That night father was struck down with the stroke that was to end in
his death.
That was what the terror in my sister's voice had meant when she had
called down the garden to me through the chill darkness. Her cry had
roughly summoned me from the contemplation of my own woes, and the
mourning of my own cruelty, to a sterner death-bed than the death-bed
of my own selfish hopes, to the darkest experience that can cross any
loving human creature's path.
He lay ill three weeks, but from the first we knew that there was no
hope, and knew that none could tell when he might finally be taken.
We took turns night and day watching beside him, and during the first
dreadful night following his seizure I was sitting alone in the dim
parlor waiting for my turn, when, towards midnight, there was a knock
at the door. I thought it was the doctor, who had promised to come
again before morning; but when I opened the door the squire stood
outside. The bad news had crept up to the Manor during the evening, and
he had come to learn if it was true.
For the first time that evening a little breath of something that was
warm crept about my cold heart. I forgot that the squire had wanted to
marry me, and that I had practically refused him; I forgot everything
but that here was a friend full of real sympathy in our trouble, and
thinking at that moment of nothing else--perhaps the only friend whom I
instinctively counted upon in a world that seemed to me just then very
wide and empty.
He stepped inside at once, and I told him what had happened, there in
the hall, in a quick, low whisper.
"There is no hope," I said. "I knew that quite well, although the
doctor said that there was just a chance. He knew himself that he
might die at any moment. He told me so yesterday, only I didn't really
believe him."
My heart swelled at the recollection of that scene, but I did not cry.
I wonder if he thought me heartless.
"How did it happen?" asked the squire.
"Mr. Hoad was with him. I heard them talking as I went out into the
garden," answered I, sickening with the recollection of what I had gone
there for. "Joyce says Mr. Hoad went out suddenly, and then they heard
father fall. He has never spoken since."
"Ah, if we could only have kept that man away from him!" murmured the
squire.
"Yes; and I feel as if it were my fault," whispered I. "He owed him
money, and he came to press for it just now when the hops have failed
and the rent is due. He is so mean that he had a grudge against father
for not helping on Mr. Thorne. But how was I to get the money? It was
cruel, cruel to suggest it!"
I caught the squire's eyes fixed upon me with a strange, pitying,
questioning look. I did not understand it at the moment, but in the
light of what I afterwards learned I understood its meaning.
I stopped abruptly. I felt as though my senses were leaving me--my head
was whirling. I knew I had said something, in this moment of unusual
craving for sympathy and support, which I should never have said at any
other moment.
But there was no time to go back upon my words, even if that had been
possible. I just caught those eyes that shone so blue out of the
squire's bronzed face fixed intently upon me in the dim light of the
little hall, when Joyce ran quickly down the stairs.
"Father wants to see you, Squire Broderick," said she, eagerly. "He
heard your voice and he wants to see you."
"Oh, then he _is_ conscious again!" cried I, joyfully.
"Yes," said Joyce; "he is conscious."
She said it with a marked accent on the word.
"But--" asked the squire.
"He can't speak," added she.
I turned my face away from them.
"That means he is dying," said I. "The doctor said it might be before
dawn."
All at once a cowardly, horrible longing to run away took possession of
me.
"Oh, perhaps not," said Joyce, gently. "We must hope while there is
life. We can do nothing; he is beyond us. We must submit ourselves to
whatever is God's will."
She was right. Perhaps for the first time in my life I felt all the
awful force of it--that we could do nothing, absolutely nothing; that
we must submit ourselves.
But why was it God's will? Again it angered me, as it had angered me
once before, that Joyce should be able to submit herself apparently so
easily to what was God's will. I was unjust. There were tears on her
cheeks and mine were dry. We were different, that was all.
"Come," said she, turning again to the squire, "he is impatient."
She turned up the stairs, flitting softly in her blue flannel
dressing-gown, with the golden hair slipping a little from its smooth
coils.
The squire followed. I sat down on the old oaken bench below to wait.
"You, you too, Meg," said she, turning round. The oak staircase was
dark, but a yellow ray from the oil-lamp hung on the wainscoting showed
her face surprised. Mother's voice came from above, and she ran on up
the stairs.
The squire came back again to me. "Come, dear," said he--and even at
that solemn moment I could not help noticing the word of tenderness
that had unconsciously slipped from him. "I want you to come, because
afterwards you would be sorry you had delayed. When you see him you
will not be afraid."
He took my hand and led me up the stairs, so that we entered father's
room together.
