The light burned in Edith's room till morning; for her spine kept sleep
from her through many nights. They no longer said, "She is better, or
certainly no worse." They said, "She is worse, or certainly no better."
The progress of her death could be reckoned by weeks and measured by
inches. Soon they would be giving her morphia, to make her sleep.
Meanwhile she was terribly awake.
She heard her brother's soft footsteps as he passed her door. She heard
him pause on the upper landing and creep into the room overhead. She
heard him go out again and shut himself up in the little room beyond.
There came upon her an awful intuition of the truth.
The next day she sent for him.
"What is it, Edie?" he said.
She looked at him with loving eyes, and asked him as Maggie had asked,
"Are you ill?"
He started. The question brought back to him vividly the scene of the
night before; brought back to him Maggie with her love and fear.
"What is it? Tell me," she insisted.
He owned to headaches. She knew he often had them.
"It's not a bit of use," she said, "trying to deceive _me_. It's not
headaches. It's Anne."
"Poor Anne. I think she's all right. After all, she's got the child, you
know."
"Yes. _She_'s got Peggy. If I could see you all right, too, I should die
happy."
"Don't worry about me. I'm not worth it."
She gazed at him searchingly, confirmed in her intuition. That was the
sort of thing poor Charlie used to say.
"It's my fault," she said. "It always has been."
"Angel, if you could lay everybody's sins on your own shoulders, you
would."
"I mean it. You were right and I was wrong. Ah, how one pays! Only
_you_'ve had to pay for my untruthfulness. I can see it now. If I'd done
as you asked me, in the beginning, and told her the truth--"
"She wouldn't have married me. No, Edie. You're assuming that I've lived
to regret that I married her. I never have regretted it for one single
moment. Not for myself, that is. For her, yes. Granted that I'm as
unhappy as you please, I'd rather be unhappy with her than happy without
her. See?"
"Walter--if you keep true to her, I believe you'll have your happiness
yet. I don't know how it's coming. It may come very late. But it's bound
to come. She's good--"
He assented with a groan. "Oh, much _too_ good."
"And the goodness in her must recognise the goodness in you; when she
understands. I believe she's beginning to understand. She doesn't know
how much she understands."
"Understands what?"
"Your goodness. She loved you for it. She'll love you for it again."
"My dear Edie, you're the only person who believes in my goodness--you
and Peggy."
"I and Peggy. And Charlie and the Hannays. And Nanna and the
Gardners--and God."
"I wish God would give Anne a hint that He thinks well of me."
"Dear--if you keep true to her--He will."
If he kept true to her! It was the second time she had said it. It was
almost as if she had divined what had so nearly happened.
"I think," she said, "I'd like to talk to Anne, now, while I can talk.
You see, once they go giving me morphia"--she closed her eyes. "Just let
me lie still for half an hour, and then bring Anne to me."
She lay still. He watched her for an hour. And he knew that in that hour
she had prayed.
He found Anne sitting on the nursery floor, playing with Peggy. "Edie
wants you," he said, loosening Peggy's little hands as they clung about
his legs.
"Mother must go, darling," said she.
But all Peggy said was, "Daddy'll stay."
He did not stay long. He had to restrain himself, to go carefully with
Peggy, lest he should help her to make her mother's heart ache.
Anne found Nanna busied about the bed. Nanna was saying, "Is that any
easier, Miss Edie?"
"It's heavenly, Nanna," said Edie, stifling a moan. "Oh dear, I hope in
the next world I shan't feel as if my spine were still with me, like
people when their legs are cut off."
"Miss Edie, what an idea!"
"Well, Nanna, you can't tell whether it mayn't be so. Anne, dear, you've
got such a nice, pretty body, why have you such a withering contempt for
it? It behaves so well to you, too. That's more than I can say of mine;
and yet, I believe I shall quite miss it when it's gone. At any rate, I
shall be glad that I was decent to the poor thing while it was with me.
Run away now, please, Nanna, and shut the door."
Nanna thought she knew why Miss Edie wanted the door shut. She, too, had
her intuitive forebodings. She was aware, the whole household was aware,
that the mistress cared more for her child than for the husband who had
given it her. Their master's life was not altogether happy. They wondered
many times how he was going to stand it.
"Anne" said Edith, "I'm uneasy about Walter."
"You need not be," said Anne.
"Why? Aren't you?"
"I know he hasn't been well lately--"
"How can you expect him to be well when he's so unhappy?"
Anne was silent.
"How long is it going to last, dear? And where is it going to end?"
"Edith, you needn't be afraid. I shall never leave him."
That was not what Edith was afraid of, but she did not say so.
"How can I," Anne went on, "when I believe the Church's doctrine of
marriage?"
"Do you? Do you believe that love is a provision for the soul's
redemption of the body? or for the body's redemption of the soul?"
"I believe that, having married Walter, whatever he is or does, I cannot
leave him without great sin."
"Then you'll be shocked when I tell you that if your husband were a bad
man, I should be the first to implore you to leave him, though he is my
brother. Where there can be no love on either side there's no marriage,
and no sacrament. That's _my_ profane belief."
"And when there's love on one side only?"
"The sacrament is there, offered by the loving person, and refused by the
unloving. And that refusal, my dear child, may, if you like, be a great
sin--supposing, of course, that the love is pure and devoted. I hardly
know which is the worst sin, then, to refuse to give, or to refuse to
take it; or to take it, and then throw it away. What would you think if
Peggy hardened her little heart against you?"
