"Doctor Sheldon, do you think she is dangerously ill?"
"I am afraid, Salome, that she will soon become so; for she is
threatened with a violent attack of pneumonia, which would certainly
be very dangerous to a woman of her age. It is a great misfortune that
her brother is absent."
"Dr. Grey reached New York three days ago."
"Indeed! I will telegraph immediately, and hasten his return."
Dr. Sheldon was preparing a blister in the room adjoining the one
occupied by Miss Jane, and the orphan stood by his side, twisting her
fingers nervously over each other, and looking perplexed and anxious.
He returned to his patient, and when he came out some moments later,
and took up his hat, his countenance was by no means reassuring.
"Although I know that you are very much attached to Miss Jane, and
would faithfully endeavor to nurse her, you are so young and
inexperienced that I do not feel quite willing to leave her entirely
to your guardianship; and, therefore, shall send a woman here to-night
who will fully understand the case. She is a professional nurse, and
Dr. Grey will be relieved to hear that his sister is in her hands, for
he has great confidence in her good sense and discretion. I shall stop
at the telegraph office, as I go home, and urge him to return at once.
Give me his address. Do not look so dejected. Miss Grey has a better
constitution than most persons are disposed to believe, and she may
struggle through this attack."
The new year was ushered in by heavy and incessant rains, and, having
imprudently insisted upon superintending the drainage of a new
sheepfold and the erection of an additional cattle-shed, Miss Jane had
taken a severe cold, which resulted in pneumonia.
Assiduously and tenderly Salome watched over her, and even after the
arrival of Hester Dennison, the nurse, the orphan's solicitude would
not permit her to quit the apartment where her benefactress lay
struggling with disease; while Miss Jane shrank from the stranger, and
preferred to receive the medicine from the hand of her adopted child.
When Dr. Sheldon stood by the bed early next morning, and noted the
effect of his treatment, Salome's keen eye observed the dissatisfied
expression of his face, and she drew sad auguries from his clouded
brow. He took a paper from his pocket, and said, cheerfully,--
"Come, Miss Jane, get up a smile to pay me for the good news I bring.
Can you guess what this means?" holding an envelope close to her
eyes.
"More blisters and fever mixtures, I suppose. Doctor, my poor side is
in a dreadful condition."
As she laid her hand over her left lung, she winced and groaned.
"How much would you give to have your brother's hand, instead of mine,
on your pulse?"
"All that I am worth! But my boy is in Europe, and can't come back to
me now, when I need him most."
"No, he is in New York. You have been dreaming, and forget that he has
reached America."
"No, I never knew it. Salome, is there a letter?"
"No letter, but a dispatch announcing his arrival. I told you; but you
must have fallen asleep while I was talking to you."
"No such thing! I have not slept a wink for a week."
"That is right, Miss Jane; scold as much as you like; it will do you
no harm. But, meantime, let me tell you I have just heard from Dr.
Grey, and he is now on his way home."
Salome was sitting near the pillow, and suddenly her head bowed
itself, while her lips whispered, inaudibly,--
"Thank God!"
The invalid's face brightened, and, stretching her thin, hot hand
towards the orphan, she touched her shoulder, and said:--
"Do you hear that, my child? Ulpian is coming home. When will he be
here?"
"Day after to-morrow evening, I hope, if there is no detention and
he makes all the railroad connections. I trust you will prove
sufficiently generous to bear testimony to my professional skill, by
improving so rapidly that when he arrives there will be nothing
left to do but compliment my sagacity, and thank me for relieving you
so speedily. Is not your cough rather better?"
She did not reply; and, bending down, he saw that she was asleep.
"Doctor, I am afraid she is not much better."
He sighed, shook his head, and beckoned Hester into the hall in order
to question her more minutely concerning the patient.
That night and the next she was delirious, and failed to recognize any
one; but about noon on the following day she opened her eyes, and,
looking intently at Salome, who stood near the foot of the bed, she
said, as if much perplexed,--
"I saw Ulpian just now. Where is he?"
"He will be here this afternoon, I hope. The train is due at two
o'clock, and it is now a quarter past twelve."
"I tell you I saw him not ten minutes since."
"You are feverish, dear Miss Jane, and have been dreaming."
"Don't contradict me! Am I in my dotage, think you? I saw my boy, and
he was pale, and had blood on his hands, and it ran down his beard and
dripped on his vest. You can't deceive me! What is the matter with my
poor boy? I will see him! Give me my crutches this instant!"
She struggled into a partially upright position, but fell back upon
her pillow exhausted and panting for breath.
"You were delirious. I give you my word that he has not yet come home.
