The shifting and removal of furniture and the banishment of carpets
preparatory to the reception of patients next day, together with the
installation of the necessaries for sick-rooms, were complete when Maud
got home that evening, and she found Dr. Symes, who had come up to
superintend this, just on the point of leaving. He had no very cheering
account to give concerning several of the patients whom Maud asked
after, but there was one cause, at least, for thankfulness, since no
fresh case had appeared during the day.
"And that is rather strange," he said, "for we have not yet been able to
discover what the cause of the epidemic was, and so have not
intentionally cut off any source of infection. But, God knows, I am
quite content not to know what it is, provided it is cut off."
"Yes, indeed," said she. "And to-morrow you will fill up all the beds
here?"
"Yes, all, I am sorry to say. Of course, we are taking certain risks,
but, for the sake of the fresher air and better attention they will be
able to receive up here, we shall move some very serious cases. Ah, my
dear lady, we doctors get sick at heart sometimes! Doctor though I am,
and prescriber of drugs, I wonder how much good we really do with our
powders and potions. I wonder if all the contents of all the chemists'
shops, and our cabalistic prescriptions, are measurable by the side of
fresh air and quiet, and the conviction on the part of the patient that
he is going to get well."
"But if he believes that the drugs are going to make him well, surely
they are a spring of faith," said she.
He laughed.
"Well, well, they may get better how they choose, and I won't quarrel
with it," he said. "By the way, I should like to say just once how
splendid it is of you and Lord Thurso to give up the house like this."
"It was absolutely Thurso's idea," said she, "though, of course, it
seemed obvious when he suggested it. And he wanted to send me back to
town! Has he come in yet, do you know?"
"Yes, he came in half an hour ago, in great pain, I fear, with one of
those neuralgic headaches. He is rather overdone; he wants rest."
Maud made a little quick movement towards him.
"Not seriously so?" she asked. "You don't mean that there is anything to
be anxious about?"
"I don't, anyhow, want you to be anxious," said he, "but as long as he
is continually anxious himself, and gets constantly tired, those
headaches will probably be rather frequent. He has had attacks during
these last three days, and pain like that is good for nobody. I
certainly hope he will get rest soon. We do not want it to become
chronic."
"Chronic?"
"Yes; your nerves, you know, form habits, like everything else."
Maud was silent a moment; an anxiety she had felt while she was waiting
for Thurso to come in last night reminded her again of its presence. She
did not much want to speak of it, but, after all, she was speaking to
the old doctor whom she had known since she was a child. Also, she very
much wanted to be reassured.
"He takes laudanum when he is in great pain," she said. "Is that wise?"
"It would be unwise of him to do so frequently, or continue doing so for
long. There, again, is a reason why we do not want his nerves to form
the habit of pain. I did not know, by the way, that he took it. It was
prescribed for him, of course."
"Oh yes; I know it was."
Dr. Symes seemed to dismiss that from his mind.
"Then it is no business of mine," he said. "Now I hope--and to-day there
is cause for hoping--that we have seen the worst of this epidemic. There
has been no fresh case to-day, so before many days are over I think Lord
Thurso can get away. I tell you frankly that I shall be glad when he
can."
"Ought he to go now, do you think?" asked Maud.
Dr. Symes considered this before he replied.
"No, I think he ought to stop here," he said at length. "It is true he
is running a certain danger of producing a chronic irritation and--how
shall I say it?--exasperation of nerves. Also, there is a certain risk
in continuing to take laudanum. But, after all, he is sensible, and he
is certainly brave, and I think for the present his sense of duty is
right in keeping him here. Our orders and the nurses' orders are obeyed
when they know he is here and is backing us up. You have no idea of the
difficulties we had before you and he came. Well, I must get back to the
village again. And, Lady Maud, I like plucky people like you and your
brother. Good night. The patients will begin to arrive early to-morrow."
* * * * *
Dr. Symes, brisk and active for all his sixty years and grey head,
hopped nimbly onto his bicycle, and rode off, feeling that Maud had done
him good. Apart from the Raynhams, his notions of the British
aristocracy were founded on those curious volumes known as society
novels, books which his wife read aloud to him in the evening with
horrified gusto. These works presented this class in a more lurid but
less pleasant light. But Lord Thurso and his sister were both so simple
and so good, to use that ordinary word in its most ordinary sense. They
made no more fuss over the reception of forty patients suffering from
typhoid into the house than they would have made over a few friends
dropping in to tea. No thought of risk or inconvenience seemed to have
occurred to either of them; it appeared to them the most natural thing
in the world that the house should be turned into a hospital, and though
professionally he believed that there was no risk, still he felt that
the wicked countesses and marchionesses in "Lepers" or "Lady Babylon"
would not have behaved quite like this. Indeed, for one half moment he
let himself wonder what even Mrs. Symes would have said if he had
suggested taking cases into their house. But it had seemed to that
beautiful girl whom he had left on the doorstep with her fishing-rod in
one hand and a landing-net weighed down with half a dozen sea-trout in
the other a perfectly natural thing to do. It was this courageous
acceptation of events that did him good.
* * * * *
Thurso, to his sister's great relief, came down to dinner in the most
equable and cheerful spirits. All trace of his headache had vanished,
and Maud thought that Dr. Symes must have been mistaken about it, for,
as he had said, he had only guessed that Thurso must be in great pain.
In any case, it was her part to try to take his thoughts away from fever
and neuralgia, and all the darker side of things, and she instantly
began on her own poaching comedy by the river.
"Thurso, I have broken the record to-day," she said. "I have done the
most awful thing that has ever been done. After you went out this
morning, I took a rod down to the river to look about for sea-trout, and
was firm in a salmon--oh no, he saw me hook it--when Mr. Bertie Cochrane
appeared. How could you forget to tell me you had let the fishing? There
I was, tied to it--to his fish. He watched me play it. And, of course,
I didn't know him from Adam."
For the moment Thurso was almost as horrified as Maud had been.
"Good Lord!" he said; "I hope you lost the fish."
"Not at all. It was entirely owing to Mr. Cochrane that I landed it, for
in the nick of time down came Duncan--his gillie, not ours at all--with
a gaff. Mr. Cochrane looked on with interest and sympathy."
Thurso had laid down his knife and fork, and a huge grin was beginning
to take the place of his horror.
"Go on, quick," he said.
"I will. Mr. Cochrane had a rod, and I said I supposed he was going over
to Scarsdale. No, he was not. So, with a slight addition of stiffness, I
thanked him for his help, but said that this was your river. He
explained. Oh, Thurso, did you ever? And I asked him to come and dine
to-morrow, and eat some of his own fish. He is coming."
Thurso shouted with laughter.
"Oh, what would I not give to have been there when the light broke on
you!" he said. "And to ask him to dinner--add insult to injury! You were
caught poaching--poaching, you know--and then you ask the rightful owner
to have some. Did you tell him, by the way, that we were a typhoid
hospital?"
"Yes; he didn't mind."
"Oh, Maud--oh, Maud! An American, too! He will probably telegraph an
account of it to the New York press, and it will come out all over the
States with enormous headlines!"
"Oh, I think not," said she. "I'm sure he wouldn't do it."
