God send I look different.
I hope I shall look my years, when I am dead.
Beautiful, beautiful,' she crooned over him.
'You can see him in his teens, with his first beard on his face.
A beautiful soul, beautiful—' Then there was a tearing in her voice as she cried:
'None of you look like this, when you are dead!
Don't let it happen again.'
It was a strange, wild command from out of the unknown.
Her children moved unconsciously together, in a nearer group, at the dreadful command in her voice.
The colour was flushed bright in her cheek, she looked awful and wonderful.
'Blame me, blame me if you like, that he lies there like a lad in his teens, with his first beard on his face.
Blame me if you like.
But you none of you know.'
She was silent in intense silence.
Then there came, in a low, tense voice:
'If I thought that the children I bore would lie looking like that in death, I'd strangle them when they were infants, yes—'
'No, mother,' came the strange, clarion voice of Gerald from the background, 'we are different, we don't blame you.'
She turned and looked full in his eyes.
Then she lifted her hands in a strange half-gesture of mad despair.
'Pray!' she said strongly. 'Pray for yourselves to God, for there's no help for you from your parents.'
'Oh mother!' cried her daughters wildly.
But she had turned and gone, and they all went quickly away from each other.
When Gudrun heard that Mr Crich was dead, she felt rebuked.
She had stayed away lest Gerald should think her too easy of winning.
And now, he was in the midst of trouble, whilst she was cold.
The following day she went up as usual to Winifred, who was glad to see her, glad to get away into the studio.
The girl had wept, and then, too frightened, had turned aside to avoid any more tragic eventuality.
She and Gudrun resumed work as usual, in the isolation of the studio, and this seemed an immeasurable happiness, a pure world of freedom, after the aimlessness and misery of the house.
Gudrun stayed on till evening.
She and Winifred had dinner brought up to the studio, where they ate in freedom, away from all the people in the house.
After dinner Gerald came up.
The great high studio was full of shadow and a fragrance of coffee.
Gudrun and Winifred had a little table near the fire at the far end, with a white lamp whose light did not travel far.
They were a tiny world to themselves, the two girls surrounded by lovely shadows, the beams and rafters shadowy over-head, the benches and implements shadowy down the studio.
'You are cosy enough here,' said Gerald, going up to them.
There was a low brick fireplace, full of fire, an old blue Turkish rug, the little oak table with the lamp and the white-and-blue cloth and the dessert, and Gudrun making coffee in an odd brass coffee-maker, and Winifred scalding a little milk in a tiny saucepan.
'Have you had coffee?' said Gudrun.
'I have, but I'll have some more with you,' he replied.
'Then you must have it in a glass—there are only two cups,' said Winifred.
'It is the same to me,' he said, taking a chair and coming into the charmed circle of the girls.
How happy they were, how cosy and glamorous it was with them, in a world of lofty shadows!
The outside world, in which he had been transacting funeral business all the day was completely wiped out.
In an instant he snuffed glamour and magic.
They had all their things very dainty, two odd and lovely little cups, scarlet and solid gilt, and a little black jug with scarlet discs, and the curious coffee-machine, whose spirit-flame flowed steadily, almost invisibly.
There was the effect of rather sinister richness, in which Gerald at once escaped himself.
They all sat down, and Gudrun carefully poured out the coffee.
'Will you have milk?' she asked calmly, yet nervously poising the little black jug with its big red dots.
She was always so completely controlled, yet so bitterly nervous.
'No, I won't,' he replied.
So, with a curious humility, she placed him the little cup of coffee, and herself took the awkward tumbler.