There were some people in Bleaburn to whom the sign in heaven looked
very differently. On the night when the people assembled in the street
to question each other about it, Mary was at the Billiters’ house,
where, but for her, all would have been blank despair. Mrs. Billiter lay
muttering all night in the low delirium of the fever; and Mary could not
do more for her than go to the side of her mattress now and then, to
speak to her, and smooth her pillow, or put a cool hand on her forehead,
while one of the dying children hung on the other shoulder. At last, the
little fellow was evidently so near death that the slightest movement on
her part might put out the little life. As he lay with his head on her
shoulder, his bony arms hanging helpless, and his feet like those of a
skeleton across her lap, she felt every painful breath through her whole
frame. She happened to sit opposite the window; and the window, which
commanded a part of the brow of the hollow, happened to be open.
Wherever the Good Lady had been, the windows would open now; and, when
closed, they were so clear that the sunshine and moonlight could pour in
cheerfully. This September night was sultry and dry; and three fever
patients in two little low rooms needed whatever fresh air could be had.
There sat Mary, immoveable, with her eyes fixed on the brow from which
she had seen more than one star come up, since she last left her seat.
She now and then spoke cheerfully to the poor mutterer in the other
room, to prevent her feeling lonely, or for the chance of bringing back
her thoughts to real things: and then she had to soothe little Ned,
lying on a bed of shavings in the corner, sore and fretful, and needing
the help that she could not stir to give. His feeble cry would have
upset any spirits but Mary’s; but her spirits were never known to be
upset, though few women have gone through such ghastly scenes, or
sustained such tension of anxiety.
“I cannot come to you at this moment, Ned,” said she, “but I will
soon,—very soon. Do you know why your brother is not crying? He is going
to sleep,—for a long quiet sleep. Perhaps he will go to sleep more
comfortably if you can stop crying. Do you think you can stop crying,
Ned?”
The wailing was at once a little less miserable, and by degrees it came
to a stop as Mary spoke.
“Do you know, your little brother will be quite well, when he wakes from
that long sleep. It will be far away from here,—where daddy is.”
“Let me go, too.”
“I think you will go, Ned. If you do, you will not live here any more.
You will live where daddy is gone.”
“Will Dan Cobb tease me then? Dan does tease us so!”
Mary had to learn who Dan Cobb was,—a little boy next door, who was not
in the fever as yet. He was always wanting Ned’s top. Would he want
Ned’s top in that place where they were all going to be well?
“No,” said Mary; “and you will not want it, either. When we go to that
place, we have no trouble of carrying anything with us. We shall find
whatever we want there.”
“What shall I play at?”
“I don’t know till we go and see; but I am sure it will be with
something better than your top. But, Ned, are you angry with Dan? Do you
wish that he should have the fever? And are you glad or sorry that he
has no top?”
By this time the crying had stopped; and Ned, no longer filling his ears
with his own wailing, wondered and asked what that odd sound was,—he did
not like it.
“It will soon be over,” said Mary, very gently. “It is your brother just
going to sleep. Now, lie and think what you would say to Dan, if you
were going a long way off, and what you would like to be done with your
top, when you do not want it yourself. You shall tell me what you wish
when I come to you presently.”
Whether Ned was capable of thinking she could not judge, but he lay
quite silent for the remaining minutes of his little brother’s life;—a
great comfort to Mary, who could not have replied, because the mere
vibration of her own voice would now have been enough to stop entirely
the breathings which came at longer and longer intervals. Her frame
ached, and her arms seemed to have lost power,—so long was it since she
had changed her posture. At such a moment it was that the great comet
came up from behind the brow. The apparition was so wonderful, and so
wholly unexpected, that Mary’s heart beat; but it was from no fear, but
rather a kind of exhilaration. Slowly it ascended, proving that it was
no meteor, as she had at the first moment conjectured. When the bright
tail disclosed itself, she understood the spectacle, and rejoiced in it,
she scarcely knew why.