Thurso recollected his own meeting with Cochrane.
"No, I don't think he would," he said. "Because I met him in the
village yesterday evening, and I agree he doesn't look like that. Go
on."
"Isn't that enough?" she asked. "Afterwards we sat and talked as if I
hadn't been caught poaching at all. He begged me to go on fishing, too,
and he did it, somehow, so simply and naturally that I thanked him and
did go on. I caught six sea-trout, too, and we're just going to have
some of them. He really made it easy for me to say 'Yes.' In fact, it
would have been absurd to say 'No.'"
Thurso laughed again.
"That almost beats everything," he said. "You are absolutely brazen."
"Not in the least. When you see Mr. Cochrane you will understand how
simple it was."
"I have seen him, as I told you. It occurred to me then that we might
ask him to dinner. It was that I began to suggest last night, but you
were so curious to know what I was going to say that I stopped."
Maud looked at him reproachfully.
"Oh, Thurso, if you had gone on you would have saved me from all this!"
she said. "But don't you understand how it was possible for me to
accept?"
Thurso considered.
"Yes, even though I did not speak to him, I think perhaps I do. He did
look to be the sort of man whose sea-trout you might catch after he had
caught you poaching his salmon. That is rather a high compliment. It is
a great gift to be able to make people not ashamed of themselves. I
should have absolutely sunk into the earth."
"And Mr. Cochrane would very kindly have pulled you out," said Maud. "At
least, he pulled me out."
There was a short pause, during which Maud occupied her mouth with
sea-trout and her mind with the question as to whether she should tell
Thurso that Mr. Cochrane was a Christian Scientist. But his remark that
it was not his plan to proselytise decided her against doing so. Then
Thurso spoke again.
"Do you know, to-day is the first on which I haven't felt absolutely
swamped and water-logged with depression and anxiety?" he said. "There
has been no fresh case since morning, and Duncan's wife, who, like
Sandie, was almost despaired of, has taken a sudden inexplicable turn
for the better. She was dying of sheer exhaustion from fever, and now
all day she has been gaining strength--gaining it quickly, too, though
you would have said there was no strength left. I saw Duncan this
evening. He--really, I wondered whether he had been drinking."
"Drinking?" asked Maud. "Why, he is a tee-totaller!"
"The worst sort of drunkard," remarked Thurso rather cynically.
"Oh, don't be cheap!"
Thurso looked up at her, and then nodded.
"Quite right," he said; "it's a pity. Sorry."
"You old darling! But Duncan's as sober as I am. Soberer. Go on. It
interests me."
"Well, it all leads back to Mr. Cochrane again," he said. "Don't
interrupt. I looked in to-night, as I told you, and there was Duncan
sitting by his wife's bedside, nursing the baby, who was, with
extraordinary gurgles, trying to swarm up his beard. And his wife lay
there, different, changed, with life instead of death in her face. But
fancy bringing a baby into a room where there is typhoid! So I got
Duncan and the child out, and cursed him, and told him that his wife was
really on the mend, as the nurse had just told me. I thought he would
like to know that, but apparently he had known it all day. Our Mr.
Cochrane had told him this morning that his wife was getting better all
the time."
"Yes, I heard him tell him," said Maud.
"Well, but how did he know?" asked Thurso. "Twelve hours ago they
thought she couldn't live through the day. And what the deuce has our
Mr. Cochrane got to do with it? Who is he? What is he? How did he know?"
Maud had no reply to this at once; "our Mr. Cochrane" had repudiated
preaching on his own account--clearly, then, it was not her business to
state his views.
"Well, he hasn't done any harm, anyhow," she said.
"Of course not; but it's an odd coincidence. Mr. Cochrane tells Duncan
that his wife is getting better, and Duncan has only got to walk home,
and finds it is so. Oh, and another thing: Dr. Symes called there this
afternoon, and Duncan kindly but quite firmly refused to let him in at
all unless he promised not to give her any more medicine. So he
promised, because when he saw her last she was absolutely past all hope;
also, he doesn't much believe in medicines, though you needn't mention
it. He saw, of course, the enormous improvement, and wanted to take her
temperature, but Duncan again firmly, and with beaming smiles, would not
allow it. I suppose he considered a thermometer a sort of modified
medicine."
"Well?"
"Dr. Symes insisted, and eventually Duncan, with great respect, threw
the thermometer out of the window. That is why I supposed he was drunk."
"No, I'm sure he wasn't drunk," said Maud. "Go on, dear."
They had finished dinner, and Thurso rose to get a cigarette.
"That's the end," he said. "Dr. Symes tells me he has seen that sort of
recovery before, but what is odd is that our Mr. Cochrane should have
foreseen it. Is he a crank, do you think, or a spiritualist, or some
sort of innocent lunatic?"
Again Maud mentally reviewed her decision not to do Mr. Cochrane's
preaching (which he would not do for himself) for him, and again
endorsed her policy.
"How do you expect me to know?" she asked. "I talked to him for ten
minutes. But he's coming to dine to-morrow, and you can judge for
yourself. And how have you been? No headache?"
He glanced at her sharply and sideways a moment, with a movement of
vague suspicion.
"Headache?" he said; "I haven't seemed much like headache this evening,
have I? Why?"
"Only Dr. Symes told me he was afraid you were in pain. I am delighted
he was mistaken."
Thurso shrugged his shoulders.
"Lord, what bad guesses a skilful doctor makes!" he said. "He half wants
people to be ill, so that he may have the pleasure of curing them."
* * * * *
Maud naturally asked no further question, and told herself that Dr.
Symes had simply made what Thurso called a "bad guess." But, knowing
them both, it seemed to her odd that he should have thought that Thurso
had been suffering if he had not. For it was only when he was in the
extremes of pain that anyone could guess that he was on the rack, for it
had to be strongly screwed before he visibly winced. For one moment it
flashed through her mind that he had been in pain, had perhaps taken
laudanum to stop it, and had--well, not chosen to tell her so. Yet his
answer, though as a matter of fact it was slightly evasive in form,
clearly bore the construction that he had been free from pain all day.
So she dismissed that at once, telling herself that it was scandalous of
her, though involuntarily only and momentarily, to suspect Thurso of
insincerity. Thus, the pause only lasted a moment before she spoke of
something else. But in that moment he had said to himself, "Shall I tell
her?"
* * * * *
The two sat up rather late that night, for Maud disliked going to bed
nearly as much as she disliked getting up, and it was usually Thurso
who moved the adjournment. But to-night he was extraordinarily alert; as
he had said, to-day had been the first on which there had been any break
in the tempest of illness which was devastating the village, and his
spirits seemed to have risen in sympathy, enabling him to think and
speak of other things than the immediate preoccupations which surrounded
them. And chief among these was London and the reopening of Thurso
House. His father, the late Earl, had died just a year ago, and next
week the house was to celebrate its re-entry into London life with an
adequately magnificent ball. His wife, who had stopped in town, was
seeing to all arrangements, and when Catherine undertook to see to a
thing, it was unnecessary for anyone else, however closely concerned, to
feel any anxiety as to the completeness with which it would be seen to.
