The regiment had been six years in India and was ordered home before
that lingering and perpetually-recurring malady of Mr. Tredgold’s came
to an end. It had come and gone so often--each seizure passing off in
indeed a reduced condition of temporary relief and comfort, but still
always in a sort of recovery--that the household had ceased to be
alarmed by them as at first. He was a most troublesome patient, and all
had to be on the alert when he was ill, from his personal attendant down
to the grooms, who might at a moment’s notice be sent scouring over the
country after the doctor, without whom the old man did not think he
could breathe when his attacks came on, and this notwithstanding the
constant presence of the professional nurse, who was now a regular
inmate; but the certainty that he would “come round” had by this time
got finally established in the house. This gave a sense of security, but
it dispelled the not altogether unpleasant solemnity of excitement with
which a household of servants await the end of an illness which may
terminate in death. There was nothing solemn about it at all--only
another of master’s attacks!--and even Katherine was now quite
accustomed to be called up in the middle of the night, or sent for to
her father’s room at any moment, as the legitimate authority, without
any thrill of alarm as to how things might end. Nobody was afraid of his
life, until suddenly the moment came when the wheel was broken at the
cistern and the much frayed thread of life snapped at last.
These had been strange years. Fortunately the dark times that pass over
us come only one day at a time, and we are not aware that they are to
last for years, or enabled to grasp them and consent that so much of
life should be spent in that way. It would no doubt have appalled
Katherine, or any other young woman, to face steadily so long a period
of trouble and give herself up to live it through, consenting that all
the brightness and almost all the interest of existence should drop from
her at the moment when life is usually at its fairest. She would have
done it all the same, for what else could she do? She could not leave
her father to go through all these agonies of ending life by himself,
even though she was of so little use to him and he had apparently such
small need of natural affection or support. Her place was there under
all circumstances, and no inducement would have made her leave it; but
when Katherine looked back upon that course of years it appalled her as
it had not done when it was in course of passing day by day. She was
twenty-three when it began and she was twenty-nine when it came to an
end. She had been old for her age at the first, and she was still older
for her age in outward appearance, though younger in heart, at the
last--younger in heart, for there had been no wear and tear of actual
life any more than if she had spent these years in a convent, and older
because of the seclusion from society and even the severe self-restraint
in the matter of dress, which, however, was not self-restraint so much
as submission to necessity, for you cannot do two things with one sum of
money, as many a poor housekeeper has to ascertain daily. Dressmakers’
bills for Katherine were not consistent with remittances to Stella, and
it was naturally the least important thing that was sacrificed. She had
accordingly lost a great deal of her bloom and presented an appearance
less fair, less graceful--perhaps less loveable--to the eyes of Dr.
Burnet as she rose from the lonely fireside in her black dress, slim and
straight, slimmer perhaps and straighter than of old--pale, without
either reflection or ornament about her, looking, he thought,
five-and-thirty, without any elasticity, prematurely settled down into
the rigid outlines of an old maid, when he went into the well-known
drawing-room in an October evening to tell her that at last the dread
visitor, anticipated yet not believed in for so long, was now certainly
at hand.
Dr. Burnet had behaved extremely well during all these years. He had not
been like the rector. He had borne no malice, though he had greater
reason to do so had he chosen. He never now made use of her Christian
name and never allowed himself to be betrayed into any sign of intimacy,
never lingered in her presence, never even looked at the tea on the
little tea-table over which he had so often spent pleasant moments. He
was now severely professional, giving her his account of his patient in
the most succinct phrases and using medical terms, which in the long
course of her father’s illness Katherine had become acquainted with. But
he had been as attentive to Mr. Tredgold as ever, people said; he had
never neglected him, never hesitated to come at his call night or day,
though he was aware that he could do little or nothing, and that the
excellent nurse in whose hands the patient was was fully capable of
caring for him; yet he always came, putting a point of honour in his
sedulous attendance, that it never might be said of him that he had
neglected the father on account of the daughter’s caprice and failure.
It might be added that Mr. Tredgold was a little revenue to the
doctor--a sort of landed estate producing so much income yearly and
without fail--but this was a mean way of accounting for his perfect
devotion to his duty. He had never failed, however other persons might
fail.
He came into the drawing-room very quietly and unannounced. He was not
himself quite so gallant a figure as he had been when Katherine had left
him _planté là_; he was a little stouter, not so perfect in his outline.
