NURSE SAMPSON'S WAY OF LOOKING AT IT.
"I can believe, it shall you grieve,
And somewhat you distrain;
But afterward, your paines hard,
Within a day or twain,
Shall soon aslake; and ye shall take
Comfort to you again."
OLD ENGLISH BALLAD.
Glory looked in, once, at the southeast room, and saw Faith lying, still
with hidden face; and went away softly, shutting the door behind her as
she went.
When Mr. Armstrong and Miss Sampson came, she met them at the front
entrance, and led the nurse directly to her mistress, as she had been
told.
Mr. Armstrong betook himself to his own room. Perhaps the hollow Paul
Rushleigh's horse had pawed at the gatepost, and the closed door of the
keeping room, revealed something to his discernment that kept him from
seeking Faith just then.
There was a half hour of quiet in the old house. A quiet that ever
brooded very much.
Then Nurse Sampson came out, with a look on her face that made Faith
gaze upon her with an awed feeling of expectation. She feared, suddenly,
to ask a question.
It was not a long-drawn look of sympathy. It was not surprised, nor
shocked, nor excited. It was a look of business. As if she knew of work
before her to do. As if Nurse Sampson were in her own proper element,
once more.
Faith knew that something--she could not guess what--something terrible,
she feared--had happened, or was going to happen, to her aunt.
It was in the softening twilight that Miss Henderson sent for her to
come in.
Aunt Faith leaned against her pillows, looking bright and comfortable,
even cheerful; but there was a strange gentleness in look and word and
touch, as she greeted the young girl who came to her bedside with a face
that wore at once its own subduedness of fresh-past grief, and a
wondering, loving apprehension of something to be disclosed concerning
the kind friend who lay there, invested so with such new grace of
tenderness.
Was there a twilight, other than that of day, softening, also, around
her?
"Little Faith!" said Aunt Henderson. Her very voice had taken an
unwonted tone.
"Auntie! It is surely something very grave! Will you not tell me?"
"Yes, child. I mean to tell you. It may be grave. Most things are, if we
had the wisdom to see it. But it isn't very dreadful. It's what I've had
warning enough of, and had mostly made up my mind to. But I wasn't quite
sure. Now, I am. I suppose I've got to bear some pain, and go through a
risk that will be greater, at my years, than it would have been if I'd
been younger. And I may die. That's all."
The words, of old habit, were abrupt. The eye and voice were tender with
unspoken love.
Faith turned to Miss Sampson, who sat by.
"And then, again, she mayn't," said the nurse. "I shall stay and see her
through. There'll have to be an operation. At least, I think so. We'll
have the doctor over, to-morrow. And now, if there's one thing more
important than another, it's to keep her cheerful. So, if you've got
anything bright and lively to say, speak out! If not, _keep_ out! She'll
do well enough, I dare say."
Poor Faith! And, without this new trouble, there was so much that she,
herself, was needing comfort for!
"You're a wise woman, Nurse Sampson. But you don't know everything,"
said Aunt Faith. "The best thing to take people out of their own
worries, is to go to work and find out how other folks' worries are
getting on. He's been here, hasn't he, child?"
It was not so hard for Aunt Faith, who had borne secretly, so long, the
suspicion of what was coming, and had lived on, calmly, nevertheless, in
her daily round, to turn thus from the announcement of her own state and
possible danger, to thought and inquiry for the affairs of another, as
it was for that other, newly apprised, and but half apprised, even, of
what threatened, to leave the subject there, and answer. But she saw
that Miss Henderson spoke only truth in declaring it was the best way to
take her out of her worries; she read Nurse Sampson's look, and saw that
she, at any rate, was quite resolved her patient should not be let to
dwell longer on any painful or apprehensive thought, and she put off all
her own anxious questionings, till she should see the nurse alone, and
said, in a low tone--yes, Paul Rushleigh had been there.
"And you've told him the truth, like a woman, and he's heard it like a
man?"
"I've told him it must be given up. Oh, it was hard, auntie!"
"You needn't worry. You've done just the rightest thing you could do."
"But it seems so selfish. As if my happiness were of so much more
consequence than his. I've made him so miserable, I'm afraid!"