It was only a horrible dream. Hester will assure you of the truth of
what I say. You must lie still, for this excitement will injure you."
The nurse gave her a powerful sedative, and strove to divert her
thoughts; but ever and anon she shuddered and whispered,--
"It was not a dream. I saw my dear sailor-boy, and he was hurt and
bleeding. I know what I saw; and if you and Hester swore till every
star dropped out of heaven, I would not believe you. If I am old and
dying, my eyes are better than yours. My poor Ulpian!"
Despite her knowledge of the feverish condition of the sick woman, and
her incredulity with reference to the vision that so painfully
disturbed her, Salome's lips blanched, and a vague, nameless, horrible
dread seized her heart.
Very soon Miss Jane fell into a heavy sleep, and, while the nurse
busied herself in preparing a bottle of beef-tea, the orphan sat with
her head pressed against the bedpost, and her eyes riveted on the face
of the watch in her palm, where the minute-hand seemed now and then to
stop, as if for breathing-time, and the hour-hand to have forgotten
the way to two o'clock.
For nearly six months Salome had counted the weeks and days,--had
waited and hoped for the hour of Dr. Grey's return as the happiest of
her life,--had imagined his greeting, the bright, steady glow in his
fine eyes, the warm, cordial pressure of his white hand, the friendly
tones of his pleasant voice; for, though he had failed to bid her
good-by, fate could not cheat her out of the interview that must
follow his arrival. Fancy had painted so vividly all the incidents
that would characterize this longed-for greeting, that she had lived
it over a thousand times; and, now that the meeting seemed actually at
hand, she asked herself whether it were possible that disappointment
could pour one poisonous drop into the brimming draught of joy that
rose foaming in amber bubbles to her parched lips.
In the profound silence that pervaded the darkened room, the ticking
of the watch was annoyingly audible, and seemed to Salome's strained
and excited nerves so unusually loud that she feared it might disturb
the sleeper. At a quarter to two o'clock she went to the hearth and
noiselessly renewed the fire, laying two fresh pieces of oak across
the shining brass andirons, whose feet represented lions' heads.
She swept the hearth, arranged some vials that were scattered on the
dressing-table, and gave a few improving touches to a vase filled with
white and orange crocuses, then crept back to the bedside and again
picked up the watch. It still lacked fifteen minutes of two, and,
looking more closely, she found that it had stopped. Tossing it into a
hollow formed by the folds of the coverlid, and repressing an
impatient ejaculation, she listened for the sound of the railroad
whistle, which, though muffled by distance, had not failed to reach
her every day during the past week.
Presently the silence, which made her ears ache, throbbed so suddenly
that she started, but it was only the "cuckoo! cuckoo!" of the painted
bird on the gilded clock. That clock was fifteen minutes slower than
Miss Jane's watch; and Salome put her face in her hands, and tried to
still the loud thumping sound of the blood at her heart.
The train was behind time. Only a few moments as yet, but something
must have happened to occasion even this slight delay; and, if
something,--what?
Hester came in and whispered,--
"Dinner is ready, and Stanley is hungry. Has Miss Jane stirred since I
went out?"
"No; what time is it?"
"Half after two."
"Oh, nonsense! You are too fast."
"Not a minute,--begging your pardon. My brother stays at the depot,
and keeps my watch with the railroad time."
Salome went to the dining-room, gave Stanley his dinner, and, anxious
to escape observation, shut herself in the dim, cold parlor, where she
paced the floor until the cuckoo jumped out, chirped three times, and,
as if frightened by the girl's fixed eyes, fluttered back inside the
clock. More than an hour behind time! Now, beyond all hope or doubt,
there had been an accident! Loss of sleep for several consecutive
nights, and protracted anxiety concerning Miss Jane, had so unnerved
the orphan that she was less able to cope successfully with this
harrowing suspense than on former occasions; still the sanguine
hopefulness of youth battled valiantly with the ghouls that
apprehension conjured up, and she remembered that comparatively
trivial occurrences had sometimes detained the train, which finally
brought all its human freight safely to the depot.
The day had been very cold and gloomy; and thick, low masses of
smoke-colored cloud scudded across the chill sky, whipped along their
skirts by a stinging north-east blast into dun, ragged, trailing
banners. Despite the keenness of the air, Salome opened one of the
parlor windows and leaned her face on the broad sill, where a
drizzling rain began to show itself. She had read and heard just
enough with reference to the phenomena of _clairvoyance_ to sneer at
them in happy hours, and to recur helplessly to the same subject with
a species of silent dread when misfortune seemed imminent. To-day, as
Miss Jane's delirious utterances haunted every nook and cranny of her
excited brain, permeating all topics of thought, she recalled many
instances, on legendary record, where the dying were endowed with
talismanic power over the secrets of futurity. Could it be possible
that Miss Jane had really seen what was taking place many miles
distant? Reason shook her hoary head, and jeered at such childish
fatuity; but superstitious credulity, goaded by an intense anxiety,
would not be silenced nor put to the blush, but boldly babbled of
Swedenborg and burning Stockholm.
