IN THE BORDERLAND
HOPE came to her senses very gradually.
First she thought she was in bed, just waking up, and for a moment she
began to wonder where she was. Then she was conscious of voices, and
then of some one touching her. She opened her eyes. A strange man was
bending over her.
"Do not be anxious. You have no bones broken, and I have dressed your
only wound. You were stunned. How do you feel?"
"What is the matter with me?"
Hope's voice was feeble and weak.
"You had a nasty cut on your head, but it was not very deep."
"I—I feel so stupid and dizzy—oh, I was in the train—where is
Lancelot—my husband?"
There was silence. In a moment she had sprung up from a sofa on which
she had been lying. She found herself in the first-class waiting-room
of a railway station. The doctor who had been attending to her was
already turning away, and a hospital nurse came forward.
"Please keep still," she said. "It will be better for you. The doctor
is so busy; so many are needing him. It has been a terrible accident.
Happily you were only outside our station, and we were wired for at
once. A great many have already been moved to the hospital here."
Hope hardly heard her. In agony she pushed her aside, stumbling across
several other women in reclining positions on the floor, and rapidly
made her way along the platform. It was crowded. Impromptu litters had
been made, and were being carried along the line; cabs were taking off
inanimate forms; everywhere men and women were hurrying to and fro, and
women's voices were raised in shrill cries for their belongings.
"He is dead!" Hope said in her heart.
In silence she went from one to the other, peering into the face of
every wounded man. At last, some one touched her on the arm.
"Are you looking for any one?" It was an elderly porter who spoke.
"My husband. Where are those who are dead?"
"'Tis hard to say. They've taken the worst cases to the hospital. What
kind of gent was he?"
Hope did not answer. She flew to a cab.
"Take me to the hospital," she exclaimed. "Quick! I must find my
husband."
It was not very far. In the entrance-hall a sister met her. She had
already received many distracted relatives.
"Yes," she said, "I will help you, if you describe your husband to me."
"Tall," said Hope, a quick sob escaping her; "thin, a brown moustache,
a dark tweed suit, a buff covert coat, and violets in his buttonhole."
She had placed the violets there herself. Was it a year ago?
"Ah," said the sister gently, "he is here. I remember noting the
violets. Come in and wait. I will make inquiries."
Hope was shown into a small waiting-room. Dizzy and weak, with an
aching throbbing head, she tried to calm herself, and prepare for the
worst. Her lips moved in prayer.
"O God, we were so happy! Oh! I cannot bear it! Let him be alive! Let
him be alive!"
It seemed hours before the sister returned, and she was accompanied by
one of the doctors.
"I am sorry, madam," he said slowly, "but is your husband's name
Lancelot Dane?"
"Yes. Is he dead?"
Hope was surprised at the quietness of her own voice.
"No—but I can hardly give you hope of his recovery. We discovered his
visiting-card in his pocket. That is how I know his name. He has been
badly crushed, and we fear injury to his spine."
"Where is he? Take me to him."
"You cannot see him just at present. He has not recovered
consciousness."
"Take me to him. I am his wife."
Hope's tone was peremptory.
The sister laid her hand on her arm.
"The doctors are attending to him now. You must wait, I am afraid. Are
you near home?"
"I don't know where we are."
"This is York. You were just coming into the station when the accident
occurred. But I am afraid your husband cannot be moved."
She looked questioningly at the doctor as she spoke. He answered:
"If Mrs.—Mrs. Dane had quiet rooms to which she could move him at once,
it might be done. Later it would be impossible."
"I am a stranger. Sister, do you not know of any place I could take
him to? Our home is at Brunsworthy Hall, and that is thirty miles from
York."
The sister hastily conferred with the doctor.
Hope caught the words:
"No room—such small accommodation—better with a private nurse."
And then the sister spoke to her again.
"I do know of some very nice rooms. The landlady is most reliable. We
think Mr. Dane might be moved in an hour's time."
"He is very ill," said the doctor, looking at Hope gravely. "Have you
any friends who had better be told?"
