But the experiment does not succeed. The laws of God decree that man
shall purchase woman, that woman shall give herself to man, for other
coin than that of good sense. Good sense is not a legal tender in the
marriage mart. Men and women who enter therein with only sense in their
purse have no right to complain if, on reaching home, they find they
have concluded an unsatisfactory bargain.
John Ingerfield, when he asked Anne Singleton to be his wife, felt no
more love for her than he felt for any of the other sumptuous household
appointments he was purchasing about the same time, and made no
pretence of doing so. Nor, had he done so, would she have believed him;
for Anne Singleton has learned much in her twenty-two summers and
winters, and knows that love is only a meteor in life’s sky, and that
the true lodestar of this world is gold. Anne Singleton has had her
romance and buried it deep down in her deep nature and over its grave,
to keep its ghost from rising, has piled the stones of indifference and
contempt, as many a woman has done before and since. Once upon a time
Anne Singleton sat dreaming out a story. It was a story old as the
hills—older than some of them—but to her, then, it was quite new and
very wonderful. It contained all the usual stock material common to
such stories: the lad and the lass, the plighted troth, the richer
suitors, the angry parents, the love that was worth braving all the
world for. One day into this dream there fell from the land of the
waking a letter, a poor, pitiful letter: “You know I love you and only
you,” it ran; “my heart will always be yours till I die. But my father
threatens to stop my allowance, and, as you know, I have nothing of my
own except debts. Some would call her handsome, but how can I think of
her beside you? Oh, why was money ever let to come into the world to
curse us?” with many other puzzling questions of a like character, and
much severe condemnation of Fate and Heaven and other parties
generally, and much self-commiseration.
Anne Singleton took long to read the letter. When she had finished it,
and had read it through again, she rose, and, crushing it her hand,
flung it in the fire with a laugh, and as the flame burnt up and died
away felt that her life had died with it, not knowing that bruised
hearts can heal.
So when John Ingerfield comes wooing, and speaks to her no word of love
but only of money, she feels that here at last is a genuine voice that
she can trust. Love of the lesser side of life is still left to her. It
will be pleasant to be the wealthy mistress of a fine house, to give
great receptions, to exchange the secret poverty of home for display
and luxury. These things are offered to her on the very terms she would
have suggested herself. Accompanied by love she would have refused
them, knowing she could give none in return.
But a woman finds it one thing not to desire affection and another
thing not to possess it. Day by day the atmosphere of the fine house in
Bloomsbury grows cold and colder about her heart. Guests warm it at
times for a few hours, then depart, leaving it chillier than before.
For her husband she attempts to feel indifference, but living creatures
joined together cannot feel indifference for each other. Even two dogs
in a leash are compelled to think of one another. A man and wife must
love or hate, like or dislike, in degree as the bond connecting them is
drawn tight or allowed to hang slack. By mutual desire their chains of
wedlock have been fastened as loosely as respect for security will
permit, with the happy consequence that her aversion to him does not
obtrude itself beyond the limits of politeness.
Her part of the contract she faithfully fulfils, for the Singletons
also have their code of honour. Her beauty, her tact, her charm, her
influence, are devoted to his service—to the advancement of his
position, the furtherance of his ambition. Doors that would otherwise
remain closed she opens to him. Society, that would otherwise pass by
with a sneer, sits round his table. His wishes and pleasures are hers.
In all things she yields him wifely duty, seeks to render herself
agreeable to him, suffers in silence his occasional caresses. Whatever
was implied in the bargain, that she will perform to the letter.
He, on his side, likewise performs his part with businesslike
conscientiousness—nay, seeing that the pleasing of her brings no
personal gratification to himself—not without generosity. He is ever
thoughtful of and deferential to her, awarding her at all times an
unvarying courteousness that is none the less sincere for being
studied. Her every expressed want is gratified, her every known
distaste respected. Conscious of his presence being an oppression to
her, he is even careful not to intrude it upon her oftener than is
necessary.
At times he asks himself, somewhat pertinently, what he has gained by
marriage—wonders whether this social race was quite the most
interesting game he could have elected to occupy his leisure—wonders
whether, after all, he would not have been happier over his
counting-house than in these sumptuous, glittering rooms, where he
always seems, and feels himself to be, the uninvited guest.