Once she had heard Dr. Grey tell his sister, in answer to some inquiry
concerning the _arcana_ of mesmerism, that he had bestowed much time
and thought upon the investigation of the subject, and was thoroughly
convinced that there existed subtle psychological laws whose
operations were not yet comprehended, but which, when analyzed and
studied, would explain the remarkable influence of mind over mind, and
prove that the dread and baffling mysteries of psychology were merely
normal developments of intellectual power instead of supernatural or
spiritual manifestations.
This abstract view of the matter was, however, most unsatisfactory at
the present juncture; and the current of Salome's reflections was
abruptly changed by the sound of the locomotive whistle,--not the
prolonged, steady roar, announcing arrival, but the sharp, short,
shrill note of departure. Soon after, the clock struck four, and, ere
the echoes fell asleep once more in the sombre corners of the quiet
parlor, Dr. Sheldon drove up to the front door and entered the house.
Springing into the hall, Salome met him, and laid her hand on his
arm.
"Salome, your face frightens me. How is Miss Jane? Has she grown worse
so rapidly since I was here this morning?"
"I see little change in her. But you have locked bad news behind your
set teeth. Oh, for God's sake, don't torture me one second longer!
Tell me the worst. What has happened?"
"The down-train was thrown from an embankment twenty feet high, and
the cars took fire. Many lives have been sacrificed, and it is the
most awful affair I ever heard of."
He had partially averted his head to avoid the sight of her whitening
and convulsed features; but, laying her hands heavily upon his
shoulders, she forced him to face her, and her voice sank to a husky
whisper,--
"Is he dead?"
"I hope not."
"Speak out,--or I shall go mad! Is he dead?"
"Calm yourself, Salome, and let us hope for the best. We know nothing
of the particulars of this dreadful disaster, and have learned the
names of none of the sufferers. I have little doubt that Dr. Grey was
on the train, but there is no certainty that he was injured. The
regular up-train could not leave as usual, because the track was badly
torn up; but a locomotive and three cars ran out a while ago with
several surgeons and articles required for the victims. Pray sit down,
my poor child, for you are unable to stand."
"Where did it happen?"
"Near Silver Run water-tank,--about forty miles from here. The
accident occurred at twelve o'clock."
Salome's grasp suddenly relaxed, and, tossing her hands above her
head, she laughed hysterically,--
"Ha, ha! Thank God, he is not dead! He is only hurt,--only bleeding.
Miss Jane saw it all, and he is not dead, or she would have known it.
Thank God!"
Dr. Sheldon was a stern man and renowned for his iron nerves, but he
shuddered as he looked at the pinched, wan face, and heard the
unnatural, hollow sound of her unsteady voice. Had care, watching, and
suspense unpoised her reason?
Something of that which passed through his mind looked out of his
eyes, and interpreting their amazed expression, the girl waved her
hand towards the door, and added,--
"I am not insane. Go in, and Hester will explain."
He turned away, and she went back to the dusky room and threw herself
down on the sofa, opposite to the portrait of the U.S. surgeon.
Of what passed during the following two hours, she retained, in after
years, only a dim, confused, painful memory of prayers and promises
made to God in behalf of the absent.
Once before, when Miss Jane's death seemed imminent, she had been
grieved and perplexed by the possibility that Dr. Grey would inherit
the estate and usurp her domains; but to-day, when the Great Reaper
hovered over the panting, emaciated sufferer, and simultaneously
threatened the distant brother and sole heir of the extended
possessions which this girl had so long coveted, the only thought that
filled her heart with dread and wrung half-smothered cries from her
lips was,--
"Spare his life, oh, my God! Leave me penniless--take friends,
relatives, comforts, hopes of wealth--take all--take everything, but
spare that precious life and bring him safely back to me! Have mercy
on me, O Lord, and do not snatch him away! for, if I lose him now, I
lose faith in Christ--in Thee--I lose all hope in time and eternity,
and my sinful, wrecked soul will go down forever in a night that knows
no dawning!"
