He went up the road in an agony, not knowing what it was all about, but feeling
as if a red-hot iron were gripped round his chest. Without thinking, he shook
two or three tears on to the snow. Yet in his mind he did not believe his
mother would die. He was in the grip of some greater consciousness. As he sat
in the hall of the vicarage, waiting whilst Mary put things for Louisa into a
bag, he wondered why he had been so upset. He felt abashed and humbled by the
big house, he felt again as if he were one of the rank and file. When Miss Mary
spoke to him, he almost saluted.
“An honest man,” thought Mary. And the patronage was applied as
salve to her own sickness. She had station, so she could patronize: it was
almost all that was left to her. But she could not have lived without having a
certain position. She could never have trusted herself outside a definite
place, nor respected herself except as a woman of superior class.
As Alfred came to the latch-gate, he felt the grief at his heart again, and saw
the new heavens. He stood a moment looking northward to the Plough climbing up
the night, and at the far glimmer of snow in distant fields. Then his grief
came on like physical pain. He held tight to the gate, biting his mouth,
whispering “Mother!” It was a fierce, cutting, physical pain of
grief, that came on in bouts, as his mother’s pain came on in bouts, and
was so acute he could scarcely keep erect. He did not know where it came from,
the pain, nor why. It had nothing to do with his thoughts. Almost it had
nothing to do with him. Only it gripped him and he must submit. The whole tide
of his soul, gathering in its unknown towards this expansion into death,
carried him with it helplessly, all the fritter of his thought and
consciousness caught up as nothing, the heave passing on towards its breaking,
taking him further than he had ever been. When the young man had regained
himself, he went indoors, and there he was almost gay. It seemed to excite him.
He felt in high spirits: he made whimsical fun of things. He sat on one side of
his mother’s bed, Louisa on the other, and a certain gaiety seized them
all. But the night and the dread was coming on.
Alfred kissed his mother and went to bed. When he was half undressed the
knowledge of his mother came upon him, and the suffering seized him in its grip
like two hands, in agony. He lay on the bed screwed up tight. It lasted so
long, and exhausted him so much, that he fell asleep, without having the energy
to get up and finish undressing. He awoke after midnight to find himself stone
cold. He undressed and got into bed, and was soon asleep again.
At a quarter to six he woke, and instantly remembered. Having pulled on his
trousers and lighted a candle, he went into his mother’s room. He put his
hand before the candle flame so that no light fell on the bed.
“Mother!” he whispered.
“Yes,” was the reply.
There was a hesitation.
“Should I go to work?”
He waited, his heart was beating heavily.
“I think I’d go, my lad.”
His heart went down in a kind of despair.
“You want me to?”
He let his hand down from the candle flame. The light fell on the bed. There he
saw Louisa lying looking up at him. Her eyes were upon him. She quickly shut
her eyes and half buried her face in the pillow, her back turned to him. He saw
the rough hair like bright vapour about her round head, and the two plaits
flung coiled among the bedclothes. It gave him a shock. He stood almost
himself, determined. Louisa cowered down. He looked, and met his mother’s
eyes. Then he gave way again, and ceased to be sure, ceased to be himself.
“Yes, go to work, my boy,” said the mother.
“All right,” replied he, kissing her. His heart was down at
despair, and bitter. He went away.
“Alfred!” cried his mother faintly.
He came back with beating heart.
“What, mother?”
“You’ll always do what’s right, Alfred?” the mother
asked, beside herself in terror now he was leaving her. He was too terrified
and bewildered to know what she meant.
“Yes,” he said.
She turned her cheek to him. He kissed her, then went away, in bitter despair.
He went to work.