"I heard from Catherine this morning," he said--"at least, I heard from
her typewriter. She did not even sign it. She is up to the eyes in a
million affairs, and hopes I am well. Really it seems to me that most of
the festivities, as well as all the charities of London would collapse
unless she saw to them. And there's the ball next week. I shall go up
for the night, though whether I stop depends on how things go on here.
Of course, you'll come."
Maud looked at him in mild surprise; it was as if he had said, "Of
course, you'll have breakfast to-morrow."
"It is _not_ improbable," she said. "Or did you really suppose that your
house was going to make its debut again, and me not there?"
"Oh, well, I didn't know," he said.
"You do now. What fun it will be! It will be crammed with kings and
queens like 'Alice in Wonderland.' Thurso, what a good thing Catherine
is so smart! I hate the word, but she is: she is magnificent. She said
the other day that there are only two sorts of entertaining
possible--the one where you have a great party, with kings and queens,
and everybody in orders and tiaras; and the other where it is just
tea-gowns and two or three real friends. I don't believe she has ever
had a party at which there were more than eight people and less than
forty."
"It's usually not less than forty," remarked Thurso.
"Oh no; it's often less than eight. Of course I shall come. Do have a
special all the way to town; it will be so expensive! Catherine--I must
quote her again--says, 'Either have a special or go third.'"
"With a preference for specials?"
"Not at all. She doesn't care which it is. She often goes third, and
talks to the people. And on the tops of omnibuses. But she doesn't go in
cabs: she says they are middling, like parties of twenty to meet a
Serene Transparency. If she can't have the twenty-five million
horse-power motor, up she gets on the omnibus. She never stops it,
either, because of the horses. She runs after it, and jumps quite
beautifully. I do admire her so."
Thurso laughed.
"So do I. And it's something to admire your wife when you have been
married twelve years!"
Maud made a little sideways movement in her chair, as if her position
had become suddenly uncomfortable. Her brother continued.
"I don't believe a woman ever existed who was so obviously admirable,"
he said. "We went to the opera together the night before I came up here,
and as she was going on to some large ball afterwards, she was--well,
suitably dressed."
Maud felt, as she always felt when Thurso talked like this, as if a file
had been drawn across her teeth. She tried to turn, not the
conversation, but its tone.
"Oh, how?" she asked, with deep and genuine interest; for, like all
sensible girls, she loved beautiful clothes, especially when beautiful
people wore them. "She always makes everybody else look dowdy or
overdressed. That must be such fun."
"Well, she had the diamond palisade, as she calls it, in her hair, and
what she calls the ruby plaster all, all down her."
"Yes, but her dress?" said Maud. "I know the plaster."
"Her dress? Goodness knows what it was made of, but it looked--you know
what whipped cream looks like compared to cream--it looked like whipped
gold. Sort of froth of gold: not yellow, but gold. Melba was in the
middle of the jewel-song when we came in, but at the end of it nobody
was paying the slightest attention to her. Every glass in the house was
turned on Catherine."
He got up and threw his cigarette-end away.
"And she's my wife," he added; and the four words carried tons of
irony.
Maud got up also. She hated this: it was the process of the file again.
She knew that Thurso talked to no one but her like that, but she
deplored that he felt like that.
"Oh, it is such a pity, dear," she said.
"That she's my wife?"
"Oh, Thurso, don't! All the worst of you spoke then. No, a pity that you
feel like that. You are both such splendid people, really. And----"
"And I bore her, and she gets on my nerves," he remarked.
Maud gave a little frown and gesture of disapproval.
"You should never say such things," she said. "It is a mistake to say
them just because they are--well, partly true. If they were untrue it
would not matter. But to let yourself say a true thing, when that thing
is a pity, only makes it more real. Speech confirms everything. Good
gracious! if people would only hold their tongues on unpleasant topics,
how the things themselves would improve! Oh, I am a philosopher."
He looked at her with great tenderness and affection.
"Are you?" he said. "I like you, anyhow. Go on."
Maud gave a long sigh.
"You don't do her justice," she said, "any more than she does you
justice. You don't allow for each other. And--Thurso, I don't believe
she is happy any more than you are."
"Why do you think that? She carves forty-eight hours out of every day,
and fills them all, while the world looks on in envious admiration. That
is her ideal, and she always attains it. And even her husband claps his
hands."
Maud took him by the shoulders and shook him gently.
"Idiot!" she said--"dreadful idiot! Shut up! I am going to bed. Thank me
for catching so many beautiful fish."
"I am not sure that I thank you for asking Mr. Cochrane to dinner
to-morrow," he said. "I love these quiet evenings with you."
"Thanks, dear. I get on tolerably, too. Good night. What a nice day it
has been, and what nice things we've got to think about to send us to
sleep! No fresh case of typhoid to-day for the people, and no headache
for you, and a salmon for me. I am so sleepy that I don't mind going to
bed."
"Maud," he began, then stopped.
No, he could not tell her. In himself he was ashamed of having taken
laudanum, and was ashamed, also, of having deceived her, for he saw he
had done that. Since, then, he was ashamed of it, there was no need that
she should know.
"Well?"
"No, it's nothing."
"Thurso, your manners are atrocious!" she said. "Both yesterday and
to-day you have begun to say something, and then stopped. I shall keep
doing that all to-morrow, and you will see how maddening it is."
He laughed again.
"Good night, dear old boy," said she.
* * * * *
The next day was wholly given up to the installation of the typhoid
patients. Carpets, rugs, and curtains had been rolled up, unnecessary
furniture removed, and beds brought up and down from the basement and
the higher floors, so that the utmost accommodation might be provided in
the big rooms on the first-floor. Dr. Symes, in consultation with the
other doctors, had settled that it was better to run a little risk, and
move even bad cases up here, since the day was dry and warm, for the
sake of the more immediate attention and greater abundance of fresh air
than was possible when patients were scattered about in tiny
cottage-rooms, and the ambulance, going backwards and forwards all day,
brought grave burdens. But by five in the afternoon the work of
transportation was done, and the house was full. Afterwards the doctors
went the round of the whole house, and found the results satisfactory.
Not one, apparently, had suffered from the move, and now, instead of the
patients being in small, ill-ventilated rooms, they were airily housed,
with every facility for constant supervision from the nurses. Most, too,
were going on well; but there was one case, that of Sandie the gillie,
which was as serious as it could be. As often when the strong are ill,
it seemed as if the fever, vampire-like, sucked out his strength and
itself thrived and grew strong on it; and Dr. Symes, before he left, had
given orders that he should be sent for at once if any further
unfavourable symptoms occurred. Duncan's wife, it is true, had been
through a passage no less perilous that very morning, but, with every
wish to be hopeful, it was unlikely that two should be snatched from the
very snap of the jaws of death.
Thurso had been in the house all day, and when the move was finished he
went down into the room where he and Maud lived, feeling desperately
tired, and intending to get an hour's sleep before dinner. But to have
an intention, however strong, laudable, and innocent, does not imply
that the very best efforts are able to put it into effect; and instead,
in this instance, he had no sooner composed himself to sleep than he
felt that, though the surface of his brain was drowsy and tired beyond
all words, something below was broadly and staringly awake.