The only feeling that a closer intimacy has created in him for his wife
is that of indulgent contempt. As there is no equality between man and
woman, so there can be no respect. She is a different being. He must
either look up to her as superior to himself, or down upon her as
inferior. When a man does the former he is more or less in love, and
love to John Ingerfield is an unknown emotion. Her beauty, her charm,
her social tact—even while he makes use of them for his own purposes,
he despises as the weapons of a weak nature.
So in their big, cold mansion John Ingerfield and Anne, his wife, sit
far apart, strangers to one another, neither desiring to know the other
nearer.
About his business he never speaks to her, and she never questions him.
To compensate for the slight shrinkage of time he is able to devote to
it, he becomes more strict and exacting; grows a harsher master to his
people, a sterner creditor, a greedier dealer, squeezing the uttermost
out of every one, feverish to grow richer, so that he may spend more
upon the game that day by day he finds more tiresome and uninteresting.
And the piled-up casks upon his wharves increase and multiply; and on
the dirty river his ships and barges lie in ever-lengthening lines; and
round his greasy cauldrons sweating, witch-like creatures swarm in
ever-denser numbers, stirring oil and tallow into gold.
Until one summer, from its nest in the far East, there flutters
westward a foul thing. Hovering over Limehouse suburb, seeing it
crowded and unclean, liking its fetid smell, it settles down upon it.
Typhus is the creature’s name. At first it lurks there unnoticed,
battening upon the rich, rank food it finds around it, until, grown too
big to hide longer, it boldly shows its hideous head, and the white
face of Terror runs swiftly through alley and street, crying as it
runs, forces itself into John Ingerfield’s counting-house, and tells
its tale. John Ingerfield sits for a while thinking. Then he mounts his
horse and rides home at as hard a pace as the condition of the streets
will allow. In the hall he meets Anne going out, and stops her.
“Don’t come too near me,” he says quietly. “Typhus fever has broken out
at Limehouse, and they say one can communicate it, even without having
it oneself. You had better leave London for a few weeks. Go down to
your father’s: I will come and fetch you when it is all over.”
He passes her, giving her a wide berth, and goes upstairs, where he
remains for some minutes in conversation with his valet. Then, coming
down, he remounts and rides off again.
After a little while Anne goes up into his room. His man is kneeling in
the middle of the floor, packing a valise.
“Where are you to take it?” she asks.
“Down to the wharf, ma’am,” answers the man: “Mr. Ingerfield is going
to be there for a day or two.”
Then Anne sits in the great empty drawing-room, and takes _her_ turn at
thinking.
John Ingerfield finds, on his return to Limehouse, that the evil has
greatly increased during the short time he has been away. Fanned by
fear and ignorance, fed by poverty and dirt, the scourge is spreading
through the district like a fire. Long smouldering in secret, it has
now burst forth at fifty different points at once. Not a street, not a
court but has its “case.” Over a dozen of John’s hands are down with it
already. Two more have sunk prostrate beside their work within the last
hour. The panic grows grotesque. Men and women tear their clothes off,
looking to see if they have anywhere upon them a rash or a patch of
mottled skin, find that they have, or imagine that they have, and rush,
screaming, half-undressed, into the street. Two men, meeting in a
narrow passage, both rush back, too frightened to pass each other. A
boy stoops down and scratches his leg—not an action that under ordinary
circumstances would excite much surprise in that neighbourhood. In an
instant there is a wild stampede from the room, the strong trampling on
the weak in their eagerness to escape.
These are not the days of organised defence against disease. There are
kind hearts and willing hands in London town, but they are not yet
closely enough banded together to meet a swift foe such as this. There
are hospitals and charities galore, but these are mostly in the City,
maintained by the City Fathers for the exclusive benefit of poor
citizens and members of the guilds. The few free hospitals are already
over-crowded and ill-prepared. Squalid, outlying Limehouse, belonging
to nowhere, cared for by nobody, must fight for itself.
John Ingerfield calls the older men together, and with their help
attempts to instil some sense and reason into his terrified people.
Standing on the step of his counting-house, and addressing as many of
them as are not too scared to listen, he tells them of the danger of
fear and of the necessity for calmness and courage.
