THE week passed in the sombre hurry yet tedium of a house lying under
the shadow of death--that period during which when it is night we long
for morning, and when it is morning we long for night, hoping always for
the hope that never comes, trembling to mark the progress which does go
on silently towards the end.
Colonel Kingsward was rough and angry with Bee that first morning, to
her consternation and dismay. She had never been the object of her
father’s anger before, and this hasty and imperious questioning seemed
to take all power of reply out of her. “What had she been doing to her
mother?” She! to her mother! Bee was too much frightened by his
threatening look, the cloud on his face, the fire in his eyes, to say
anything. Her mind ran hurriedly over all that had happened, and that
last terrible visit, which had changed the whole aspect of the earth to
herself. But it was to herself that this stroke of misfortune had come,
and not to her mother. A gleam of answering anger came into Bee’s eyes,
sombre with the unhappiness which had been pushed aside by more
immediate suffering, yet was still there like a black background, to
frame whatever other miseries might come after. As for Colonel
Kingsward, it was to him, as to so many men, a relief to blame somebody
for the trouble which was unbearable. The blow was approaching which he
had never allowed himself to believe in. He had blamed his wife
instinctively, involuntarily, at the first hearing of every
inconvenience in life; and it had helped to accustom him to the
annoyance to think that it was her fault. He had done so in what he
called this unfortunate business of Bee’s, concluding that but for Mrs.
Kingsward’s weakness, Mr. Aubrey Leigh and his affairs would never have
become of any importance to the family. He had blamed her, too, and
greatly, for that weakening of health which he had so persistently
endeavoured to convince himself did not mean half so much as the doctors
said. Women are so idiotic in these respects. They will insist on
wearing muslin and lace when they ought to wear flannel. They will put
on evening dresses when they ought to be clothed warmly to the throat,
and shoes made of paper when they ought to be solidly and stoutly shod,
quite indifferent to the trouble and anxiety they may cause to their
family. And now that Mrs. Kingsward’s state had got beyond the
possibility of reproach, he turned upon his daughter. It must be her
fault. Her mother had been better or he should not have left her. The
quiet of the country was doing her good; if she had not been agitated
all would have been well. But Bee, with all her declarations of devotion
to her mother; Bee, the eldest, who ought to have had some sense; Bee
had brought on this trumpery love business to overset the delicate
equilibrium which he himself, a man with affairs so much more important
in hand, had refrained from disturbing. It did him a little good,
unhappy and anxious as he was, to pour out his wrath upon Bee. And she
did not reply. She did not shed tears, as her mother had weakly done in
similar circumstances, or attempt excuses. Even if he had been
sufficiently at leisure to note it, an answering fire awoke in Bee’s
eyes. He had not leisure to note, but he perceived it all the same.
Presently, however, every faculty, every thought, became absorbed in
that sick chamber; things had still to be thought of outside of it, but
they seemed strange, artificial things, having no connection with life.
Then Charlie was summoned from Oxford, and the younger boys from school,
which increased the strange commotion of the house, adding that restless
element of young life which had no place there, nothing to do with
itself, and which roused an almost frenzied irritation in Colonel
Kingsward when he saw any attempt on the part of the poor boys to amuse
themselves, or resume their usual occupations. “Clods!” he said; “young
brutes! They would play tennis if the world were falling to pieces.” And
again that glance of fire came into Bee’s eyes, marked unconsciously,
though he did not know he had seen it, by her father. The boys hung
about her when she stole out for a little air, one at each arm. “How is
mother, Bee? She’s no worse? Don’t you think we might go over to
Hillside for that tournament? Don’t you think Fred might play in the
parish match with Siddemore? They’re so badly off for bowlers. Don’t you
think----”
“Oh, I think it would be much better for you to be doing something,
boys; but, then, papa might hear, and he would be angry. If we could but
keep it from papa.”
“We’re doing mother no good,” said Fred.
“How could we do mother good? Why did the governor send for us, Bee,
only to kick our heels here, and get into mischief? A fellow can’t help
getting into mischief when he has nothing to do.”
“Yes,” repeated Fred, “what did he send for us for? I wish mother was
better. I suppose as soon as she’s better we’ll be packed off again.”
They were big boys, but they did not understand the possibility of their
mother not getting better, and, indeed, neither did Bee. When morning
followed morning and nothing happened, it seemed to her that getting
better was the only conclusion to be looked for. If it had been Death
that was coming, surely it must have come by this time. Her hopes rose
with every new day.
