Out of Darkness into Light
The third night after this was to be the crisis--the turning-point
between Life and Death. Mr Davis came again to pass it by the bedside
of the sufferer. Ruth was there, constant and still, intent upon
watching the symptoms, and acting according to them, in obedience
to Mr Davis's directions. She had never left the room. Every sense
had been strained in watching--every power of thought or judgment
had been kept on the full stretch. Now that Mr Davis came and took
her place, and that the room was quiet for the night, she became
oppressed with heaviness, which yet did not tend to sleep. She could
not remember the present time, or where she was. All times of her
earliest youth--the days of her childhood--were in her memory with a
minuteness and fulness of detail which was miserable; for all along
she felt that she had no real grasp on the scenes that were passing
through her mind--that, somehow, they were long gone by, and gone by
for ever--and yet she could not remember who she was now, nor where
she was, and whether she had now any interests in life to take the
place of those which she was conscious had passed away, although
their remembrance filled her mind with painful acuteness. Her head
lay on her arms, and they rested on the table. Every now and then she
opened her eyes, and saw the large room, handsomely furnished with
articles that were each one incongruous with the other, as if bought
at sales. She saw the flickering night-light--she heard the ticking
of the watch, and the two breathings, each going on at a separate
rate--one hurried, abruptly stopping, and then panting violently, as
if to make up for lost time; and the other slow, steady, and regular,
as if the breather was asleep; but this supposition was contradicted
by an occasional repressed sound of yawning. The sky through the
uncurtained window looked dark and black--would this night never have
an end? Had the sun gone down for ever, and would the world at last
awaken to a general sense of everlasting night?
Then she felt as if she ought to get up, and go and see how the
troubled sleeper in yonder bed was struggling through his illness;
but she could not remember who the sleeper was, and she shrunk
from seeing some phantom-face on the pillow, such as now began to
haunt the dark corners of the room, and look at her, jibbering and
mowing as they looked. So she covered her face again, and sank into
a whirling stupor of sense and feeling. By-and-by she heard her
fellow-watcher stirring, and a dull wonder stole over her as to what
he was doing; but the heavy languor pressed her down, and kept her
still. At last she heard the words, "Come here," and listlessly
obeyed the command. She had to steady herself in the rocking chamber
before she could walk to the bed by which Mr Davis stood; but
the effort to do so roused her, and, although conscious of an
oppressive headache, she viewed with sudden and clear vision all the
circumstances of her present position. Mr Davis was near the head of
the bed, holding the night-lamp high, and shading it with his hand,
that it might not disturb the sick person, who lay with his face
towards them, in feeble exhaustion, but with every sign that the
violence of the fever had left him. It so happened that the rays of
the lamp fell bright and full upon Ruth's countenance, as she stood
with her crimson lips parted with the hurrying breath, and the
fever-flush brilliant on her cheeks. Her eyes were wide open, and
their pupils distended. She looked on the invalid in silence, and
hardly understood why Mr Davis had summoned her there.
"Don't you see the change? He is better!--the crisis is past!"
But she did not speak; her looks were riveted on his softly-unclosing
eyes, which met hers as they opened languidly. She could not stir
or speak. She was held fast by that gaze of his, in which a faint
recognition dawned, and grew to strength.
He murmured some words. They strained their sense to hear. He
repeated them even lower than before; but this time they caught what
he was saying.
"Where are the water-lilies? Where are the lilies in her hair?"
Mr Davis drew Ruth away.
"He is still rambling," said he, "but the fever has left him."
The grey dawn was now filling the room with its cold light; was it
that made Ruth's cheek so deadly pale? Could that call out the wild
entreaty of her look, as if imploring help against some cruel foe
that held her fast, and was wrestling with her Spirit of Life? She
held Mr Davis's arm. If she had let it go, she would have fallen.
"Take me home," she said, and fainted dead away.
Mr Davis carried her out of the chamber, and sent the groom to keep
watch by his master. He ordered a fly to convey her to Mr Benson's,
and lifted her in when it came, for she was still half unconscious.
It was he who carried her upstairs to her room, where Miss Benson and
Sally undressed and laid her in her bed.
He awaited their proceedings in Mr Benson's study. When Mr Benson
came in, Mr Davis said:
"Don't blame me. Don't add to my self-reproach. I have killed her. I
was a cruel fool to let her go. Don't speak to me."