“We must face and fight this thing like men,” he cries, in that deep,
din-conquering voice that has served the Ingerfields in good stead on
many a steel-swept field, on many a storm-struck sea; “there must be no
cowardly selfishness, no faint-hearted despair. If we’ve got to die
we’ll die; but please God we’ll live. Anyhow, we will stick together,
and help each other. I mean to stop here with you, and do what I can
for you. None of my people shall want.”
John Ingerfield ceases, and as the vibrations of his strong tones roll
away a sweet voice from beside him rises clear and firm:—
“I have come down to be with you also, and to help my husband. I shall
take charge of the nursing and tending of your sick, and I hope I shall
be of some real use to you. My husband and I are so sorry for you in
your trouble. I know you will be brave and patient. We will all do our
best, and be hopeful.”
He turns, half expecting to see only the empty air and to wonder at the
delirium in his brain. She puts her hand in his, and their eyes meet;
and in that moment, for the first time in their lives, these two see
one another.
They speak no word. There is no opportunity for words. There is work to
be done, and done quickly, and Anne grasps it with the greed of a woman
long hungry for the joy of doing. As John watches her moving swiftly
and quietly through the bewildered throng, questioning, comforting,
gently compelling, the thought comes to him, Ought he to allow her to
be here, risking her life for his people? followed by the thought, How
is he going to prevent it? For in this hour the knowledge is born
within him that Anne is not his property; that he and she are fellow
hands taking their orders from the same Master; that though it be well
for them to work together and help each other, they must not hinder one
another.
As yet John does not understand all this. The idea is new and strange
to him. He feels as the child in a fairy story on suddenly discovering
that the trees and flowers he has passed by carelessly a thousand times
can think and talk. Once he whispers to her of the labour and the
danger, but she answers simply, “They are my people too, John: it is my
work”; and he lets her have her way.
Anne has a true woman’s instinct for nursing, and her strong sense
stands her in stead of experience. A glance into one or two of the
squalid dens where these people live tells her that if her patients are
to be saved they must be nursed away from their own homes; and she
determines to convert the large counting-house—a long, lofty room at
the opposite end of the wharf to the refinery—into a temporary
hospital. Selecting some seven or eight of the most reliable women to
assist her, she proceeds to prepare it for its purpose. Ledgers might
be volumes of poetry, bills of lading mere street ballads, for all the
respect that is shown to them. The older clerks stand staring aghast,
feeling that the end of all things is surely at hand, and that the
universe is rushing down into space, until, their idleness being
detected, they are themselves promptly impressed for the sacrilegious
work, and made to assist in the demolition of their own temple.
Anne’s commands are spoken very sweetly, and are accompanied by the
sweetest of smiles; but they are nevertheless commands, and somehow it
does not occur to any one to disobey them. John—stern, masterful,
authoritative John, who has never been approached with anything more
dictatorial than a timid request since he left Merchant Taylors’ School
nineteen years ago, who would have thought that something had suddenly
gone wrong with the laws of Nature if he had been—finds himself
hurrying along the street on his way to a druggist’s shop, slackens his
pace an instant to ask himself why and wherefore he is doing so,
recollects that he was told to do so and to make haste back, marvels
who could have dared to tell him to do anything and to make haste back,
remembers that it was Anne, is not quite sure what to think about it,
but hurries on. He “makes haste back,” is praised for having been so
quick, and feels pleased with himself; is sent off again in another
direction, with instructions what to say when he gets there. He starts
off (he is becoming used to being ordered about now). Halfway there
great alarm seizes him, for on attempting to say over the message to
himself, to be sure that he has it quite right, he discovers he has
forgotten it. He pauses, nervous and excited; cogitates as to whether
it will be safe for him to concoct a message of his own, weighs
anxiously the chances—supposing that he does so—of being found out.
Suddenly, to his intense surprise and relief, every word of what he was
told to say comes back to him; and he hastens on, repeating it over and
over to himself as he walks, lest it should escape him again.
And then a few hundred yards farther on there occurs one of the most
extraordinary events that has ever happened in that street before or
since: John Ingerfield laughs.
John Ingerfield, of Lavender Wharf, after walking two-thirds of Creek
Lane, muttering to himself with his eyes on the ground, stops in the
middle of the road and laughs; and one small boy, who tells the story
to his dying day, sees him and hears him, and runs home at the top of
his speed with the wonderful news, and is conscientiously slapped by
his mother for telling lies.
