"YOU WERE RIGHT, ESTHER."
For many, many long weeks, I might say months, my daily life was lived
in Carrie's sick room.
What a mercy it is that we are not permitted to see the course of
events--that we take moment by moment from the Father's hand, not
knowing what lies before us!
It was September when I had that little altercation with Deborah on the
threshold, and when she drew aside for me to pass into that
dimly-lighted sickroom; it was Christmas now, and I was there still.
Could I have foreseen those months, with their record of suffering,
their hours of changeless monotony, well might my courage have failed.
As it was, I watched the slow progression of nights and days almost
indifferently; the walls of the sickroom closed round me, shutting me
out from the actual world, and concentrating my thoughts on the frail
girl who was fighting against disease and death.
So terrible an illness I pray to Heaven I may never see again; sad
complications producing unheard-of tortures, and bringing the sufferer
again and again to the very brink of death.
"If I could only die: if I were only good enough to be allowed to die!"
that was the prayer she breathed; and there were times when I could
have echoed it, when I would rather have parted with her, dearly as I
loved her, than have seen her so racked with agony; but it was not to
be. The lesson was not completed. There are some who must be taught to
live, who have to take back "the turned lesson," as one has beautifully
said, and learn it more perfectly.
If I had ever doubted her goodness in my secret soul, I could doubt no
longer, when I daily witnessed her weakness and her exceeding patience.
She bore her suffering almost without complaint, and would often hide
from us how much she had to endure.
"'It is good to be still.' Do you remember that, Esther?" she said
once; and I knew she was quoting the words of one who had suffered.
After the first day I had no further difficulty with Deborah; she soon
recognized my usefulness, and gave me my share of nursing without
grudging. I took my turn at the night-watching, and served my first
painful apprenticeship in sick nursing. Mother could do little for us;
she could only relieve me for a couple of hours in the afternoon,
during which Uncle Geoffrey insisted that I should have rest and
exercise.
Allan did not come home when we expected him; he had to postpone his
intention for a couple of months. This was a sad disappointment, as he
would have helped us so much, and mother's constant anxiety that my
health should not suffer by my close confinement was a little trying at
times. I was quite well, but it was no wonder that my fresh color faded
a little, and that I grew a little quiet and subdued. The absence of
life and change must be pernicious to young people; they want air,
movement, a certain stirring of activity and bustle to keep time with
their warm natures.
Every one was very kind to me. Uncle Geoffrey would take me on his
rounds, and often Miss Ruth and Flurry would call for me, and drive me
into the country, and they brought me books and fruit and lovely
flowers for Carrie's room; and though I never saw Mr. Lucas during his
few brief visits he never failed to send me a kind message or to ask if
there was anything he could do for us.
Miss Ruth, or Ruth, as I always called her now, would sometimes come up
into the sickroom and sit for a few minutes. Carrie liked to see her,
and always greeted her with a smile; but when Mrs. Smedley heard of it,
and rather peremptorily demanded admittance, she turned very pale, and
calling me to her, charged me, in an agitated voice, never to let her
in. "I could not see her, I could not," she went on, excitedly. "I like
Miss Ruth; she is so gentle and quiet. But I want no one but you and
mother."
Mother once--very injudiciously, as Uncle Geoffrey and I thought--tried
to shake this resolution of Carrie's.
"Poor Mrs. Smedley seems so very grieved and disappointed that you will
not see her, my dear. This is the third time she has called this week,
and she has been so kind to you."
"Oh, mother, don't make me see her!" pleaded Carrie, even her lips
turning white; and of course mother kissed her and promised that she
should not be troubled. But when she had left the room Carrie became
very much agitated.
"She is the last I ought to see, for she helped to bring me to this;
she taught me to disobey my mother--yes, Esther, she did indeed!" as I
expostulated in a shocked manner. "She was always telling me that my
standard was not high enough--that I ought to look above even the
wisest earthly parents. She said my mother had old-fashioned notions of
duty; that things were different in her young days; that, in spite of
her goodness, she had narrow views; that it was impossible for her even
to comprehend me."
"Dear Carrie, surely you could not have agreed with her?" I asked,
gently; but her only answer was a sigh as she sank back upon her
pillows.
It was the evening Allan was expected, I remember. It was December now,
and for nine weeks I had been shut up in that room, with the exception
of my daily walk or drive.
Deborah had gone back to her usual work; it was impossible to spare her
longer. But she still helped in the heaviest part of the nursing, and
came from time to time to look after us both.
Dot had remained for six weeks at the Cedars; but mother missed him so
much that Uncle Geoffrey decided to bring him home; and how glad and
thankful I was to get my darling back!
I saw very little of him, however, for, strange to say, Carrie did not
care for him and Jack to stay long in the room. I was not surprised
that Jack fidgeted her, for she was restless and noisy, and her loud
voice and awkward manners would jar sadly on an invalid; but Dot was
different.
In a sick room he was as quiet as a little mouse, and he had such nice
ways. It grieved me to see Carrie shade her eyes in that pained manner
when he hobbled in softly on his crutches.
"Carrie always cries when she sees me!" Dot said once, with a little
quiver of his lips. Alas! we neither of us understood the strange
misery that even the sight of her afflicted little brother caused her.