For six months she had been indeed,--
"A faded watcher through the weary night--
A meek, sweet statue at the silver shrines,
In deep, perpetual prayer for him she loved;"
but patience, dragging anchor, finally snapped its cable, and now,
instead of an humble suppliant for the boon that alone made existence
endurable, she fiercely demanded that her idol should not be broken,
and, battling with Jehovah, impiously thrust her life down before Him
as an accursed and intolerable burden, unless her prayers were
granted. Ah, what scorpions and stones we gather to our boards, and
then dare charge the stinging mockeries against a long-suffering,
loving God! Ten days before, Salome had meekly prayed, "Thy will be
done," and had comforted herself with the belief that at last she was
beginning to grow pious and trusting, like Miss Jane; but, at the
first hint of harm to Dr. Grey, she sprang up, utterly oblivious of
the protestations of resignation that were scarcely cold on her lips,
and furious as a tigress who sees the hunter approach the jungle where
all her fierce affections centre. God help as all who pray orthodoxly
for His will, and yet, when the emergency arrives, fight desperately
for our own, feeling wofully aggrieved that He takes us at our word,
and moulds the clay which we make a Pharisaical pretense of offering!
A slow drizzling rain whitened the distant hills, that seemed to
blanch in their helplessness as the wind smote them like a flail; and
it wove a grayish veil over the leafless boughs of bending, shivering
elms, on the long, dim avenue. The wintry afternoon closed swiftly,
and, in its dusky dreariness, Salome listened to the tattoo of the
rain on the roof, and to the _miserere_ that wailed through the lonely
chambers of her soul. The chill at her heart froze her to numbness and
oblivion of the coldness of the atmosphere, and, when a servant came
in to close the window against the slanting sleet, she lay so still
that the woman thought her asleep, and stole away on tip-toe. The room
grew dark; but, through the half-opened door, the light from the hall
lamp crept in and fell on the gilded frame and painted face of the
portrait, tracing a silvery path along the gloomy wall. As the night
deepened, that wave of light rippled and glittered until the handsome
features in the picture seemed to belong to some hierarch who peeped
from a window of heaven, into a world drenched with unlifting
darkness.
That oval piece of canvas had become the one fetich to which Salome's
heart clung in silent adoration, defiant of the iconoclastic touch of
reason and the adverse decree of womanly pride; for natures such as
hers will always grovel in the dust, hugging the mutilated fragments
of their idol, rather than bow at some new, fretted shrine, where
other images hold sway, commanding worship. Looking up almost
wolfishly at that tranquil, shining countenance, she said to her
sullen, mourning heart,--
"There are no more like him, and, if we lose him, there is nothing
left in life, and all hope is at an end, and _finis_ shall be printed
on the first page of the book of our existence; and ruin, like a
pitiless pall, shall cover what might have been a happy, possibly a
grand and good, human career. We did not intend to love him,--no, no;
we tried hard to hate him who stood between us and affluence and
indolent ease, but he conquered us by his matchless magnanimity, and
shamed our ignoble aims and base selfishness, and put us under his
royal feet; and now we would rather be trampled by Ulpian, our king,
than crowned by any other man. Let us plead with Christ to spare the
only pilot who can save us from eternal shipwreck."
Lying there so helpless yet defiant in her desolation, some subtle
thread of association, guided, perhaps, by the invisible fingers of
her guardian angel, led her mind to a favorite couplet often quoted by
Dr. Grey,--
"I heard faith's low, sweet singing, in the night,
And, groping through the darkness, touched God's hand."
If the painted lips in the aureola on the wall had parted and audibly
uttered these words, they would scarcely have impressed her more
powerfully as a message from the absent; and, rising instantly, the
orphan prayed in chastened, humbled tones for strength to be patient,
for ability to trust God's wisdom and mercy.
How often, when binding our idolized Isaacs upon the altar, and,
meekly submissive to what appears God's inexorable mandates, we
unmurmuringly offer our heart's dearest treasure, the sacrificial
knife is stayed, and our loathed and horrible Moriahs, that erst smelt
of blood and echoed woe, become hallowed Jehovah-jirehs, all aglow,
not with devouring flames, but the blessed radiance of God's benignant
smile, and musical with thanksgiving strains. But Abraham's burden
preceded Abraham's boon, and the souls who cannot patiently endure the
first are utterly unworthy of the rapture of the last.
As the girl's mind grew calmer under the breath of prayer--which
stills the billows of human passion and strife as the command of Jesus
smoothed the thundering surf of Genesareth,--she recollected that she
had absented herself from the sick-room for an unusually long time.
How long, she could not conjecture, for the face of the clock was
invisible, and she had ceased to count the cuckoo-notes; but her limbs
ached, and a fillet of fire seemed to circle her brow.