All that day Anne works like a heroine, John helping her, and
occasionally getting in the way. By night she has her little hospital
prepared and three beds already up and occupied; and, all now done that
can be done, she and John go upstairs to his old rooms above the
counting-house.
John ushers her into them with some misgiving, for by contrast with the
house at Bloomsbury they are poor and shabby. He places her in the
arm-chair near the fire, begging her to rest quiet, and then assists
his old housekeeper, whose wits, never of the strongest, have been
scared by the day’s proceeding, to lay the meal.
Anne’s eyes follow him as he moves about the room. Perhaps here, where
all the real part of his life has been passed, he is more his true self
than amid the unfamiliar surroundings of fashion; perhaps this simpler
frame shows him to greater advantage; but Anne wonders how it is she
has never noticed before that he is a well-set, handsome man. Nor,
indeed, is he so very old-looking. Is it a trick of the dim light, or
what? He looks almost young. But why should he not look young, seeing
he is only thirty-six, and at thirty-six a man is in his prime? Anne
wonders why she has always thought of him as an elderly person.
A portrait of one of John’s ancestors hangs over the great
mantelpiece—of that sturdy Captain Ingerfield who fought the King’s
frigate rather than give up one of his people. Anne glances from the
dead face to the living and notes the strong likeness between them.
Through her half-closed eyes she sees the grim old captain hurling back
his message of defiance, and his face is the face she saw a few hours
ago, saying, “I mean to stop here with you and do what I can for you.
None of my people shall want.”
John is placing a chair for her at the table, and the light from the
candles falls upon him. She steals another glance at his face—a strong,
stern, handsome face, capable of becoming a noble face. Anne wonders if
it has ever looked down tenderly at anyone; feels a sudden fierce pain
at the thought; dismisses the thought as impossible; wonders,
nevertheless, how tenderness would suit it; thinks she would like to
see a look of tenderness upon it, simply out of curiosity; wonders if
she ever will.
She rouses herself from her reverie as John, with a smile, tells her
supper is ready, and they seat themselves opposite each other, an odd
air of embarrassment pervading.
Day by day their work grows harder; day by day the foe grows stronger,
fiercer, more all-conquering; and day by day, fighting side by side
against it, John Ingerfield and Anne, his wife, draw closer to each
other. On the battle-field of life we learn the worth of strength. Anne
feels it good, when growing weary, to glance up and find him near her;
feels it good, amid the troubled babel round her, to hear the deep,
strong music of his voice.
And John, watching Anne’s fair figure moving to and fro among the
stricken and the mourning; watching her fair, fluttering hands, busy
with their holy work, her deep, soul-haunting eyes, changeful with the
light and shade of tenderness; listening to her sweet, clear voice,
laughing with the joyous, comforting the comfortless, gently
commanding, softly pleading, finds creeping into his brain strange new
thoughts concerning women—concerning this one woman in particular.
One day, rummaging over an old chest, he comes across a coloured
picture-book of Bible stories. He turns the torn pages fondly,
remembering the Sunday afternoons of long ago. At one picture, wherein
are represented many angels, he pauses; for in one of the younger
angels of the group—one not quite so severe of feature as her
sisters—he fancies he can trace resemblance to Anne. He lingers long
over it. Suddenly there rushes through his brain the thought, How good
to stoop and kiss the sweet feet of such a woman! and, thinking it, he
blushes like a boy.
So from the soil of human suffering spring the flowers of human love
and joy, and from the flowers there fall the seeds of infinite pity for
human pain, God shaping all things to His ends.
Thinking of Anne, John’s face grows gentler, his hand kinder; dreaming
of him, her heart grows stronger, deeper, fuller. Every available room
in the warehouse has been turned into a ward, and the little hospital
is open free to all, for John and Anne feel that the whole world are
their people. The piled-up casks are gone—shipped to Woolwich and
Gravesend, bundled anywhere out of the way, as though oil and tallow
and the gold they can be stirred into were matters of small moment in
this world, not to be thought of beside such a thing as the helping of
a human brother in sore strait.
All the labour of the day seems light to them, looking forward to the
hour when they sit together in John’s old shabby dining-room above the
counting-house. Yet a looker-on might imagine such times dull to them;
for they are strangely shy of one another, strangely sparing of
words—fearful of opening the flood-gates of speech, feeling the
pressure of the pent-up thought.