They had both suffered more or less from the progress of years. She was
thinner, paler, and he fuller, rougher--almost, it might be said,
coarser--from five years more of exposure to all-weathers and constant
occupation, without any restraining influence at home to make him think
of his dress, of the training of his beard, and other small matters. It
had been a great loss to him, even in his profession, that he had not
married. With a wife, and such a wife as Katherine Tredgold, he would
have been avowedly the only doctor, the first in the island, in a
position of absolute supremacy. As it was a quite inferior person, who
was a married man, ran him hard, although not fit to hold a candle to
Dr. Burnet. And this, too, he set down more or less to Katherine’s
account. It is to be hoped that he did not think of all this on the
particular evening the events of which I take so long to come to. And
yet I am afraid he did think of it, or at least was conscious of it all
in the midst of the deeper consciousness of his mission to-night. He
could scarcely tell whether it was relief or pain he was bringing to
her--a simpler or a more complex existence--and the sense of that enigma
mingled with all his other feelings. She rose up to meet him as he came
in. The room was dimly lighted; the fire was not bright. There was no
chill in the air to make it necessary. And I don’t know what it was
which made Katherine divine the moment she saw the doctor approaching
through the comparative gloom of the outer room that he was bringing her
news of something important. Mr. Tredgold had not been worse than usual
in the beginning of this attack; the nurse had treated it just as usual,
not more seriously than before. But she knew at once by the sound of the
doctor’s step, by something in the atmosphere about him, that the usual
had departed for ever and that what he came to tell her of was nothing
less than death. She rose up to meet him with a sort of awe, her lips
apart, her breath coming quick.
“I see,” he said, “that you anticipate what I am going to say.”
“No,” she said with a gasp, “I know of nothing--nothing more than
usual.”
“That is all over,” he answered with a little solemnity. “I am sorry I
can give you so little hope--this time I fear it is the end.”
“The end!” she cried, “the end!” She had known it from the first moment
of his approach, but this did not lessen the shock. She dropped again
upon her seat, and sat silent contemplating that fact--which no
reasoning, no explanation, could get over. The end--this morning
everything as usual, all the little cares, the hundred things he wanted,
the constant service--and afterwards nothing, silence, stillness, every
familiar necessity gone. Katherine’s heart seemed to stand still, the
wonder of it, the terror of it, the awe--it was too deep and too
appalling for tears.
After awhile she inquired, in a voice that did not seem her own, “Is he
very ill? May I go to him now?”
“He is not more ill than you have seen him before. You can go to him,
certainly, but there are some things that you must take into
consideration, Miss Tredgold. He is not aware of any change--he is not
at all anxious about himself. He thinks this is just the same as the
other attacks. If you think it necessary that he should be made aware of
his condition, either because of his worldly affairs, or--any other----”
Dr. Burnet was accustomed to death-beds. He was not overawed like
Katherine, and there seemed something ludicrous to him in the thought of
old Tredgold, an old man of the earth, earthly, having--other affairs.
Katherine looked up at him, her eyes looking twice as large as usual in
the solemnity of their trouble and awe. There seemed nothing else in the
room but her eyes looking at him with an appeal, to which he had no
answer to give. “Would it make any difference--now?” she said.
“I cannot tell what your views may be on that subject. Some are very
eager that the dying should know--some think it better not to disturb
them. It will do him no harm physically to be told; but you must be the
judge.”
“I have not thought of it--as I ought,” she said. “Oh, Dr. Burnet, give
me your opinion, give me your own opinion! I do not seem able to think.”
“It might give him a chance,” said the doctor, “to put right some wrong
he might otherwise leave behind him. If what you are thinking of is
that, he might put himself right in any spiritual point of view--at this
last moment.”
Katherine rose up as if she were blind, feeling before her with her
hands. Her father, with all his imperfections--with nothing that was not
imperfection or worse than imperfection--with a mind that had room for
nothing but the lowest elements, who had never thought of anything
higher, never asked himself whither he was going---- She walked straight
forward, not saying anything, not able to bear another word. To put
himself right--at the last moment. She felt that she must hasten to him,
fly to him, though she did not know, being there, what she should do.
The room was so entirely in its usual condition--the nurse settling for
the night, the medicines arranged in order, the fire made up, and the
nightlight ready to be lighted--that it seemed more and more impossible
to realise that this night there was likely to occur something
different, something that was not on the invalid’s programme. The only
thing that betrayed a consciousness of any such possibility was the look
which the nurse rapidly gave Katherine as she came in. “I am putting
everything as usual,” she said in a whisper, “but I think you should not
go to bed.” That was all--and yet out of everything thus settled and
habitual around him, he was going away, going absolutely away to no one
could tell where, perhaps this very night. Katherine felt herself
stupefied, confounded, and helpless. He was going away all alone, with
no directions, no preparations for the journey. What could she tell him
of the way? Could any guide be sent with him? Could any instinct lead
him? A man accustomed only to business, to the state of the stocks and
the money market. Her heart began to beat so fast that it sickened her,
and she was conscious of scarcely anything but its sound and the heaving
of her breast.
The invalid, however, was not composed as usual. He was very restless,
his eyes shining from his emaciated face. “Ah, that’s you, Katie,” he
said; “it’s too late for you to be up--and the doctor back again. What
brings the doctor back again? Have you any more to do to me, eh,
to-night?”
