Dora passed the long evening of that day in her father’s room. It was
one of those days in which the sun seems to refuse to set, the daylight
to depart. It rolled out in afternoon sunshine, prolonged as it seemed
for half a year’s time, showing no inclination to wane. When the sun at
last went down, there ensued a long interval of day without it, and
slowly, slowly, the shades of twilight came on. Mr. Mannering had been
very quiet all the afternoon. He had sat brooding, unwilling to speak.
The big book came back with Mr. Fiddler’s compliments, and was replaced
upon his table, where he sat sometimes turning over the pages, not
reading, doing nothing. There are few things more terrible to a
looker-on than this silence, this self-absorption, taking no notice of
anything outside of him, of a convalescent. The attitude of despondency,
the bowed head, the curved shoulders, are bad enough in themselves: but
nothing is so dreadful as the silence, the preoccupation with nothing,
the eyes fixed on a page which is not read, or a horizon in which
nothing is visible. Dora sat by him with a book, too, in which she was
interested, which is perhaps the easiest way of bearing this; but the
book ended before the afternoon did, and then she had nothing to do but
to watch him and wonder what he was thinking of--whether his mind was
roving over lands unknown to her, whether it was about the Museum he was
thinking, or the doctor’s orders, or the bills, two or three of which
had by misadventure fallen into his hands. What was it? He remained in
the same attitude, quite still and steady, not moving a finger.
Sometimes she hoped he might have fallen asleep; sometimes she addressed
to him a faltering question, to which he answered Yes or No. He was not
impatient when she spoke to him. He replied to her in monosyllables,
which are almost worse than silence. And Dora durst not protest, could
not upbraid him with that dreadful silence, as an older person might
have done. “Oh, father, talk to me a little!” she once cried in her
despair; but he said gently that he had nothing to talk about, and
silenced the girl. He had taken the various meals and refreshments that
were ordered for him, when they came, with something that was half a
smile and half a look of disgust; and this was the final exasperation to
Dora.
“Oh, father! when you know that you must take it--that it is the only
way of getting well again.”
“I am taking it,” he said, with that twist of the lip at every spoonful
which betrayed how distasteful it was.
This is hard to bear for the most experienced of nurses, and what should
it be for a girl of sixteen? She clasped her hands together in her
impatience to keep herself down. And then there came a knock at the
door, and Gilchrist appeared, begging that Miss Dora would put on her
hat and go out for a walk with Miss Bethune.
“I’ll come and sit with my work in a corner, and be there if he wants
anything.”
Mr. Mannering did not seem to take any notice, but he heard the whisper
at the door.
“There is no occasion for any one sitting with me. I am quite able to
ring if I want anything.”
“But, father, I don’t want to go out,” said Dora.
“I want you to go out,” he said peremptorily. “It is not proper that you
should be shut up here all day.”
“Let me light the candles, then, father?”
“I don’t want any candles. I am not doing anything. There is plenty of
light for what I want.”
Oh, what despair it was to have to do with a man who would not be
shaken, who would take his own way and no other! If he would but have
read a novel, as Dora did--if he would but return to the study of his
big book, which was the custom of his life. Dora felt that it was almost
wicked to leave him: but what could she do, while he sat there absorbed
in his thoughts, which she could not even divine what they were about?
To go out into the cool evening was a relief to her poor little
exasperated temper and troubled mind. The air was sweet and fresh, even
in Bloomsbury; the trees waved and rustled softly against the blue sky;
there was a young moon somewhere, a white speck in the blue, though the
light of day was not yet gone; the voices were softened and almost
musical in the evening air, and it was so good to be out of doors, to be
removed from the close controlling atmosphere of unaccustomed trouble.
“Out of sight, out of mind,” people say. It was very far from being
that; on the contrary, it was but the natural impatience, the mere
contrariety, that had made the girl ready to cry with a sense of the
intolerable which now was softened and subdued, allowing love and pity
to come back. She could talk of nothing but her father as she went along
the street.
“Do you think he looks any better, Miss Bethune? Do you think he will
soon be able to get out? Do you think the doctor will let him return
soon to the Museum? He loves the Museum better than anything. He would
have more chance to get well if he might go back.”
“All that must be decided by time, Dora--time and the doctor, who,
though we scoff at him sometimes, knows better, after all, than you or
me. But I want you to think a little of the poor lady you are going to
see.”