He had lain down on the sofa with his face averted from the light and
his eyes shut, so as to give the utmost welcome to sleep, but it was not
sleep that came, but a series of vivid though unreal images, born of
memory. First an interminable series of stretchers, each with its
swathed, fever-stricken burden, came up the stairs, and just when he was
beginning to feel that this monotonous procession was the precursor of
sleep, another image twitched him and claimed his attention. Maud had
gone fishing, poaching, yesterday, and had enjoyed good sport; thus the
procession of stretchers gave way to the vision of her landing fish
after fish, all dead-beat, all silver-sided, till it seemed that this
iteration, too, must end in unconsciousness. But something jarred it,
and, instead, Catherine stood at the head of the stairs in Thurso House,
dressed in rubies, with a sort of "love-in-the-mist" of gold round her,
receiving kings and queens, and queens and kings, all in crowns. But
that, again, ended, not in slumber, but in something very antagonistic
to it. There was just a little stab--it was hardly pain--inside his
head, as remote as the sound of an electric bell in the basement. Then
it was repeated, but this time louder and more insistently, as if the
ringer, on the one hand, was impatient, and as if the bell was beginning
to come up the back-stairs. Then--it was right to call it pain now--the
sound grew louder, and the finger pressed the bell more firmly, while
the bell itself came closer. He was quite wide awake now, surface of
brain and secret cells alike, and he opened his eyes. Then he said out
loud:
"I am in for another."
That seemed to be the case, for the prediction began to be instantly
fulfilled. The half-drowsy similitude of the electric bell vanished, and
instead there was pain--clear, clean pain. It stabbed half a dozen times
with a firm, practised touch, as a pianist strikes a chord or two before
he begins his piece. Then it paused for a moment. Immediately afterwards
it began again, but differently. Instead of stabbing at the nerve, it
laid a cold, steady finger on it, and that finger grew quietly steadier
and colder, till something inside his head seemed to ring with it, as a
musical glass rings when it is adroitly stroked. Then came a brilliant
passage of all sorts of pain, as if the orchestra had begun to accompany
that masterly solo. Then, as the horn holds a long, lazy, piercing
note, pain pierced and dwelt in him, while wonderful arpeggios of
torture from neighbouring nerves crossed it. That was the prelude.
* * * * *
In his room upstairs, which he could reach in ten seconds, there stood
on his dressing-table a bottle, not very large, which contained not only
the antidote and instant cure of his suffering, but also blissful
content and the gift of ecstatic well-being. But the very fact that
yesterday he had so lightly (or so it seemed now) had recourse to that,
deceiving Maud, and had uncorked Paradise, made him at this moment brace
himself against the temptation of resorting to it again. If he had got
to bear pain--and it really appeared just now that he had--then he would
set his teeth and bear it, sooner than, at the cost of another step in
the formation of a damnable habit, drug himself into remission from his
pain, or, what even now, when he was suffering hell, tempted him more
closely, into that sense of divine harmony of being that the drug gave
him. He longed that the pain should cease; he longed even more for that
seventh heaven of content. It was all in that small bottle, with its
brown elixir.
Then his desire disguised itself, and made a more insidious approach.
There was a guest coming to dinner to-night. He could not simply retire
to bed, leaving Maud to entertain Mr. Cochrane alone, nor, on the other
hand, did it seem to him to be physically possible that he should be
able to sit through dinner if in this state, for already the beads of
anguish were thick upon him. And he knew well that this was but the
prelude; it was only an orchestral performance. Soon the curtain would
go up; the singers would be there too. It was intolerable enough now; he
had never known so full an orchestra. Yet he could stifle them, he could
extinguish the singers, by a little draught, a swallowing in the throat.
But his will, his intention, remained firm. He was not going to silence
them like that. For now he knew quite well that his desire for the drug
was acute, not only because of the blessed relief from pain that it
would give him, but because of the intense physical enjoyment that it
brought. Then, with head splitting and buzzing with pain, he went
upstairs to dress and make ready to entertain his guest. There were
forty other guests, too, in the house, but those were well looked after.
Also they were in bed, lucky devils!
* * * * *
Breeding, and what is implied by that much-abused word, includes courage
of a quiet but rather heroic kind, since it has no stirring aids to help
it, no moral trumpets and drums to stimulate it to its shining deeds.
Yet it demands a greater command of self, a greater obedience to the
courtesies of life, to be courageous in hum-drum and unexciting
circumstances than in those to which romance and adventure are
auxiliary; and certainly to-night Thurso's perfectly natural and even
gravely convivial manner towards his guest and his sister, while he
himself was suffering pain of the most excruciating kind, was courage
that in its small and difficult sphere deserved some sort of domestic
Victoria Cross. Though most people have more manliness than they
themselves or anybody else would have credited them with when pain has
got to be borne, or a heart-rending situation faced, yet to have the
ready smile, the attentive ear, the genial manner, under such
circumstances is a fine exhibition of the courage of good breeding. More
than this, too, Thurso had faced before dinner, when the little bottle
on his dressing-table reminded him that pain need not be borne a moment
longer than he chose.
But all through dinner Thurso achieved the outward signs of inward
well-being, and it was through no remissness or failure on his part, but
by instinct born of intimate knowledge on Maud's, that she knew he was
going through hells of physical torture. Sometimes he just bit his lip
or suddenly stroked his long moustache; sometimes in the middle of a
sentence he would make a pause that was scarcely noticeable, as if he
but considered for a word; sometimes he gripped knife and fork so that
the skin over his knuckles showed white; but that was all. He talked
quite easily and naturally, made reference to Maud's poaching
expedition, and its satisfactory results as far as dinner was concerned,
for the salmon was excellent, and went on to speak of the epidemic which
had brought them both up North.
"But at last it shows some sign of abating," he said, "though we are
still ignorant of the source of it. In fact, there has been no fresh
case either to-day or yesterday."
Maud looked up at Mr. Cochrane, wishing rather intently that he would
preach his gospel. She felt that it might do Thurso good, or, at any
rate, take his mind off the pain that flickered round him like a shower
of daggers. But the gospel was veiled, at any rate.
"I think it is so good of you to bring the cases up here," he said.
"Lady Maud told me yesterday that you were doing so. I am sure it must
help towards recovery to remove people from surroundings which they
associate with illness to fresh, bright places."
He paused a moment.
"One sees that every day," he said. "If you associate a place with
pleasure, you are pleased to go there again. The mind, left to itself,
clings so strongly to material things. If one has been happy in a
certain room, one thinks that those surroundings will tend to produce
happiness again. It is one of the illusions we get rid of last."
Thurso began to speak.
"You mean," he said, and then stopped, for an access of pain so sharp
seized him that he could not get on.
Maud saw, and gave him a sudden quick look of sympathy, which annoyed
him, and, for the first time, Cochrane saw too. But after a moment he
recovered himself, and went on.
"You mean I shall always associate this house with typhoid and sick,
suffering people?" he asked. "That is not very cheering."
Bertie Cochrane smiled, looking with those happy, childlike eyes first
at Maud, then at his host.
