"Is it going out then?" she asked, and when I answered that it was not
she did not seem to hear, so I stopped talking, and for some time there
was silence in which I heard nothing but the ticking of the clock on the
mantelpiece, the barking of a sheep dog a long way off, and the husky
breathing in my mother's throat.
I was beginning to be afraid when the nurse returned. She was going to
speak quite cheerfully, but after a glance at my mother she went out
quickly and came back in a moment with Doctor Conrad and Father Dan.
I heard the doctor say something about a change, whereupon Father Dan
hurried away, and in a moment there was much confusion. The nurse spoke
of taking me to another room but the doctor said:
"No, our little woman will be brave," and then leading me aside he
whispered that God was sending for my mother and I must be quiet and not
cry.
Partly undressing I climbed into my cot and lay still for the next half
hour, while the doctor held his hand on my mother's pulse and the nurse
spread a linen cloth over a table and put four or five lighted candles
on it.
I remember that I was thinking that if "God sending for my mother" meant
that she was to be put into a box and buried under the ground it was
terrible and cruel, and perhaps if I prayed to our Lady He would not
find it in His heart to do so. I was trying to do this, beginning under
my breath, "O Holy Virgin, thou art so lovely, thou art so gracious . . ."
when the nurse said:
"Here they are back again."
Then I heard footsteps outside, and going to the window I saw a sight
not unlike that which I had seen on the night of the Waits.
A group of men were coming towards the house, with Father Dan in the
middle of them. Father Dan, with his coat hung over his arms like a
cloak, was carrying something white in both hands, and the men were
carrying torches to light him on his way.
I knew what it was--it was the Blessed Sacrament, which they were
bringing to my mother, and when Father Dan had come into the room,
saying "Peace be to this house," and laid a little white box on the
table, and thrown off his coat, he was wearing his priest's vestments
underneath.
Then the whole of my father's household--all except my father
himself--came into my mother's room, including Aunt Bridget, who sat
with folded arms in the darkness by the wall, and the servants, who
knelt in a group by the door.
Father Dan roused my mother by calling to her again, and after she had
opened her eyes he began to read. Sometimes his voice seemed to be
choked with sobs, as if the heart of the man were suffering, and
sometimes it pealed out loudly as if the soul of the priest were
inspiring him.
After Communion he gave my mother Extreme Unction--anointing the sweet
eyes which had seen no evil, the dear lips which had uttered no wrong,
and the feet which had walked in the ways of God.
All this time there was a solemn hush in the house like that of a
church--no sound within except my father's measured tread in the room
below, and none without except the muffled murmur which the sea makes
when it is far away and going out.
When all was over my mother seemed more at ease, and after asking for me
and being told I was in the cot, she said:
"You must all go and rest. Mary and I will be quite right now."
A few minutes afterwards my mother and I were alone once more, and then
she called me into her bed and clasped her arms about me and I lay with
my face hidden in her neck.
What happened thereafter seems to be too sacred to write of, almost too
sacred to think about, yet it is all as a memory of yesterday, while
other events of my life have floated away to the ocean of things that
are forgotten and lost.
"Listen, darling," she said, and then, speaking in whispers, she told me
she had heard all I had said about the Convent, and wondered if I would
not like to live there always, becoming one of the good and holy nuns.
I must have made some kind of protest, for she went on to say how hard
the world was to a woman and how difficult she had found it.
"Not that your father has been to blame--you must never think that,
Mary, yet still . . ."
But tears from her tender heart were stealing down her face and she had
to stop.
Even yet I had not realised all that the solemn time foreboded, for I
said something about staying with my mother; and then in her sweet
voice, she told me nervously, breaking the news to me gently, that she
was going to leave me, that she was going to heaven, but she would
think of me when she was there, and if God permitted she would watch
over me, or, if that might not be, she would ask our Lady to do so.
"So you see we shall never be parted, never really. We shall always be
together. Something tells me that wherever you are, and whatever you are
doing, I shall know all about it."
This comforted me, and I think it comforted my mother also, though God
knows if it would have done so, if, with her dying eyes, she could have
seen what was waiting for her child.
It fills my heart brimful to think of what happened next.
She told me to say a _De Profundis_ for her sometimes, and to think of
her when I sang the hymn to the Virgin. Then she kissed me and told me
to go to sleep, saying she was going to sleep too, and if it should
prove to be the eternal sleep, it would be only like going to sleep at
night and awaking in the morning, and then we should be together again,
and "the time between would not seem long."
"So good-night, darling, and God bless you," she said.