"My Peggy!"
"Yes, your Peggy. It's the same thing. You'll see it some day. But I want
you to see it now, before it's too late."
"Edie, if you'd only tell me where I've failed! If you're thinking of
our--our separation--"
"I was not. But, since you _have_ mentioned it, I can't help reminding
you that you fell in love with Walter because you thought he was a saint.
And so I don't see what's to prevent you now. He's qualifying. He mayn't
be perfect; but, in some ways, a saint couldn't very well do more. Has it
never occurred to that you are indulging the virtue that comes easiest to
you, and exacting from him the virtue that comes hardest? And he has
stood the test."
"It was his own doing--his own wish."
"Is it? I doubt it--when he's more in love with you than he was before he
married you."
"That's all over."
"For you. Not for him. He's a man, as you may say, of obstinate
affections."
"Ah, Edie--you don't know."
"I know," said Edith, "you're perfectly sweet, the way you take my
scoldings. It's cowardly of me, when I'm lying here safe, and you can't
scold back again. But I wouldn't do it if I didn't love you."
"I know--I know you love me."
"But I couldn't love you so much, if I didn't love Walter more."
"You well may, Edie. He's been a good brother to you."
"Some day you'll own he's been as good a husband as he's been a brother.
Better; for it's a more difficult post, my dear. I don't really think my
body, spine and all, can have tried him more than your spirit."
"What have I done? Tell me--tell me."
"Done? Oh, Nancy, I hate to have to say it to you. What haven't you done?
There's no way in which you haven't hurt and humiliated him. I'm not
thinking of your separation--I'm thinking of the way you've treated him,
and his affection for you and Peggy. You won't let him love you. You
won't even let him love his little girl."
"Does he say that?"
"Would he say it? People in my peculiar position don't require to have
things said to them; they _say them_. You see, if I didn't say them now
I should have to get up out of my grave and do it, and that would be ten
times more disagreeable for you. It might even be very uncomfortable for
me."
"Edie, I wish I knew when you were serious."
"Well, if I'm not serious now, when _shall_ I be?"
Anne smiled. "You're very like Walter."
"Yes. He's every bit as serious as I am. And he's getting more and more
serious every day."
"Oh, Edie, you don't understand. I--I've suffered so terribly."
"I do understand. I've gone through it--every pang of it--and it's all
come back to me again through your suffering--and I know it's been worse
for you. I've told him so. It's because I don't want you to suffer more
that I'm saying these awful things to you."
"Oh! _Am_ I to suffer more?"
"I believe that's the only way your happiness can come to you--through
great suffering. I'm only afraid that the suffering may come through
Peggy, if you don't take care."
"Peggy--"
It was her own terror put into words.
"Yes. That child has a terrible capacity for loving. And for her that
means suffering. She loves you. She loves her father. Do you suppose she
won't suffer when she sees? Her little heart will be torn in two between
you."
"Oh, Edith--I cannot bear it."
She hid her face from the anguish.
"You needn't. That's it. It rests with you."
"With me? If you would only tell me how."
"I can't tell you anything. It'll come. Probably in the way you least
expect it. But--it'll come."
"Edie, I feel as if you held us all together. And when you've gone--"
"You mean when _it's_ gone. When it's 'gone,'" said Edie, smiling. "I
shall hold you together all the more. You needn't sigh like that."
"Did I sigh?"
As Anne stooped over the bed she sighed again, thinking how Edith's
loving arms used to leap up and hold her, and how they could never hold
anything any more.
Of all the things that Edith said to her that afternoon, two remained
fixed in Anne's memory: how Peggy would suffer through overmuch
loving--she remembered that saying, because it had confirmed her terror;
and how love was a provision for the soul's redemption of the body, or
for the body's redemption of the soul. This she remembered, because she
did not understand it.
That was in August. Before the month was out they were beginning to give
Edith morphia.
In September Gorst came to see her for the last time.
In October she died in her brother's arms.
In the days that followed, it was as if her spirit, refusing to depart
from them, had rested on the sister she had loved. Spirit to spirit,
she stooped, kindling in Anne her own dedicated flame. In the white
death-chamber, and through the quiet house, the presence of Anne, moving
with a hushed footfall, was like the presence of a blessed spirit. Her
face was as a face long hidden upon the heart of peace. Her very grief
aspired; it had wings, lifting her towards her sister in her heavenly
place.
For Anne, in the days that followed, was possessed by a great and burning
charity. Mrs. Hannay called and was taken into the white room to see
Edith. And Anne's heart went out to Mrs. Hannay, when she spoke of the
beauty and goodness of Edith; and to Lawson Hannay, when he pressed her
hand without speaking; and to Gorst, when she saw him stealing on tiptoe
from Edith's room, his face swollen and inflamed with grief. Her heart
went out to all of them, because they had loved Edith.
And to her husband her heart went out with a tenderness born of an
immense pity and compassion. For the first three days, Majendie gave no
sign that he was shaken by his sister's death. But on the evening of the
day they buried her, Anne found him in the study, sitting in his low
chair by the fire, his head sunk, his body bowed forward over his knees,
convulsed with a nervous shivering. He started and stared at her
approach, and straightened himself suddenly. She held out her hand. He
looked at it dumbly, as if unwilling or afraid to take it.
"My dear," she said softly.
Then she knelt beside him, and drew his head down upon her breast, and
let it rest there.