This gave him a certain shock, in the softening of his heart. “The child is the thing I don’t like!” he exclaimed, almost sharply. Then he added, “I think the dawn must be near; I feel very chilly. Mother, come in; as you say, it is the best thing not to think, but to go to bed.”
VII
The morning rose, as they had said to each other, upon a new life.
How strange it is to realise, after the first blow has fallen, that this changed life is still the same! When it brings with it external changes, family convulsions, the alteration of external circumstances, although these secondary things increase the calamity, they give it also a certain natural atmosphere; they are in painful harmony with it. But when the shock, the dreadful business of the moment, is all over, when the funeral has gone away from the doors and the dead has been buried, and everything goes on as before, this commonplace renewal is, perhaps, the most terrible of all to the visionary soul. Minnie and Chatty got out their work—the coloured work, which they had thought out of place during the first week. They went in the afternoon for a walk, and gathered fresh flowers, as they returned, for the vases in the drawing-room. When evening came they asked Theo if he would not read to them. It was not a novel they were reading; it was a biography, of a semi-religious character, in which there were a great many edifying letters. They would not, of course, have thought of reading a novel at such a time. Warrender had been wandering about all day, restless, not knowing what to do with himself. He was not given to games of any kind, but he thought today that he would have felt something of the sort a relief, though he knew it would have shocked the household. In the afternoon, on a chance suggestion of his mother’s, he saw that it was a sort of duty to walk over to Markland and ask how Lady Markland was. Twelve miles—six there and six back again—is a long walk for a student. He sent up his name, and asked whether he could be of any use, but he did not receive encouragement. Lady Markland sent her thanks, and was quite well (“she says,” the old butler explained, with a shake of the head, so that no one might believe he agreed in anything so unbecoming). The Honourable John had been telegraphed for, her husband’s uncle, and everything was being done; so that there was no need to trouble Mr. Warrender. He went back, scarcely solaced by his walk. He wanted to be doing something. Not Plato; in the circumstances Plato did not answer at all. When he opened his book his thoughts escaped from him, and went off with a bound to matters entirely different. How was it possible that he could give that undivided attention which divine philosophy requires, the day after his father’s funeral, the first day of his independent life, the day after—! That extraordinary postscript to the agitations of yesterday told, perhaps, most of all. When the girls asked him to read to them, opening the book at the page where they had left off, and preparing to tell him all that had gone before, so that he might understand the story (“although there is very little story,” Minnie said, with satisfaction; “chiefly thoughts upon serious subjects”), he jumped up from his chair in almost fierce rebellion against that sway of the ordinary of which his mother had spoken. “You were right,” he said to her; “the common routine is the thing that outlasts everything. I never thought of it before, but it is true.”
Mrs. Warrender, though she had herself been quivering with the long-concentrated impatience for which it seemed even now there could be no outlet, was troubled by her son’s outburst, and, afraid of what it might come to, felt herself moved to take the other side. “It is very true,” she said, faltering a little, “but the common routine is often best for everything, Theo. It is a kind of leading-string, which keeps us going.”
The girls looked up at Theo with alarm and wonder, but still they were not shocked at what he said. He was a man; he had come to the Warren from those wild excitements of Oxford life, of which they had heard with awe; they gazed at him, trying to understand him.
“I have always heard,” said Minnie, “that reading aloud was the most tranquillising thing people could do. If we had each a book it would be unsociable; but when a book is read aloud, then we are all thinking about the same thing, and it draws us together;” which was really the most sensible judgment that could have been delivered, had the two fantastic ones been in the mood to understand what was said.
Chatty did not say anything, but after she had threaded her needle looked up with great attention to see how the fate of the evening was to be decided. It was a great pleasure when someone would read aloud, especially Theo, who thus became one of them, in a way which was not at all usual; but perhaps she was less earnest about it this evening than on ordinary occasions, for the biographical book was a little dull, and the letters on serious subjects were dreadfully serious. No doubt, just after papa’s death, this was appropriate; but still it is well known there are stories which are also serious, and could not do anyone harm, even at the gravest moments.
“There are times when leading-strings are insupportable,” Theo said; “at any time I don’t know that I put much faith in them. We have much to arrange and settle, mother, if you feel able for it.”
“Mamma can’t feel able yet,” returned Minnie. “Oh, why should we make
