The sun was very bright on that July morning. When should it be bright
if not in that crown of summer? It triumphed over all the vain attempts
of curtains drawn and shutters closed to keep it out, and streamed in in
rays doubly intense for these precautions at every crevice. One of these
resplendent rays fell upon the dress of the watcher who sat by Mar’s
bedside. When he opened his eyes first this was what caught them. The
dress was not the black dress and white apron of the nurse. It was grey,
of a soft silvery tone, with a pattern woven in the silk, and a satin
sheen which caught the light. Mar in the dreamy state of his weakness
admired it like a child. How soft the color was, and the raised flowers
which shone almost white in that wonderful ray of sunshine. His pleasure
in it suited the dreamy state of feeble well-being in which he lay
gradually getting awake. It seemed a kindness to put that pretty thing
before him instead of the glare of the white apron on the gloom of the
black gown. What was it, though, so near his bed?
He raised himself and beheld the most astonishing sight. Not the nurse
at all with whose aspect he was so familiar, but a lady. Her face was
shrouded by her hand, and for a moment he did not recognize her. A lady
in those soft, beautiful robes, in an unfamiliar pose; not easy like the
accustomed nurse, who was so kind but not anxious. This figure leaned
forward looking at him, intent upon him, though he could not at first
make out her face. Then he perceived the grey hair curling over the hand
which supported her head, and then--He gave a little cry, “Ah!” which
made her rise and come close to him. “Ah!” he said in his surprise; and
then, with a curious, long drawn breath, “Am I dead?”
“Oh no, no.”
“I know: not dead, for I’m living and talking, but I must have died, I
suppose? And--and you too?”
She came up, closer and closer, and took his hand, and began to cry,
clasping it within her own. “Why should that be? Why should that be?”
she said.
“Because,” said Mar, groping with his faint, half awakened senses and
intelligence still in the strangest maze, “because--you are here.”
“Do you know me?”
He did not answer, but in those large, humid eyes of weakness the answer
was so plain. Know you! they seemed to say; what do I know but you? Mary
was touched to the heart. She dropped upon her knees by the bedside, and
began to kiss his hand over and over. “I am your mother,” she said, and
went on repeating those words as if they were something which he would
not believe. “I am your mother--I am your mother.” They were a wonder to
her, but no wonder to Mar. He smiled with the heavenly light in his eyes
which belong to all, more or less, who have come back from the gates of
death; and specially to the children when they are so good, so good, as
to come back. Was there ever any mother but was thankful, oh, beyond
telling, to her child for coming back? He looked at her with that
angelic superiority of the newly returned, saying nothing. What could he
say? He had known it all his life, but had never said a word. He had
thought of her, dreamed of her, longed for her, but never had said a
word. Had he died it would have been without a sign of that paramount
dream and longing. He had never had any sense of wrong, only of wistful
wishes and a lingering, never-quenched, always visionary hope. When Mar
had made up his mind, as he had done very early, many years before, that
he would die, he had felt a consolation in his childish mind from the
thought. God would surely let him attend upon her, be her guardian
angel, though he was so little. And then when she should die too--ah
then! she would not fail to know him. It was this old childish thought
so long cherished that made him think he must have died when he saw his
mother for the first time by his bedside. But he was shy to utter that
sacred word. He had dreamt of it so much, breathing it to himself like a
melody which he alone had the secret of, that the thought of saying it
aloud filled him with a strange trouble. And that she should kiss his
hand, she! whose hem of her dress he would have been glad to kiss,
troubled him; but to ask her to kiss him and not his hand, was something
too bold, too hazardous to think of. He could only look at her, as he
might have looked at the moment he had so often thought of, when he
took her hand to lead her out of life, her guardian angel, and she
recognized him in the light of heaven.
