For some months past, Becky had believed without a doubt, that the day
of her return home would be the very happiest day of her life. She was
too young to know yet that it is not for us to settle which of our days
shall be happy ones, nor what events shall yield us joy. The promise had
not been kept that she should return when her father and mother removed
into the new cottage. She had been told that there really was not, even
now decent room for them all; and that they must at least wait till the
hot weather was completely over before they crowded the chamber, as they
had hitherto done. And then, when autumn came on, and the creeping mists
from the low grounds hung round the place from sunset till after
breakfast the next day, the mother delayed sending for her daughter,
unwilling that she should lose the look of health which she alone now,
of all the family, exhibited. Fleming and his wife and babe prospered
better than the others. The young man’s business lay on the high ground,
at the top of the embankment. He was there all day while Mr. Woodruffe
and Allan were below, among the ditches and the late and early fogs.
Mrs. Fleming was young and strong, full of spirit and happiness; and so
far fortified against the attacks of disease, as a merry heart
strengthens nerve and bone and muscle, and invigorates all the vital
powers. In regard to her family, her father’s hopeful spirit seemed to
have passed into her. While he was becoming permanently discouraged, she
was always assured that everything would come right next year. The time
had arrived for her power of hope to be tested to the utmost. One day
this autumn, she admitted that Becky must be sent for. She did not
forget, however, to charge Allan to be cheerful, and make the best of
things, and not frighten Becky by the way.
It was now the end of October. Some of the days were balmy elsewhere—the
afternoons ruddy; the leaves crisp beneath the tread; the squirrel busy
after the nuts in the wood; the pheasants splendid among the dry ferns
in the brake, the sportsman warm and thirsty in his exploring among the
stubble. In the evenings the dwellers in country houses called one
another out upon the grass, to see how bright the stars were, and how
softly the moonlight slept upon the woods. While it was thus in one
place, in another, and not far off, all was dank, dim, dreary and
unwholesome; with but little sun, and no moon or stars; all chill, and
no glow; no stray perfumes, the last of the year, but sickly scents
coming on the steam from below. Thus it was about Fleming’s house, this
latter end of October, when he saw but little of his wife, because she
was nursing her mother in the fever, and when he tried to amuse himself
with his young baby at mealtimes (awkward nurse as he was) to relieve
his wife of the charge for the little time he could be at home. When the
baby cried, and when he saw his Abby look wearied, he did wish, now and
then, that Becky was at home: but he was patient, and helpful, and as
cheerful as he could, till the day which settled the matter. On that
morning he felt strangely weak, barely able to mount the steps to the
station. During the morning, several people told him he looked ill; and
one person did more. The porter sent a message to the next large Station
that somebody must be sent immediately to fill Fleming’s place, in case
of his being too ill to work. Somebody came; and before that, Fleming
was in bed—certainly down in the fever. His wife was now wanted at home;
and Becky must come to her mother.
Though Becky asked questions all the way home, and Allan answered them
as truthfully as he knew how, she was not prepared for what she
found—her father aged and bent, always in pain, more or less, and far
less furnished with plans and hopes than she had ever known him; Moss,
fretful and sickly, and her mother unable to turn herself in her bed.
Nobody mentioned death. The surgeon who came daily, and told Becky
exactly what to do, said nothing of anybody dying of the fever, while
Woodruffe was continually talking of things that were to be done when
his wife got well again. It was sad, and sometimes alarming, to hear the
strange things that Mrs. Woodruffe said in the evenings when she was
delirious; but if Abby stepped in at such times, she did not think much
of it, did not look upon it as any sign of danger; and was only thankful
that her husband had no delirium. His head was always clear, she said,
though he was very weak. Becky never doubted, after this, that her
mother was the most severely ill of the two; and she was thunderstruck
when she heard one morning the surgeon’s answers to her father’s
questions about Fleming. He certainly considered it a bad case; he would
not say that he could not get through; but he must say it was contrary
to his expectation. When Becky saw her father’s face as he turned away
and went out, she believed his heart was broken.
“But I thought,” said she to the surgeon, “I thought my mother was most
ill of the two.”
“I don’t know that,” was the reply, “but she is very ill. We are doing
the best we can.—You are, I am sure,” he said, kindly; “and we must hope
on, and do our best till a change comes. The wisest of us do not know
what changes may come. But I could not keep your father in ignorance of
what may happen in the other house.”
No appearances alarmed Abby. Because there was no delirium, she
apprehended no danger. Even when the fatal twitchings came, the arm
twitching as it lay upon the coverlid, she did not know it was a symptom
of anything. As she nursed her husband perfectly well, and could not
have been made more prudent and watchful by any warning, she had no
warning. Her cheerfulness was encouraged, for her infant’s sake, as well
as for her husband’s and her own. Some thought that her husband knew his
own case. A word or two,—now a gesture, and now a look,—persuaded the
surgeon and Woodruffe that he was aware that he was going. His small
affairs were always kept settled; he had probably no directions to give;
and his tenderness for his wife showed itself in his enjoying her
cheerfulness to the last. When, as soon as it was light, one December
morning, Moss was sent to ask if Abby could possibly come for a few
minutes, because mother was worse, he found his sister alone, looking at
the floor, her hands on her lap, though the baby was fidgetting in its
cradle. Fleming’s face was covered, and he lay so still that Moss, who
had never seen death, felt sure that all was over. The boy hardly knew
what to do; and his sister seemed not to hear what he said. The thought
of his mother,—that Abby’s going might help or save her,—moved him to
act. He kissed Abby, and said she must please go to mother; and he took
the baby out of the cradle, and wrapped it up, and put it into its
mother’s arms; and fetched Abby’s bonnet, and took her cloak down from
its peg, and opened the door for her, saying, that he would stay and
take care of everything. His sister went without a word; and, as soon as
he had closed the door behind her, Moss sank down on his knees before
the chair where she had been sitting, and hid his face there till some
one came for him,—to see his mother once more before she died.
As the two coffins were carried out, to be conveyed to the churchyard
together, Mr. Nelson, who had often been backward and forward during the
last six weeks, observed to the surgeon that the death of such a man as
Fleming was a dreadful loss.
“It is that sort of men that the fever cuts off,” said the surgeon. “The
strong man, in the prime of life, at his best period, one may say, for
himself and for society, is taken away,—leaving wife and child helpless
and forlorn. That is the ravage that the fever makes.”
“Well: would not people tell you that it is our duty to submit?” asked
Mr. Nelson, who could not help showing some emotion by voice and
countenance.
“Submit!” said the surgeon. “That depends on what the people mean who
use the word. If you or I were ill of the fever, we must resign
ourselves, as cheerfully as we could. But if you ask me whether we
should submit to see more of our neighbours cut off by fever as these
have been, I can only ask in return, whose doing it is that they are
living in a swamp, and whether that is to go on? Who dug the clay pits?
Who let that ditch run abroad, and make a filthy bog? Are you going to
charge that upon Providence, and talk of submitting to the consequences?
If so, that is not my religion.”
“No, no. There is no religion in that,” replied Mr. Nelson, for once
agreeing in what was said to him. “It must be looked to.”
“It must,” said the surgeon, as decidedly as if he had been a railway
director, or king and parliament in one.