She rose, and gathering up her skirts, left him before he had time to recover.
CHAPTER XXI.
Thus it had happened with Clytie during Thornton's absence. There came a morning at the end of the Old Year when the snow and sleet dashing against the window could be dimly heard in the heavily curtained room, and Clytie feebly whispered: “Give me the child.” Gently they told her that the life had merely fluttered on the threshold and passed back into the silence whence it came. And she sank back on her pillows, struck to the heart with a dumb, hopeless heartsickness.
Recovery was slow. Clytie lay for many days quite listless, the tears rolling down her cheeks, physical weakness aiding to make her feel a great self-pity. The long waiting, the fear, the pain, all had been counted as nothing if at the close there could have lain in her arms a little child—one whose touch would draw all pain from her heart, make her forget every sorrow. And the passionate child hunger, begotten of the pangs of maternity, woke within her and cried for satisfaction.
The whole weight of the world's misery crushed down upon her. She awoke to a gray world. Its glory had departed. There was nothing left to live for, and a great despair came over her. What was the use of dragging out this broken, colourless existence until the time,—hopelessly remote it seemed to her, now that the blood ran again strongly through her veins,—should come for her to die? She passed through the phase common to all strong natures in supreme moments of weariness, when death seemed the only solution. One little draught out of a phial, an agonised convulsion, perhaps, and then eternal nothingness. She did not fear the annihilation which her materialism had taught her was the end of things. She had no eschatological sentimentality. But the full-pulsed animal's instinctive clutching after life held her back; the fit passed off, and she decided to live through another act of the dreary tragedy.
All feelings of tenderness, trust, common confidence in her husband, were swept away forever. The faintest breath of the old attraction caused her to shiver with repulsion. Henceforward they were mere acquaintances, who subsisted from a common fund, lived under the same roof, and performed certain conventional actions in common, for the sake of their own relations with a society that demands a certain outward show of harmony between husband and wife. Thornton had come to town from Hampshire in the vilest of tempers. For a day or two he positively hated Clytie. Then the seriousness of her illness had awakened in him a superficial sympathy. But as soon as she was out of danger he regarded her with cold dislike. She had abruptly terminated his pleasant holiday. She had gravely endangered his liaison with the only woman by whom he had been otherwise than purely sensually attracted, wherein lay an odd fascination, and in thus compelling him to her side she had sharply reminded him that a married man, if he wishes to keep in with the world, must not parade himself too conspicuously as his own master. And Thornton had his own reasons for not wishing to openly outrage society.
As soon as she was able to travel Clytie went to Durdleham, for the first time since her marriage. The quiet, easy life soothed her for a while. She was in that condition of hopelessness when inaction seems the highest good. Mrs. Blather attributed her dejection to the objective cause, and sympathised with her as one woman can with another, and strove to cheer her; but still she privately thought this long brooding somewhat morbid. Clytie always went to extremes. But although she naturally was unconscious of the subtleties of dreariness in the causation of her sister's state, she was none the less helpful with her sympathy—and sympathy very often is all the stronger from the narrowness of the channel in which it flows.
February and March passed in the quiet, monotonous Durdleham way. But as the spring grew into her blood Clytie felt the tingling of life once again, and the period of inactivity was over. She was not of the temperament to sit long with folded hands and lament over the futility of things. The old restlessness of her girlhood, though strangely modified, again urged her towards a fuller, more vivid existence. Again she looked out upon the world and its mysteries with a knowledge begotten of sorrow, and again vague longings took possession of her. She faced the new condition of things bravely, resolved to struggle towards a newer, better content. If the short dream had come true, she would have found happiness in the guidance of another life; but the high gods had ordained otherwise. As before her marriage, her only problem was the working out of her own individuality; for henceforward Thornton would be her husband only in name. In what direction should she carry herself so as to prevent the fulfilling of her needs from developing into ignoble egoism? As a girl she had studied life eagerly, had painted from artistic impulses, from desire for fame, and from material necessity. Her enthusiasms, the intimacy of her odd social life with Kent and Winifred, had kept her pure and fresh. Now all was changed. She was alone. She had learned many things: the touch of the fire of passion, the taste of the waters of bitterness. Definite enthusiasms seemed to be wanting; only the artistic impulse urging creation remained to her—together with mechanical skill. How was she to occupy her life to a fair and noble purpose? She tried to solve the problem calmly, was wise enough to smile when she discovered that she failed. One cannot range a row of potential enthusiasms in front of one, like oranges, and select in cold blood. So Clytie determined to have faith