One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
She thanked heaven for the loneliness of her bed, where
she could repeat: ‘The mother!—the daughter!’ hearing the
world’s words:—the daughter excused, by reason of her having
such a mother; the mother unpitied for the bruiting of
her brazen daughter’s name: but both alike consigned to the
corners of the world’s dust-heaps. She cried out, that her
pride was broken. Her pride, her last support of life, had
gone to pieces. The tears she restrained in Victor’s presence,
were called on to come now, and she had none. It might be,
that she had not strength for weeping. She was very weak.
Rising from bed to lock her door against Nesta’s entry to the
room on her return at night, she could hardly stand: a chill
and a clouding overcame her. The quitted bed seemed the
haven of a drifted wreck to reach.
Victor tried the handle of a locked door in the dark of the
early winter morning. ‘The mother!—the daughter!’ had
swung a pendulum for some time during the night in him,
too. He would rather have been subjected to the spectacle of
tears than have heard that toneless voice, as it were the dry
torrent-bed rolling blocks instead of melodious, if afflicting,
waters.
He told Nesta not to disturb her mother, and murmured
of a headache: ‘Though, upon my word, the best cure for
mama would be a look into Fredi’s eyes!’ he said, embracing
his girl, quite believing in her, just a little afraid of her.
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