The Clean Heart

by A. S. M. Hutchinson

Young Wriford, staring at them all, feeling incoherent, furious ravings working within him, with a despairing gesture: "Oh, all right, all right, all right! I'm sorry. Don't go on about it. Just let me alone. I'm all behindhand. I'm—"

In this mood he begins his work. This is the mood that has to be fought down before any of the work can be successfully done. Often a day will reward him virtually nothing. He is always behindhand, always trying to catch up. At six he rushes from the house to get to the Intelligence office. He is rarely back again to bed by one o'clock: from the house again at seven.

IX

Now the thing has Young Wriford and rushes him: now grips him and drives him, now marks him and drops him as he takes it. Now the years run. Now to the last drop the Young Wriford is squeezed out of him: Mr. Wriford now. Now men name him for one of the lucky ones. Now, as he lies awake at night, and as he trembles as he walks by day, he hates himself and pities himself and dreads himself.

Now the years run—flash by Mr. Wriford—bringing him much and losing him all; flash and are gone. Now he might leave the Filmer household and live again by himself. But there is no leaving it, once he is of it. Alice wants him, and he tells himself it is his duty to stay by her. His money is wanted, and there never leaves him the dread of suddenly losing his work and bringing them all to poverty. Now he gives up other work and is of the Intelligence alone, handsomely paid, one of the lucky ones. It gives him no satisfaction. It would have thrilled Young Wriford, but Young Wriford is dead. Now there is no pinching in the Surbiton establishment, decided comfort rather. The boys are put to good schools and shaped for good careers. The establishment itself is moved to larger and pleasanter accommodation. Alice is grateful, the boys are happy, even the Filmers are grateful. That Young Wriford who sat in the train with Alice coming down from Liverpool eight years before and planned so enthusiastically and schemed so generously would have been happy, proud, delighted to have done it all. But that Young Wriford is dead. Mr. Wriford spends nothing on himself because he wants nothing—interests, tastes other than work, are coffined in Young Wriford's grave. Mr. Wriford just produces the money and begs—nervily as ever, nay, more nervily than before—to be let alone to work; he is always behindhand.

Now the novel is at last written and is published and flames into success. Imagine Young Wriford's amazed delight! But Young Wriford is dead. Mr. Wriford, one of the lucky ones, lucky in this as in all the rest, contracts handsomely for others and at once is in the rush of fulfilling a contract; that is all.

Now Alice is taken sick—mortally sick. Lingers a long while, wants Mr. Wriford badly to sit with her and wants him always, is only upset by her mother. Young Wriford would have nursed her and wept for her. Mr. Wriford nurses her very devotedly, as she says, but in long hours grudged from his work, as he knows. And has no tears. What, are even tears buried with Young Wriford? Mr. Wriford believes they are and hates himself anew and thousandfold that he has no sympathy, and often in remorse rushes home from the nightly fight with the Intelligence to go to Alice's bedside and make amends—not for active neglects, for there have been none—but for the secret dryness of his heart while he is with her and his thoughts are with his work. These are stirrings of Young Wriford, but of what avail stirrings within the tomb?

Alice dies. Here is Mr. Wriford by her death caught anew and caught worse in the meshes that entangle him. Remorse oppresses him at every thought of neglect of her and unkindness to her through these years. It can only be assuaged by new devotion to her boys and to her parents, much changed and stricken by her loss. He might leave this household now. He feels it is his duty to remain in it. They want him.

The thing goes on—swifter, fiercer, dizzier, and more dizzily yet. No one notices it. He's young, that's all they notice, not yet thirty, very youthful in the face, one of the lucky ones: that's all they notice. It goes on. He hides it, has to hide it. Can't bear that any of its baser manifestations—nerves, nervousness, shrinking—should be noticed. This is the stage of shunning people—of avoiding people's eyes that look, not at him, but into him and laugh at him. It goes on. He surprises himself by the work he does—always believes that this which has brought him merit, that which has named him one of the lucky ones anew, never can be equalled again; yet somehow is equalled; yet ever, as looking back he believes, at cost of greater effort, with touch less sure. This is the stage of beginning to expect that one day there will be an end, an explosion, all the fabric of his life and his success cant on its rotten foundations and come crashing.

Now the years run. The Intelligence people conceive The Week Reviewed: Mr. Wriford forms it, executes it, launches it, carries it to success, and the more energy he devotes to it the less has to resist the crumbling of his foundations. One of the lucky ones—one that has reached the stage of conscious effort to perform a task, drives himself through it, finishes it trembling, and only wants to get away from everybody to hide how he trembles, and only wants to get to bed where it is dark and quiet, and only lies there turning from tangle to tangle of his preoccupations, counting the hours that refuse him sleep, crying to himself as he has been heard to cry: "Oh, I say, I say, I say! This can't go on! This must end! This must end!"