I went in and shut to my door. I shut the door of my heart, and closed myself up alone in this dreary, solitary place. I was not without a consciousness even now that I had left them all longing, anxious, miserable about me; but I felt as though they were all enemies—all enemies, as if I had not a friend in this wretched, forsaken world. I did not think what this real blow was which had struck upon me. I only felt my dreary, hopeless solitude, and the desire I had to be left here unmolested. I thought it would please me to see no more a human face again. I was in a wilderness more desolate than any Eastern waste—there were no hearers above me, and no human fellowship around. God and the Lord were words to me. I believed, but I did not know them—I could not seek refuge there, and here there was not one—not one of those I had loved so well, but had betrayed me.
My little room, my bower, my girlish sanctuary which I had left in my bride’s dress, I had returned to now, worse than a widow. Quietly and mechanically I began to take off my dress—it was not grief but misery which filled my heart, and there is a great difference between them. My wretchedness stupified me, and when I laid down my head upon my pillow, I fell at once into a heavy, deep sleep.
THE FOURTH DAY.
IT was a clear, cold, sunshiny autumn morning, the atmosphere was full of sunshine, yet there was little warmth in the air, and there were thin misty clouds upon the sky, which looked like vapors which the earth had thrown off from her own still bosom, and the wind carried up unchanged. Yet out of doors it was a beautiful fresh day, and the sun beat in through our darkened windows with a full bright flash in mockery of our sombre shade. A dreary dull excitement was in the house—it was the funeral day.
I had been living a strange, miserable, solitary life. Every day Alice brought me some food, and I took it mechanically. Every day I went down stairs, and heard them speaking together. I listened when they addressed me, and answered them with perfect composure. I knew all the arrangements—by no pretext that I was not able, did I permit anything to be hid from me. I was quite able—my frame was strong—my heart was stunned—I could endure anything—there need have been no fears for me.
But my intercourse with them went no further. I heard what they had to say, and answered, but I suffered no approach towards friendship. Alice waited upon me with assiduous tenderness, but I never spoke to her. Mr. Osborne appealed to our long acquaintance—to my father’s old, old friendship for him—to his love for mine and me. My heart was steeled. I made no response. I went and came among them alone—alone—as I was to be alone all my life.
And he—he was always there—always ready to interpose for me if I expressed a wish, or opposed any intention of Mr. Osborne, who managed everything. If I was likely to be annoyed by any importunity, I knew that he interposed and freed me from it. I seemed to see everything he did, present or absent, by some strange magic. He did not persecute me with vain endeavors after a reconciliation—he left me to myself—we scarcely spoke to each other; yet when he was away I chafed and fretted at his absence, and when he returned I knew how he looked—what he did—as well as if I had flown to meet him, or hung upon him with a young wife’s foolish fondness. We were evermore parted, yet evermore united—this feud and antagonism between us was as strong a bond as love.
My father was to be laid in the family grave—this was at a little solitary church half way between Cambridge and Cottiswoode. Some haughty Southcote in the old time had desired to be laid at the boundary and extreme line of his own lands, and hence had arisen a little desolate church and graveyard, and the mausoleum of the race. They had arranged that Edgar Southcote was to be the chief mourner at this lonely funeral—that I could not bear—I could not see my father carried to his grave with only them two—Mr. Osborne and him, following up the last journey. I said nothing, but I prepared myself—I wrapped a great black cloak about me, over my mourning dress—black, black, black—it was very neat. I veiled my head and my face, and went out from these doors like something that belonged to the midnight, and not to the day. Alice stood and gazed at me aghast while I robed myself; and when I turned to go out, she fell down at my feet, and clasped her arms round me, and cried and pleaded: “Do not go—it will kill you,” she cried. I drew my dress out of her hands and bade her rise. “It will not kill me,” I said bitterly, “yet if it did, it would be well.”
As I went down stairs I met Mr. Osborne. He stood before me in amazement. “Hester, Hester, you will not think of this!”
“Let me pass!” I said, “let some one who loved him go with him—let me pass—no one shall prevent me—he has none in the world of his own blood but me.”