It was a dumb pain at my heart all day. I could not understand
myself. For several days I had been quiet and prepared, I
thought, and submissive; now to-day all was disorder; no
preparedness; no quiet. Instead were heartaches and regrets
and wild wishes; sometimes in dull and steady force, like a
still rain storm; and sometimes sweeping over me with the fury
of a tempestuous blast. I had not strength to resist; my
utmost was to keep a calm front before my friends. I did that,
I think. But what torture is it not, to be obliged to hear and
answer all manner of trifling words, to enter into every
trivial thought, of people at ease around one, when the heart
is bending and bowing under its life burden; to be obliged to
count the pebbles in the way, when one is staggering to keep
one's footing at all. Yes, and one must answer with a
disengaged face, and one must smile with ready lips, and
attention must not wander, and self-absorption for a minute
cannot be allowed. Perhaps it was good for me.
My companions attended to me well, so that I got no respite
all day. Not till night, when I reached my room; and when I
had respite, I found no rest. It was great relief to put my
head down without fear lest somebody should ask me if it
ached; but all night long I struggled with the pain that had
fought me all day. The next morning I went to find Miss
Cardigan. To my great disappointment she was not at home; and
would not be at home, I was told, under a week.
I passed slowly in, over the familiar stones of the marble
floor, in through the empty rooms, to the innermost one which
opened upon the little conservatory. That too was stripped of
its beauties; most of the plants were set out in the open
ground, and the scaffolding steps were bare. I turned my back
upon the glass door, which had been for me the door to so much
sweetness, and sat down to think. Not only sweetness. How
strange it was! From Miss Cardigan's flowers, the connecting
links led on straight to all my sorrow and heartache of the
present and perhaps of many future days. They had led me here;
and here Mr. Thorold had said words to me that had bound him
and me together for the rest of our lives, and made his
welfare my welfare. And now, he was in the shock of
battlefields; and I - afar off - must watch and listen. And I
could not be near and watch. I must be where even good news
would be no news, except of the past; where nobody would speak
to me of Mr. Thorold, and where I could not speak of him to
anybody. I was sure, the more I thought of it, that the only
possible chance for a good issue to our engagement, would be
to wait until the war should be over; and if he persisted in
his determination of speaking to my father and mother before
such a favourable conjuncture, the end would be only disaster.
I somewhat hoped, that the pressure of active duty on his
part, or some happy negligence of post-office officials, or
other contingency, might hinder such a letter as he had
threatened from coming to my father's hands at present.