They had quarrelled in girlhood, and mutually declared their
intention never to speak to each other again, wetting and drying their
forefingers to the accompaniment of an ancient childish incantation,
and while they lived on the paternal farm they kept their foolish oath
with the stubbornness of a slow country stock, despite the alternate
coaxing and chastisement of their parents, notwithstanding the
perpetual everyday contact of their lives, through every vicissitude
of season and weather, of sowing and reaping, of sun and shade, of joy
and sorrow.
Death and misfortune did not reconcile them, and when their father
died and the old farm was sold up, they travelled to London in the
same silence, by the same train, in search of similar situations.
Service separated them for years, though there was only a stone's
throw between them. They often stared at each other in the streets.
Honor, the elder, married a local artisan, and two and a half years
later, Mercy, the younger, married a fellow-workman of Honor's
husband. The two husbands were friends, and often visited each other's
houses, which were on opposite sides of the same sordid street, and
the wives made them welcome. Neither Honor nor Mercy suffered an
allusion to their breach; it was understood that their silence must be
received in silence. Each of the children had a quiverful of children
who played and quarrelled together in the streets and in one another's
houses, but not even the street affrays and mutual grievances of the
children could provoke the mothers to words. They stood at their doors
in impotent fury, almost bursting with the torture of keeping their
mouths shut against the effervescence of angry speech. When either
lost a child the other watched the funeral from her window, dumb as
the mutes.
The years rolled on, and still the river of silence flowed between their
lives. Their good looks faded, the burden of life and child-bearing was
heavy upon them. Grey hairs streaked their brown tresses, then brown
hairs streaked their grey tresses. The puckers of age replaced the
dimples of youth. The years rolled on, and Death grew busy among the
families. Honor's husband died, and Mercy lost a son, who died a week
after his wife. Cholera took several of the younger children. But the
sisters themselves lived on, bent and shrivelled by toil and sorrow, even
more than by the slow frost of the years.
Then one day Mercy took to her death-bed. An internal disease, too
long neglected, would carry her off within a week. So the doctor told
Jim, Mercy's husband.
Through him, the news travelled to Honor's eldest son, who still lived
with her. By the evening it reached Honor.
She went upstairs abruptly when her son told her, leaving him
wondering at her stony aspect. When she came down she was bonneted and
shawled. He was filled with joyous amaze to see her hobble across the
street and for the first time in her life pass over her sister Mercy's
threshold.
As Honor entered the sick-room, with pursed lips, a light leapt into
the wasted, wrinkled countenance of the dying creature. She raised
herself slightly in bed, her lips parted, then shut tightly, and her
face darkened.
Honor turned angrily to Mercy's husband, who hung about impotently.
"Why did you let her run down so low?" she said.
"I didn't know," the old man stammered, taken aback by her presence
even more than by her question. "She was always a woman to say nothin'."
Honor put him impatiently aside and examined the medicine bottle on
the bedside table.
"Isn't it time she took her dose?"
"I dessay."
Honor snorted wrathfully. "What's the use of a man?" she inquired, as
she carefully measured out the fluid and put it to her sister's lips,
which opened to receive it, and then closed tightly again.
"How is your wife feeling now?" Honor asked after a pause.
"How are you, now, Mercy?" asked the old man awkwardly.
The old woman shook her head. "I'm a-goin' fast, Jim," she grumbled
weakly, and a tear of self-pity trickled down her parchment cheek.
"What rubbidge she do talk!" cried Honor, sharply. "Why d'ye stand
there like a tailor's dummy? Why don't you tell her to cheer up?"
"Cheer up, Mercy," quavered the old man, hoarsely.
But Mercy groaned instead, and turned fretfully on her other side,
with her face to the wall.
"I'm too old, I'm too old," she moaned, "this is the end o' me."
"Did you ever hear the like?" Honor asked Jim, angrily, as she
smoothed his wife's pillow. "She was always conceited about her age,
settin' herself up as the equals of her elders, and here am I, her
elder sister, as carried her in my arms when I was five and she was
two, still hale and strong, and with no mind for underground for many
a day. Nigh three times her age I was once, mind you, and now she has
the imperence to talk of dyin' before me."
She took off her bonnet and shawl. "Send one o' the kids to tell my
boy I'm stayin' here," she said, "and then just you get 'em all to
bed--there's too much noise about the house."
The children, who were orphaned grandchildren of the dying woman, were
sent to bed, and then Jim himself was packed off to refresh himself
for the next day's labours, for the poor old fellow still doddered
about the workshop.
The silence of the sick-room spread over the whole house. About ten
o'clock the doctor came again and instructed Honor how to alleviate
the patient's last hours. All night long she sat watching her dying
sister, hand and eye alert to anticipate every wish. No word broke the
awful stillness.