"Oh," cried Hope; "we were only married this morning!"
He murmured something which she could not catch, and left the room.
"I will give you the address of rooms," said the sister. "Would you not
like to go to them now, so that you could be ready for your husband
when we send him?"
Hope turned away with a nod of assent. She could not trust herself to
speak.
It was a good thing for her that she was forced to act. She went out
into the street and soon found the rooms. The landlady rose to the
occasion. A bed was prepared in a large bedroom on the ground floor,
and two hours later Hope was face to face with her husband. Alas, she
could hardly recognise him! He seemed to her to be in bandages from
head to foot. A nurse came with him and a doctor. Hope could only stand
by in agony of soul, and see them doing all that was necessary. Then
she overheard her landlady speaking to the doctor in the hall; and she
heard his reply given in quick decided tones.
"He has not the slightest chance. He may linger some days. We have done
all we can for him, and he has a capital nurse. If he lives beyond
to-morrow, I will send a night nurse. It is too critical a case to
leave to his wife."
Hope wondered vaguely why there was need of nurses, if he were dying.
She seemed now almost stupefied, and when her landlady came into the
room, and asked her if she would like some food before she went to bed,
she was powerless to make reply. In a vague misty way she found herself
drinking some hot soup in bed, and then she fell into a troubled sleep,
and did not wake till the morning dawned.
Mrs. Forsett, her landlady, told her afterwards that she had, with the
help of the nurse, undressed her and got her to bed.
"'Twas your poor hurt head, ma'am, and the shock of it all, that seemed
to have stunned you."
But when Hope woke the next day, her head was painfully clear. She was
very soon in her husband's room, but he lay in a stupor from which it
was impossible to rouse him.
It was now that she sent off telegrams to Mrs. Dane and to Lancelot's
housekeeper, and reproached herself with not having done so the night
before.
Then, not being able to help in the sick-room, for the nurse was
getting her patient ready to see the doctors, she went out to get a few
more necessaries for the invalid.
And it was in walking along the streets in the bright sunshine that
Hope went through her darkest time.
"I cannot be resigned! Why should I be singled out for such
misfortunes? Oh, I might have been given a little happiness after all
I have gone through this past year! It seems so cruel, so unnecessary!
I cannot live without him! Why need it have happened? Why should I be
left to bear the desolation of life without him? What have I done to be
treated so? I have tried to be patient through all my troubles, but not
one of them really touched me like this one! The more I bear, the more
I have to bear!"
She clenched her hands in the impotency of her despair. She knew she
was murmuring against God; she felt she was allowing the full tide of
rebellion and resentment against His chastening to rush in and flood
her soul; she remembered His sustaining power in times past, in the
peace that had been hers during all the stress of anxiety and trouble,
yet now nothing seemed to help her.
"Shall I never have one word, one look from him? Has he drifted away
from me already? Oh! If only I had been allowed to suffer instead of
him!"
She walked on; she gave her orders mechanically at the shops, and then
she retraced her steps homewards. She went straight to the sick-room.
"Nurse," she said, "I am his wife. My place is by his side. I will not
be shut out of this room till—till the end comes."
The nurse drew a chair up to the bedside.
"Will you sit there, ma'am? I do not think you will disturb him."
Hope sat there with a white still face.
Doctors came and went. Lancelot's injuries had been very severe. A
broken collar-bone, concussion of the brain, broken ribs, and a bruised
body were not all the doctors feared. How Hope had escaped with so
little hurt was the marvel, for their carriage had been one of the
worst to suffer! Lancelot had evidently thrown himself upon her to
shield her, for he had been found on the top of her, and the roof of
the carriage was splintered over him.
All that day and night she watched by the bedside, hoping in vain
to catch a spark of consciousness or of recognition. Early the next
morning Mrs. Dane arrived, white and worn with anxiety. Hope met her
with the same stony calm. She, for the first time since she had known
Mrs. Dane, shrank from being with her, and Mrs. Dane's quick intuition
perceived and understood it.
