She came to him as he lay propped up in the library. His face was like yellow wax, his eyes darkened, as it were sightless. His black beard, now streaked with grey, seemed to spring out of the waxy flesh of a corpse. Yet the atmosphere about him was energetic and playful. Gudrun subscribed to this, perfectly. To her fancy, he was just an ordinary man. Only his rather terrible appearance was photographed upon her soul, away beneath her consciousness. She knew that, in spite of his playfulness, his eyes could not change from their darkened vacancy, they were the eyes of a man who is dead.
“Ah, this is Miss Brangwen,” he said, suddenly rousing as she entered, announced by the manservant. “Thomas, put Miss Brangwen a chair here—that’s right.” He looked at her soft, fresh face with pleasure. It gave him the illusion of life. “Now, you will have a glass of sherry and a little piece of cake. Thomas—”
“No thank you,” said Gudrun. And as soon as she had said it, her heart sank horribly. The sick man seemed to fall into a gap of death, at her contradiction. She ought to play up to him, not to contravene him. In an instant she was smiling her rather roguish smile.
“I don’t like sherry very much,” she said. “But I like almost anything else.”
The sick man caught at this straw instantly.
“Not sherry! No! Something else! What then? What is there, Thomas?”
“Port wine—curacçao—”
“I would love some curaçao—” said Gudrun, looking at the sick man confidingly.
“You would. Well then Thomas, curaçao—and a little cake, or a biscuit?”
“A biscuit,” said Gudrun. She did not want anything, but she was wise.
“Yes.”
He waited till she was settled with her little glass and her biscuit. Then he was satisfied.
“You have heard the plan,” he said with some excitement, “for a studio for Winifred, over the stables?”
“No!” exclaimed Gudrun, in mock wonder.
“Oh!—I thought Winnie wrote it to you, in her letter!”
“Oh—yes—of course. But I thought perhaps it was only her own little idea—” Gudrun smiled subtly, indulgently. The sick man smiled also, elated.
“Oh no. It is a real project. There is a good room under the roof of the stables—with sloping rafters. We had thought of converting it into a studio.”
“How very nice that would be!” cried Gudrun, with excited warmth. The thought of the rafters stirred her.
“You think it would? Well, it can be done.”
“But how perfectly splendid for Winifred! Of course, it is just what is needed, if she is to work at all seriously. One must have one’s workshop, otherwise one never ceases to be an amateur.”
“Is that so? Yes. Of course, I should like you to share it with Winifred.”
“Thank you so much.”
Gudrun knew all these things already, but she must look shy and very grateful, as if overcome.
“Of course, what I should like best, would be if you could give up your work at the Grammar School, and just avail yourself of the studio, and work there—well, as much or as little as you liked—”
He looked at Gudrun with dark, vacant eyes. She looked back at him as if full of gratitude. These phrases of a dying man were so complete and natural, coming like echoes through his dead mouth.
“And as to your earnings—you don’t mind taking from me what you have taken from the Education Committee, do you? I don’t want you to be a loser.”
“Oh,” said Gudrun, “if I can have the studio and work there, I can earn money enough, really I can.”
“Well,” he said, pleased to be the benefactor, “we can see about all that. You wouldn’t mind spending your days here?”
“If there were a studio to work in,” said Gudrun, “I could ask for nothing better.”
“Is that so?”
He was really very pleased. But already he was getting tired. She could see the grey, awful semi-consciousness of mere pain and dissolution coming over him again, the torture coming into the vacancy of his darkened eyes. It was not over yet, this process of death. She rose softly saying:
“Perhaps you will sleep. I must look for Winifred.”
She went out, telling the nurse that she had left him. Day by day the tissue of the sick man was further and further reduced, nearer and nearer the process came, towards the last knot which held the human being in its unity. But this knot was hard and unrelaxed, the will of the dying man never gave way. He might be dead in nine-tenths, yet the remaining tenth remained unchanged, till it too was torn apart. With his will he held the unit of himself firm, but the circle of his power was ever and ever reduced, it would be reduced to a point at last, then swept away.
To adhere to life, he must adhere to human relationships, and he caught at every straw. Winifred, the butler, the nurse, Gudrun, these were the people who meant all to him, in these last resources. Gerald, in his father’s presence, stiffened with repulsion. It was so, to a less degree, with all the other children except Winifred. They could not see anything but the death, when they looked at their father. It was as if some subterranean dislike overcame them. They could not see the familiar face, hear the familiar voice. They were overwhelmed by the antipathy of visible and audible death. Gerald could not breathe in his father’s presence. He must get out at once. And so, in the same way, the father could not bear the presence of his son. It sent a final irritation through the soul of the dying man.
The studio was made ready, Gudrun and Winifred moved in. They enjoyed so much the ordering and the