When at last the breathing on her shoulder ceased, she let down the
little corpse upon her knee, and could just see, by the faint light from
the rush candle in the outer room, that the eyes were half closed, and
the face expressive of no pain. She closed the eyes, and, after a
moment’s silence, said:
“Now, Ned, I am coming to you, in a minute.”
“Is he asleep?”
“Yes. He is in the quiet long sleep I told you of.”
Ned feebly tried to make room for his brother on the poor bed of
shavings; and he wondered when Mary said that she was making a bed in
the other corner which would do very well. She was only spreading
mammy’s cloak on the ground, and laying her own shawl over the sleeper;
but she said that would do very well.
Mary was surprised to find Ned’s mind so clear as that he had really
been thinking about Dan and the top. She truly supposed that it was the
clearing before death. He said:
“You told me daddy was dead. Am I going to be dead?”
“Yes, I think so. Would not you like it?—to go to sleep, and then be
quite well?”
“But, shan’t I see Dan, then?”
“Not for a long time, I dare say: and whenever you do, I don’t think you
and he will quarrel again. I can give Dan any message, you know.”
“Tell him he may have my top. And tell him I hope he won’t have the
fever. I’m sure I don’t like it at all. I wish you would take me up, and
let me be on your knee.”
Mary could not refuse it, though it was soon to be going over again the
scene just closed. Poor Ned was only too light, as to weight; but he was
so wasted and sore that it was not easy to find a position for him. For
a few minutes he was interested by the comet, which he was easily led to
regard as a beautiful sight, and then he begged to be laid down again.
The sun was just up when Mary heard the tap at the door below, which
came every morning at sunrise. She put her head out of the window, and
said softly that she was coming,—would be down in two minutes. She laid
poor Ned beside his brother, and covered him with the same shawl; drew
off the old sheets and coverlid from the bed of shavings, bundled them
up with such towels as were in the room, and put them out of the window,
Warrender being below, ready to receive them. She did not venture to let
the poor mother see them, delirious as she was. Softly did Mary tread on
the floor, and go down the creaking stair. When she reached the street
she drew in, with a deep sigh, the morning air.
“The poor children’s bedding,” she said to Warrender.
“They are gone?” he inquired. “What, both?”
“One just before midnight. The other half-an-hour ago. And their mother
will follow soon.”
“The Lord have mercy upon us,” said Warrender, solemnly.
“I think it is mercy to take a family thus together,” replied Mary. “But
I think of poor Aunty. If I could find any one to sit here for
half-an-hour, I would go to her, and indeed, I much wish it.”
“There is a poor creature would be glad enough to come, ma’am, if she
thought you would countenance it. A few words will tell you the case.
She is living with Simpson, the baker’s man, without being his wife.
Widow Johnson was very stern with her, and with her daughter, Billiter,
for being neighbourly with the poor girl—though people do say that
Simpson deceived her cruelly. I am sure, if I might fetch Sally, she
would come, and be thankful; and——”
“O! ask her to come and help me. If she has done wrong, that is the more
reason why she should do what good she can. How is Ann?”
“Pretty well. Rather worn, as we must all expect to be. She never stood
so many hours at the wash-tub, any one day, as she does now every day:
but then, as she says, there never was so much reason.”
“And you, yourself?”
“I am getting through, ma’am, thank you. I seem to see the end of the
white-washing, for one thing. They have sent us more brushes of the
right sort from O——, and I should like, if I could, to get two or three
boys into training. They might do the outhouses and the lower parts,
where there are fewest sick, while I am upstairs. But, for some reason
or other, the lads are shy of me. There is some difference already, I
assure you, ma’am, both as to sight and smell; but there might be more,
if I could get better help.”
“And you are careful, I hope, for Ann’s sake, to put all the linen first
into a tub of water outside.”
“Yes, surely. I got the carpenter’s men to set a row of tubs beside our
door, and to promise to change the water once a day. I laughed at them
for asking if they could catch the fever that way: and they are willing
enough to oblige where there’s no danger. Simpson offered to look to our
boiler as he goes to the bakehouse when, as he says, Ann and I ought to
be asleep. I let him do it and thank him; but it is not much that we
sleep, or think of sleeping, just now.”