One evening, John, throwing out words, not as a sop to the necessity
for talk, but as a bait to catch Anne’s voice, mentions girdle-cakes,
remembers that his old housekeeper used to be famous for the making of
them, and wonders if she has forgotten the art.
Anne, answering tremulously, as though girdle-cakes were a somewhat
delicate topic, claims to be a successful amateur of them herself.
John, having been given always to understand that the talent for them
was exceedingly rare, and one usually hereditary, respectfully doubts
Anne’s capabilities, deferentially suggesting that she is thinking of
scones. Anne indignantly repudiates the insinuation, knows quite well
the difference between girdle-cakes and scones, offers to prove her
powers by descending into the kitchen and making some then and there,
if John will accompany her and find the things for her.
John accepts the challenge, and, guiding Anne with one shy, awkward
hand, while holding aloft a candle in the other, leads the way. It is
past ten o’clock, and the old housekeeper is in bed. At each creaking
stair they pause, to listen if the noise has awakened her; then,
finding all silent, creep forward again, with suppressed laughter,
wondering with alarm, half feigned, half real, what the prim,
methodical dame would say were she to come down and catch them.
They reach the kitchen, thanks more to the suggestions of a friendly
cat than to John’s acquaintanceship with the geography of his own
house; and Anne rakes together the fire and clears the table for her
work. What possible use John is to her—what need there was for her
stipulating that he should accompany her, Anne might find it difficult,
if examined, to explain satisfactorily. As for his “finding the things”
for her, he has not the faintest notion where they are, and possesses
no natural aptitude for discovery. Told to find flour, he industriously
searches for it in the dresser drawers; sent for the rolling-pin—the
nature and characteristics of rolling-pins being described to him for
his guidance—he returns, after a prolonged absence, with the copper
stick. Anne laughs at him; but really it would seem as though she
herself were almost as stupid, for not until her hands are covered with
flour does it occur to her that she has not taken that preliminary step
in all cooking operations of rolling up her sleeves.
She holds out her arms to John, first one and then the other, asking
him sweetly if he minds doing it for her. John is very slow and clumsy,
but Anne stands very patient. Inch by inch he peels the black sleeve
from the white round arm. Hundreds of times must he have seen those
fair arms, bare to the shoulder, sparkling with jewels; but never
before has he seen their wondrous beauty. He longs to clasp them round
his neck, yet is fearful lest his trembling fingers touching them as he
performs his tantalising task may offend her. Anne thanks him, and
apologises for having given him so much trouble, and he murmurs some
meaningless reply, and stands foolishly silent, watching her.
Anne seems to find one hand sufficient for her cake-making, for the
other rests idly on the table—very near to one of John’s, as she would
see were not her eyes so intent upon her work. How the impulse came to
him, where he—grave, sober, business-man John—learnt such story-book
ways can never be known; but in one instant he is down on both knees,
smothering the floury hand with kisses, and the next moment Anne’s arms
are round his neck and her lips against his, and the barrier between
them is swept away, and the deep waters of their love rush together.
With that kiss they enter a new life whereinto one may not follow them.
One thinks it must have been a life made strangely beautiful by
self-forgetfulness, strangely sweet by mutual devotion—a life too
ideal, perhaps, to have remained for long undimmed by the mists of
earth.
They who remember them at that time speak of them in hushed tones, as
one speaks of visions. It would almost seem as though from their faces
in those days there shone a radiance, as though in their voices dwelt a
tenderness beyond the tenderness of man.
They seem never to rest, never to weary. Day and night, through that
little stricken world, they come and go, bearing healing and peace,
till at last the plague, like some gorged beast of prey, slinks slowly
back towards its lair, and men raise their heads and breathe.
One afternoon, returning from a somewhat longer round than usual, John
feels a weariness creeping into his limbs, and quickens his step, eager
to reach home and rest. Anne, who has been up all the previous night,
is asleep, and not wishing to disturb her, he goes into the dining-room
and sits down in the easy chair before the fire. The room strikes cold.
He stirs the logs, but they give out no greater heat. He draws his
chair right in front of them, and sits leaning over them with his feet
on the hearth and his hands outstretched towards the blaze; yet he
still shivers.