"No, I mean just the opposite," he said. "You will always associate this
house with recovery, with the sweeping away of illness and pain."
* * * * *
Dinner was at an end, and the pause of cigarette-lighting followed.
Bertie Cochrane had taken one as he spoke, but he did not light it, and
laid it down again on the cloth. Then he got up.
"Lord Thurso, you are wonderfully brave," he said. "I am sure you feel
in horrible pain. Let me go right away now. I have enjoyed coming up to
dine with Lady Maud and you ever so much."
For the last minute or two the pain had become so much more acute that
Thurso's forehead dripped with perspiration. All dinner, too, the
longing, the drunkard's desire, to get to his room and take a dose from
that healing bottle had been growing like some nightmare figure. And
now, when his pain, in spite of all his gallant efforts to conceal it,
was discovered, the desire became overwhelming--he could no longer
master it.
"Pray don't think of going away," he said, "but if you will excuse me
for a few minutes, I think I will go upstairs. I have some medicine
there that never fails to set me right, and I shall be down again quite
shortly. Yes, I may as well confess it, the pain has been pretty bad."
For one moment it appeared that Cochrane had something on the tip of his
tongue, for he turned eagerly to Thurso, who had risen, and was wiping
his face. But it was clear to Maud, when he did speak, that he was not
giving expression to the original impulse.
"I shall be delighted to stop," he said, "if Lady Maud does not mind my
being on her hands. I wanted so much to ask about one or two of the
pools on the river."
Thurso left the room, and Cochrane turned to her with the same eagerness
as he had shown a minute ago.
"I am so willing, so eager to treat your brother," he said, "but I
didn't like suggesting it to him. I did not know if he would not think
me some very special kind of lunatic."
Maud shook her head. She knew quite well it would be perfectly idle to
suggest such a thing to Thurso, and, indeed, to her sense, too, there
was something unthinkable about calling into play the power that rules
the world in order to cure neuralgia. Besides, the poppy-juice, though
she did not wholly like his taking it, would do that. The other was
like cracking your egg for breakfast with a steam-hammer.
"Oh, thank you very much," she said, "but his medicine always puts him
right."
And she instantly turned the conversation to the subject he had
suggested, and spoke of certain pools in the river which he had found
difficulty in fishing satisfactorily.
Thurso, meantime, half blind with pain, had almost run to his room, for
he longed for the relief which awaited him there as the desert-parched
traveller longs for water. And keenly as he desired the cessation of
pain, much more keenly did he thirst for the ecstatic sense of
well-being that the drug produced. All day, even before this racking
neuralgia came on, he had been almost unable to think of anything but
that. He had thirsted all day for that stimulated consciousness, that
huge, vivid sense of happiness, which already seemed to him the proper,
normal level of life. Already, too, he was beginning to be dishonest
with himself, just as yesterday he had been dishonest with Maud; and
even as he poured it out he told himself, knowing it was untrue, that he
would not be taking it if Mr. Cochrane had not been dining with them. It
was inhospitable and impossible to send him away five minutes after
dinner; it was equally impossible that he should spend the evening alone
with Maud. And though that, so far as it went, was true, it was not the
essential truth.
He took the glass in his hand, torturing himself, now that relief was
near and assured, with voluntary delay, even as the caged beast which
has been roaring for its meat sits fierce and snarling when it has been
given it before it begins to assuage the hunger-pangs which it now knows
it can satisfy, and deliberately prolonged for a moment more this
stabbing pain. He sat down in an easy-chair, and put his feet up on
another, in order to make himself quite comfortable before he drank it.
His room looked north-west, and they had dined early, so that the sun
still shone in at his window, flooding the room in cool crystal light.
Then he drank.
Inside his head during this last hour he felt as if a sort of piston-rod
from a cylinder had been making firm strokes onto some bleeding, mangled
nerve. The end of the piston-rod was fitted sometimes with a blunt
hammer, so that it crushed the nerve, sometimes with a sharp
needle-point which went deeper, and seemed to penetrate the very home
and heart of pain. Then perhaps the piston-rod would cease for a few
seconds, while an iron-toothed, rusty rake collected the smashed
fragments of nerve together again, so that the hammer should not fail to
hit them squarely, and made a neat little pyramid of the pieces on the
place where it would descend. This raking together (the image was so
vivid to him that he almost believed that it actually took place) was
about the worst part. He knew that in a minute the hammer would begin
again. But now, a few moments only after he had taken his dose, the
change began. Though the hammer did not cease to fall, its blows no
longer produced pain. They produced instead a warm, tingling sensation,
like that which the hand feels when it spreads out icy fingers to a
friendly blaze. And that tingling warmth felt its way gradually through
his head, passed down his neck, and slowly flooded body and limbs to toe
and finger tip. He forgot what pain meant; he was unable to realise even
before the piston-rod ceased to beat what it connoted, knowing only what
the oncoming of this tide of physical bliss was like.
Every sense, too, was quickened and stimulated. The sun that still shone
in at his windows burned with a ruddier and more mellow light. The glory
of it was soft but incredibly brilliant, and to his quickened sense of
smell the air that came in through the open sash was redolent with the
honey-scent of warm heather. The blind had been a little drawn down over
the top of the window, but whereas, when he was dressing for dinner an
hour ago, the sound of it flapping against the frame was a fretting and
irritating thing, it now seemed to him to give out flute-like and
vibrating notes, while the taste of the cigarette which he had lit five
minutes ago, and brought up with him, had a flavour new and exquisite.
The present moment, and the sensations of it, were all quickened into
the vividness of dream-life, while it was but vaguely that he remembered
that downstairs Maud was sitting with a very pleasant American fellow
who had come to dinner. At dinner he remembered, but again vaguely, that
he was not sure if he liked him; now he appeared to be the most charming
of companions. But with the gates of Paradise here upstairs flung wide
for his reception, he could not fix his mind very clearly on him. No
doubt, if he made an effort, he could recall more about him, and
remember his name, which just now eluded him; but an effort was the one
thing he certainly would not make, since it might disturb or destroy
this perfect equilibrium on which he was balanced. And there was really
no reason, so it now appeared, why he should go downstairs again. Maud
and her poaching friend would talk about fishing for awhile, and then
he--ah, yes! Bertie Cochrane--would go away. They would both easily
understand his own non-appearance. He had suffered tortures; no
inquisitor or master of the rack would refuse to grant him this little
rest and compensation.
Then for a moment his breeding and the habit of his whole life jerked
him to his feet, with the intention of rejoining them, as courtesy and
decorum demanded. But the drug he had taken was already more powerful
than they. It told him with authority that this ecstasy of consciousness
would be trespassed on and interfered with by the presence of others. It
would, if he went downstairs, be necessary for him to some extent to
give attention to them instead of letting himself be absorbed in the
exquisiteness of his own sensations. And those sensations had nothing
in common with the dulled perceptions of sleep or intoxication. He was
lifted onto a plane more vivified than the normal; he basked in
super-solar sunlight.
