She looked up at her son, as he stood, keen and soldierly, near to her. Her eyes were most wonderfully blue, bluer than forget-me-nots. She seemed to have a certain confidence in Gerald, and to feel a certain motherly mistrust of him.
“How are you?” she muttered, in her strangely quiet voice, as if nobody should hear but him. “You’re not getting into a state, are you?
“You’re not letting it make you hysterical?”
The curious challenge in the last words startled Gudrun.
“I don’t think so, mother,” he answered, rather coldly cheery.
“Somebody’s got to see it through, you know.”
“Have they? Have they?” answered his mother rapidly. “Why should you take it on yourself? What have you got to do, seeing it through. It will see itself through. You are not needed.”
“No, I don’t suppose I can do any good,” he answered. “It’s just how it affects us, you see.”
“You like to be affected—don’t you? It’s quite nuts for you? You would have to be important. You have no need to stop at home. Why don’t you go away!”
These sentences, evidently the ripened grain of many dark hours, took Gerald by surprise.
“I don’t think it’s any good going away now, mother, at the last minute,” he said, coldly.
“You take care,” replied his mother. “You mind yourself—that’s your business. You take too much on yourself. You mind yourself, or you’ll find yourself in Queer Street, that’s what will happen to you. You’re hysterical, always were.”
“I’m all right, mother,” he said. “There’s no need to worry about me, I assure you.”
“Let the dead bury their dead—don’t go and bury yourself along with them—that’s what I tell you. I know you well enough.”
He did not answer this, not knowing what to say. The mother sat bunched up in silence, her beautiful white hands, that had no rings whatsoever, clasping the pommels of her armchair.
“You can’t do it,” she said, almost bitterly. “You haven’t the nerve. You’re as weak as a cat, really—always were. Is this young woman staying here?”
“No,” said Gerald. “She is going home tonight.”
“Then she’d better have the dogcart. Does she go far?”
“Only to Beldover.”
“Ah!” The elderly woman never looked at Gudrun, yet she seemed to take knowledge of her presence.
“You are inclined to take too much on yourself, Gerald,” said the mother, pulling herself to her feet, with a little difficulty.
“Will you go, mother?” he asked, politely.
“Yes, I’ll go up again,” she replied. Turning to Gudrun, she bade her “Good night.” Then she went slowly to the door, as if she were unaccustomed to walking. At the door she lifted her face to him, implicitly. He kissed her.
“Don’t come any further with me,” she said, in her barely audible voice. “I don’t want you any further.”
He bade her good night, watched her across to the stairs and mount slowly. Then he closed the door and came back to Gudrun. Gudrun rose also, to go.
“A queer being, my mother,” he said.
“Yes,” replied Gudrun.
“She has her own thoughts.”
“Yes,” said Gudrun.
Then they were silent.
“You want to go?” he asked. “Half a minute, I’ll just have a horse put in—”
“No,” said Gudrun. “I want to walk.”
He had promised to walk with her down the long, lonely mile of drive, and she wanted this.
“You might just as well drive,” he said.
“I’d much rather walk,” she asserted, with emphasis.
“You would! Then I will come along with you. You know where your things are? I’ll put boots on.”
He put on a cap, and an overcoat over his evening dress. They went out into the night.
“Let us light a cigarette,” he said, stopping in a sheltered angle of the porch. “You have one too.”
So, with the scent of tobacco on the night air, they set off down the dark drive that ran between close-cut hedges through sloping meadows.
He wanted to put his arm round her. If he could put his arm round her, and draw her against him as they walked, he would equilibriate himself. For now he felt like a pair of scales, the half of which tips down and down into an indefinite void. He must recover some sort of balance. And here was the hope and the perfect recovery.
Blind to her, thinking only of himself, he slipped his arm softly round her waist, and drew her to him. Her heart fainted, feeling herself taken. But then, his arm was so strong, she quailed under its powerful close grasp. She died a little death, and was drawn against him as they walked down the stormy darkness. He seemed to balance her perfectly in opposition to himself, in their dual motion of walking. So, suddenly, he was liberated and perfect, strong, heroic.
He put his hand to his mouth and threw his cigarette away, a gleaming point, into the unseen hedge. Then he was quite free to balance her.
“That’s better,” he said, with exultancy.
The exultation in his voice was like a sweetish, poisonous drug to her. Did she then mean so much to him! She sipped the poison.
“Are you happier?” she asked, wistfully.
“Much better,” he said, in the same exultant voice, “and I was rather far gone.”
She nestled against him. He felt her all soft and warm, she was the rich, lovely substance of his being. The warmth and motion of her walk suffused through him wonderfully.
“I’m so glad if I help you,” she said.
“Yes,” he answered. “There’s nobody else could do it, if you wouldn’t.”
“That is true,” she said to herself, with a thrill of strange, fatal elation.
As they walked, he seemed to lift her nearer and nearer to himself, till she moved upon the firm vehicle of his body.
He was so strong, so sustaining, and he could not be opposed. She drifted along in a wonderful interfusion of physical motion, down the dark, blowy hillside. Far across shone the little yellow