"I will not come between you and him, my poor child, but you must
remember I am his mother."
Then Hope's calm forsook her, and the bitterness of her tone appalled
her mother-in-law.
"You have had him all his life, I have only had him for a few short
hours. I have been given a cup to raise to my lips, and then it has
been dashed away from me!"
"Nothing is impossible with God," said Mrs. Dane gently. "Shall we pray
together that his life may be spared?"
"I have not prayed since the accident. I cannot. I think my soul is
dead. I can only feel how cruel it is!"
She went to the sick-room as she spoke, and did not see Mrs. Dane again
alone till they were lunching together.
"Hope, dear, I think I realise how you feel; but you are not helping
yourself or poor Lancelot by keeping away from the One who alone can
help you."
Hope looked at her mother-in-law with dull heavy eyes.
"I think my faith has gone altogether," she said.
"Then ask for it to be given back to you. Let me say your favourite
hymn. I keep repeating it to myself."
Mrs. Dane repeated verse after verse of the hymn that had been Hope's
greatest comfort. Then in faltering tones she uttered the last verse
but one:
"'Peace, perfect peace, death shadowing us and ours?
Jesus has vanquish'd death and all its powers.'
"There is all eternity coming, Hope, darling, for you and for him. This
life will seem such a little bit, looking back."
Hope was silent for a moment. Then she murmured:
"If Christ would vanquish death now, and give him back to me for a few
short years, I feel I—oh, I can't say it! I believe the devil has taken
possession of me!"
She quitted the room hastily. She felt such a tumult rising within
her that she could not return to the sick-room. She went to her own
room and paced it like a wild animal in a cage. Never could she have
believed that the passion of an earthly love could have shaken the
very foundation of her creed. And in the depths of her heart was the
ceaseless voice: "You are sinning wilfully. You are harbouring and
encouraging unbelief and rebellion!"
She saw her Bible on her dressing-table. She had not opened it since
her marriage. And then, almost mechanically, she sat down, and, turning
over its pages, began reading the Gospels. She read, without taking it
in, and then suddenly one single sentence before her seemed to stand
out above all the other:
"Is it not lawful for Me to do what I will with Mine own?"
It came as the direct voice of God, and pierced the crust of bitter
rebellion and unbelief.
She sank down on her knees and burst into a passion of tears.
The voice of tender, loving, pitying rebuke again repeated in her soul:
"Is it not lawful for Me to do what I will with Mine own?"
She felt much as she imagined Peter must have done when his Master
turned and looked at him.
"Yes, Lord," she said brokenly. "It is Thy right; he is Thine own to
kill, to make alive; he is Thine, and I am Thine, and Thou hast the
right to do what Thou wilt. Oh, do it! Do it! I am Thine. I would not
take myself away from Thee. I thank Thee for this word. Who am I that
I dare to question Thy right over us both? Oh, forgive me, forgive me!
Cast the devil out. Lancelot is Thine own. I am Thine own. Thou hast
Thy plans for us both. I will not pray for his life. I will not ask
Thee to alter Thy plans. Take me back to Thyself. Do Thou help and
comfort us. Thou hast him in Thine eternal arms. I leave him there."
An hour passed before she came out of her room, and then she met Mrs.
Dane in the narrow passage. Such light and peace were upon her face
that her mother-in-law almost started. The change was marvellous.
"Yes," she said. "It is wonderful—God's mercy and love—but I am
forgiven, and I am resigned."
She passed in to sit with her husband, and though her face was white
and worn with the conflict that had been raging within her, in her eyes
was the "peace that passes understanding."
Very quiet she was, and very silent even to Mrs. Dane.
"I feel," she said to her once, "that I am waiting for death."
The days slowly went by, but there was no change in Lancelot's
condition.
"He may slip away from us any moment," said the doctor. "I do not think
he will recover consciousness."
Hope sat and waited. She could repeat to herself now the lines of her
hymn:
"'Peace, perfect peace, death shadowing us and ours?
