"The truth is," said Jacky, bobbing out from behind the curtains, her
eyes suspiciously red and shiny, "I'm afraid you've had some bad dreams,
dear. Just take a teaspoonful of this, that's a good soul! You've been
ill, you see. Brain-fever, and what not. The very day we came to
Newport. Uncle Daniel and Robert found you on the cliff."
"When we came from the hotel, you remember?" still pulling the blanket
up, his lip unsteady.
"You'll choke her; what a nurse you are, to be sure, Uncle Dan! And the
woman's feet as bare"----
"There, there, Jacky! I know,"--submissively, twitching at my nightcap,
and then gathering my head into his arms until I could hear how his
heart throbbed under the strong chest. "My wife! Hetty! Hetty!" he
whispered.
I knew he was thanking God for giving me to him again. I dared not think
of God, or him: God, that had given me another chance.
I lay there until morning, weak and limp, on his arm, touching it now
and then to be sure it was alive, an actual flesh-and-blood arm,--that I
was not a murderer. Weak as any baby: and it seemed to me--it comes to
me yet as a great truth--that God had let me be born again: that He, who
gave a new life to the thief in his last foul breath, had given me, too,
another chance to try again. Jacky, who was the most arbitrary of
nurses, coiled herself up on the foot of the bed, and kept her unwinking
eyes sharp on us to enforce silence. Never were eyes more healthful and
friendly, I thought feebly. But I tried all the time to press my poor
head in closer to my husband's breast: I was barely free from that
vacuum of death and crime, and in there were the strength and life that
were to save me; I knew that. God, who had brought me to this, alone
knew how I received it: whether it was a true wife that lay on Daniel
Manning's bosom that night; how I loathed the self I had worshipped so
long; how the misused, diseased body and soul were alive with love for
him, craved a week's, a day's life to give themselves utterly to him, to
creep closer to him and the Father that he knew so simply and so well. I
heard him once in the night, when he thought I was asleep, say to
himself something of the wife who had been restored to him, who "was
dead and is alive again, was lost and is found." But how true those
words were he can never know.
I fell asleep towards morning, and when I woke, it was with a clear head
and stronger eye to comprehend my new chance in life. The room had a
pure, fresh, daylight look, snug and tidy; a clear fire crackled on the
clean hearth; Jacky herself had her most invigorating of morning faces,
going off at the least hint of a joke into redness and smiles. It rained
still, but the curtains were drawn back, and I could see through the
gray wet what a pleasant slope of meadow there was outside, clumped over
with horse-chestnuts and sycamores, down to a narrow creek. The water
was fogged over now with drifting mist, but beyond I caught glimpses of
low wooded hills, and far to the left the pale flush of the sea running
in on the sand. My husband was watching me eagerly as I looked out.
"I do not know where I am, Daniel."
"No, of course you don't,"--rubbing his forehead, as he always did when
he was especially pleased. "There's so much to tell you, Hetty dear!
We're beginning all new again, you see."
"You'll not tell a word, until she's had her breakfast," said Jacky,
dogmatically, coming with her white basin of cool water.
Oh, the remembrance of that plunge of cold on the hot skin, of the
towel's smelling of lavender, of the hard-brushed hair, of the dainty
little tray, with its smoking cup of fragrant, amber tea, and delicatest
slice of crisp toast! Truly, the woman's flesh of me, having been
triumphant so long, goes back with infinite relish to that first meal,
and the two bright faces bent over me. And then came Teddy, slying to
the pillow-side, watching my pale face and thin hands with an awe-struck
gaze, and carrying off the tea and toast to finish by the hearth.
"You can't see much for the rain, mother," anxiously. "Not the orchard,
nor the stable,--but there _is_ a stable, and hay, and eggs every
morning, only the gray hen's trying to set, if you'll believe it. And
old Mary's in the kitchen, and we've got even Tinder and our old peacock
from the Hudson."
"Eat your toast now, Captain," said his father, putting his arm about me
again.
"Yes, Hetty, it's a bit of a farm,--ten or fifteen acres. Our cozery:
yours and mine, dear. It's Rob's surprise,"--with the awkward laugh a
man gives, when, if he were a woman, the tears would come.
"Rob?"
"Yes. He had it ready. I knew it before we left New York, but we wanted
to surprise you. The boys all put in a little. They're good boys. I've
hardly deserved it of them,"--pulling at the quilt-fringe. "I've been a
glum, unsociable old dog. I might have made their lives cheerfuller.
They're going West: Bill and John to Chicago, and Jem to St. Louis: just
waiting for you to be better."
"I am sorry."
I was sorry. The thought of their earnest, honest, downright faces came
to me now with a new meaning, somehow: I could enter into their life
now: it was an eager affection I was ready to give them, that they could
not understand: I had wakened up, so thirsty for love, and to love.
"Yes, Rob did it,"--lingering on the name tenderly. "It's a snug home
for us: we'll have to rough it outside a little, but we're not old yet,
Hetty, eh?" turning up my face. "I have my old school in town again. We
have everything we want now, to begin afresh."
I did not answer; nor, through the day, when Jacky and the boys, one
after another, would say anxiously, as one does to a sick person, "Is
there anything you need, mother?" did I utter a wish. I dared not: I
knew all that I had done: and if God never gave me _that_ gift again, I
never should ask for it. But I saw them watching me more uneasily, and
towards evening caught part of Jacky's talk with Doctor Manning.
"I tell you I will. I'll risk the fever," impatiently. "It's that she
wants. I can see it in her eyes. Heaven save you, Uncle Dan, you're not
a woman!"
And in a moment she brought my baby and laid it in my breast. It was
only when its little hand touched me that I surely knew God had forgiven
me.
It ceased raining in the evening: the clouds cleared off, red and heavy.
Rob had come up from town, and took his father's place beside me, but he
and Jacky brought their chairs close, so we had a quiet evening all
together. Their way of talking, of politics or religion or even news,
was so healthy and alive, warm-blooded! And I entered into it with so
keen a relish! It was such an earnest, heartsome world I had come into,
out of myself! Once, when Jacqueline was giving me a drink, she said,--
"I wish you'd tell us what you dreamed in all these days, dear."
Robert glanced at me keenly.
"No, Jacky," he said, his face flushing.
I looked him full in the eyes: from that moment I had a curious reliance
and trust in his shrewd, just, kindly nature, and in his religion, a
something below that. If I were dying, I should be glad if Robert
Manning would pray for me. I should think his prayers would be heard.
"I will not forget what I dreamed, Robert," I said.
"No, mother. I know."
After that, awhile, I was talking to him of the home he had prepared for
his father and me.
"I wanted you just to start anew, with Teddy and the baby, here," he
said, lightly.
"And Jacky," I added, looking up at the bright, chubby face.
It grew suddenly crimson, then colorless, then the tears came. There was
a strange silence.
"Rob," she whispered, hiding her head sheepishly, "Rob says no."
"Yes, Rob says no," putting his hand on her crisp curls. "He wants you.
And mother, here, will tell you a woman has no better work in life than
the one she has taken up: to make herself a visible Providence to her
husband and child."
I kissed Jacky again and again, but I said nothing. He went away just
after that. When he shook hands, I held up the baby to be kissed. He
played with it a minute, and then put it down.
"God bless the baby," he said, "and its mother," more earnestly.
Then he and Jacky went out and left me alone with my husband and my
child.