Then, still without any suggestion of sleepiness or intoxicated
consciousness, the most wonderful visions, or, rather, the intentional
visualisation of scenes and moods magic in their beauty, passed in front
of him. He, turned into Keats himself, was listening to the nightingale,
and losing himself in "embalmed darkness" to the charmed music of the
immortal song. "The weariness, the fever and the fret," were remembered
only as the traveller arrived at his long-desired home remembers the
weariness of the way. His spirit seemed to draw away from life, though
still intensely living, and he was in love with death, that but loosed
it from the impediment of the body. Then a curve was suddenly turned,
and next moment he was mounting higher than the blithe spirit of the
lark could carry it, and hung in some clear interstellar ether so remote
that the sun above him and the earth below seemed about equal in size,
and the shape of England and the coasts of Europe were visible as in a
map, set in dim blue sea. Then, still mounting, he turned his eye
upward, and looked undazzled into the high noon of the heavens, and yet,
though it was noon, the infinite velvet vault was sown with the sparkle
of stars. Sun and stars shone there together, and a slip of crescent
moon made the company of heaven complete.
Again, still vividly awake, and without the least hint of drowsiness,
the aspect of the firmament was changed, and the stars became globules
of sparkling dew, and the empty spaces of ether took shape, until above
him that which had been the heavens was transformed into a huge bed of
blue acanthus-leaves, on which the dew of the stars lay sparkling. The
sun was still there in the centre of all, and round it the sky took the
shape of the petals of a flower. It was the "centre spike of gold" in an
immense blue blossom, which was thick with petals as a rose, and pure of
shape as a daffodil. All this, too--this vision to which the hosts of
heaven contributed--was his own, born of his own brain, which so short a
time ago was bound on the rack of torture and sordid suffering. But now
that was nothing. He remembered he had been in pain, but no more, and
how cheaply had he purchased, at the price of but copper coin, these
jewels of consciousness. That little draught which relieved him of
physical pain had brought him these astounding joys; it had made the
whole machinery of the universe to serve his vision. The stars were
drops of dew on the acanthus-leaves of infinite space, and the sun
burned in the centre of this unique flower. A few minutes ago he had
half started to go downstairs; now the ravings of any lunatic in Bedlam
were not more distant from his mind than such a thought. He was
absorbed in that contemplation of things which the brain, with the aid
he had given it, can re-create out of the objects it is used to see
without wonder. But this was the real world, easy of entry to those who
had the sense to turn the key; while the material world was a dream,
vague and pale, compared to this reality.
* * * * *
Meantime, below, Bertie Cochrane and Maud had for some ten minutes
talked unmitigated fishing; but Maud, though in general to talk fishing
was to her one of the most entrancing forms of conversation, provided
she talked to a real fisherman, as she was now doing, was giving
lip-service only to the subject, for inwardly she regretted the finality
of those few little frozen words about Thurso with which she had so
successfully dismissed the subject of Christian Science and all the
matter of Duncan's wife, of which she wanted to know more. For very
shame or pride--the two, so verbally opposed, are often really
identical--she could not go back to the subject she had so unmistakably
snuffed out, while he, in his confessed and genuine dislike of
preaching, was equally unlikely to approach it again.
But he had said that, though he disliked preaching, he loved practice,
and she had just leaned forward over the dinner-table where they still
sat, her pride in her pocket, to ask a question about this, when an
interruption came. One of the nurses entered.
"I beg your pardon, my lady," she said; "I thought Lord Thurso was
here."
"He will be back soon," said Maud. "Can I do anything?"
"I think Dr. Symes ought to be sent for at once, my lady," she said.
"Sandie Mackenzie had very high fever an hour ago, but I didn't like his
looks, and I have just taken his temperature again. It is below normal,
and that is the worst that can happen, suddenly like this. Dr. Symes
told me to send for him if there was a change for the worse, and I
thought I had better come and tell his lordship."
Maud got up.
"You did quite right to come and tell us, nurse," she said. "I will have
him sent for at once. Is it very serious?"
"Yes, my lady; it means perforation," she said. "I don't know that it is
any good to send for the doctor, but one must do what one can."
Maud nodded.
"Thank you," she said; "I will see to it."
* * * * *
The nurse left the room, going back to her patients; but Maud stood
there for a moment without moving, for all she had mused about by the
river yesterday came back to her mind in spate, vividly,
instantaneously. Only yesterday she had heard Mr. Cochrane tell Duncan
that his wife was better, and though that morning she had been ill
almost beyond hope of recovery, yet all that day, and all to-day, she
had been mending swiftly and steadily. Thurso was upstairs, too; the
opportunity she had desired was completely given her.
She had started to go to ring the bell, and order someone to go down to
Dr. Symes's house and summon him, but half-way she stopped. It seemed
almost as if Mr. Cochrane had expected this, for he had wheeled round in
his chair, and when she stopped he was facing her, quiet, cheerful,
looking at her with those strong, childlike eyes.
"Mr. Cochrane," she began.
Their eyes met, and again she felt antagonistic to him. He had the
element of certainty about him, which, it seemed to her, no one had the
right to carry. But then, his simplicity made it easier to be simple
with him. She moved a step nearer him, a step further from the bell.
"I don't know whether I am right to ask you this," she said; "but, to
begin with, if what the nurse thinks has happened, it is quite useless,
as she said, to send for the doctor. I don't ask it either in a spirit
of derision or curiosity."
"Ask, then," said he quietly.
"Yes; a life is at stake. Can you go to poor Sandie, and make him live?
And, if so, will you? I have known him all my life. He has landed a
hundred fish for me. But if you say "No," I shall quite understand that
you feel--honestly, I am quite sure--that it is not right for you to do
so. I shall be sorry, but I shall in no way question your decision. So I
ask you: Will you go to Sandie?"
Maud did not know that the human face could hold such happiness as she
saw there. He answered at once.
"Why, certainly I will," he said. "But if I am to make him better, you
mustn't, while I am treating him, whether you think he is improving or
not, send for the doctor. There must be none of that. I will go to him
if you wish, but if I go the case is in my hands--no, not that, but
under the direct care of Divine Love. I cannot tell how long it may
take to cure him. You know some patients are healed sooner than others,
and respond more quickly than others to the healing power. But if you
ask me to make him well, believing that I can, I will do so. But you
must trust me completely, otherwise you hinder. And you must be sure you
are not asking it only to see if I can."
Maud went through a long moment of dreadful indecision. She knew she was
taking a tremendous responsibility, for though, if the nurse was right,
Sandie was beyond human power, yet it was a serious thing to refuse to
send for the doctor. But it was impossible not to trust this strong,
happy confidence. And as she hesitated he spoke again, still quite
quietly, quite cheerfully.
"Why hesitate?" he said. "Your choice is very simple. You choose the
direct power of God to make Sandie well, or you reject it. Don't think
for a moment it is I who make him well. I can do no more than the
doctor. Look on me only as the window through which the sun shines. So
choose, Lady Maud."
She hesitated no longer.
"Please go to him," she said; "and oh, be quick!"
The human cry sounded there. She was terrified at her choice. What if
Sandie died, and she had not sent for the doctor, not done all that
could have been done? Yet she did not revoke her decision. But she was
frightened, and this stranger whom she had seen yesterday for the first
time soothed her like a child.