Mother had gone downstairs when she had made her little protest about
Mrs. Smedley, and we were left alone together. I was resting in the low
cushioned chair Ruth had sent me in the early days of Carrie's illness,
and was watching the fire in a quiet fashion that had become habitual
to me. The room looked snug and pleasant in the twilight; the little
bed on which I slept was in the farthest corner; a bouquet of hothouse
flowers stood on the little round table, with some books Mr. Lucas had
sent up for me. It must have looked cheerful to Carrie as she lay among
the pillows; but to my dismay there were tears on her cheeks--I could
see them glistening in the firelight.
"Do you feel less well to-night, dear?" I asked, anxiously, as I took a
seat beside her; but she shook her head.
"I am better, much better," was her reply, "thanks to you and Deborah
and Uncle Geoffrey," but her smile was very sad as she spoke. "How good
you have been to me, Esther--how kind and patient! Sometimes I have
looked at you when you were asleep over there, and I have cried to see
how thin and weary you looked in your sleep, and all through me."
"Nonsense," I returned, kissing her; but my voice was not quite clear.
"Allan will say so to-night when he sees you--you are not the same,
Esther. Your eyes are graver, and you seem to have forgotten how to
laugh, and it is all my fault."
"Dear Carrie, I wish you would not talk so."
"Let me talk a little to-night," she pleaded. "I feel better and
stronger, and it will be such a relief to tell you some of my thoughts.
I have been silent for nine weeks, and sometimes the pent-up pain has
been more than I could bear."
"My poor Carrie," stroking the thin white hand on the coverlid.
"Yes, I am that," she sighed. "Do you remember our old talks together?
Oh, how wise you were, Esther, but I would not listen to you; you were
all for present duties. I can recollect some of your words now. You
told me our work lay before us, close to us, at our very feet, and yet
I would stretch out my arms for more, till my own burdens crushed me,
and I fell beneath them."
"You attempted too much," I returned; "your intention was good, but you
overstrained your powers."
"You are putting it too mildly," she returned, with a great sadness in
her voice. "Esther, I have had time to think since I have lain here,
and I have been reviewing your life and mine. I wanted to see where the
fault lay, and how I had missed my path. God was taking away my work
from me; the sacrifice I offered was not acceptable."
"Oh, my dear, hush!" But she lifted her hand feebly and laid on my lips.
"It was weeks before I found it out, but I think I see it clearly now.
We were both in earnest about our duty, we both wanted to do the best
we could for others; but, Esther, after all it was you who were right;
you did not turn against the work that was brought to you--your
teaching, and house, and mother, and Dot, and even Jack--all that came
first, and you knew it; you have worked in the corner of the vineyard
that was appointed to you, and never murmured over its barrenness and
narrow space, and so you are ripe and ready for any great work that may
be waiting for you in the future. 'Faithful in little, faithful in
much'--how often have I applied those words to you!"
I tried to stem the torrent of retrospection, but nothing would silence
her; as she said herself, the pent up feelings must have their course.
But why did she judge herself so bitterly? It pained me inexpressibly
to hear her.
"If I had only listened to you!" she went on; "but my spiritual
self-will blinded me. I despised my work. Oh, Esther! you cannot
contradict me; you know how bitterly I spoke of the little Thornes; how
I refused to take them into my heart; how scornfully I spoke of my
ornamental brickmaking."
I could not gainsay her words on that point; I knew her to be wrong.
"I wanted to choose my work; that was the fatal error. I spurned the
little duties at my feet, and looked out for some great work that I
must do. Teaching the little Thornes was hateful to me; yet I could
teach ragged children in the Sunday-school for hours. Mending Jack's
things and talking to mother were wearisome details; yet I could toil
through fog and rain in Nightingale lane, and feel no fatigue. My work
was impure, my motives tainted by self-will. Could it be accepted by
Him who was subject to His parents for thirty years, who worked at the
carpenter's bench, when He could have preached to thousands?" And here
she broke down, and wept bitterly.
What could I answer? How could I apply comfort to one so sorely
wounded? And yet through it all who could doubt her goodness?
"Dear Carrie," I whispered, "if this be all true, if there be no
exaggeration, no morbid conscientiousness in all you say, still you
have repented, and your punishment has been severe."
"My punishment!" she returned, in a voice almost of despair. "Why do
you speak of it as past, when you know I shall bear the consequences of
my own imprudence all my life long? This is what is secretly fretting
me. I try to bow myself to His will; but, oh! it is so hard not to be
allowed to make amends, not to be allowed to have a chance of doing
better for the future, not to be allowed to make up for all my
deficiencies in the past; but just to suffer and be a burden."
I looked at her with frightened eyes. What could she mean, when she was
getting better every day, and Uncle Geoffrey hoped she might be
downstairs by Christmas Day?
"Is it possible you do not know, Esther?" she said incredulously; but
two red spots came into her thin cheeks. "Have not mother and Uncle
Geoffrey told you?"
"They have told me nothing," I repeated. "Oh, Carrie, what do you mean?
You are not going to die?"