"Miss Sampson!" cried Aunt Faith, with all her old oddity and
suddenness, "just tell this girl, if you know, what kind of a
commandment a woman breaks, if she can't make up her mind to marry the
first man that asks her! 'Tain't in _my_ Decalogue!"
"I can't tell what commandment she won't be likely to break, if she
isn't pretty sure of her own mind before she _does_ marry!" said Miss
Sampson, energetically. "Talk of making a man miserable! Supposing you
do for a little while? 'Twon't last long. Right's right, and settles
itself. Wrong never does. And there isn't a greater wrong than to marry
the wrong man. To him as well as to you. And it won't end there--that's
the worst of it. There's more concerned than just yourself and him;
though you mayn't know how, or who. It's an awful thing to tangle up and
disarrange the plans of Providence. And more of it's done, I verily
believe, in this matter of marrying, than any other way. It's like
mismatching anything else--gloves or stockings--and wearing the wrong
ones together. They don't fit; and more'n that, it spoils another pair.
I believe, as true as I live, if the angels ever do cry over this
miserable world, it's when they see the souls they have paired off, all
right, out of heaven, getting mixed up and mismated as they do down
here! Why, it's fairly enough to account for all the sin and misery
there is in the world! If it wasn't for Adam and Eve and Cain, I should
think it did!"
"But it's very hard," said Faith, smiling, despite all her saddening
thoughts, at the characteristic harangue, "always to know wrong from
right. People may make mistakes, if they mean ever so well."
"Yes, awful mistakes! There's that poor, unfortunate woman in the Bible.
I never thought the Lord meant any reflection by what he said--on her.
She'd had six husbands. And he knew she hadn't got what she bargained
for, after all. Most likely she never had, in the whole six. And if
things had got into such a snarl as that eighteen hundred years ago, how
many people, do you think, by this time, are right enough in themselves
to be right for anybody? I've thought it all over, many a time. I've had
reasons of my own, and I've seen plenty of reasons as I've gone about
the world. And my conclusion is, that matrimony's come to be more of a
discipline, nowadays, than anything else!"
It was strange cheer; and it came at a strange moment; with the very
birth of a new anxiety. But so our moments and their influences are
mingled. Faith was roused, strengthened, confirmed in her own thought of
right, beguiled out of herself, by the words of these two odd,
plain-dealing women, as she would not have been if a score of
half-comprehending friends had soothed her indirectly with inanities,
and delicate half-handling of that which Aunt Faith and Nurse Sampson
went straight to the heart of, and brought out, uncompromisingly, into
the light. So much we can endure from a true earnestness and simplicity,
rough and homely though it be, which would be impertinent and
intolerable if it came but with surface sympathy.
She had a word that night from Robert Armstrong, when he came, late in
the evening, from a conversation with Aunt Faith, and found her at the
open door upon the stoop. It was only a hand grasp, and a fervent "God
bless you, child! You have been brave and true!" and he passed on. But a
balm and a quiet fell deep into her heart, and a tone, that was a joy,
lingered in her ear, and comforted her as no other earthly comfort
could. But this was not all earthly; it lifted her toward heaven. It
bore her toward the eternal solace there.
Aunt Faith would have no scenes. She told the others, in turn, very much
as she had told Faith, that a suffering and an uncertainty lay before
her; and then, by her next word and gesture, demanded that the life
about her should go right on, taking as slightly as might be its
coloring from this that brooded over her. Nobody had a chance to make a
wail. There was something for each to do.
Miss Henderson, by Nurse Sampson's advice, remained mostly in her bed.
In fact, she had kept back the announcement of this ailment of hers,
just so long as she could resist its obvious encroachment. The twisted
ankle had been, for long, a convenient explanation of more than its own
actual disability.
But it was not a sick room--one felt that--this little limited bound in
which her life was now visibly encircled. All the cheer of the house was
brought into it. If people were sorry and fearful, it was elsewhere.
Neither Aunt Faith nor the nurse would let anybody into "their
hospital," as Miss Sampson said, "unless they came with a bright look
for a pass." Every evening, the great Bible was opened there, and Mr.
