Chapter 10: The Farewell

The night had fallen upon Eagle House. Arthur sat alone in his bedroom at the open window. A soft wind talked to itself in the branches of the big mulberry tree on the lawn; a few placid stars shone in the blue-black heavens, then the late moon like a yellow fire; a nested sparrow chirped contentedly beneath the eaves; and, like a solemn wash of waves upon a hidden beach, London moaned and murmured through all its vast circumference. Out of the deep night the Spirit of his own Youth arose, and sat beside him.

“Listen to me,” said the Spirit. “I bring with me two swords—Faith and Courage. Gird them on.”

But London laughed. A soft derision shook the leaves upon the mulberry tree, and the waves upon the hidden beach were scornful.

“You have your life to live. Live it,” said the Spirit.

But the stars, like eyes, turned slowly toward him in despairing irony. “How many millions have we heard say that,” they whispered, “and each has been overcome in turn, and has sunk in nameless dust.”

“You are not as the nameless millions,” said the Spirit. “You are yourself, with your own right and power to live.”

And at that the heavens moved, and an infinite procession of scarred brows and sad eyes, passed by, and a multitude of lips whispered, “We said that once, but Life was too strong for us.”

“Nevertheless, thou canst conquer Life,” said the Spirit.

“Nay, Life will conquer thee,” replied the legions of the dead. “Let be. Submit. Why strive when all strife is vain?”

And then, out of the deep well of his misery, a bubble of light swam up, and something in his soul cried, “I will not submit! I will gird on the two swords of Faith and Courage. I will conquer Life!”

He had sat so long in absorbed silence that he was unconscious that the door of the room had opened and shut. The noise of the closing door, gentle as it was, roused him like a clap of thunder. He turned at the sound, and saw his mother.

She was robed in white, a white silk shawl was drawn over her head, and in the dim light she looked like a gentle apparition.

“Mother!” he cried.

She came toward him with outstretched arms.

And then, as by a magic touch, he became a little child again. She sat besides him, drew his head down upon her warm bosom, put her arm round his neck, and whispered, “I know.” And beneath her gentle caress, thawed as it were by the mere warmth of contact with her, something hard and cold in his own heart dissolved and drained itself away in delicious tears. He wept unrestrainedly, as a child weeps who is in no haste to cease from weeping, lest the consolation for his tears should cease with the tears themselves. And the chief sweetness of it all lay in the silence of their communion. Neither spoke because there was no need of speech. He knew that he was comprehended, and this is the final ecstasy of all communion. From this faithful bosom he had drawn his life; these hands had been the first to touch him; and as they had long ago bound up his childish bruises, so now their very touch drew the hurt out of his pained heart. He drank life from her again; he was conscious of a warm inflowing flood of strength, of restful power, of quiet blessedness.

When at last he lifted his eyes he saw her transfigured. The frost of silence had melted from her face; he caught in the dim light the sparkle of her eyes, divined rather than discerned the flush of her cheek and the new youth and vehemence of her aspect.

“Mother!” he said again.

She quietly pushed him from her, and gazed deep into his eyes.

“And now let us talk,” she whispered.

“You know what has happened?” he said.

“Yes, I know.”

“O mother, what am I to do?”

“You must do right, my son.”

She was silent for a moment, and he felt her hand tighten as it held his own. Then she said abruptly, “I have my confession to make before I can counsel you.”

“Your confession, mother?”

“Can’t you see that one is needed? Have you never asked yourself the reason for my silence, my aloofness, and my lack of interest in life? Did you never feel yourself that these things were unnatural, that there must be a reason for them, and that the reason must be tragic? I am going to tell you that reason. I have waited for this hour for years—O my God, what dreary, fearful years! I have watched your growth with terror, Arthur—yes, with terror, because I feared what you might become. Do you know what I feared? God forgive me! I feared you might be like your father. I watched every little seed of thought as it opened in you, fearful of what flower it might bear. I studied every glance, every sign of disposition, every drift of temperament; weighed your words, analysed them endlessly through sleepless nights, gazed into your mind and heart with dread and yearning. No one knows what I suffered when you went to Oxford. There was not a night when I did not lie awake for hours thinking of you. I said, ‘Here he will meet the world in all its grossness, and he will succumb to it, as a thousand others have done. He will lose his fineness; he will become like the rest.’ Each time when you came home I met you with a kind of terror. I dared scarcely look into your face for fear of the record I might find written there. A mother reads the signs that no one else can read. She knows, as no one else can know, the secret potencies within the nature of her child. And knowing what I did of life, I was terrified; and it was because I feared to look I stood aloof, that I shunned even speech with you, that I have shut myself for years within a wall of ice. Arthur, can you forgive me?”