“Indeed,” said Mary, “you have a hard life of it, and without pay or
reward, I am afraid. I never saw such——”
“Why, ma’am,” said Warrender, “you are the last person to say those sort
of things. However, it is not a time for praising one another, when
there are signs in the heaven, and God’s wrath on earth.”
“You saw the comet, did you? How beautiful it is! It will cheer our
watch at nights now. Ah! you see I don’t consider it anything fearful,
or a sign of anything but that, having a new sort of stars brought
before our eyes to admire, we don’t understand all about the heavens
yet, though we know a good deal; and just so with the fever: it is a
sign, not of wrath, as I take it, but that the people here do not
understand how to keep their health. They have lived in dirt, and damp,
and closeness, some hungry and some drunken: and when unusual weather
comes, a wet spring and a broiling summer, down they sink under the
fever. Do you know, I dare not call this God’s wrath.”
Warrender did not like to say it, but the thought was in his mind, why
people were left so ignorant and so suffering. Mary was quick at reading
faces, and she answered the good fellow’s mind, while she helped to
hoist the bundle of linen on his shoulder.
“We shall see, Warrender, whether the people can learn by God’s
teaching. He is giving us a very clear and strong lesson now.”
Warrender touched his hat in silence, and walked away.
Aunty had for some time been out of danger from the fever, or Mary could
not have left her to attend on the Billiters, urgent as was their need.
But her weakness was so great that she had to be satisfied to lie still
all day in the intervals of Mary’s little visits. Poor Jem brought her
this and that, when she asked for it, but he was more trouble than help,
from his incurable determination to shut all doors and windows, and keep
a roaring fire: he did everything else, within his power, that his
mother desired him, but on these points he was immoveable. If ever his
mother closed her eyes, he took the opportunity to put more wood on the
fire; and he looked so grievously distressed if requested to take it off
again, that at last he was let alone. Mary was fairly accustoming him to
occupy himself in bringing pails of water and carrying away all refuse,
when she was summoned to the Billiters; but the hint was given, and the
neighbours saw that they need no longer use water three or four times
over for washing, while poor Jem was happy to carry it away, rinse the
pails, and bring fresh. His cousin Mary had often of late found him thus
engaged: but this morning he was at home, cowering in a chair. When she
set the windows open, he made no practical objection; and the fire was
actually out. Mary was not therefore surprised at Aunty’s reply to her
inquiries.
“I am tolerably easy myself, my dear, but I can’t tell what has come
over Jem; it seems to me that somebody must have been giving him drink,
he staggered so when he crossed the room half-an-hour ago; yet I hardly
think he would take it, he has such a dislike to everything strong. What
a thing it is that I am lying here, unable to stir to see about it
myself!”
“We will see about it,” said Mary, going to poor Jem. “I neither think
he would touch drink, nor that any body would play such a trick with him
at such a time. No,” she went on, when she had felt his pulse and looked
well at his face, “it is not drink: it is illness.”
“The fever,” groaned the mother.
“I think so. Courage, Aunty! we will nurse him well: and the house is
wholesome now, you know. You are through the fever: and his chance is a
better one than yours, the house is so much more airy, and I have more
experience.”
“But, Mary, you cannot go on for ever, without sleep or rest, in this
way. What is to be done, I don’t see.”
“I do, Aunty. I am very well to-day. To-morrow will take care of itself.
I must get Jem to bed; and if he soon seems to be moaning and restless,
you must mind it as little as you can. It is very miserable, as you have
good reason to know; but——”
“I know something that you do not, I see,” said Aunty. “A more patient
creature than my poor Jem does not live in Bleaburn, nor anywhere else.”
“What a good chance that gives him!” observed Mary, “and what a blessing
it is, for himself and for you! I must go to my cousin now presently;
and I will send the doctor to see Jem.”
The poor fellow allowed himself to be undressed; and let his head fall
on his bolster, as if it could not have kept up a minute longer. He was
fairly down in the fever.