It was perfectly peaceful and strangely young-looking, as if the cool, soothing hand of death, which presently would quiet all trouble for her, had been already at work there erasing the marks that the years had graven upon it. And yet it was not so much young as ageless; it seemed to have passed beyond the register and limitations of time. Sometimes for a moment it was like the face of a stranger, and then suddenly it would become beloved and familiar again. It was just so she had looked when she came so timidly into his room one night at Ashbridge, asking him if it would be troublesome to him if she sat and talked with him for a little. The mouth was a little parted for her slow, even breathing; the corners of it smiled; and yet he was not sure if they smiled. It was hard to tell, for she lay there quite flat, without pillows, and he looked at her from an unusual angle.
Sometimes he felt as if he had been sitting there watching for uncounted years; and then again the hours that he had been here appeared to have lasted but for a moment, as if he had but looked once at her.
As the day declined the breeze of evening awoke, rattling the blind. By now the sun had swung farther west, and the nurse pulled the blind up. Outside in the bushes in the garden the call of birds to each other had begun, and a thrush came close to the window and sang a liquid phrase, and then repeated it. Michael glanced there and saw the bird, speckle-breasted, with throat that throbbed with the notes; and then, looking back to the bed, he saw that his mother's eyes were open.
She looked vaguely about the room for a moment, as if she had awoke from some deep sleep and found herself in an unfamiliar place.
Then, turning her head slightly, she saw him, and there was no longer any question as to whether her mouth smiled, for all her face was flooded with deep, serene joy.
He bent towards her and her lips parted.
"Michael, my dear," she said gently.
Michael heard the rustle of the nurse's dress as she got up and came to the bedside. He slipped from his chair on to his knees, so that his face was near his mother's. He felt in his heart that the moment he had so longed for was to be granted him, that she had come back to him, not only as he had known her during the weeks that they had lived alone together, when his presence made her so content, but in a manner infinitely more real and more embracing.
"Have you been sitting here all the time while I slept, dear?" she asked. "Have you been waiting for me to come back to you?""Yes, and you have come," he said.
She looked at him, and the mother-love, which before had been veiled and clouded, came out with all the tender radiance of evening sun, with the clear shining after rain.
"I knew you wouldn't fail me, my darling," she said. "You were so patient with me in the trouble I have been through. It was a nightmare, but it has gone."Michael bent forward and kissed her.
"Yes, mother," he said, "it has all gone."She was silent a moment.
"Is your father here?" she said.
"No; but he will come at once, if you would like to see him.""Yes, send for him, dear, if it would not vex him to come," she said; "or get somebody else to send; I don't want you to leave me.""I'm not going to," said he.
The nurse went to the door, gave some message, and presently returned to the other side of the bed. Then Lady Ashbridge spoke again.
"Is this death?" she asked.
Michael raised his eyes to the figure standing by the bed. She nodded to him.
He bent forward again.
"Yes, dear mother," he said.
For a moment her eyes dilated, then grew quiet again, and the smile returned to her mouth.
"I'm not frightened, Michael," she said, "with you there. It isn't lonely or terrible."She raised her head.
"My son!" she said in a voice loud and triumphant. Then her head fell back again, and she lay with face close to his, and her eyelids quivered and shut. Her breath came slow and regular, as if she slept. Then he heard that she missed a breath, and soon after another. Then, without struggle at all, her breathing ceased. . . .
And outside on the lawn close by the open window the thrush still sang.
It was an hour later when Michael left, having waited for his father's arrival, and drove to town through the clear, falling dusk. He was conscious of no feeling of grief at all, only of a complete pervading happiness. He could not have imagined so perfect a close, nor could he have desired anything different from that imperishable moment when his mother, all trouble past, had come back to him in the serene calm of love. . . .
As he entered London he saw the newsboards all placarded with one fact: England had declared war on Germany.
He went, not to his own flat, but straight to Maidstone Crescent.
With those few minutes in which his mother had known him, the stupor that had beset his emotions all day passed off, and he felt himself longing, as he had never longed before, for Sylvia's presence. Long ago he had given her all that he knew of as himself; now there was a fresh gift. He had to give her all that those moments had taught him. Even as already they were knitted into him, made part of him, so must they be to her. . . . And when they had shared that, when, like water gushing from a spring she flooded him, there was that other news which he had seen on the newsboards that they had to share together.
