Women in Love (Barnes & Noble Classics S - D. H. Lawrence [188]
And even he was glad to be checked, rebuked, held back. For to desire is better than to possess, the finality of the end was dreaded as deeply as it was desired.
They walked on towards the town, towards where the lamps threaded singly, at long intervals down the dark high-road of the valley. They came at length to the gate of the drive.
“Don’t come any further,” she said.
“You’d rather I didn’t?” he asked, relieved. He did not want to go up the public streets with her, his soul all naked and alight as it was.
“Much rather—good-night.” She held out her hand. He grasped it, then touched the perilous, potent fingers with his lips.
“Good-night,” he said. “To-morrow.”
And they parted. He went home full of the strength and the power of living desire.
But the next day, she did not come, she sent a note that she was kept indoors by a cold. Here was a torment! But he possessed his soul in some sort of patience, writing a brief answer, telling her how sorry he was not to see her.
The day after this, he stayed at home—it seemed so futile to go down to the office. His father could not live the week out. And he wanted to be at home, suspended.
Gerald sat on a chair by the window in his father’s room. The landscape outside was black and winter-sodden. His father lay grey and ashen on the bed, a nurse moved silently in her white dress, neat and elegant, even beautiful. There was a scent of eau-de-cologne in the room. The nurse went out of the room, Gerald was alone with death, facing the winter-black landscape.
“Is there much more water in Denley?” came the faint voice, determined and querulous, from the bed. The dying man was asking about a leakage from Willey Water into one of the pits.
“Some more—we shall have to run off the lake,” said Gerald.
“Will you?” The faint voice filtered to extinction. There was dead stillness. The grey-faced, sick man lay with eyes closed, more dead than death. Gerald looked away. He felt his heart was seared, it would perish if this went on much longer.
Suddenly he heard a strange noise. Turning round, he saw his father’s eyes wide open, strained and rolling in a frenzy of inhuman struggling. Gerald started to his feet, and stood transfixed in horror.
“Wha-a-ah-h-h-” came a horrible choking rattle from his father’s throat, the fearful, frenzied eye, rolling awfully in its wild fruitless search for help, passed blindly over Gerald, then up came the dark blood and mess pumping over the face of the agonised being, the tense body relaxed, the head fell aside, down the pillow.
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. Criers—Poor Mr. Crich!—Oh, 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?