IN THE SICK-ROOM
Julia had the smallpox, not varioloid, but the veritable thing itself,
in its most aggravated form. Where she took it, or when, she did not
know, nor did it matter. She had it, and for ten days she had seen no
one but her husband and physician, and had no care but such as Guy could
give her. He had been unremitting in his attention. Tender and gentle as
a woman, he had nursed her night and day, with no thought for himself
and the risk he ran. It was a bad disease at the best, and now in its
worst type it was horrible, but Julia bore up bravely, thinking always
more of others than of herself, and feeling so glad that Providence had
sent them to those out-of-the-way rooms, where she had at first thought
she could not pass a night comfortably. Her children were in the room
adjoining, and she could hear their little voices as they played
together, or asked for their mamma and why they must not see her. Alas!
they would never see her again; she knew it now, and Guy knew it, too.
The doctor had told them so when he left them that night, and between
the husband and wife words had been spoken such as are only said when
hearts which have been one are about to be severed forever.
To Julia there was no terror in death, save as it took her from those
she loved, her husband and her little ones, and these she had given into
God's keeping, knowing his promises are sure. To Guy she had said:
"You have made me so happy. I want you to remember that when I am gone;
I would not have one look or act of yours changed if I could, and yet,
forgive me, Guy, for saying it, but I know you must often have thought
of that other one whom, you loved first, and it may be best."
Guy could not say no to that, but he smoothed her hair tenderly, and his
tears dropped upon the scarred, swollen face he could not kiss, as Julia
went on.
"But if you did you never showed it in the least, and I bless you for
it. Take good care of my children; teach them to remember their mother,
and if in time there comes another in my place, and other little ones
than mine call you father, don't forget me quite, because I love you so
much. Oh, Guy, my darling, it is hard to say good-by and know that after
a little this world will go on the same as if I had never been. Don't
think I am afraid. I am not, for Jesus is with me, and I know I am safe,
but still there's a clinging to life, which has been so pleasant to me.
Tell your sister how I loved her. I know she will miss me and be good to
my children, and if you ever meet that other one tell her--tell
her--I--"
The faint voice faltered here, and when it spoke again, it said:
"Lift me up, Guy, so I can breathe better while I tell you."
He lifted her up and held her in his arms, while through the open window
the summer air and the silver moonlight streamed, and in the distance
was heard the sound of music as the dance went merrily on. And just
then, when she was in the minds of both, Daisy came, and her gentle
knock broke the silence of the room and startled both Guy and Julia.
Who was it that sought entrance to that death-laden and disease-poisoned
room? Not the doctor, surely, for he always entered unannounced, and who
else dared to come there? Thus Guy questioned, hesitating to answer the
knock, when to his utter surprise the door opened and a little figure,
clad in airy robes of white, with its bright hair wreathed with flowers
and gems, came floating in, the blue eyes shining like stars and the
full red lips parted with the smile, half pleased, half shy, which Guy
remembered so well.
"Daisy, Daisy!" he cried, and his voice rang like a bell through the
room, as, laying Julia's head back upon the pillow, he sprang to Daisy's
side, and, taking her by the shoulder, pushed her gently toward the
door, saying:
"Why have you come here? Leave us at once; don't you see? don't you
know?" and he pointed toward Julia, whose face showed so plainly in the
gaslight.
"Yes, I know, and I came to help you take care of her. I am not afraid,"
Daisy said, and, freeing herself from his grasp, she walked straight up
to Julia and laid her soft, white hand upon her head. "I am Daisy," she
said, "and I've come to take care of you. I just heard you were here;
how hot your poor head is! let me bathe it; shall I?"
She went to the bowl, and wringing a cloth in ice water, bathed and
rubbed the sick woman's head, and held the cool cloth to the face and
wiped the parched lips, and rubbed the feverish hands, while Guy stood,
looking on, bewildered and confounded, and utterly unable to say a word
or utter a protest to this angel, as it seemed to him, who had come
unbidden to his aid, forgetful of the risk she ran and the danger she
incurred. Once as she turned her beautiful face to him and he saw how
wondrously fair and lovely it was, lovely with a different expression
from any he had ever seen there, it came over him with a thrill of
horror that that face must not be marred and disfigured with the
terrible pestilence, and he made another effort to send her away. But
Daisy would not go.