“I am your mother,” she kept saying. “Do you know me, do you know me?”
laying her cheek upon his hand, kissing every wasted finger. Mary did
not wait for any answer, perhaps she did not want it. It was enough for
her to make her statement clear to him, to show him who she was. She had
no fear of his affection, nor any compunction as if for guilt of her own
towards him. None of these things troubled her mind. She was as if she
had come home from a long absence, which by the most innocent natural
causes had kept her separate from her boy. This was the way in which it
seemed to affect her. She was not aware that she had been in fault or
required forgiveness--or that there was any special harm or misfortune
in it. She had arrived in time. That was the conviction warm at her
heart. She had come in time. Her boy had been in danger, and she had
arrived in time to save him. Had there been any sense in her mind of
guilt towards him it would all have been driven away by this happy
thought. She had been not a moment too late, exactly in time. Had she
arrived earlier she might never have known the risk he ran, or the
supreme need there was of her presence to protect him--and had she
arrived late he might have been lost. She came by the providence of God
exactly in time.
Agnes outside heard the murmur of the voices, and fearing she knew not
what, that her sister might say too much and disturb the equilibrium of
the patient at so important a moment, came stealing into the room to
prevent any overstrain of emotion. Poor Agnes had been the only mother
Mar had ever known. All that he knew of maternal love and tenderness was
from her, and he was to her the most cherished thing in the world, the
apple of her eye. But when she came in thus upon the pair she was not
welcome to either. She was a disturbing influence, a third party. They
did not want her. This is so often the fate of the third that she was
not surprised, but it cannot be said that she liked it. It requires a
quite celestial knowledge of the heart and charity for all its
waywardness to enable one to see one’s self set aside and another
preferred who has not done half so much to deserve that preference. Mar
indeed hailed her more openly than he had done his mother, holding out
his disengaged hand to her, drawing her nearer; but it was more as a
witness of his blessedness than as the cause of any part of it. And Mary
got up from her knees as her sister came in, as if now the intimate
things of the heart must be put away, and the ordinary ones attended to.
She bent over the bed and kissed his cheek, and then she returned to the
cares of the nursing, which all this time had been laid aside.
“The question now is what we should give him,” said Mary. “He must want
something. It would have been wrong to disturb him in that beautiful
sleep, but now that he is awake he must have something. What shall we
do? Go down and forage for him, or wake this poor woman, who will be
ready to kill herself----”
“I cannot be sorry for her,” said Agnes, “to sleep all through the night
when she could not know how much she might be wanted.”
“It is not her fault; and it will be dreadful for her when she knows. Do
you think his eyes will bear a little more light? Do you feel the light
upon your eyes, my dear boy? Open that window there where it will shine
upon him--Ah,” Mary cried, turning round upon the nurse, who began to
move and stir. Mar felt less shy when his mother’s eyes were not upon
him. He was able to take a little timid initiative of his own. He put
his two thin hands upon hers, which was so soft and white and round. How
soft it was to touch, a hand like velvet, no, a hand much softer than
any vulgar image--like a mother’s hand, and no less; and drawing it
towards him by degrees, shyly, yet with increasing boldness, got it to
his pillow and laid his cheek upon it, holding it there as sometimes an
infant will do. Mary withdrew her eyes from the woman, who was slowly
coming to herself. She looked at her boy, pillowing his head upon her
hand with that infantile movement, and a tender delight filled her
heart. With her disengaged hand she pulled her sister’s sleeve, and
attracted her attention. Mar gave them both a look of blessedness in his
ecstasy of weakness and satisfaction, and then closed his eyes and lay
as if he slept, his cheek upon that softest of pillows, and happiness in
his heart. Agnes stood by and looked on, the old maid, the grim old
spinster (as young men had been known to call her) with a pang which was
almost insupportable, made up of pain and of pleasure. Ah, more than
pleasure and more than pain--the bliss of heaven to see them thus
restored to each other, and all the claims of nature set right, and yet,
for she was but human, a sharp stab like a knife to see how little a
part she herself had in it. She who alone had been Mar’s mother, who had
worshipped the boy and was nothing to him. This keen cut forced a tear
into the corner of each eye, which it filled and through which she saw
everything, a medium which enlarged and softened, yet somewhat blurred
the picture which was so full of consolation.
At this moment the nurse sprang to her feet with a cry. She said, “Where
am I? What has happened?” and then, with a wild outcry subdued but
shrill with misery, added, “I have been asleep. Oh, God forgive me, I
have been asleep.”
“There is no harm done,” said Agnes coldly, advancing a step and almost
glad there was some one she could be harsh to, without wrong, “his
mother has been with him all the night.”