But Mrs. Kingsward had been greatly agitated by the sight of Charlie
when he was allowed to see her. “Why has Charlie come home?” she said.
“Was he sent for? Was it your father that brought him? Charlie, my dear,
what are you doing here? Why have you come back? You should have been
going on with---- Did your father send for you? Why--why did your father
send for you, my boy?”
“I thought,” said Charlie, quite unmanned by the sight of her, and by
this unexpected question, and by all he had been told about her state,
“I thought--you wanted to see me, mother.”
“I always like to see you--but not to take you away from---- And why
was he sent for, Moulsey? Does the doctor think?--does my husband
think?----”
Her feverish colour grew brighter and brighter. Her eyes shone with a
burning eagerness. She put her hot hand upon that of her son. “Was it to
say good-bye to me?” she said, with a strange flutter of a smile.
At the same time an argument on the same subject was going on between
the doctor and the Colonel.
“What can the children do in a sick room? Keep them away. I should never
have sent for them if you had consulted me. It is bad enough to have let
her see Charlie, summoned express--do you want to frighten your wife to
death?”
“There can be no question,” said the Colonel, “if what you tell me is
true, of frightening her to death. I think, Benson, that a patient in
such circumstances ought to know. She ought to be told----”
“What?” the doctor said, sharply, with a harsh tone in his voice.
“What? Do you need to ask? Of her state--of what is imminent--that she
is going to----”
Colonel Kingsward loved his wife truly, and he could not say those last
words.
“Yes,” said the doctor, “going to----? Well, we hope it’s to One who has
called her, that knows all about it, Kingsward. Doctors are not supposed
to take that view much, but I do. I’d tell her nothing of the sort. I
would not agitate her either with the sight of the children or those
heathenish thoughts about dying. Well, I suppose you’ll take your own
way, if you think she’s in danger of damnation; but you see I don’t. I
think where she’s going she’ll find more consideration and more
understanding than ever she got here.”
“You are all infidels--every one of you,” said Colonel Kingsward; “you
would let a soul rush unprepared into the presence of--”
“Her Father,” said Doctor Benson. “So I would; if he’s her Father he’ll
take care of that. And if he’s only a Judge, you know, a Judge is an
extraordinarily considerate person. He leaves no means untried of coming
to a right decision. I would rather trust my case in the hands of the
Bench than make up my own little plea any day. And, anyhow you can put
it, the Supreme Judge must be better than the best Bench that ever was.
Leave her alone. She’s safer with Him than either with you or me.”
“It’s an argument I never would pardon--in my own case. I shudder at the
thought of being plunged into eternity without the time to--to
think--to--to prepare----”
“But if your preparations are all seen through from the beginning? If
it’s just as well known then, or better, what you are thinking, or
trying to think, to make yourself ready for that event? You knew
yourself, more or less, didn’t you, when you were in active service, the
excuses a wretched private would make when he was hauled up, and how he
would try to make the worse appear the better cause. Were you moved by
that, Colonel Kingsward? Didn’t you know the man, and judge him by what
you knew?”
“It seems to me a very undignified argument; there’s no analogy between
a wretched private and my--and my--and one of us--at the Judgment Seat.”
“No--it’s more like one of your boys making up the defence--when brought
before you--and the poor boy would need it too,” Dr. Benson added
within himself. But naturally he made no impression with his argument,
whether it was good or bad, upon his hearer. Colonel Kingsward was in
reality a very unhappy man. He had nobody to blame for the dreadful
misfortune which was threatening him except God, for whom he entertained
only a great terror as of an overwhelming tyrannical Power ready to
catch him at any moment when he neglected the observances or rites
necessary to appease it. He was very particular in these
observances--going to church, keeping up family prayers, contributing
his proper and carefully calculated proportion to the charities, &c.
Nobody could say of him that he was careless or negligent. And now how
badly was his devotion repaid!--by the tearing away from him of the
companion of his life. But he felt that there was still much more that
the awful Master of the Universe might inflict, perhaps upon her if she
was not prepared to meet her God. He was wretched till he had told her,
warned her, till she had fulfilled everything that was necessary, seen
a clergyman, and got herself into the state of mind becoming a dying
person. He had collected all the children that she might take leave of
them in a becoming way. He had, so far as he knew, thought of everything
to make her exit from the world a right one in all the forms--and now to
be told that he was not to agitate her, that the God whom he wished to
prepare her to meet knew more of her and understood her better than he
did! Agitate her! When the alternative might be unspeakable miseries of
punishment, instead of the acquittal which would have to be given to a
soul properly prepared. These arguments did not in the least change his
purpose, but they fretted and irritated him beyond measure. At the
bottom of all, the idea that anybody should know better than he what was
the right thing for his own wife was an intolerable thought.