"I am not afraid," she said. "I have just been vaccinated, and there was
already a good scar on my arm; look!" and she pushed back her sleeve and
showed her round, white arm with the mark upon it.
Guy did not oppose her after that, but let her do what she liked, and
when, an hour later, the doctor came he found his recent visitor sitting
on Julia's bed, with Julia's head lying against her bosom and Julia
herself asleep. Some word which sounded very much like "thunderation"
escaped his lips, but he said no more, for he saw in the sleeping
woman's face a look he never mistook. It was death, and ten minutes
after he entered the room Julia Thornton lay dead in Daisy's arms.
There was a moment or so of half-consciousness, during which they caught
the words. "So kind in you; it makes me easier; be good to the children;
one is called for you, but Guy loved me, too. Good-by. I am going to
Jesus."
That was the last she ever spoke, and a moment after she was gone. In
his fear lest the facts should be known to his guests, the host insisted
that the body should be removed under cover of the night, and as Guy
knew the railway officials would object to taking it on any train, there
was no alternative except to bury it in town, and so before the morning
broke there was brought up to the room a closely sealed coffin and box,
and Daisy helped lay Julia in her last bed, and put a white flower in
her hair and folded her hands upon her bosom, and then watched from the
window the little procession which followed the body out to the
cemetery, where, in the stillness of the coming day, they buried it,
together with everything which had been used about the bed, Daisy's
party dress included; and when at last the full morning broke, with stir
and life in the hotel, all was empty and still in the fumigated chamber
of death, and in the adjoining room, clad in a simple white wrapper,
with a blue ribbon in her hair, Daisy sat with Guy's little boy on her
lap and her namesake at her side, amusing them as best she could and
telling them their mamma had gone to live with Jesus.
"Who'll be our mamma now? We must have one. Will oo?" little Daisy
asked, as she hung about the neck of her new friend.
She knew it was Miss McDolly, her "sake-name," and in her delight at
seeing her and her admiration of her great beauty, she forgot in part
the dead mamma on whose grave the summer sun was shining.
The Thorntons left the hotel that day and went back to the house in
Cuylerville, which had been closed for a few weeks, Miss Frances being
away with some friends in Connecticut. But she returned at once when she
heard the dreadful news, and was there to receive her brother and his
motherless little ones. He told her of Daisy when he could trust himself
to talk at all, of Julia's sickness and death, and Miss Frances felt her
heart go out as it had never gone before toward the woman about whom
little Daisy talked constantly.
"Most bootiful lady," she said, "an' looked des like an 'ittle dirl,
see was so short, an' her eyes were so hue an' her hair so turly."
Miss McDonald had won Daisy's heart, and, knowing that made her own
happier and lighter than it had been since the day when the paper came
to her with the marked paragraph which crushed her so completely. There
had been but a few words spoken between herself and Guy, and these in
the presence of others, but at their parting he had taken her soft
little hand in his and held it a moment, while he said, with a choking
voice: "God bless you, Daisy. I shall not forget your kindness to my
poor Julia, and if you should need--but no, that is too horrible to
think of; may God spare you that. Good-by."
And that was all that passed between him and Daisy with regard to the
haunting dread which sent her in a few days to her own house in New
York, where, if the thing she feared came upon her, she would at least
be at home and know she was not endangering the lives of others. But God
was good to her, and though there was a slight fever, with darting pains
in her back and a film before her eyes, it amounted to nothing worse,
and might have been the result of fatigue and over-excitement; and when
at Christmas time, yielding to the importunities of her little
namesake, there was a picture of herself in the box sent to
Cuylerville, the face which Guy scanned even more eagerly than his
daughter, was as smooth and fair and beautiful as when he saw it at
Saratoga, bending over his dying wife.