“What am I going to see? Oh, that lady? I don’t know if father will wish
me to see her. Oh, I did not know what it was you wanted of me. I cannot
go against father, Miss Bethune, when he is ill and does not know.”
“You will just trust to another than your father for once in your life,
Dora. If you think I am not a friend to your father, and one that would
consider him in all things----”
The girl walked on silently, reluctantly, for some time without
speaking, with sometimes a half pause, as if she would have turned
back. Then she answered in a low voice, still not very willingly: “I
know you are a friend".
“You do not put much heart in it,” said Miss Bethune, with a laugh. The
most magnanimous person, when conscious of having been very helpful and
a truly good friend at his or her personal expense to another, may be
pardoned a sense of humour, partially bitter, in the grudging
acknowledgment of ignorance. Then she added more gravely: “When your
father knows--and he shall know in time--where I am taking you, he will
approve; whatever his feelings may be, he will tell you it was right and
your duty: of that I am as sure as that I am living, Dora.”
“Because she is my aunt? An aunt is not such a very tender relation,
Miss Bethune. In books they are often very cold comforters, not kind to
girls that are poor. I suppose,” said Dora, after a little pause, “that
I would be called poor?”
“You are just nothing, you foolish little thing! You have no character
of your own; you are your father’s daughter, and no more.”
“I don’t wish to be anything more,” cried Dora, with her foolish young
head held high.
“And this poor woman,” said Miss Bethune, exasperated, “will not live
long enough to be a friend to any one--so you need not be afraid either
of her being too tender or unkind. She has come back, poor thing, after
long years spent out of her own country, to die.”
“To die?” the girl echoed in a horrified tone.
“Just that, and nothing less or more.”
Dora walked on by Miss Bethune’s side for some time in silence. There
was a long, very long walk through the streets before they reached the
coolness and freshness of the Park. She said nothing for a long time,
until they had arrived at the Serpentine, which--veiled in shadows and
mists of night, with the stars reflected in it, and the big buildings in
the distance standing up solemnly, half seen, yet with gleams of lamps
and light all over them, beyond, and apparently among the trees--has a
sort of splendour and reality, like a great natural river flowing
between its banks. She paused there for a moment, and asked, with a
quick drawing of her breath: “Is it some one--who is dying--that you are
taking me to see?”
“Yes, Dora; and next to your father, your nearest relation in the
world.”
“I thought at one time that he was going to die, Miss Bethune.”
“So did we all, Dora.”
“And I was very much afraid--oh, not only heartbroken, but afraid. I
thought he would suffer so, in himself,” she said very low, “and to
leave me.”
“They do not,” said Miss Bethune with great solemnity, as if not of any
individual, but of a mysterious class of people. “They are delivered;
anxious though they may have been, they are anxious no more; though
their hearts would have broken to part with you a little while before,
it is no longer so; they are delivered. It’s a very solemn thing,” she
went on, with something like a sob in her voice; “but it’s comforting,
at least to the like of me. Their spirits are changed, they are
separated; there are other things before them greater than what they
leave behind.”
“Oh,” cried the girl, “I should not like to think of that: if father had
ceased to think of me even before----”
“It is comforting to me,” said Miss Bethune, “because I am of those that
are going, and you, Dora, are of those that are staying. I’m glad to
think that the silver chain will be loosed and the golden bowl
broken--all the links that bind us to the earth, and all the cares about
what is to happen after.”
“Have you cares about what is to happen after?” cried Dora, “Father has,
for he has me; but you, Miss Bethune?”
Dora never forgot, or thought she would never forget, the look that was
cast upon her. “And I,” said Miss Bethune, “have not even you, have
nobody belonging to me. Well,” she said, going on with a heavy
long-drawn breath, “it looks as if it were true.”
This was the girl’s first discovery of what youth is generally so long
in finding out, that in her heedlessness and unconscious conviction that
what related to herself was the most important in the world, and what
befel an elderly neighbour of so much less consequence, she had done, or
at least said, a cruel thing. But she did not know how to mend matters,
and so went on by her friend’s side dumb, confusedly trying to enter
into, now that it was too late, the sombre complications of another’s
thought. Nothing more was said till they were close to the great hotel,
which shone out with its many windows luminous upon the soft background
of the night. Then Miss Bethune put her hand almost harshly upon Dora’s
arm.
