VII

'Dearest Emily, you must prepare yourself for the worst.'

'Is he dead?'

'Yes; he passed away quite quietly. To look at him one would say he was asleep; he does not appear to have suffered at all.'

'Oh, Julia, Julia, do you think he forgave me? I could not do what he asked me.... I loved him very dearly as a father, but I could not have married him.'

'No, dear, you could not. Such a marriage would have been most unnatural; he was more than forty years older than you.'

'I do not think he ever thought of such a thing until about a month or six weeks ago. You remember how I ran to you? I was as white as a ghost, and I trembled like a leaf. I could hardly speak.... You remember?'

'Yes, I remember; and some hours after, when I came into this room, he was standing there, just there, on the hearth-rug; there was a fearful look of pain and despair on his face—he looked as if he was going mad. I never saw such a look before, and I never wish to see such a look again. And the effort he made to appear unconcerned when he saw me was perhaps the worst part of it. I pretended to see nothing, and walked away towards the window and looked out. But all the while I could feel that some terrible drama was passing behind me. At last I had to look round. He was sitting in that chair, his elbows on his knees, clasping his head with both hands, the old, gnarled fingers twined in the iron-grey hair. Then, unable to contain himself any longer, he rushed out of the room, out of the house, and across the park.'

'You say that he passed away quietly; he did not seem to suffer at all?'

'No, he never recovered consciousness.'

'But do you think that my refusal to marry him had anything to do with his death?'

'Oh no, Emily; a fit of apoplexy, with a man of his age, generally ends fatally.'

'Even if I had known it all beforehand I don't think I could have acted differently. I could not have married him. Indeed I couldn't, Julia, not even if I knew I should save his life by doing so. I daresay it is very wicked of me, but——'

'Dearest Emily, you must not give way to such thoughts; you did quite right in refusing to marry Mr. Burnett. It was very wrong of him even to think of asking you, and if he had lived he would have seen how wrong it was of him to desire such a thing.'

'If he had lived! But then he didn't live, not even long enough to forgive me, and when we think of how much he suffered—I don't mean in dying, you say he passed away quietly, but all this last month how heart-broken he looked! You remember when he sat at the head of the table, never speaking to us, and how frightened I was lest I should meet him on the stairs; I used to stand at the door of my room, afraid to move. I know he suffered, poor old man. I was very, very sorry for him. Indeed I was, Julia, for I'm not selfish, and when I think now that he died without forgiving me, I feel, I feel—oh, I feel as if I should like to die myself. Why do such things happen to me? I feel just as miserable now as I used to when I lived with father and mother, who could not agree. I have often told you how miserable I was then, but I don't think you ever quite understood. I feel just the same now, just as if I never wanted to see any one or anything again. I was so unhappy when I was a child, they thought I would die, and I should have died if I had remained listening to father and mother any longer. ... Every one thought I was so lucky when Mr. Burnett decided to adopt me and leave me all his money, and he has done that, poor old man, so I suppose I should be happy; but I'm not.'

The girl's eyes turned instinctively towards the window and rested for a moment on the fair, green prospects of the park.

'I hated to listen to father and mother quarrelling, but I loved them, and I had not been here a year before father died, and darling mother was not long following him—only six months. Then I had no one: a few distant relatives, whom I knew nothing of, whom I did not care for, so I gave all my love to Mr. Burnett. He was so good to me; he never denied me anything; he gave me everything, even you, dearest Julia. When he thought I wanted a companion, he found you for me. I learnt to love you. You became my best and dearest friend. Then things seemed to brighten up, and I thought I was happy, when all this dreadful trouble came upon us. Don't let's speak of it more than we can help. I often wished myself dead. Didn't you, Julia?'

Emily Watson told the story of her misfortunes in a low, musical voice, heedless of two or three interruptions, hardly conscious of her listener, impressed and interested by the fatality of circumstances which she believed in design against her. She was a small, slender girl of about eighteen. Her abundant chestnut hair—exquisite, soft, and silky—was looped picturesquely, and fastened with a thin tortoiseshell comb. The tiny mouth trembled, and the large, prominent eyes reflected a strange, yearning soul. She was dressed in white muslin, and the fantastically small waist was confined with a white band. Her friend and companion, Julia Bentley, was a woman of about thirty, well above the medium height, full-bosomed and small-waisted. The type was Anglo-Saxon even to commonplace. The face was long, with a look of instinctive kindness upon it. She was given to staring, and as she looked at Emily, her blue eyes filled with an expression which told of a nature at once affectionate and intelligent. She was dressed in yellow linen, and wore a gold bracelet on a well-turned arm.

