He turned away from her, and went to the ’window.
Jessie moved a little nearer.
‘Do you mean that?’ she asked.
‘Mean it?’ he repeated, ’why, yes,
as much as I mean anything. Be off; you’re
keeping that poor devil in the snow.’
’Mr. Dagworthy, I shall be here, and you daren’t
pretend to forget, or to say you weren’t in
earnest.’
He laughed and waved his hand.
‘Be off to your carriage!’
Jessie moved to the door reluctantly; but he did not
turn again, and she departed.
THE COMPLETION OF MISCHANCE
Upon Emily had fallen silence. The tongue which
for three months had incessantly sounded in her ears,
with its notes of wailing, of upbraiding, of physical
pain, of meaningless misery, was at rest for ever.
As she stood beside the grave—the grave
whose earth had not had time to harden since it received
her father—she seemed still to hear that
feeble, querulous voice, with its perpetual iteration
of her own name; the casting of clay upon the coffin
made a sound not half so real. Returning home,
she went up to the bedroom with the same hurried step
with which she had been wont to enter after her brief
absences. The bed was vacant; the blind made
the air dim; she saw her breath rise before her.
There remained but a little servant-girl, who, coming
to the sitting-room to ask about meals, stood crying
with her apron held to her eyes. Emily spoke
to her almost with tender kindness. Her own eyes
had shed but few tears; she only wept on hearing those
passages read which, by their promise of immortal
life, were to her as mockery of her grief. She
did not venture to look into the grave’s mouth
she dreaded lest there might be visible some portion
of her father’s coffin.
Mrs. Baxendale, the Cartwrights, and one or two other
friends had attended the funeral. At Emily’s
request no one accompanied her home. Mrs. Baxendale
drove her to the door, and went on to Dunfield.
The last link with the past was severed—almost,
it seemed, the last link with the world. A sense
of loneliness grew about her heart; she lived in a
vast solitude, whither came faintest echoes of lamentation,
the dying resonance of things that had been. It
could hardly be called grief, this drawing off of
the affections, this desiccation of the familiar kindnesses
which for the time seemed all her being. She forced
herself to remember that the sap of life would flow
again, that love would come back to her when the hand
of death released her from its cruel grip; as yet
she could only be sensible of her isolation, her forlorn
oneness. It needs a long time before the heart
can companion only with memories. About its own
centre it wraps such warm folds of kindred life.
Tear these away, how the poor heart shivers in its
nakedness.