“You will remember, Dora,” she said, “that the person we are going to
see is a dying person, and in all the world it is agreed that where a
dying person is he or she is the chief person, and to be considered
above all. It is, maybe, a superstition, but it is so allowed. Their
wants and their wishes go before all; and the queen herself, if she were
coming into that chamber, would bow to it like all the rest: and so must
you. It is, perhaps, not quite sincere, for why should a woman be more
thought of because she is going to die? That is not a quality, you will
say: but yet it’s a superstition, and approved of by all the civilised
world.”
“Oh, Miss Bethune,” cried Dora, “I know that I deserve that you should
say this to me: but yet----”
Her companion made no reply, but led the way up the great stairs.
The room was not so dark as before, though it was night; a number of
candles were shining in the farther corner near the bed, and the pale
face on the pillow, the nostrils dark and widely opened with the panting
breath, was in full light, turned towards the door. A nurse in her white
apron and cap was near the bed, beside a maid whose anxious face was
strangely contrasted with the calm of the professional person. These
accessories Dora’s quick glance took in at once, while yet her
attention was absorbed in the central figure, which she needed no
further explanation to perceive had at once become the first object, the
chief interest, to all near her. Dying! It was more than mere reigning,
more than being great. To think that where she lay there she was going
fast away into the most august presence, to the deepest wonders! Dora
held her breath with awe. She never, save when her father was swimming
for his life, and her thoughts were concentrated on the struggle with
all the force of personal passion, as if it were she herself who was
fighting against death, had seen any such sight before.
“Is it Dora?” cried the patient. “Dora! Oh, my child, my child, have you
come at last?”
And then Dora found arms round her clutching her close, and felt with a
strange awe, not unmingled with terror, the wild beating of a feverish
heart, and the panting of a laborious breath. The wan face was pressed
against hers. She felt herself held for a moment with extraordinary
force, and kisses, tears, and always the beat of that troubled
breathing, upon her cheek. Then the grasp relaxed reluctantly, because
the sufferer could do no more.
“Oh, gently, gently; do not wear yourself out. She is not going away.
She has come to stay with you,” a soothing voice said.
“That’s all I want--all I want in this world--what I came for,” gave
forth the panting lips.
Dora’s impulse was to cry, “No, no!” to rise up from her knees, upon
which she had fallen unconsciously by the sick bed, to withdraw from it,
and if possible get away altogether, terrified of that close vicinity:
but partly what Miss Bethune had said, and partly natural feeling, the
instinct of humanity, kept her in spite of herself where she was. The
poor lady lay with her face intent upon Dora, stroking her hair and her
forehead with those hot thin hands, beaming upon her with that ineffable
smile which is the prerogative of the dying.
“Oh, my little girl,” she said,--“my only one, my only one! Twelve years
it is--twelve long years--and all the time thinking of this! When I’ve
been ill,--and I’ve been very ill, Miller will tell you,--I’ve kept up,
I’ve forced myself to be better for this--for this!”
“You will wear yourself out, ma’am,” said the nurse. “You must not talk,
you must be quiet, or I shall have to send the young lady away.”
“No, no!” cried the dying woman, again clutching Dora with fevered arms.
“For what must I be quiet?--to live a little longer? I only want to live
while she’s here. I only want it as long as I can see her--Dora, you’ll
stay with me, you’ll stay with your poor--poor ----”
“She shall stay as long as you want her: but for God’s sake think of
something else, woman--think of where you’re going!” cried Miss Bethune
harshly over Dora’s head.
They disposed of her at their ease, talking over her head, bandying her
about--she who was mistress of her own actions, who had never been made
to stay where she did not wish to stay, or to go where she did not care
to go. But Dora was silent even in the rebellion of her spirit. There
was a something more strong than herself, which kept her there on her
knees in the middle of the circle--all, as Miss Bethune had said,
attending on the one who was dying, the one who was of the first
interest, to whom even the queen would bow and defer if she were to come
in here. Dora did not know what to say to a person in such a position.
She approved, yet was angry that Miss Bethune should bid the poor lady
think where she was going. She was frightened and excited, not knowing
what dreadful change might take place, what alteration, before her very
eyes. Her heart began to beat wildly against her breast; pity was in it,
but fear too, which is masterful and obliterates other emotions: yet
even that was kept in check by the overwhelming influence, the
fascination of the chamber of death.
