting in ambush for his weakness, that season of the sun’s silence, when the body denuded of vestment typifies the spirit’s exposure to its enemies. Let him live through his fate-imposed trial in that torture-chamber of ancient darkness. He will not come forth a better man, though perchance a wiser; wisdom and goodness are from of old at issue. Henceforth he will have eyes for many an ugly spot in his own nature, hidden till now by the veil of happiness. Do not pity him; congratulate him rather that the inevitable has been so long postponed.
He put on a bold face at breakfast next morning, for he could not suppose that Mrs. Baxendale would feel any obligation to keep his secret from her husband, and it was not in his character to play the knight of the dolorous visage. You saw the rings round his eyes, but he was able to discuss the latest electioneering intelligence, and even to utter one or two more of those shrewd remarks by which he had lately been proving that politics were not unlikely to demand more of his attention some day. But he was glad when he could get away to the drawing-room, to await Mrs. Baxendale’s coming. He tried to read in a volume of Boswell which lay out; at other times the book was his delight, now it had the succulence of a piece of straw. He was in that state of mind when five minutes of waiting is intolerable. He had to wait some twenty before Mrs. Baxendale appeared. Only a clinging remnant of common-sense kept him from addressing her sourly. Wilfrid was not eminently patient.
‘Well, what counsel has sleep brought?’ she asked, speaking as if she had some other matter on her mind—as indeed she had—a slight difficulty which had just arisen with the cook.
‘I should not be much advanced if I had depended upon sleep,’ Wilfrid replied cheerlessly. Always sensitive, he was especially so at this moment, and the lady seemed to him unsympathetic. He should have allowed for the hour; matters involving sentiment should never be touched till the day has grown to ripeness. The first thing in the morning a poet is capable of mathematics.
‘I fear you are not the only one who has not slept,’ said Mrs. Baxendale.
Wilfrid, after waiting in vain, went on in a tone very strange to him:
‘I don’t know what to do; I am incapable of thought. Another night like the last will drive me mad. You tell me I must merely wait; but I cannot be passive. What help is there? How can I kill the time?’
Mrs. Baxendale was visibly harder than on the previous evening. A half-smile caused her to draw in her lips; she played with the watch-chain at her girdle.
‘I fear,’ she said, ‘we have done all that can be done. Naturally you would find it intolerable to linger here.’
‘I must return to London?’
‘Under any other circumstances I should be the last to wish it, but I suppose it is better that you should.’
He was prepared for the advice, but unreason strove in him desperately against the facts of the situation. It was this impotent quarrel with necessity which robbed him of his natural initiative and made Mrs. Baxendale wonder at his unexpected feebleness. To him it seemed something to stand his ground even for a few minutes. He could have eased himself with angry speech. Remember that he had not slept, and that his mind was sore with the adversary’s blows.
‘I understand your reluctance,’ Mrs. Baxendale pursued. ‘It’s like a surrendering of hope. But you know what I said last night; I could only repeat the same things now. Don’t be afraid; I will not.’
‘Yes,’ he murmured, ‘I must go to London.’
‘It would be far worse if you had no friend here. You shall hear from me constantly. You have an assurance that the poor thing can’t run away.’
In the expressive vulgar phrase, Wilfrid ‘shook himself together.’ He began to perceive that his attitude lacked dignity; even in our misery we cannot bear to appear ignoble.
‘I will leave you to-day,’ he said, more like his old self. ‘But there are other things that we must speak of. What of Emily’s practical position?’
‘I don’t think we need trouble about that. Mr. Baxendale tells me he has no doubt that the house in Barnhill can be sold at all events for a sum that will leave them at ease for the present. As soon as Mrs. Hood gets better, they must both go away. You can trust me to do what can be done.’
‘It is my fear that Emily will find it difficult to accept your kindness.’
‘It will require tact. Only experience can show what my course must be.’
‘I sincerely hope the house will be sold. Otherwise, the outlook is deplorable.’
‘I assure you it will be. My husband does not give up anything he has once put his hand to.’
‘I shall keep my own counsel at home,’ Wilfrid said.
‘Do so, certainly. And you will return to Oxford?’
‘I think so. I shall find it easier to live there—if, indeed, I can live anywhere.’
‘I had rather you hadn’t added that,’ said Mrs. Baxendale with good-natured reproof. ‘You know that you will only work the harder just to forget your trouble. That, depend upon it, is the only way of killing the time, as you said; if we strike at him in other ways we only succeed in making him angry.’
‘Another apophthegm,’ said Wilfrid, with an attempt at brightness. ‘You are the first woman I have known who has that gift of neatness in speech.’
‘And you are the first man who ever had discernment enough to compliment me on it. After that, do you think I shall desert your cause?’
Wilfrid made his preparations forthwith, and decided upon a train early in the afternoon. At luncheon, Mr. Baxendale was full of good-natured regrets that his visit could not be prolonged till the time of the election—now very near.