"It may not be so bad," said Mr Benson, himself needing comfort in
that shock. "She may recover. She surely will recover. I believe she
will."
"No, no! she won't. But by ---- she shall, if I can save her." Mr
Davis looked defiantly at Mr Benson, as if he were Fate. "I tell you
she shall recover, or else I am a murderer. What business had I to
take her to nurse him--"
He was cut short by Sally's entrance and announcement that Ruth was
now prepared to see him.
From that time forward Mr Davis devoted all his leisure, his skill,
his energy, to save her. He called on the rival surgeon to beg him
to undertake the management of Mr Donne's recovery, saying, with his
usual self-mockery, "I could not answer it to Mr Cranworth if I had
brought his opponent round, you know, when I had had such a fine
opportunity in my power. Now, with your patients, and general Radical
interest, it will be rather a feather in your cap; for he may want a
good deal of care yet, though he is getting on famously--so rapidly,
in fact, that it's a strong temptation to me to throw him back--a
relapse, you know."
The other surgeon bowed gravely, apparently taking Mr Davis in
earnest, but certainly very glad of the job thus opportunely thrown
in his way. In spite of Mr Davis's real and deep anxiety about Ruth,
he could not help chuckling over his rival's literal interpretation
of all he had said.
"To be sure, what fools men are! I don't know why one should watch
and strive to keep them in the world. I have given this fellow
something to talk about confidentially to all his patients; I wonder
how much stronger a dose the man would have swallowed! I must
begin to take care of my practice for that lad yonder. Well-a-day!
well-a-day! What was this sick fine gentleman sent here for, that she
should run a chance of her life for him? or why was he sent into the
world at all, for that matter?"
Indeed, however much Mr Davis might labour with all his professional
skill--however much they might all watch--and pray--and weep--it was
but too evident that Ruth "home must go, and take her wages." Poor,
poor Ruth!
It might be that, utterly exhausted by watching and nursing, first
in the hospital, and then by the bedside of her former lover, the
power of her constitution was worn out; or, it might be, her gentle,
pliant sweetness, but she displayed no outrage or discord even in her
delirium. There she lay in the attic-room in which her baby had been
born, her watch over him kept, her confession to him made; and now
she was stretched on the bed in utter helplessness, softly gazing at
vacancy with her open, unconscious eyes, from which all the depth of
their meaning had fled, and all they told was of a sweet, child-like
insanity within. The watchers could not touch her with their
sympathy, or come near her in her dim world;--so, mutely, but looking
at each other from time to time with tearful eyes, they took a poor
comfort from the one evident fact that, though lost and gone astray,
she was happy and at peace. They had never heard her sing; indeed,
the simple art which her mother had taught her, had died, with her
early joyousness, at that dear mother's death. But now she sang
continually, very soft and low. She went from one childish ditty to
another without let or pause, keeping a strange sort of time with
her pretty fingers, as they closed and unclosed themselves upon the
counterpane. She never looked at any one with the slightest glimpse
of memory or intelligence in her face; no, not even at Leonard.
Her strength faded day by day; but she knew it not. Her sweet lips
were parted to sing, even after the breath and the power to do so had
left her, and her fingers fell idly on the bed. Two days she lingered
thus--all but gone from them, and yet still there.
They stood around her bedside, not speaking, or sighing, or moaning;
they were too much awed by the exquisite peacefulness of her look
for that. Suddenly she opened wide her eyes, and gazed intently
forwards, as if she saw some happy vision, which called out a lovely,
rapturous, breathless smile. They held their very breaths.
"I see the Light coming," said she. "The Light is coming," she said.
And, raising herself slowly, she stretched out her arms, and then
fell back, very still for evermore.
They did not speak. Mr Davis was the first to utter a word.
"It is over!" said he. "She is dead!"
Out rang through the room the cry of Leonard:
"Mother! mother! mother! You have not left me alone! You will not
leave me alone! You are not dead! Mother! Mother!"
They had pent in his agony of apprehension till then, that no wail of
her child might disturb her ineffable calm. But now there was a cry
heard through the house, of one refusing to be comforted: "Mother!
Mother!"
But Ruth lay dead.