XV
The nervous distress had gone—with extraordinary suddenness; and a curiously unruffled calm filled her mind. Nothing matters. This is not all.
She was a deeply religious woman, but quite unorthodox in the letter of her faith. There might be as many rituals as there are social communities, a different altar for every day of the year; but, however you dressed the eternal glory and the limitless power in garments taken from the poor wardrobe of man's imagination, the veritable God was unchanged, unchanging. And her toleration of the diverse opinions of others enabled her to worship as comfortably under the high-vaulted magnificence of a Catholic cathedral as within the narrow shabbiness of a Wesleyan chapel. The perfume of swinging censers did not cloud her brain, nor the ugliness of white-washed walls grieve her eyes—any consecrated place of prayer was good enough to pray in.
But for the sake of old associations, by reason of its familiar homeliness, its air of solidity without pomp, and a simplicity that yet is not undignified, she loved this parish church of St. Saviour's; and it was here, sitting through the long undecorated service, that mental equanimity was most strangely if temporarily restored to her. Although not participating, she stayed for the celebration of the communion; and while the mystic, symbolic rites were performed, she neither prayed nor meditated. For her it was a blank pause,—no thought,—nothing; but nevertheless she became aware of a deepening perception of rest and peace, and the feeling that she had been uplifted—raised to a spiritual height from which she could look down on the common pains of earth, and see their intrinsically trivial character.
Our life, be it what it may, does not end here. This is not all. Something wider, more massive, infinitely grander, is coming to us, if we will wait patiently.
She sat motionless until all the congregation had dispersed; and when she left the church, there was an expression of gravity on her face and a sense of contentment in her heart. At the sight of some children romping by the church-yard railings, she smiled. A boy pushed a girl with mirthful vigorousness, and she spoke to him gently.
"Don't be rough, little boy. Take care, and don't hurt her—even in play."
Then she gave the children "silver sixpences to buy sweeties," and went slowly down the court. She could think kindly and benignantly of all the world. There was not a tinge of bitterness remaining when she thought of her husband.
As she lay in bed one morning after a night of dreamless sleep, a chance word dropped by Yates set her lazily thinking of the last date on which she had suffered from those normal and not accidental fluctuations of energy that are produced by periodically recurrent causes. Beginning to count the weeks, she fancied that some error of memory was confusing her—time of late had moved with such heavy feet; what seemed long was really short in the story of her days. Then she began to count the days, trying to make fixed points, and laboriously filling the gaps that intervened. Then she stopped counting and thinking.
Yates had gone out of the room, and she lay quite still, with relaxed limbs and slackened respiration.