Yes, he was quite conscious. Those piercing gray eyes of his shone
as with a fire from within like coals in his white face; they were
terrible in their acute concentration, as though all the strength of
that once strong frame, of that once active mind, had retired to this
last citadel; but, black under the shadow of the overhanging brows,
they were the dear familiar eyes of old to me, and I was not frightened.
As we approached--I in my trouble still letting my hand lie
unconsciously in the squire's--I saw one of those gleams that I have
said were often as of sunshine on a rugged moor cross the whiteness of
his face.
For a moment the effort to speak was very painful, but he took the
squire's hand in his--in both of his--and looked at me, and I knew well
enough what he meant to say.
I did not speak. I could not have spoken if I would, for there was a
lump in my throat that choked me; but I had nothing to say. How could
I have found it in my heart to tell him that what he had seen meant
nothing, yet what words would my tongue have made to tell him that
I would give my hand to the squire forever? It was not possible. I
slipped my hand out of his, but father did not see it. He was looking
more at the squire than at me; upon him his eyes were fixed with a
strangely mingled expression of pride and entreaty. Thinking of it now,
it comes before me as a most pathetic picture of proud self-abandonment
and generous appeal. It was almost as though he said: "I have wronged
you. Creeds and convictions are nothing. We have always been one, and
you are my only friend. Help me in my need." So I have often since read
that look in his deep, sorrowful eyes. My dear father! Should I say my
poor father? No, surely not. Yet at that moment I thought so; I wanted
to do something for him, and the only thing that I might have done I
would not do. But the squire came to the rescue.
"I know," he said, tenderly; "be at rest. I will take care of them all."
Not I will take care of _her_. "I will take care of them all."
My heart went out to him in thanks. He had said I should have courage.
He had given me courage.
When he was gone, I took my place at the bedside; I was no longer
afraid of Death, or if I was afraid, my love was more than my fear; I
stayed beside father till the end. I was thankful that the end did not
come for those three weeks. He did not suffer, and he grew to depend
upon me so, to turn such trustful and loving eyes upon me whenever I
came near him, that they took me out of myself as nothing else could
have done. Dear eyes that have followed me all through the after-years
to still the pangs of remorse, and to warm the coldness of life. Ah me!
and yet those were sore days. Knowing that he was taking comfort as
he lay there from the thought that I and the squire would one day be
one, I longed to make a clean breast of it. I longed to tell him that
a very different figure from good Squire Broderick's crossed my mind
many times a day, unbidden and horrible to me, who wanted to give every
fibre of myself to him who lay a-dying.
I cannot explain it, I can only say that it was so: dearly as I loved
my father, the thought of him did not keep out every other thought. All
through those weary watching hours, I was watching for other footsteps
besides those that were coming--so slow and sure--to take away what I
had loved all my life; black upon my heart lay the shadow of a deeper
remorse than that of letting a dying man believe in a possibility that
set his mind at rest: I wanted to see Trayton Harrod that I might undo
what I had done, that I might tell him the truth about Joyce.
Yes, though I knew well enough that I loved him far too well to think
of another, it was not of my love that I thought, sitting there through
the dark hours with the sense of that awful presence upon me that might
at any moment snatch, whither I knew not, the thing that I had known as
my dear father. I only wanted to see him that I might rid my conscience
of that mean lie, that I might make him happy, and hear him say that
he forgave me; and many is the time I started beside the still bed,
thinking I heard that light firm step on the gravel without, or the
click of the latch in the front door as the bailiff had been wont to
lift it.
But Trayton Harrod did not come, and, with the self-consciousness of
guilt, I dared not ask for any news of him. It was not until more
than a week after father's first seizure that I learned he had gone
to London at daybreak on the morning following our parting, and had
not yet returned. My heart sank a little at the news, although I knew
he had intended going away for a little just about this time, and I
guessed, of course, that he could have heard nothing of our trouble
before he left.
Deborah said that one of the men had left a note from him the morning
of his departure, but in the confusion of father's illness neither
she nor I could find it, and I was reduced to sitting down once more
to wait face to face with another grim phantom of Death besides that
one that was keeping the house so quiet and strange for us all. Once
I think mother said Harrod must be sent for, but nobody thought of it
again, for everything was really swallowed up in that great anxiety,
while we waited around that bedside hoping against hope, watching
for that partial return of speech which the doctor had told us might
perhaps be given to him once more.
The Rev. Cyril Morland came to see him, and told him all that he had
been able to do about that scheme for the protection of little children
which lay so near his heart. I well remember, though his poor body was
half dead, how pathetic in its keenness was the effort to understand
all as he had once understood it--how touching the fire that still
burned in his sunken eyes--how touching the smile that still played
about his white lips.
