Women in Love

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.