The room was a long, old-fashioned drawing-room. It had three windows, and all three were filled with views of the park, now growing pale in the evening air. The flower-gardens were drawn symmetrically about the house and were set with blue flower-vases in which there were red geraniums. It was a very large room, nearly forty feet long, with old portraits on the walls—ugly things and ill done; and where there were no portraits the walls were decorated with vine leaves and mountains. The parqueted floor was partially covered with skins, and the furniture seemed to have known many a generation; some of it was heavy and cumbersome, some of it was modern. There was a grand piano, and above it two full-length portraits—a lady in a blue dress and a man in black velvet knee-breeches. At the end of a long silence, Emily suddenly threw herself weeping into Julia's arms.

'Oh, you are my only friend; you will not leave me now.... We shall always love one another, shall we not? If anything ever came between us it would kill me.... That poor old man lying dead up-stairs! He loved me very dearly, and I loved him, too. Yet I said just now I could not have married him even if I had known it would save his life. I was wrong; yes, I would have married him if I had known.... You don't believe me?'

'My dearest girl, you must try to forget that Mr. Burnett ever entertained so foolish a thought. He was a very good man, and loved you for a long time as he should have loved you—as a daughter. We shall respect his memory best by forgetting the events of the last six weeks. And now, Emily, dinner will be ready at seven o'clock, and it is now six. What are you going to do?'

'I shall go out for a little walk. I shall go down and see the swans.'

'Shall I come with you?'

'No, thank you, dear; I think I'd sooner be alone. I want to think.'

Julia looked a moment anxiously at this fragile girl, whose tiny head was poised on a long, delicate neck like a fruit on its stem.

'Yes, go for a walk, dear,' said Julia; 'it will do you good. Shall I go and fetch your hat and jacket?'

'No, thank you, I will not trouble you; I'll go myself.'

'No, Emily, I think you had better let me go.'

'Oh, no; I am not afraid.'

And she went up the wide oak staircase, thinking of the man who lay dead in the room at the end of the passage. She was conscious of a sense of dread; the house seemed to wear a strange air, and her dog, Dandy, was conscious of it, too; he was more silent, less joyful than usual. And when she came from her room, dressed to go out, instead of rushing down-stairs, barking with joy, he dropped his tail and lingered at the end of the passage. She called him; he still hesitated, and then, yielding to a sudden desire, she went down the passage and knocked at the door of the room. The nurse answered her knock.

'Oh, don't come in, miss.'

'Why not? I want to see him before he goes away for ever.'

Upon the limp, white curtains of an old four-posted bed she saw the memorable profile—stern, unrelenting. How still he lay! Never would that face speak or laugh or see again. Although sixty-five, his head was covered with short, thick, iron-grey hair; the beard, too, was short and thick, and iron-grey. The face was rugged, and when Emily touched the coarse hand, telling of a life of toil, she started—it was singularly cold. Fear and sorrow in like measure choked her, and her soul awoke, and tremblingly she walked out of the house, glad to breathe the sweet evening air.

She walked towards the artificial water. The sky was melancholy and grey, and the park lay before her, hushed and soundless. Through the shadows of the darkening island two swans floated softly, leaving behind slight silver lines; above, the swallows flew high in the evening. There was sensation of death, too, in this cold, mournful water, and in the silence that hung about it, and in some vague way it reminded Emily of her own life. She had known little else but death; her life seemed full of death; and those reflections, so distinct and so colourless, were like death.

Then, in a sudden expansion of youth she wondered. Her own life, how strange, how personal, how intense! What did it mean, what meaning had it in the great, wide world? And the impressive tranquillity, the pale death of the day, lying like a flower on the water, seemed to symbolise her thought, and she felt more distinctly than she had ever done before. And there arose in her a nervous and passionate interest in herself. She seemed so strange, so wonderful. Her childhood was in itself an enigma. That sad and sorrowful childhood of hers, passed in that old London house; her mother's love for her; her cruel, stern stepfather, and the endless quarrels between her father and mother, which made her young life so unbearable, so wretched, that she could never think of those years without tears rising to her eyes. And then the going away, coming to live with Mr. Burnett! The death of her father and her dear mother, so sudden, following so soon one after the other. How much there had been in her life, how wonderful it was! Her love of Mr. Burnett, and then that bitter and passionate change in him! That proposal of marriage; could she ever forget it? And then this cruel and sudden death. Everything she had ever loved had been taken from her. Only Julia remained, and should Julia be taken from her, she felt that she must die. But that would not, could not, happen. She was now mistress of Ashwood, she was a great heiress; and she and Julia would live always together, they would always love one another, they would always live here in this beautiful place which they loved so well.