The first thing in the morning, Mercy's married daughter, the only
child of hers living in London, arrived to nurse her mother. But Honor
indignantly refused to be dispossessed.
"A nice daughter you are," she said, "to leave your mother lay a day
and a night without a sight o' your ugly face."
"I had to look after the good man, and the little 'uns," the daughter
pleaded.
"Then what do you mean by desertin' them now?" the irate old woman
retorted. "First you deserts your mother, and then your husband and
children. You must go back to them as needs your care. I carried your
mother in my arms before you was born, and if she wants anybody else
now to look after her, let her just tell me so, and I'll be off in a
brace o' shakes."
She looked defiantly at the yellow, dried-up creature in the bed.
Mercy's withered lips twitched, but no sound came from them. Jim,
strung up by the situation, took the word. "You can't do no good up
here, the doctor says. You might look after the kids downstairs a bit,
when you can spare an hour, and I've got to go to the shop. I'll send
you a telegraph if there's a change," he whispered to the daughter,
and she, not wholly discontented to return to her living interests,
kissed her mother, lingered a little, and then stole quietly away.
All that day the old women remained together in solemn silence, broken
only by the doctor's visit. He reported that Mercy might last a couple
of days more. In the evening Jim replaced his sister-in-law, who slept
perforce. At midnight she reappeared and sent him to bed. The sufferer
tossed about restlessly. At half-past two she awoke, and Honor fed her
with some broth, as she would have fed a baby. Mercy, indeed, looked
scarcely bigger than an infant, and Honor only had the advantage of
her by being puffed out with clothes. A church clock in the distance
struck three. Then the silence fell deeper. The watcher drowsed, the
lamp flickered, tossing her shadow about the walls as if she, too,
were turning feverishly from side to side. A strange ticking made
itself heard in the wainscoting. Mercy sat up with a scream of terror.
"Jim!" she shrieked, "Jim!"
Honor started up, opened her mouth to cry "Hush!" then checked
herself, suddenly frozen.
"Jim," cried the dying woman, "listen! Is that the death spider?"
Honor listened, her blood curdling. Then she went towards the door
and opened it. "Jim," she said, in low tones, speaking towards the
landing, "tell her it's nothing, it's only a mouse. She was always a
nervous little thing." And she closed the door softly, and pressing
her trembling sister tenderly back on the pillow, tucked her up snugly
in the blanket.
Next morning, when Jim was really present, the patient begged
pathetically to have a grandchild with her in the room, day and night.
"Don't leave me alone again," she quavered, "don't leave me alone with
not a soul to talk to." Honor winced, but said nothing.
The youngest child, who did not have to go to school, was brought--a
pretty little boy with brown curls, which the sun, streaming through
the panes, turned to gold. The morning passed slowly. About noon Mercy
took the child's hand, and smoothed his curls.
"My sister Honor had golden curls like that," she whispered.
"They were in the family, Bobby," Honor answered. "Your granny had
them, too, when she was a girl."
There was a long pause. Mercy's eyes were half-glazed. But her vision
was inward now.
"The mignonette will be growin' in the gardens, Bobby," she murmured.
"Yes, Bobby, and the heart's-ease," said Honor, softly. "We lived in
the country, you know, Bobby."
"There is flowers in the country," Bobby declared gravely.
"Yes, and trees," said Honor. "I wonder if your granny remembers when
we were larruped for stealin' apples."
"Ay, that I do, Bobby, he, he," croaked the dying creature, with a
burst of enthusiasm. "We was a pair o' tomboys. The farmer he ran
after us cryin' 'Ye! ye!' but we wouldn't take no gar. He, he, he!"
Honor wept at the laughter. The native idiom, unheard for half a
century, made her face shine under the tears. "Don't let your granny
excite herself, Bobby. Let me give her her drink." She moved the boy
aside, and Mercy's lips automatically opened to the draught.
"Tom was wi' us, Bobby," she gurgled, still vibrating with amusement,
"and he tumbled over on the heather. He, he!"
"Tom is dead this forty year, Bobby," whispered Honor.
Mercy's head fell back, and an expression of supreme exhaustion came
over the face. Half an hour passed. Bobby was called down to dinner.
The doctor had been sent for. The silent sisters were alone. Suddenly
Mercy sat up with a jerk.
"It be growin' dark, Tom," she said hoarsely, "'haint it time to call
the cattle home from the ma'shes?"
"She's talkin' rubbidge again," said Honor, chokingly. "Tell her she's
in London, Bobby."
A wave of intelligence traversed the sallow face. Still sitting up,
Mercy bent towards the side of the bed. "Ah, is Honor still there?
Kiss me--Bobby." Her hands groped blindly. Honor bent down and the old
women's withered lips met.
And in that kiss Mercy passed away into the greater Silence.
* * * * *