Jesus has vanquish'd death and all its powers.'"
And sitting in the Shadow of the Borderland, she seemed to get strange
and glorious glimpses of the life beyond.
Mrs. Dane looked after her physical wants, and took it in turn to watch
with her. If Hope had been by herself, she would have been oblivious of
food and rest. When once she said something a little impatiently about
her own health being a matter of indifference to her, Mrs. Dane said:
"Dear Hope, however much you may want to follow him, you must not try
to do so. For his sake, his property, his household will need your
attention and care. You will be his representative, and you must look
upon his possessions as a trust from him."
Which view of the case gave Hope much food for thought. She herself
marvelled at Mrs. Dane's calmness and fortitude. The elder woman had
learnt life's lesson in a way that the younger one had not, and Mrs.
Dane was a selfless woman. She loved her eldest son passionately; his
very nature appealed to her in a way that neither of his brothers'
did. But she had gladly and willingly given him up to the girl whom he
loved, quietly taking the second place in his thoughts and affections,
and now she was as ready to give him up to the Master who loved him,
and was calling him.
At last, one morning, Hope spoke straightforwardly to the doctor.
"Why does my husband linger so long, if he cannot get better? He takes
nourishment. Have you no hope that he may yet pull through?"
"I am just beginning to hope," was the answer.
Then, as a flood of colour swept up into Hope's white cheeks, the
doctor put out his hand as if to stop any premature rejoicing.
"I think we must have another opinion," he said. "I can be quite frank
with you, Mrs. Dane. Life will not necessarily mean health. I fear
paralysis of the brain."
Hope's heart sank very low again. Could she wish her husband a living
death? She could not.
A physician came down from London, and after a long consultation, Hope
was called into the room to hear the result.
"We think that he might possibly be roused. Will you try to do this?
If he will respond to any one, it will be to you. Can you make the
attempt?"
So with a beating heart Hope went back to her husband's bedside, and
bending over the unconscious form, she called in a clear steady voice
close to his ear:
"Lancelot! Lancelot, darling, I want you."
There was no movement. The doctors and nurse watched anxiously. Mrs.
Dane in the background also watched and prayed.
"Put your heart into it," whispered the doctor. "Remind yourself that
this is his last chance. Make him hear you!"
Hope did not need this stimulant. Her whole soul rose into her agonised
cry.
"Lancelot, it is Hope who wants you. Come to me—help me—help!"
There was a slight quiver of the still eyelashes, a slight motion of
his head. The word "help" seemed to have reached him at last.
She put her mouth close to his ear, and the intense yearning in her cry
brought a moisture into the old physician's eyes.
"Lancelot, my husband, come to your wife! Help me, I want you. Help!"
His eyelids flickered, and then in the smallest weakest voice possible
these words were clearly heard.
"I am—trying—to—come."
"Then look up! I am here, darling. Hope is here; look at me—look!"
The soul that seemed so far away, in that mysterious border region
between life and death, had returned to the world. Lancelot opened his
eyes, and as they fell on Hope's sweet eager face so close to his,
there was recognition in his glance.
"Hope—my darling—kiss me."
Hope put her lips to his.
The tense moment had passed. The doctors seemed to draw breath.
"Give him stimulant, nurse, at once."
The physician spoke, and in a few moments the sick man murmured:
"I am afraid I am ill, Hope; can you tell me?"
"I will tell you everything soon, dear. You have been very ill, and now
you're getting better."
Hope's eyes were full of happy tears. The doctors left the room.
"Let him sleep now. His brain is uninjured. He will pull round."
And then, leaving her husband in a quiet peaceful sleep, Hope flung
herself into Mrs. Dane's motherly arms.
"Oh, mother—let me call you so! How good you have been to me, and oh,
how good of God! After all my unbelief and rebellion! Can we—will you
thank Him for me?"
Together they knelt in prayer, and Hope's face, when she rose from her
knees, was a study in rapt contentment and delight, but her bright
brown hair was streaked with grey.