There was nothing now for me to do but to devote myself wholly to my
mother.
I made the malady under which she was slowly sinking my special study.
There remained a spark of hope yet in my heart that I might by diligent,
intense, unflagging search, discover some remedy yet untried, or perhaps
unthought of. I succeeded only in alleviating her sufferings. I pored
over every work which treated of the same class of diseases. At last in
an old, almost-forgotten book, I came upon a simple medicament, which,
united with appliances made available by modern science, gave her
sensible relief, and without doubt tended to prolong her shortening
days. The agonizing thought haunted me that, had I come upon this
discovery at an earlier stage of her illness, her life might have been
spared for many years.
But it was too late now. She suffered less, and her spirits grew calm
and even. We even ventured, at her own wish, to spend a week together in
Sark, she and I--a week never to be forgotten, full of exquisite pain
and exquisite enjoyment to us both. We revisited almost every place
where we had been many years before, while I was but a child and she was
still young and strong. Tardif rowed us out in his boat under the
cliffs. Then we came home again, and she sank rapidly, as if the flame
of life had been burning too quickly in the breath of those innocent
pleasures.
Now she began to be troubled again with the dread of leaving me alone
and comfortless. There is no passage in Christ's farewell to His
disciples which, touches me so much as those words, "I will not leave
you comfortless; I will come unto you." My mother could not promise to
come back to me, and her dying vision looked sorrowfully into the future
for me. Sometimes she put her fear into words--faltering and foreboding
words; but it was always in her eyes, as they followed me wherever I
went with a mute, pathetic anxiety. No assurances of mine, no assumed
cheerfulness and fortitude could remove it. I even tried to laugh at
it, but my laugh only brought the tears into her eyes. Neither reason
nor ridicule could root it out--a root of bitterness indeed.
"Martin," she said, in her failing, plaintive voice, one evening when
Julia and I were both sitting with her, for we met now without any
regard to etiquette--"Martin, Julia and I have been talking about your
future life while you were away."
Julia's face flushed a little. She was seated on a footstool by my
mother's sofa, and looked softer and gentler than I had ever seen her
look. She had been nursing my mother with a single-hearted,
self-forgetful devotion that had often touched me, and had knit us to
one another by the common bond of an absorbing interest. Certainly I had
never leaned upon or loved Julia as I was doing now.
"There is no chance of your ever marrying Olivia now," continued my
mother, faintly, "and it is a sin for you to cherish your love for her.
That is a very plain duty, Martin."
"Such love as I cherish for Olivia will hurt neither her nor myself," I
answered. "I would not wrong her by a thought."
"But she can never be your wife," she said.
"I never think of her as my wife," I replied; "but I can no more cease
to love her than I can cease to breathe. She has become part of my life,
mother."
"Still, time and change must make a difference," she said. "You will
realize your loneliness when I am gone, though you cannot before. I want
to have some idea of what you will be doing in the years to come, before
we meet again. If I think at all, I shall be thinking of you, and I do
long to have some little notion. You will not mind me forming one poor
little plan for you once more, my boy?"
"No," I answered, smiling to keep back the tears that were ready to
start to my eyes.
"I scarcely know how to tell you," she said. "You must not be angry or
offended with us. But my dear Julia has promised me, out of pure love
and pity for me, you know, that if ever--how can I express it?--if you
ever wish you could return to the old plans--it may be a long time
first, but if you conquered your love for Olivia, and could go back, and
wished to go back to the time before you knew her--Julia will forget all
that has come between. Julia would consent to marry you if you asked her
to be your wife. O Martin, I should die so much happier if I thought you
would ever marry Julia, and go to live in the house I helped to get
ready for you!"
Julia's head had dropped upon my mother's shoulder, and her face was
hidden, while my mother's eyes sought mine beseechingly. I was
irresistibly overcome by this new proof of her love for both of us, for
I knew well what a struggle it must have been to her to gain the mastery
over her proper pride and just resentment. I knelt down beside her,
clasping her hand and my mother's in my own.
"Mother, Julia," I said, "I promise that if ever I can be true in heart
and soul to a wife, I will ask Julia to become mine. But it may be many
years hence; I dare not say how long. God alone knows how dear Olivia is
to me. And Julia is too good to waste herself upon so foolish a fellow.
She may change, and see some one she can love better."
"That is nonsense, Martin," answered Julia, with a ring of the old
sharpness in her tone; "at my age I am not likely to fall in love
again.--Don't be afraid, aunt; I shall not change, and I will take care
of Martin. His home is ready, and he will come back to me some day, and
it will all be as you wish."
I know that promise of ours comforted her, for she never lamented over
my coming solitude again.
I have very little more I can say about her. When I look back and try to
write more fully of those last, lingering days, my heart fails me. The
darkened room, the muffled sounds, the loitering, creeping, yet too
rapid hours! I had no time to think of Julia, of Olivia, or of myself; I
was wrapped up in her.
One evening--we were quite alone--she called me to come closer to her,
in that faint, far-off voice of hers, which seemed already to be
speaking from another world. I was sitting so near to her that I could
touch her with my hand, but she wanted me nearer--with my arm across
her, and my cheek against hers.
"My boy," she whispered, "I am going."
"Not yet, mother," I cried; "not yet! I have so much to say. Stay with
me a day or two longer."
"If I could," she murmured, every word broken with her panting breath,
"I would stay with you forever! Be patient with your father, Martin. Say
good-by for me to him and Julia. Don't stir. Let me die so!"
"You shall not die, mother," I said, passionately.
"There is no pain," she whispered--"no pain at all; it is taken away. I
am only sorry for my boy. What will he do when I am gone? Where are you,
Martin?"
"I am here, mother!" I answered--"close to you. O God! I would go with
you if I could."
Then she lay still for a time, pressing my arm about her with her feeble
fingers. Would she speak to me no more? Had the dearest voice in the
world gone away altogether into that far-off, and, to us, silent country
whither the dying go? Dumb, blind, deaf to _me_? She was breathing yet,
and her heart fluttered faintly against my arm. Would not my mother know
me again?
"O Martin!" she murmured, "there is great love in store for us all! I
did not know how great the love was till now!"
There had been a quicker, more irregular throbbing of her heart as she
spoke. Then--I waited, but there came no other pulsation. Suddenly I
felt as if I also must be dying, for I passed into a state of utter
darkness and unconsciousness.