Then there was a pause; and Dora, still on her knees by the side of the
bed, met as best she could the light which dazzled her, which enveloped
her in a kind of pale flame, from the eyes preternaturally bright that
were fixed upon her face, and listened, as to a kind of strange lullaby,
to the broken words of fondness, a murmur of fond names, of half
sentences, and monosyllables, in the silence of the hushed room. This
seemed to last for a long time. She was conscious of people passing with
hushed steps behind her, looking over her head, a man’s low voice, the
whisper of the nurses, a movement of the lights; but always that
transfigured face, all made of whiteness, luminous, the hot breath
coming and going, the hands about her face, the murmur of words. The
girl was cramped with her attitude for a time, and then the cramp went
away, and her body became numb, keeping its position like a mechanical
thing, while her mind too was lulled into a curious sense of torpor, yet
spectatorship. This lasted she did not know how long. She ceased to be
aware of what was being said to her. Her own name, “Dora,” over and over
again repeated, and strange words, that came back to her afterwards,
went on in a faltering stream. Hours might have passed for anything she
knew, when at last she was raised, scarcely capable of feeling anything,
and put into a chair by the bedside. She became dimly conscious that the
brilliant eyes that had been gazing at her so long were being veiled as
with sleep, but they opened again suddenly as she was removed, and were
fixed upon her with an anguish of entreaty. “Dora, my child,--my child!
Don’t take her away!”
“She is going to sit by you here,” said a voice, which could only be a
doctor’s voice, “here by your bedside. It is easier for her. She is not
going away.”
Then the ineffable smile came back. The two thin hands enveloped Dora’s
wrist, holding her hand close between them; and again there came a
wonderful interval--the dark room, the little stars of lights, the soft
movements of the attendants gradually fixing themselves like a picture
on Dora’s mind. Miss Bethune was behind in the dark, sitting bolt
upright against the wall, and never moving. Shadowed by the curtains at
the foot of the bed was some one with a white and anxious face, whom
Dora had only seen in the cheerful light, and could scarcely identify as
Harry Gordon. A doctor and the white-capped nurse were in front, the
maid crying behind. It seemed to go on again and last for hours this
strange scene--until there suddenly arose a little commotion and
movement about the bed, Dora could not tell why. Her hand was liberated;
the other figures came between her and the wan face on the pillow, and
she found herself suddenly, swiftly swept away. She neither made any
resistance nor yet moved of her own will, and scarcely knew what was
happening until she felt the fresh night air on her face, and found
herself in a carriage, with Harry Gordon’s face, very grave and white,
at the window.
“You will come to me in the morning and let me know the arrangements,”
Miss Bethune said, in a low voice.
“Yes, I will come; and thank you, thank you a thousand times for
bringing her,” he said.
They all talked of Dora as if she were a thing, as if she had nothing to
do with herself. Her mind was roused by the motion, by the air blowing
in her face. “What has happened? What has happened?” she asked as they
drove away.
“Will she be up yonder already, beyond that shining sky? Will she know
as she is known? Will she be satisfied with His likeness, and be like
Him, seeing Him as He is?” said Miss Bethune, looking up at the stars,
with her eyes full of big tears.
“Oh, tell me,” cried Dora, “what has happened?” with a sob of
excitement; for whether she was sorry, or only awe-stricken, she did not
know.
“Just everything has happened that can happen to a woman here. She has
got safe away out of it all; and there are few, few at my time of life,
that would not be thankful to be like her--out of it all: though it may
be a great thought to go.”
“Do you mean that the lady is dead?” Dora asked in a voice of awe.
“She is dead, as we say; and content, having had her heart’s desire.”
“Was that me?” cried Dora, humbled by a great wonder. “Me? Why should
she have wanted me so much as that, and not to let me go?”
“Oh, child, I know no more than you, and yet I know well, well! Because
she was your mother, and you were all she had in the world.”
“My mother’s sister,” said Dora, with childish sternness; “and,” she
added after a moment, “not my father’s friend.”
“Oh, hard life and hard judgment!” cried Miss Bethune. “Your mother’s
own self, a poor martyr: except that at the last she has had, what not
every woman has, for a little moment, her heart’s desire!”