"To die? Oh, no!" in a tone of unutterable regret. "Should I be so
sorry for myself if I thought that? I am getting well--well," with a
slight catching of her breath--"but when I come downstairs I shall be
like Dot."
I do not know what I said in answer to this terrible revelation. Uncle
Geoffrey had never told me; Carrie had only extorted the truth from him
with difficulty. My darling girl a cripple! It was Carrie who tried to
comfort me as I knelt sobbing beside her.
"Oh, Esther, how you cry! Don't, my dear, don't. It makes me still more
unhappy. Have I told you too suddenly? But you must know. That is why I
could not bear to see Dot come into the room. But I mean to get over my
foolishness."
But I attempted no answer. "Cruel, cruel!" were the only words that
forced themselves through my teeth.
"You shall not say that," she returned, stroking my hair. "How can it
be cruel if it be meant for my good? I have feared this all along,
Esther; the mischief has set in in one hip. It is not the suffering,
but the thought of my helplessness that frightens me." And here her
sweet eyes filled with tears.
Oh, how selfish I was, when I ought to have been comforting her, if
only the words would come! And then a sudden thought came to me.
"They also serve who only stand and wait," and I repeated the line
softly, and a sort of inspiration came over me.
"Carrie," I said, embracing her, "this must be the work the loving
Saviour has now for you to do. This is the Cross He would have you take
up, and He who died to save the sinful and unthankful will give you
grace sufficient to your need."
"Yes, I begin to think it is!" she returned; and a light came into her
eyes, and she lay back in a satisfied manner. "I never thought of it in
that way; it seemed my punishment--just taking away my work and leaving
me nothing but helplessness and emptiness."
"And now you will look at it as still more difficult work. Oh, Carrie,
what will mine be compared to that--to see you patient under suffering,
cheerfully enduring, not murmuring or repining? What will that be but
preaching to us daily?"
"That will do," she answered faintly; "I must think it out. You have
done more for me this afternoon than any one has." And seeing how
exhausted she was, I left her, and stole back to my place.
She slept presently, and I sat still in the glimmering firelight,
listening to the sounds downstairs that told of Allan's arrival; but I
could not go down and show my tear-stained face. Deborah came up
presently to lay the little tea-table, and then Carrie woke up, and I
waited on her as usual, and tried to coax her failing appetite; and
by-and-by came the expected tap at the door.
Of course it was Allan; no one but himself would come in with that
alert step and cheerful voice.
"Well, Carrie, my dear," he said, affectionately, bending over her as
she looked up at him--whatever he felt at the sight of her changed face
he kept to himself; he kissed me without a word and took his seat by
the bedside.
"You know, Allan?" she whispered, as he took her hand.
"Yes, I know; Uncle Geoffrey has told me; but it may not be as bad as
you think--you have much for which to be thankful; for weeks he never
thought you would get over it. What does it matter about the lameness,
Carrie, when you have come back to us from the very jaws of death?" and
his voice trembled a little.
"I felt badly about it until Esther talked to me," she returned.
"Esther has been such a nurse to me, Allan."
He looked at me as she said this, and his eyes glistened. "Esther is
Esther," he replied, laconically; but I knew then how I satisfied him.
"When we were alone together that night--for I waited downstairs to say
good-night to him, while Deborah stayed with Carrie--he suddenly drew
me toward him and looked in my face.
"Poor child," he said, tenderly, "it is time I came home to relieve
you; you have grown a visionary, unsubstantial Esther, with large eyes
and a thin face; but somehow I never liked the look of you so well."
That made me smile. "Oh, Allan, how nice it is to have you with me
again!"
"Nice! I should think so; what walks we will have, by the bye. I mean
to have Carrie downstairs before a week is over; what is the good of
you both moping upstairs? I shall alter all that."
"She is too weak too move," I returned, dubiously.
"But she is not too weak to be carried. You are keeping her too quiet,
and she wants rousing a little; she feeds too much on her own thoughts,
and it is bad for her; she is such a little saint, you know," continued
Allan, half jestingly, "she wants to be leavened a little with our
wickedness.
"She is good; you would say so if you heard her."
"Not a bit more good than some other people--Miss Ruth, for example;"
but I could see from his mischievous eyes that he was not thinking of
Ruth. How well and handsome he was looking: he had grown broader, and
there was an air of manliness about him--"my bonnie lad," as I called
him.
I went to bed that night with greater contentment in my heart, because
Allan had come home; and even Carrie seemed cheered by the hopeful view
he had taken of her case.
"He thinks, perhaps, that after some years I may not be quite so
helpless," she whispered, as I said good-night to her, and her face
looked composed and quiet in the fading firelight; "anyhow, I mean to
bear it as well as I can, and not give you more trouble."
"I do not think it a trouble," was my answer as her arms released me;
and as I lay awake watching the gleaming shadows in the room, I thought
how sweet such ministry is to those we love, their very helplessness
endearing them to us. After all, this illness had drawn us closer
together, we were more now as sisters should be, united in sympathy and
growing deeper into each other's hearts. "How pleasant it is to live in
unity!" said the Psalmist; and the echo of the words seemed to linger
in my mind until I fell asleep.