Yes, I remember it all; I remember how, after many attempts, he made me
understand that I was to fetch that crayon sketch of the young man's
head that hung above the writing-desk in his study, and put it opposite
his bed. I remember how his eyes were turned to it then, as he listened
to the good young parson's explanations of what had already been
achieved in that branch of the great question upon which his mind had
so long been concentrated.
The minister had scarcely gone out before Deborah came into the room
with a message. She whispered it to mother: Captain Forrester was
staying at the Priory, and had sent round to ask how Mr. Maliphant did.
Father's eyes were closed, he did not open them, but I saw a look of
suffering, as though a lash had passed over him, cross his features.
Mother sent Deborah hastily out of the room with a whispered reprimand,
and father beckoned me to his side. As far as I could make out, he
wanted me to send for Frank.
A few weeks ago how gladly would I have done it! But now I knew too
well that it was too late; and when I saw the telltale flush of trouble
on Joyce's face, and her quick glance of entreaty, I was loath to do
father's bidding. I could see that she had it on her lips to tell
him something--something that she no longer made a secret of soon
afterwards; but how could any of us dare to disturb him, dare to do
anything but simply what he wished? Even mother, much as it cost her to
let me send that summons, would not interfere. We felt instinctively
that the visit could do neither good nor harm. We need not have
troubled ourselves. Father died before Frank came. He had seemed a
little better; in fact, just for a day we had been quite hopeful. The
squire had been sitting with him, and when he left him alone with
mother and came down-stairs, I met him in the hall; I had been waiting
for him. I led the way into the deserted parlor, and the squire--I
fancied, half-unwillingly--followed.
"I hope I haven't kept you away," began he, concernedly. "He's dozing
now, and your mother is with him. But he'll be asking for you again
presently."
"Yes, I know, I know," answered I, absently. "But, Mr. Broderick, I
wanted to ask you whether you don't think Mr. Harrod ought to be sent
for?" said I, hastily.
He turned away his head; I could not help noticing that he looked
embarrassed.
"I'm sure he can't know of father's illness, and I feel that he ought
to be told," said I. "I know very well he would never choose this time
for a holiday if he knew how very urgently his presence is needed.
Everything must be going at sixes and sevens on the farm."
"I see that things aren't going at sixes and sevens," murmured he.
"You!" cried I, aghast. "Oh, but that isn't fitting."
Still he looked awkward. "Don't you trouble your head about it," said
he, kindly. "You have enough to do without that. My bailiff has very
little work just now, and he can as easily as not see to things a bit."
Something in his whole manner froze me, but I cried, eagerly, almost
angrily, "But he _must_ come back; it's his duty to come back. You are
too kind--you don't want to spoil his holiday; but that isn't fair, and
not real kindness. He would much rather come back, I know. If you won't
write to him, I will."
I spoke peremptorily, but something in the way the squire now looked at
me--pitifully, and yet reproachfully--made me ashamed, and I lowered my
eyes. He came up to me and said, in a low voice, for I had raised mine:
"Will you leave it all to me? Do. I promise you that I will do you
right; and for you, just now, anything--everything but one thing, must
remain in abeyance."
I could not answer, something choked me. He took my hand in his to say
good-bye. "I thought he seemed easier, less restless to-night," said he.
I nodded, and he pressed my hand and went out. Not till the last
yellowness had died out of the twilight did I go up again to the
sick-room.
Mother sat on a low chair by the bed; her hand was in father's, and her
head rested on her hand. There was no light, only just the grayness of
the twilight. One might have thought it was a young girl's figure that
crouched there so tenderly. All through the years of my childhood I
had very rarely seen any attitude of affection between my parents; I
scarcely ever remember father kissing mother in our presence, although
his unfailing chivalry towards her, and the quiet, matter-of-course
way in which her opinion was reverenced, had grown to be an understood
thing among us. I felt now that I had intruded on a sacred privacy.
Mother turned as I came in, and drew her hand very gently away from
father's; he was dozing. She rose and walked away towards the window.
"Shall I bring the lamp, mother?" asked I.
I felt that there were tears in her voice as she answered. It was the
first time I had been aware of this in all the time that father had
been ill, she had been so very quiet and brave. I went up to her where
she stood in the dim light of the window-seat, with her back towards
me, and after a moment I kissed her reverently, as I never remember to
have done before, save that once when she said that things would have
been different on the farm if our little brother had lived. Her tears
welled over, but she did not speak, only when I said, "He is better
to-night, mother, don't you think so?" she nodded her head, and turned
and went out of the room.
