Gerald stood transfixed, his soul echoing in horror. He would move, but
he could not. He could not move his limbs. His brain seemed to re-echo,
like a pulse.
The nurse in white softly entered. She glanced at Gerald, then at the
bed.
'Ah!' came her soft whimpering cry, and she hurried forward to the dead
man. 'Ah-h!' came the slight sound of her agitated distress, as she
stood bending over the bedside. Then she recovered, turned, and came
for towel and sponge. She was wiping the dead face carefully, and
murmuring, almost whimpering, very softly: 'Poor Mr Crich!--Poor Mr
Crich! Poor Mr Crich!' 'Is he dead?' clanged Gerald's sharp voice.
'Oh yes, he's gone,' replied the soft, moaning voice of the nurse, as
she looked up at Gerald's face. She was young and beautiful and
quivering. A strange sort of grin went over Gerald's face, over the
horror. And he walked out of the room.
He was going to tell his mother. On the landing he met his brother
Basil.
'He's gone, Basil,' he said, scarcely able to subdue his voice, not to
let an unconscious, frightening exultation sound through.
'What?' cried Basil, going pale.
Gerald nodded. Then he went on to his mother's room.
She was sitting in her purple gown, sewing, very slowly sewing, putting
in a stitch then another stitch. She looked up at Gerald with her blue
undaunted eyes.
'Father's gone,' he said.
'He's dead? Who says so?' 'Oh, you know, mother, if you see him.' She put her sewing down, and slowly rose.
'Are you going to see him?' he asked.
'Yes,' she said By the bedside the children already stood in a weeping group.
'Oh, mother!' cried the daughters, almost in hysterics, weeping loudly.
But the mother went forward. The dead man lay in repose, as if gently
asleep, so gently, so peacefully, like a young man sleeping in purity.
He was still warm. She stood looking at him in gloomy, heavy silence,
for some time.
'Ay,' she said bitterly, at length, speaking as if to the unseen
witnesses of the air. 'You're dead.' She stood for some minutes in
silence, looking down. 'Beautiful,' she asserted, 'beautiful as if life
had never touched you--never touched you. God send I look different. I
hope I shall look my years, when I am dead. Beautiful, beautiful,' she
crooned over him. 'You can see him in his teens, with his first beard
on his face. A beautiful soul, beautiful--' Then there was a tearing in
her voice as she cried: 'None of you look like this, when you are dead!
Don't let it happen again.' It was a strange, wild command from out of
the unknown. Her children moved unconsciously together, in a nearer
group, at the dreadful command in her voice. The colour was flushed
bright in her cheek, she looked awful and wonderful. 'Blame me, blame
me if you like, that he lies there like a lad in his teens, with his
first beard on his face. Blame me if you like. But you none of you
know.' She was silent in intense silence.