"There is nothing to be frightened at," he said. "You have chosen right,
and your faith knows that, but the flesh is weak. Or, rather, our faith
is weak, while our flesh is strong. It binds and controls us sometimes,
so that our true will is almost powerless. Let me be silent a minute."
He moved his chair round again to the table where they had dined, made a
backward sweep of his hand, overturning and breaking a glass, so as to
clear a little space, and leaned his head on his hands, clasping his
fingers over his eyes to shut out the sight of all material things, and
brought his whole mind home to the one great fact from which sprang his
own life, his health, his happiness--namely, his belief in the presence,
omnipotence, and love of God. From fishing, from all the preoccupations
of life, from Thurso, from Maud, from false beliefs in illness and pain,
he called his winged thoughts home, and they settled in his soul like
homing doves. With all his power of soul and mind he had to realise the
central fact, this root from which the whole world sprang. Every nerve
and fibre, material though they were, had to be instinct with it. As he
had said to Maud, he was but the window through which the sun shone.
This window, then, had to be polished and cleaned, to be made speckless
of dust, or of anything which could cast a shadow and hinder the rays
from penetrating. For a minute or two he remained motionless, and then
got up from his chair.
"Come up with me, Lady Maud," he said, "since you have asked this in
sincerity. I should like you to see it, since you are ready to believe,
for, like the Israelites, you shall stand still and see the salvation of
God."
Maud did not hesitate now. Something of that which he had realised
reached her; the sun streamed in through the window.
"Yes, I will come," she said.
Nurse Miles, who had come down to tell Maud, was busy with patients in
another room, and the two, having gone upstairs to the first-floor,
inquired of another nurse where Sandie was. She knew Maud, of course, by
sight, and supposing that Cochrane was the new doctor expected to-day
from Inverness, asked no questions, but merely took them through the
billiard-room, where were some twenty beds, into a smaller room beyond,
where Sandie had been placed alone. At the door Mr. Cochrane turned to
her.
"Thanks," he said; "I shall not need you."
Then the two entered, and Cochrane closed the door gently behind them.
* * * * *
Maud had never yet in her life seen any to whom the great White Presence
has drawn near, but now, when she looked at the bed and the face of the
man who lay there, she knew that the supreme moment must nearly have
come, so unlike life was what she saw. Sandie, the gillie whom she had
known so well, with whom year after year she had passed so many pleasant
and windy days on the moor or by the brown sparkling river, was barely
recognisable. The grey, pallid mask, with skin drawn tight over the
protruding bones of the face, was scarcely human. Both upper and lower
lips, already growing bluish in tinge, were drawn back, so that in both
jaws the teeth were exposed even to the gums, and his eyes, wide open
and bright and dry, looked piteously this way and that, with pupils
dilated with terror, and the soul, frightened at this dark and lonely
journey on which none could be its companion, sought for comfort and
reassurement, but sought in vain. It was no delirium of fever that
caused that active scrutiny: it was fear and dumb appeal. His hands,
thin and white, lay outside the blanket, and they, too, were active,
picking at it.
Cochrane had seen that before, and knew what it meant, and he quickly
pulled a chair to the bedside, leaving Maud standing.
"Sandie," he said, "just listen here a minute. You think you are ill,
maybe you think you are dying--at least, your mortal mind tells you
that--and you've let yourself believe it. Now, there's not an atom of
truth in it. Why, man, God is looking after you, and He has sent me here
this evening to remind you of that. Your forgetting that has made your
poor body sick. That's all the trouble."
Maud looked from that mask on the pillow to the man who sat by the bed,
and if the one face was dark with the shadow of death that lay over it,
the other was so lit and illumined with life that it seemed possible
even now that death, for all his grimness and nearness, might have to
retreat. Some force, irresistible and radiant, seemed to be challenging
him. But as yet she did not dare hope. She could only wait and watch.
Then there was silence. Cochrane took his mind off all else, off poor
Sandie even, to abandon himself to the knowledge, the belief in the only
Power that healed and lived. Though the evening was cool, the beads of
perspiration stood thick on his forehead as he concentrated all his
strength, all his power of belief, into the realisation of this. Then,
again, after some quarter of an hour, he raised his head, and looked on
the glassy, dying face on the pillow, and spoke more eagerly, more
insistently than ever.
"How can you be ill if you only realise that there is nothing real in
the world except God's Infinite Love? Fix yourself on that. It's only
sin that makes us able to be afraid, or sick, or in pain. But that isn't
God's will for you, Sandie, and He won't have it. It's that old cheat,
the devil, who makes us sin, and who makes us think we are sick. He
tells you, too, that you are a poor sinful body. So you are, but you've
forgotten a big thing about that. God has wiped it all away. Jesus took
it, the dear Master took all that, and all sickness, too, on His
shoulders. It nearly staggered even Him for a moment."
He paused again, and for some minutes more was silent, absorbed in the
realisation of that which he believed. All the time he seemed
absolutely unconscious of Maud's presence, and in the silence she looked
back from him to that which had been but a death's-head on the pillow,
and saw, not exactly to her amazement, but to her intense awe, that a
certain change had come over it. It was possible, of course, that her
first terrified glance at it had exaggerated the deathliness of it, and
that she might in a way have now got used to it. But, in any case, it
seemed different. Or, again, the intensity of Mr. Cochrane's belief in
the power to heal those on whom the very shadow of death lay might have
infected her, and made her see through the medium of his conviction. Yet
it seemed to her that a change was there. She faintly recognised Sandie
again--the living Sandie whom she knew, not the dead Sandie whom she had
seen when she first entered the room. That gaping, mirthless grin had
vanished; his lips were no longer drawn back to the base of the teeth.
And surely, half an hour ago, his lips had been nearly blue; now a
blood-tinge invaded them again. Also, those poor hands, which had picked
and plucked at the blanket, were still. They lay there weak and
nerveless, but they no longer picked and clawed. His eyes sought comfort
still, but it seemed that they had begun to find it. And was the
eclipse, the shadow of death, beginning to pass away from his face? Was
the power of Infinite Love, which must be so much stronger than sickness
and death, being here and now openly manifested? Or was she but
imagining these things in obedience to the suggestion made by that
strong, virile mind of the man who sat by the bedside?
From Sandie she looked back to Mr. Cochrane. Soon he raised his eyes
again, for through this long silence he had sat with his face buried in
his hands; and again he looked at Sandie, and there shone from him a
beam so tender and triumphant that his face was transfigured.
"You are better already, my dear man," he said, "and you are coming
back so quickly, retracing your way along the road of error and untruth
and unreality. Don't you feel it? Don't you know it?"
There could be no mistake now: Sandie's face had changed. Life, feeble
and fluttering, made its impress there; death but flickered where it had
dwelt so firmly. A tide had turned. It was low-water still, but the
water no longer ebbed; it had begun to flow. And, after a moment, Sandie
smiled at those brown, childlike eyes, and the smile was not that fixed
and terrified grin which Maud had seen there before.
Cochrane caught, so to speak, and held that look, the first conscious
effort of the man who had been dying.