That night the wave we had been watching so long broke over our heads.
Mother had sat up the night before, and had gone to rest; Joyce held
watch till midnight, and then I took her place. The hours wore away
wearily through the darkness. Father was very restless, moaning often,
and throwing his arms from side to side.
Once he had held his hand a long while on my head in the old,
affectionate way, and had looked with mute, passionate entreaty into
my eyes. What did he want to know? If I guessed, I did not satisfy
the craving. I only murmured vague words here and there, smoothed his
pillow and his brow, putting water to his dry lips, ministering to a
physical thirst, and ignoring the bitterer thirst of the mind. I was a
coward.
At last he fell into a restless doze. I left the bedside and went to
the window. The dawn was breaking; behind a rampart of purple clouds
a pale streak of orange light girdled the marsh around; sea there was
none, or rather it was all sea--silent waves of desolate land, silent
waves of distant water, and over all a sullen surf of mist that hid the
truth; out of the surf rose the far-off town, like some dark rock amid
the waters, statelier than ever above the ghostly bands of vapor that
crossed its base, and made the crown of its square belfry loom like
some fortress on a towering Alpine height. Purple was the town, and
purple the cloud battlements, but overhead the sky was clear, where one
patient yellow star waited the coming of day.
At the foot of the cliff the water was up in the tidal river; it lay
blue and cold amid the dank, white mist. I remembered the day, six
months ago, when I had stood and watched it, just as blue and cold
against the white winter snow; I had thought it looked colder than the
snow in its iron depths; I had thought it looked like death. Yes, how I
remembered it! It was the first time I had ever thought of death.
I went back to the bed. I fancied father had moved; but he lay there
quite still, with his face upturned, and a strange blue grayness on it.
I stood over him a long time, till my hands were so cold with fear that
I could scarcely feel if his had still the warmth of life. I thought I
would call mother, but the breath still came faintly from his lips; so
I waited a while, creeping softly back to the window, whence I could
see the living world.
The yellow star was no more, for slowly from behind the purple ramparts
a glory of silver rays grew up; the purple became amethyst, the sullen
cloud-cliffs broke into soft flakes of down; they cradled the rising
sun, whose fire flushed their softness; they bore him up until he was
full-orbed above the horizon; then suddenly a rent ran across them, and
it was day. But the white mist still lay just as thickly on the ground;
it was gray with shadows, and the water was cold, and the wide, wide
sea of surf-bound marsh was desolate.
A sound came from the bed. My heart stood still. It was so long since
we had heard father speak that to hear him now seemed like a voice from
the grave.
"Meg," he said, distinctly.
I did not turn. He repeated the word, and it was his own voice, and I
went to him. He lay there just as I had left him, excepting that he had
turned just a little on his side, so that the portrait of his friend
should be the better within his view. The same blue shadow was on his
face.
"Meg," said he, slowly, "mother will be very lonely when I'm gone. You
will take care of mother."
I sank slowly upon my knees so as to bring my face on a level with his.
I wanted to hide it away from him, but by a great effort I kept my gaze
upon him.
"Yes," I answered, firmly.
"You've always been a good girl, my right hand," continued he. "Take
care of them both."
His voice was getting weak; I could see the drops of perspiration
standing on his brow. I tried to get up that I might call mother and
Joyce, but he held me fast.
"The squire--trust the squire," he murmured. "He loves you as I loved
your mother." And then, with a smile of peace, he added, "The squire
said he would take care of you all."
I was too much awed to speak, but I put my lips gently to his hand. It
was quite cold, and a shiver ran through me.
His eyes were closed, and I drew my arm as well as I could from his
grasp, and flew to the door.
In a moment I was in the room where mother and Joyce lay resting
together; my presence was enough to tell them what was the matter.
When I got back to father, his eyes were open again--fixed on that
picture opposite to him.
"Now we see through a veil darkly," he murmured. "Ah, Camille, I have
done what I could;" and then, "God has a home of his own for the little
ones."
He was wandering.
"Laban!" cried mother, with a low cry.
A smile broke through that gray shadow, as light had burst through the
purple clouds when the sun rose.
His lips seemed to move as if in some request.
"'The peace of God, which passeth all understanding,'" began mother, in
a broken voice.
There was a long silence in the room, and then a sound: it was a sob
from our mother's heavy heart.
His voice was still forever.