With a lingering gaze upon the radiant portrait, she quitted the
parlor, and went wearily back to renew her vigil.
Hester Dennison was cowering over the hearth, spreading her bony hands
towards the crackling flames, and, walking up to the mantelpiece,
Salome touched the nurse, and whispered,--
"Hester, what did the doctor say? Is there any change?"
"Hush!" The woman laid a finger on her lip, and glanced over her
shoulder.
There was only a subdued light of a shaded lamp mingling with the
flicker of the fire, and, as Salome's eyes followed those of the
nurse, they rested upon the figure of a man kneeling at the bedside,
and leaning his head against the pillow where Miss Jane's white hair
was strewn in disorder.
A cry of delight, which she had neither the prudence nor power to
repress, rang through the silent chamber, startling its inmates, and
partially arousing the invalid. Salome forgot that life and death were
grappling over the prostrate form of the aged woman,--forgot
everything but the supreme joy of knowing that her idol had not been
rudely shattered.
Springing to the bedside, she put out her hands, and exclaimed,
rapturously:
"Oh, Dr. Grey! Were you much hurt? Thank God, you are alive and here!
Indeed, He is merciful--"
"Hush! Have you no prudence? Quit the room, or be quiet."
Dr. Grey lifted his haggard face from the pillow, and the light showed
it pallid and worn by acute suffering, while a strip of plaster
pressed together the edges of a deep cut on his cheek. His clothes
glistened with sleet, and bore stains that in daylight were crimson,
though now they were only ominously dark.
The stern tones of his voice, suppressed though it was, stung the
girl's heart; and she answered, in a pleading whisper,--
"Only tell me that you are not severely injured. Speak one kind word
to me!"
"I am not dangerously hurt. Hush! Remember life hangs in the
balance."
"Oh, Dr. Grey! will you not even shake hands with me, after all these
dreary months of absence? This is hard, indeed."
She had stood at his side, with her hands extended imploringly; and
now he moved cautiously, and, silently holding up one hand swathed in
linen bands, pointed to his left arm, which was tightly splintered and
bandaged.
The mute gesture explained all, and, sinking to the carpet, she
pressed her lips to the linen folds, and to the coat-sleeve, where
sleet and blood-spots mingled.
He could not have prevented her, even had he desired to do so; but at
that instant his sister moaned faintly, and, bending forward to
examine her countenance, he seemed for some minutes unconscious of the
presence of the form crouching close by his side.
After a little while he looked down, sighed, and whispered,--
"My child, do go to bed. You can do no good here, and too much
watching has already unstrung your nerves. Go to your room, and pray
that God will spare our dear Janet to us."
Was this the welcome for which she had waited and longed--of which she
had dreamed by day and by night? Not a touch, barely a brief,
impatient glance, and a few reproving, indifferent words. She had
rashly dared fate to cheat her out of this long-anticipated greeting,
and the grim, grinning crone had accepted the challenge, and now
triumphantly snapped her withered fingers in the face of the
vanquished.
When coveted fruit that has been hungrily watched through the slow,
tedious process of ripening finally falls rosy and mellow into
eagerly uplifted fingers, and breaks in a shower of bitter dust on the
sharpened and fastidious palate, it rarely happens that the
half-famished dupe relishes the taste; and Salome rose, feeling
stunned and mocked.
In one corner of the room stood a chintz-covered lounge, and, creeping
to it, she laid herself down; and, shading her features with her hand,
looked through her fingers at the pale, grieved face of the anxious
brother. Sometimes he stood up, studying the placid countenance of the
sufferer, and now and then he walked softly to the fire-place, and
held whispered conferences with Hester relative to the course of
treatment that had been pursued.
But everywhere Salome's eyes followed him; and finally, when he
chanced to glance at the couch, and noticed its occupant, whom he
imagined fast asleep, he pointed to a blanket lying on a chair, and
directed Hester to spread it over the girlish figure. The thoughtful
act warmed the orphan's heart more effectually than the thick woollen
cover; and when he sat down in an easy-chair close to the bed, and
within range of Salome's vision, she yielded to the comforting
consciousness of his presence. And, while her lips were moving in
thanks for his preservation and return, exhausted nature seized her
dues, and the girl fell asleep and dreamed that Dr. Grey stood by the
lounge, and whispered,--
"No star goes down, but climbs in other skies;
The rose of sunset folds its glory up
To burst again from out the heart of dawn,
And love is never lost, though hearts run waste,
And sorrow makes the chastened heart a seer;
The deepest dark reveals the starriest hope,
And Faith can trust her heaven behind the veil."