Fortitude

by Hugh Walpole

II

The day of the funeral was a day of high wind and a furious sea. The Westcotts lived in the parish of the strange wild clergyman whose church looked over the sea; strange and wild in the eyes of Treliss because he was a giant in size and had a long flowing beard, because he kept a perfect menagerie of animals in his little house by the church, and because he talked in such an odd wild way about God being in the sea and the earth rather than in the hearts of the Treliss citizens—all these things odd enough and sometimes, early in the morning, he might be seen, mother-naked, going down the path to the sea to bathe, which was hardly decent considering his great size and the immediate neighbourhood of the high road. To those who remonstrated he had said that he was not ashamed of his body and that God was worshipped the better for there being no clothing to keep the wind away ... all mad enough, and there were never many parishioners in the little hill church of a Sunday. However, it was in the little windy churchyard that Mrs. Westcott was buried and it was up the steep and stony road to the little church that the hearse and its nodding plumes, followed by the two old and decrepit hackney carriages, slowly climbed.

Peter's impressions of the day were vague and uncertain. There were things that always remained in his memory but strangely his general conviction was that his mother had had nothing to do with it. The black coffin conveyed nothing to him of her presence: he saw her as he had seen her on that day when he had talked to her, and now she was, as Stephen was, somewhere away. That was his impression, that she had escaped....

Putting on his black clothes in the morning brought Dawson's back to his mind, and especially Bobby Galleon and Cards. He had not thought of them since the day of his return—first Stephen and then his mother had driven them from his mind. But now, with the old school black clothing upon him, he stood for a long time by his window, wondering, sorrowfully enough, where they were and what they were doing, whether they had forgotten him, whether he would ever see them again. He seemed to be surrounded by a wall of loneliness—some one was cutting everything off from him ... from maliciousness! For pleasure!... Oh! if one only knew about that God!

Meanwhile Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Agatha had arrived the night before. Uncle Jeremy was big and stout and he wore clothes that were very black and extremely bright. His face was crimson in colour and his eyes, large and bulging, wore a look of perpetual surprise. He was bald and an enormous gold watch chain crossed his stomach like a bridge. He had obviously never cared for either of his sisters and he always shouted when he spoke. Aunt Agatha was round and fat and comfortable, wore gold-rimmed spectacles and a black silk dress, and obviously considered that Uncle Jeremy had made the world.

Peter watched his father's attitude to these visitors. He realised that he had never seen his father with any stranger or visitor—no one came to the house and he had never been into the town with his father. With this realisation came a knowledge of other things—of things half heard at the office, of half looks in the street, of a deliberate avoidance of his father's name—the Westcotts of Scaw House! There were clouds about the name.

But his father, in contact with Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Agatha, was strangely impressive. His square, thick-set body clothed in black—his dark eyes, his short stiff hair, his high white forehead, his long beautiful hands—this was no ordinary man, moving so silently with a reserve that seemed nobly fitting on this sad occasion. The dark figure filled the house, touching in its restrained grief, admirable in its dignity, a fine spirit against the common clay of Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Agatha.

Mr. Westcott was courteous but sparing of words—a strong man, you would say, bowed down with a grief that demanded, in its intensity, silence.

Uncle Jeremy hated and feared his brother-in-law. His hatred he concealed with difficulty but his fear was betrayed by his loud and nervous laugh. He was obviously interested in Peter and stared at him, throughout breakfast, with his large, surprised eyes. Peter felt that this interest was a speculation as to his future and it made him uncomfortable ... he hated his uncle but the black suit that the stout gentleman wore on the day of the funeral was so black, so tight and so shiny that he was an occasion for laughter rather than hatred.

The black coffin was brought down the long stairs, through the hall and into the desolate garden. The sight of it roused no emotion in Peter—that was not his mother. The two aunts, Uncle Jeremy and his father rode in the first carriage; Peter and Mrs. Trussit in the second. Mrs. Trussit's bonnet and black silk dress were very fine and she wept bitterly throughout the journey.

Peter only dismally wished that he could arrange his knees so that they would not rub against her black silk. He did not think of his mother at all but only of the great age of the cab, of the furious wind that whistled about the road, and the roar that the sea, grey and furious far below them, flung against their windows.

He would have liked to talk to her but her sobbing seemed to surround her with a barrier. It was all inexpressibly dreary with the driving wind, the rustling of the black silk dress, the jolting and clattering of the old carriage. But he had no desire to cry—he was too miserable for that.

On the hill in the little churchyard, a tempest of wind swept across the graves. From the bending ground the cliff fell sheer to the sea and behold! it was a tossing, furious carpet of white and grey. The wind blew the spray up to the graveyard and stung the faces of the mourners and in the roar of the waves it was hard to hear the voice of the preacher. It was a picture that they made out there in the graveyard. Poor Aunt Jessie, trembling and shaking, Mrs. Trussit, stout and stiff with her handkerchief to her eyes, Uncle Jeremy with his legs apart, his face redder than ever, obviously wishing the thing over, Aunt Agatha concerned for her clothes in the streaming wind, Mr. Westcott unmoved by the storm, cold, stern, of a piece with the grey stone at the gravehead—all these figures interesting enough. But towering above them and dominating the scene was the clergyman—his great beard streaming, his surplice blowing behind him in a cloud, his great voice dominating the tumult, to Peter he was a part of the day—the storm, the earth, the flying, scudding clouds. All big things there, and somewhere sailing with those clouds, on the storm, the spirit of his mother ... that little black coffin standing, surely, for nothing that mattered.

But, strangely enough, when the black box had been lowered, at the sharp rattling of the sods upon the lid, his sorrow leapt to his eyes. Suddenly the sense of his loss drove down upon him. The place, the people were swept away—he could hear her voice again, see her thin white hands ... he wanted her so badly ... if he could only have his chance again ... he could have flung himself there upon the coffin, not caring whether he lived or died... his whole being, soul and body, ached for her....

He knew that it was all over; he broke away from them all and he never, afterwards, could tell where it was that he wandered during the rest of that day. At last, when it was dark, he crept back to the house, utterly, absolutely exhausted in every part of his body ... worn out.