PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP
Othello, ii. 1.
Berenice had abundant leisure to reflect upon her attitude toward her
lovers, for Mrs. Frostwinch was soon so seriously ill that it was
evident to all that the end was at hand. Berenice devoted herself to
the invalid, although there was little that she could do. The sick
woman did not suffer; she seemed merely to be fading out of life; to
have lost her hold upon something which was slipping from her loosened
grasp.
"The fact is, Bee," Mrs. Frostwinch said one day, "that the doctors say
I'm dead. I'm beginning to believe it myself, and when I'm fully
convinced, I suppose that that'll be the end."
"Oh, don't joke about it, Cousin Anna," cried Bee. "It is too dreadful."
"It won't make it any less dreadful to be solemn over it," the other
answered. "However, death should be spoken of with respect; even one's
own."
Berenice longed to know what had taken place between her cousin and
Mrs. Crapps, but she hardly liked to ask. That there had been a
disagreement of some kind, and that Mrs. Frostwinch had lost faith in
the woman, she knew; but beyond this she was in the dark. One
afternoon, however, her cousin explained matters.
"It is so humiliating, Bee, that I can hardly bear to think of it, the
way things turned out. My conscience will be easier, though, if I tell
you the whole of it. It is so vulgar that it makes me creep. We were at
Jekyll's Island, and she had an ulcerated tooth."
"I thought she couldn't have such things?"
"She thought or pretended that she couldn't. I must say that she fought
against it with tremendous pluck; but the face kept swelling, and the
pain got to be more than she could bear. When she gave out she went to
pieces completely. She literally rolled on the floor and howled. I
couldn't go on believing in her after that. She'd actually made herself
ridiculous."
"But," began Berenice, "I should think"--
"If it had been something dangerous, so that I had had to think of her
life," went on her cousin, not heeding, "I could have borne it; but
that common thing! Why, her face looked like a drunken cook's! I can't
tell you the humiliation of it!"
"But if she could help you, why not herself?"
Mrs. Frostwinch smiled wanly.
"I've tried to think that out," answered she. "It was always said of
the old witches, you know, that they couldn't help themselves. It is
faith in somebody else that is behind the wonders they do. I've grown
very wise in the last few weeks, Bee. I don't pretend that I understand
all the facts, but I do know pretty well what the facts are. I believed
in Mrs. Crapps, and that belief kept me up. When I couldn't believe in
her, that was the end of it."
There seemed to Berenice something uncanny and monstrous in this calm
acquiescence. She could not comprehend how her cousin could give up the
struggle for life in this fashion, after having succeeded so long in
holding death at bay.
"But surely," she protested, "you can't be willing to let everything
depend upon her. You've proved the possibility"--
"I've proved the possibility of depending upon somebody else; that's
all."
"Then find another woman that you can believe in."
"It is too late. I can't have the faith over again. I should always be
expecting another humiliating downfall of my prophetess."