“Oh, God forgive me,” said the nurse. “Oh, what will become of me--I
have slept all through the night!”
“It is very true,” said Mary, with her voice which was soft with great
happiness, “but I don’t think it is your fault. Say nothing, and we will
say nothing. I have been here in your place.”
“Bestir yourself, now,” said Agnes, “and tell us what he ought to have.”
“Oh, ladies,” said the unfortunate, “I never did such a thing
before--never--never! You may not believe me, but it is true, and if he
is the worse for it, oh, goodness, it will kill me! What shall I do?
What shall I do?” She came forward to the bedside wringing her hands.
Her mob cap had been pushed to one side in her sleep--an air of
dissipation of having been up all night, such as never comes to the
dutiful watcher, was in her whole appearance. Tears were dropping upon
her white apron, making long streaks where they fell with a splash like
rain. Mar, with his cheek pillowed on his mother’s hand, opened his eyes
and looked at her. And there came into the too large, too lustrous eyes
of the sick boy, a light that had not been in them for long, that had
been rare in them at any time--the light of laughter. It was almost
cruel that he should be aroused, but he was so. He raised his head a
little and laughed. “She looks so funny,” he said, under his breath. It
was very good for Mar to be brought down from the superlative in this
casual way by a laugh.
“Bless the boy,” said Mary; “do you hear him laugh? And bless you for
making him laugh, you poor soul. He is none the worse; he has slept all
the time. But make haste now, and tell us what has to be done to him:
what is he to take? She is dazed still; she has not got back her
senses.”
“Where is the milk? Was there no milk for him? I am sure,” cried the
nurse, “I put it here last night.”
Mary looked at Agnes; and Agnes, with a terrified glance at her. Was it
true?
“Go,” said Miss Hill quietly; “don’t waste a moment now, and get him
some fresh. Let nobody touch it. I will go with you myself,” she cried,
after a moment, taking the woman by the arm. Was it true? Was it true?
“Oh,” said the nurse, “don’t think I’m like that. It never happened
before--oh, never, never! No case of mine was ever neglected. Oh, ask
the sisters at the hospital. Ask the doctors! I could die with shame--I,
that always bragged that I was never sleepy. And why should I be sleepy,
after getting my good rest?”
“How do you account for it?” said Agnes, still stern.
They were going down the great staircase together in the full flush of
morning light.
“I don’t know how to account for it. Mrs. Parke brought me something
which she said was restoring, in case I had a hard night. I never have
taken anything, but she seemed so kind, and, perhaps, she didn’t know. I
thought I oughtn’t to take it, but she seemed so kind. Oh, madam, don’t
think badly of me. I’ll go back to the hospital to-day and send another.
Nurse Newman or Nurse Sandown, or any of them that I looked down upon
would be better than me.”
Agnes bade her dry her eyes and put her cap straight. “There is no harm
done, and nothing shall be said. But you must learn a lesson from what
has happened.” Her own voice sounded harsh and unfeeling to Agnes as she
spoke. She would have liked to be angry, to pour out some of the pain in
her heart in indignation and reproach. Could it be true, then? No dream
of Mary’s, but dreadful truth. She went down with the wondering woman
all the way to the dairy, where a pail of foaming milk had just been
brought in, and took some of it herself back to the sick-room. So far as
this went they were safe, but for all the rest what was to be done?
Agnes went a great deal further than Mary in her panic and horror! Could
they venture to give him anything, even a glass of water, in a house
where such a thing had been done? if, indeed, it was true and not a
dream.
“We must get him out of the house,” she said. “We must take him home. I
brought this myself from the dairy where it had been brought straight
from the cow. I drank some to test it. We must get him away. We must
take him home.”
“But he is not able to go. It will be many a day yet before he can even
leave his bed.”
“Then God be praised!” cried Agnes in her excitement. “I can cook. We
could both do that in the old days. Everything he takes must be prepared
here. We will take him into our own hands.”
Mary grew pale with the contagion of her sister’s excitement. “Do you
think,” she said in a terrified whisper, “that she will try such a
dreadful thing again?”
“Those who do it once may do it a hundred times,” said Agnes, with the
solemnity of a popular belief. “I feel as if I were living in an enemy’s
camp; but you and I will save the boy.”