"That's right," he went on; "all that false belief which has made you
ill is coming out of your mind. It must come out, all of it. You can't
do it of yourself, and I can't do it for you, but Divine Love can. The
door of your heart is opening. Oh, let it swing wide, and let the great
sun shine in and chase the shadows away. There, wider yet! Sin is gone,
illness is gone; all is gone except the great light. If anyone has told
you you were sick, forget it. He was mistaken; he didn't stop to think
that there can't be any sickness where God is, and He is everywhere,
wherever He is asked to be. We have asked Him to come here, and here He
is. Put your hand in His, and let Divine Love lead you, and your sin and
your fear and your sickness will just roll away as the mists roll away
from the moor, as you have so often seen, when the sun rises. You feel
that, Sandie--you know it. Your fear has ceased, for there is nothing to
be afraid of. Your sickness and weakness are leaving you, because they
were born only from night mists which the sun has scattered. You are
tired and weak still--yes, yes--because you have been wading through the
slime and choking mud of fear and false belief; but you are coming out
of that, and already God is setting your feet on the rock. You will not
be afraid for any terror by night, nor for the pestilence that walks in
darkness, and all day you are safe, for the arrow that flieth by day
cannot touch you, nor the sickness that destroys in the noonday of
ignorance and unbelief. God and His salvation are come to you, and you
will dwell in His house of defence, set very high. So tell me with your
own voice, are you not getting well? Do you not know you are better? Are
not the false things vanishing?"
* * * * *
What was happening? Maud asked herself that with thrilled and bewildered
wonder. She had to believe the evidence of her own ears, when she heard
Sandie saying--faintly, indeed, but audibly, and in his natural
voice--that he was better. She had to believe the evidence of her own
eyes, which showed her the pallid mask exchanged for the face of a
living being. He had been pulled back from the gate of death, even as
the door was being opened for him to pass through. The colour was coming
back to that ghastly clay-hued face; terror and suffering were being
expunged from his eyes; the short, panting breath, whistling from
between clenched teeth and backdrawn lips, became natural respiration.
And from under the bed-clothes there came no longer jumping movements;
the limbs lay still.
Yet it was impossible; she could not yet believe the evidence of her own
senses. It must be some trick, some illusion. And even as the thought
entered her mind, Cochrane, for the first time, turned to her.
"You mustn't doubt either, dear lady," he said, "for you know that all I
have been saying is quite true; it is the only thing that is completely
true. Come, take all other thought out of your mind. If you have been
questioning the truth of what you see here, reverse that doubt. Tell
Sandie that you know God is making him well, just because he is
beginning to know that neither illness nor sin nor fear can exist in the
presence of Infinite Love. Tell him that."
Maud took a step forward, and stood at the foot of the bed. She had to
believe what her eyes showed her, and they showed her no longer that
unrecognisable death-mask, but the face of Sandie--thin and pale and
tired, it is true, but his living face.
"It is quite true, Sandie," she said. "You are getting well. It is your
faith in the Infinite Love that makes you well."
Cochrane turned to the bed again, and spoke in a voice so tender and
strong that Maud felt a sudden lump rise in her throat.
"Why, Sandie," he said, "your faith is spreading round you like calm
waters, and Infinite Love shines through it like the sun at noonday.
Faith is streaming from you, and the same knowledge streams from us
all--Lady Maud and me. And the streams are joining, and rushing in spate
together over what was a dry and barren hillside. Listen to the voice of
them, shouting their praise to the Lord. By Jove! He is being good to
you, isn't He?"
Again he paused a moment.
"And now, since that old cheat, the devil, has been tiring your poor
body out, poking it and pinching it and roasting it, you will have a
good sleep. Sleep the clock round, Sandie; but before you drop off just
be sure you've got tight hold of God's hand, and, like Jacob, say you
won't let Him go before He blesses you. And don't let Him go afterwards,
either. And when you wake to-morrow squeeze His hand again, and say,
'Divine Love, you're going to lead me now and always.' He will, too. He
never said 'No' to anybody, and the biggest trouble He has is that we
won't keep on asking Him for what we want. And now get to sleep, my
dear man. Just say to yourself, 'Thou, Lord, art my hope; Thou hast set
Thy house of defence very high. There shall no evil happen unto
thee....'"
* * * * *
And then, gently as a child's, Sandie's eyelids flickered once and shut
down. Cochrane got up without another word, and in silence he and Maud
left the room. At the door Maud looked back. Sandie was lying quite
still, drawing in the long, full respirations of natural sleep.
Nurse Miles had returned during the last hour to the billiard-room,
where she was settling her patients for the night, and as they went
through Maud stopped to speak to her.
"Sandie is ever so much better, nurse," she said, "and he has gone to
sleep, I think. You won't disturb him again to-night, will you?"
Nurse Miles shook her head.
"It's exhaustion, I'm afraid," she said, "not sleep. He will not be
disturbed till Dr. Symes comes. And I daresay not even then, poor
fellow!"
Cochrane was standing by, and it seemed to Maud as if it was her duty to
bear witness here and now to what she had seen, to what she
incredulously believed.
"There is no need for Dr. Symes to come at all," she said. "I have not
sent for him, and shall not. Go and look for yourself, so that I may
know you are satisfied."
* * * * *
The nurse stared at her a moment, then went swiftly to the door of the
room where Sandie lay, opened it, and passed through. In some
half-minute she came out again, closing it softly behind her.
"Why, he's getting some natural sleep," she said, "and he hasn't closed
his eyes the last three nights. And his breathing is quiet, and there is
no more rigor. Yet his temperature came down to below normal from high
fever an hour ago. Or could I have made a mistake?"
Cochrane smiled at her.
"Yes, nurse; I think there has been a mistake," he said. "But he's all
right now, and you are satisfied, are you? Good night. Sandie won't wake
for the next twelve hours, I think."
* * * * *
The two went downstairs again. Thurso was still up in his bedroom, and,
but that the table had been cleared, the room was just as they had left
it an hour ago. But it seemed to Maud as if some huge change had taken
place. What it was she could hardly formulate yet; she only knew that
the whole aspect and nature of things was different. Then she turned to
Cochrane.
"I don't understand," she said; "I am bewildered."
"You understood just now," said he, "when you told Sandie his faith was
making him well. That is all. It's just the truest and simplest and
only thing in this world. But I'll get home now, Lady Maud. I've--I've
got more to do."
Maud felt fearfully excited. All her emotions, all her beliefs and
aspirations, were strung up to their highest by what she had seen. She
had seen what she had seen; Nurse Miles had seen too. It was all
incredible, but it had happened. She could not call it impossible. And
if this had taken place, why should not more?
"Ah, make them all well!" she cried. "Stop this dreadful false belief of
suffering and illness, since you say it is false."
"But is it not false?" he asked. "Did it not vanish before the truth?"
"Yes, yes; it must be so!" cried she excitedly. "But can't you get God
to make them all know what Sandie knows now?"
He put out his hand to her.
"Don't you think He is doing that?" said he. "You see, there have been
no fresh cases now for two days, and all the cases are doing well, I
believe--now."
"Then, is it stopping?" she asked.
Those serene childlike eyes smiled at her.
"Why, yes," he said. "Good night, Lady Maud."