He went in and out of her room with that irritated, though
self-controlled look, which she knew so well. He had never shown it to
the world, and when he had demanded of her in his angry way why this was
and that, and how on earth such and such things had happened, Mrs.
Kingsward had till lately taken it so sweetly that he had not himself
suspected how heavy it was upon her. And when she had begun to show
signs of being unable to bear the responsibility of everything in earth
and heaven, the Colonel had felt himself an injured man. There were
signs that he might eventually throw that responsibility on Bee. But in
the meantime he had nobody to blame, as has been said, and the burden of
irritation and disturbance was heavy upon him.
The next morning after his talk with Dr. Brown he came in with that
clouded brow to find Charlie by her bedside. The Colonel came up and
stood looking at the face on the pillow, now wan in the reaction of the
fever, and utterly weak, but still smiling at his approach.
“I have been telling Charlie,” she said, in her faint voice, “that he
must go back to his college. Why should he waste his time here?”
“He will not go back yet,” said Colonel Kingsward; “are you feeling a
little better this morning, my dear?”
“Oh, not to call ill at all,” said the sufferer. “Weak--a sort of
sinking, floating away. I take hold of somebody’s hand to keep me from
falling through. Isn’t it ridiculous?” she said, after a little pause.
“Your weakness is very great,” said the husband, almost sternly.
“Oh, no, Edward. It’s more silly than anything--when I am not really
ill, you know. I’ve got Charlie’s hand here under the counterpane,” she
said again, with her faint little laugh.
“You won’t always have Charlie’s hand, or anyone’s hand, Lucy.”
She looked at him with a little anxiety.
“No, no. I’ll get stronger, perhaps, Edward.”
“Do you feel as if you were at all stronger, my dear?”
She loosed her son’s hand, giving him a little troubled smile. “Go away
now, Charlie dear. I don’t believe you’ve had your breakfast. I want to
speak to--papa.” Then she waited, looking wistfully in her husband’s
face till the door had closed. “You have something to say to me, Edward.
Oh, what is it? Nothing has happened to anyone?”
“No, nothing has happened,” he said. He turned away and walked to the
window, then came back again, turning his head half-way from her as he
spoke. “It is only that you are, my poor darling--weaker every day.”
“Does the doctor think so?” she said, with a little eagerness, with a
faint suffusion of colour in her face.
He did not say anything--could not perhaps--but slightly moved his head.
“Weaker every day, and that means, Edward!” She put out her thin, hot
hands. “That means----”
The man could not say anything. He could do his duty grimly, but when
the moment came he could not put it into words. He sank down on the
chair Charlie had left, and put down his face on the pillow, his large
frame shaken by sobs which he could not restrain.
These sobs made Mrs. Kingsward forget the meaning of this communication
altogether. She put her hands upon him trying to raise his head.
“Edward! Oh, don’t cry, don’t cry! I have never seen you cry in all my
life. Edward, for goodness’ sake! You will kill me if you go on sobbing
like that. Oh, Edward, Edward, I never saw you cry before.”
Moulsey had darted forward from some shadowy corner where she was and
gripped him by the arm.
“Stop, sir--stop it,” she cried, in an authoritative whisper, “or you’ll
kill her.”
He flung Moulsey off and raised his head a little from the pillow.
“You have never seen me with any such occasion before,” he said, taking
her hands into his and kissing them repeatedly.
He was not a man of many caresses, and her heart was touched with a
feeble sense of pleasure.
“Dear!” she said softly, “dear!” feebly drawing a little nearer to him
to put her cheek against his.
Colonel Kingsward looked up as soon as he was able and saw her lying
smiling at him, her hand in his, her eyes full of that wonderful liquid
light which belongs to great weakness. The small worn face was all
illuminated with smiles; it was like the face of a child--or perhaps an
angel. He looked at first with awe, then with doubt and alarm. Had he
failed after all in the commission which he had executed at so much cost
to himself, and against the doctor’s orders? He had been afraid for the
moment of the sight of her despair--and now he was frightened by her
look of ease, the absence of all perturbations. Had she not understood
him? Would it have to be told again, more severely, more distinctly,
this dreadful news?