Armstrong read with them, and uttered for them words that lifted each
heart, with its secret need and thankfulness, to heaven. All together,
trustfully, and tranquilly, they waited.
Dr. Wasgatt had been called in. Quite surprised he was, at this new
development. He "had thought there was something a little peculiar in
her symptoms." But he was one of those Æsculapian worthies who, having
lived a scientifically uneventful life, plodding quietly along in his
profession among people who had mostly been ill after very ordinary
fashions, and who required only the administering of stereotyped
remedies, according to the old stereotyped order and rule, had quite
forgotten to think of the possibility of any unusual complications. If
anybody were taken ill of a colic, and sent for him and told him so, for
a colic he prescribed, according to outward indications. The subtle
signs that to a keener or more practiced discernment, might have
betokened more, he never thought of looking for. What then? All cannot
be geniuses; most men just learn a trade. It is only a Columbus who, by
the drift along the shore of the fact or continent he stands on,
predicates another, far over, out of sight.
Surgeons were to come out from Mishaumok to consult. Mr. and Mrs.
Gartney would be home, now, in a day or two, and Aunt Faith preferred to
wait till then. Mis' Battis opened the Cross Corners house, and Faith
went over, daily, to direct the ordering of things there.
"Faith!" said Miss Henderson, on the Wednesday evening when they were to
look confidently for the return of their travelers next day, "come here,
child! I have something to say to you."
Faith was sitting alone, there, with her aunt, in the twilight.
"There's one thing on my mind, that I ought to speak of, as things have
turned out. When I thought, a few weeks ago, that you were provided for,
as far as outside havings go, I made a will, one day. Look in that
right-hand upper bureau drawer, and you'll find a key, with a brown
ribbon to it. That'll unlock a black box on the middle shelf of the
closet. Open it, and take out the paper that lies on the top, and bring
it to me."
Faith did all this, silently.
"Yes, this is it," said Miss Henderson, putting on her glasses, which
were lying on the counterpane, and unfolding the single sheet, written
out in her own round, upright, old-fashioned hand. "It's an old woman's
whim; but if you don't like it, it shan't stand. Nobody knows of it, and
nobody'll be disappointed. I had a longing to leave some kind of a happy
life behind me, if I could, in the Old House. It's only an earthly
clinging and hankering, maybe; but I'd somehow like to feel sure, being
the last of the line, that there'd be time for my bones to crumble away
comfortably into dust, before the old timbers should come down. I meant,
once, you should have had it all; but it seemed as if you wasn't going
to _need_ it, and as if there was going to be other kind of work cut out
for you to do. And I'm persuaded there is yet, somewhere. So I've done
this; and I want you to know it beforehand, in case anything goes
wrong--no, not that, but unexpectedly--with me."
She reached out the paper, and Faith took it from her hand. It was not
long in reading.
A light shone out of Faith's eyes, through the tears that sprang to
them, as she finished it, and gave it back.
"Aunt Faith!" she said, earnestly. "It is beautiful! I am so glad! But,
auntie! You'll get well, I know, and begin it yourself!"
"No," said Miss Henderson, quietly. "I may get over this, and I don't
say I shouldn't be glad to. But I'm an old tree, and the ax is lying,
ground, somewhere, that's to cut me down before very long. Old folks
can't change their ways, and begin new plans and doings. I'm only
thankful that the Lord has sent me a thought that lightens all the dread
I've had for years about leaving the old place; and that I can go,
thinking maybe there'll be His work doing in it as long as it stands."
"I don't know," she resumed, after a pause, "how your father's affairs
are now. The likelihood is, if he has any health, that he'll go into
some kind of a venture again before very long. But I shall have a talk
with him, and if he isn't satisfied I'll alter it so as to do something
more for you."
"Something more!" said Faith. "But you have done a great deal, as it is!
I didn't say so, because I was thinking so much of the other."
"It won't make an heiress of you," said Aunt Faith. "But it'll be better
than nothing, if other means fall short. And I don't feel, somehow, as
if you need be a burden on my mind. There's a kind of a certainty borne
in on me, otherwise. I can't help thinking that what I've done has been
a leading. And if it has, it's right. Now, put this back, and tell Miss
Sampson she may bring my gruel."