“Only to make sure that you’re comfortable,” Dr. Burnet said.
“Oh, comfortable enough--but restless. I don’t seem as if I could lie
still. Here, Katie, as you’re here, change me a little--that’s better--a
hold of your shoulder--now I can push myself about. Never been restless
like this before, doctor. Nervous, I suppose you think?”
“No, you’ve never been like this before,” the doctor said, with an
unconsciously solemn voice.
“Oh, papa,” cried Katherine, “you are very ill; I fear you are very
ill.”
“Nothing of the sort,” he cried, pushing her away by the shoulder he had
grasped; “nothing the matter with me--that is, nothing out of the
ordinary. Come here, you nurse. I want to lie on the other side. Nothing
like a woman that knows what she is about and has her living to make by
it. Dear they are--cost a lot of money--but I never begrudged money for
comfort.”
“Papa,” said Katherine. What could she say? What words were possible to
break this spell, this unconsciousness and ignorance? It seemed to her
that he was about to fall over some dreadful precipice without knowing
it, without fearing it; was it better that he should know it, that he
should fear, when he was incapable of anything else? Should the acute
pang of mortal alarm before be added to--whatever there might be
afterwards? Wild words whirled through her head--about the great
judgment seat, about the reckoning with men for what they had done, and
the cry of the Prophet, “Prepare to meet thy God.” But how could this
restless old man prepare for anything, turning and returning upon his
bed. “Papa,” she repeated, “have you anything to say to me--nothing
about--about Stella?”
He turned his face to her for a moment with the old familiar chuckle in
his throat. “About Stella--oh, you will hear plenty about Stella--in
time,” he said.
“Not only about Stella, papa! Oh, about other things, about--about--”
she cried in a kind of despair, “about God.”
“Oh,” he said, “you think I’m going to die.” The chuckle came again, an
awful sound. “I’m not; you were always a little fool. Tell her, doctor,
I’m going to sleep--tuck in the clothes, nurse, and put--out--the
light.”
The last words fell from him drowsily, and calm succeeded to the endless
motion. There was another little murmur as of a laugh. Then the nurse
nodded her head from the other side of the bed, to show that he was
really going to sleep. Dr. Burnet put his hand on Katherine’s arm and
drew her into the dressing-room, leaving the door open between. “It may
last only a few minutes,” he said, “or it may last for ever; but we can
do nothing, neither you nor I. Sit down and wait here.”
It did last for ever. The sleep at first was interrupted with little
wakings, and that chuckle which had been the accompaniment of his life
broke in two or three times, ghastly, with a sort of sound of triumph.
And then all sound died away.
Katherine was awakened--she did not know if it was from a doze or a
dream--by a touch upon her arm. The doctor stood there in his large and
heavy vitality like an embodiment of life, and a faint blueness of dawn
was coming in at the window. “There was no pain,” he said, “no sort of
suffering or struggle. Half-past four exactly,” he had his watch in his
hand. “And now, Miss Tredgold, take this and go to bed.”
“Do you mean?” Katherine cried, rising hastily, then falling back again
in extreme agitation, trembling from head to foot.
“Yes, I mean it is all over, it is all _well_ over. Everything has been
done that could be done for him. And here is your maid to take care of
you; you must go to bed.”
But Katherine did not go to bed. She went downstairs to the
drawing-room, her usual place, and sat by the dead fire, watching the
blue light coming in at the crevices of the shutters, and listening to
the steps of the doctor, quick and firm, going away upon the gravel
outside. And then she went and wandered all over the house from one room
to another, she could not tell why. It seemed to her that everything
must have changed in that wonderful change that had come to pass without
anyone being able to intervene, so noiselessly, so suddenly. She never
seemed to have expected _that_. Anything else, it seemed to her now,
might have happened but not that. Why, all the house had been full of
him, all life had been full of him yesterday; there had been nothing to
do but contrive what he should eat, how the temperature in the room
should be kept up, how everything should be arranged for his comfort.
And now he wanted nothing, nothing, nor was anything wanted for him. It
did not seem to be grief that moved her so much as wonder, an
intolerable pressure of surprise and perplexity that such a thing could
have happened with so many about to prevent anything from happening, and
that he should have been removed to some other place whom nobody could
imagine to be capable of other conditions than he had here. What had he
to do with the unseen, with sacred things, with heaven, with a spiritual
life? Nothing, nothing, she said to herself. It was not natural, it was
not possible. And yet it was true. When she at last lay down at the
persuasion of Mrs. Simmons and the weeping Hannah, in the face of the
new full shining day which had not risen for him, which cared for none
of these things, Katherine still got no relief of sleep. She lay on her
bed and stared at the light with no relief of tears either, with no
sense of grief--only wondering, wondering. She had not thought of this
change, although she knew that in all reason it must be coming. Still
less did she think of the new world which already began to turn its dewy
side to the light.