The doctor was unable to cope with this speech, which conveyed vaguely monstrous ideas to him. Seeing Trefusis about to leave, he said in a low voice: “Will you go upstairs?”
“Upstairs! Why?”
“I — I thought you might wish to see—” He did not finish the sentence, but Trefusis flinched; the blank had expressed what was meant.
“To see something that was Henrietta, and that is a thing we must cast out and hide, with a little superstitious mumming to save appearances. Why did you remind me of it?”
“But, sir, whatever your views may be, will you not, as a matter of form, in deference to the feelings of the family—”
“Let them spare their feelings for the living, on whose behalf I have often appealed to them in vain,” cried Trefusis, losing patience. “Damn their feelings!” And, turning to the door, he found it open, and Mrs. Jansenius there listening.
Trefusis was confounded. He knew what the effect of his speech must be, and felt that it would be folly to attempt excuse or explanation. He put his hands into his pockets, leaned against the table, and looked at her, mutely wondering what would follow on her part.
The doctor broke the silence by saying tremulously, “I have communicated the melancholy intelligence to Mr. Trefusis.”
“I hope you told him also,” she said sternly, “that, however deficient we may be in feeling, we did everything that lay in our power for our child.”
“I am quite satisfied,” said Trefusis.
“No doubt you are — with the result,” said Mrs. Jansenius, hardly. “I wish to know whether you have anything to complain of.”
“Nothing.”
“Please do not imply that anything has happened through our neglect.”
“What have I to complain of? She had a warm room and a luxurious bed to die in, with the best medical advice in the world. Plenty of people are starving and freezing to-day that we may have the means to die fashionably; ask THEM if they have any cause for complaint. Do you think I will wrangle over her body about the amount of money spent on her illness? What measure is that of the cause she had for complaint? I never grudged money to her — how could I, seeing that more than I can waste is given to me for nothing? Or how could you? Yet she had great reason to complain of me. You will allow that to be so.”
“It is perfectly true.”
“Well, when I am in the humor for it, I will reproach myself and not you.” He paused, and then turned forcibly on her, saying, “Why do you select this time, of all others, to speak so bitterly to me?”
“I am not aware that I have said anything to call for such a remark. Did YOU,” (appealing to the doctor) “hear me say anything?”
“Mr. Trefusis does not mean to say that you did, I am sure. Oh, no. Mr. Trefusis’s feelings are naturally — are harrowed. That is all.”
“My feelings!” cried Trefusis impatiently. “Do you suppose my feelings are a trumpery set of social observances, to be harrowed to order and exhibited at funerals? She has gone as we three shall go soon enough. If we were immortal, we might reasonably pity the dead. As we are not, we had better save our energies to minimize the harm we are likely to do before we follow her.”
The doctor was deeply offended by this speech, for the statement that he should one day die seemed to him a reflection upon his professional mastery over death. Mrs. Jansenius was glad to see Trefusis confirming her bad opinion and report of him by his conduct and language in the doctor’s presence. There was a brief pause, and then Trefusis, too far out of sympathy with them to be able to lead the conversation into a kinder vein, left the room. In the act of putting on his overcoat in the hall, he hesitated, and hung it up again irresolutely. Suddenly he ran upstairs. At the sound of his steps a woman came from one of the rooms and looked inquiringly at him.
“Is it here?” he said.
“Yes, sir,” she whispered.
A painful sense of constriction came in his chest, and he turned pale and stopped with his hand on the lock.
“Don’t be afraid, sir,” said the woman, with an encouraging smile. “She looks beautiful.”
He looked at her with a strange grin, as if she had uttered a ghastly but irresistible joke. Then he went in, and, when he reached the bed, wished he had stayed without. He was not one of those who, seeing little in the faces of the living miss little in the faces of the dead. The arrangement of the black hair on the pillow, the soft drapery, and the flowers placed there by the nurse to complete the artistic effect to which she had so confidently referred, were lost on him; he saw only a lifeless mask that had been his wife’s face, and at sight of it his knees failed, and he had to lean for support on the rail at the foot of the bed.
When he looked again the face seemed to have changed. It was no longer a waxlike mask, but Henrietta, girlish and pathetically at rest. Death seemed to have cancelled her marriage and womanhood; he had never seen her look so young. A minute passed, and then a tear dropped on the coverlet. He started; shook another tear on his hand, and stared at it incredulously.
“This is a fraud of which I have never even dreamed,” he said. “Tears and no sorrow! Here am I crying! growing maudlin! whilst I am glad that she is gone and I free. I have the mechanism of grief in me somewhere; it begins to turn at sight of her though I have no sorrow; just as she used to start the mechanism of passion when I had no love. And that made no difference to her; whilst the wheels went round she was satisfied. I hope the mechanism of grief will flag and stop in its spinning as soon as the other used to. It is stopping already, I think. What a mockery! Whilst it lasts I suppose I am really sorry. And yet, would I restore her to life if I could? Perhaps so; I am therefore thankful that I cannot.” He folded his arms on the rail and gravely addressed the dead figure, which still affected him so strongly that he had to exert his will to face it with composure. “If you really loved me, it is well for you that you are dead — idiot that I was to believe that the passion you could inspire, you poor child, would last. We are both lucky; I have escaped from you, and you have escaped from yourself.”
Presently he breathed more freely and looked round the room to help himself into a matter-of-fact vein by a little unembarrassed action, and the commonplace aspect of the bedroom furniture. He went to the pillow, and bent over it, examining the face closely.
“Poor child!” he said again, tenderly. Then, with sudden reaction, apostrophizing himself instead of his wife, “Poor ass! Poor idiot! Poor jackanapes! Here is the body of a woman who was nearly as old as myself, and perhaps wiser, and here am I moralizing over it as if I were God Almighty and she a baby! The more you remind a man of what he is, the more conceited he becomes. Monstrous! I shall feel immortal presently.”
He touched the cheek with a faint attempt at roughness, to feel how cold it was. Then he touched his own, and remarked:
“This is what I am hastening toward at the express speed of sixty minutes an hour!” He stood looking down at the face and tasting this sombre reflection for a long time. When it palled on him, he roused himself, and exclaimed more cheerfully:
“After all, she is not dead. Every word she uttered — every idea she formed and expressed, was an inexhaustible and indestructible impulse.” He paused, considered a little further, and relapsed into gloom, adding, “and the dozen others whose names will be with hers in the ‘Times’ tomorrow? Their words too are still in the air, to endure there to all eternity. Hm! How the air must be crammed with nonsense! Two sounds sometimes produce a silence; perhaps ideas neutralize one another in some analogous way. No, my dear; you are dead and gone and done with, and I shall be dead and gone and done with too soon to leave me leisure to fool myself with hopes of immortality. Poor Hetty! Well, good-by, my darling. Let us pretend for a moment that you can hear that; I know it will please you.”
All this was in a half-articulate whisper. When he ceased he still bent over the body, gazing intently