Twilight fills the room and deepens into dusk. He wonders listlessly
how it is that Time seems to be moving with such swift strides. After a
while he hears a voice close to him, speaking in a slow, monotonous
tone—a voice curiously familiar to him, though he cannot tell to whom
it belongs. He does not turn his head, but sits listening to it
drowsily. It is talking about tallow: one hundred and ninety-four casks
of tallow, and they must all stand one inside the other. It cannot be
done, the voice complains pathetically. They will not go inside each
other. It is no good pushing them. See! they only roll out again.
The voice grows wearily fretful. Oh! why do they persist when they see
it is impossible? What fools they all are!
Suddenly he recollects the voice, and starts up and stares wildly about
him, trying to remember where he is. With a fierce straining of his
will he grips the brain that is slipping away from him, and holds it.
As soon as he feels sure of himself he steals out of the room and down
the stairs.
In the hall he stands listening; the house is very silent. He goes to
the head of the stairs leading to the kitchen and calls softly to the
old housekeeper, and she comes up to him, panting and grunting as she
climbs each step. Keeping some distance from her, he asks in a whisper
where Anne is. The woman answers that she is in the hospital.
“Tell her I have been called away suddenly on business,” he says,
speaking in quick, low tones: “I shall be away for some days. Tell her
to leave here and return home immediately. They can do without her here
now. Tell her to go back home at once. I will join her there.”
He moves toward the door but stops and faces round again.
“Tell her I beg and entreat her not to stop in this place an hour
longer. There is nothing to keep her now. It is all over: there is
nothing that cannot be done by any one. Tell her she must go home—this
very night. Tell her if she loves me to leave this place at once.”
The woman, a little bewildered by his vehemence, promises, and
disappears down the stairs. He takes his hat and cloak from the chair
on which he had thrown them, and turns once more to cross the hall. As
he does so, the door opens and Anne enters.
He darts back into the shadow, squeezing himself against the wall. Anne
calls to him laughingly, then, as he does not answer, with a frightened
accent:
“John,—John, dear. Was not that you? Are not you there?”
He holds his breath, and crouches still closer into the dark corner;
and Anne, thinking she must have been mistaken in the dim light, passes
him and goes upstairs.
Then he creeps stealthily to the door, lets himself out and closes it
softly behind him.
After the lapse of a few minutes the old housekeeper plods upstairs and
delivers John’s message. Anne, finding it altogether incomprehensible,
subjects the poor dame to severe examination, but fails to elicit
anything further. What is the meaning of it? What “business” can have
compelled John, who for ten weeks has never let the word escape his
lips, to leave her like this—without a word! without a kiss! Then
suddenly she remembers the incident of a few moments ago, when she had
called to him, thinking she saw him, and he did not answer; and the
whole truth strikes her full in the heart.
She refastens the bonnet-strings she has been slowly untying, and goes
down and out into the wet street.
She makes her way rapidly to the house of the only doctor resident in
the neighbourhood—a big, brusque-mannered man, who throughout these
terrible two months has been their chief stay and help. He meets her on
her entrance with an embarrassed air that tells its own tale, and at
once renders futile his clumsy attempts at acting:—
How should he know where John is? Who told her John had the fever—a
great, strong, hulking fellow like that? She has been working too hard,
and has got fever on the brain. She must go straight back home, or she
will be having it herself. She is more likely to take it than John.
Anne, waiting till he has finished jerking out sentences while stamping
up and down the room, says gently, taking no notice of his denials,—“If
you will not tell me I must find out from some one else—that is all.”
Then, her quick eyes noting his momentary hesitation, she lays her
little hand on his rough paw, and, with the shamelessness of a woman
who loves deeply, wheedles everything out of him that he has promised
to keep secret.
He stops her, however, as she is leaving the room. “Don’t go in to him
now,” he says; “he will worry about you. Wait till to-morrow.”
So, while John lies counting endless casks of tallow, Anne sits by his
side, tending her last “case.”
Often in his delirium he calls her name, and she takes his fevered hand
in hers and holds it, and he falls asleep.
Each morning the doctor comes and looks at him, asks a few questions
and gives a few commonplace directions, but makes no comment. It would
be idle his attempting to deceive her.
The days move slowly through the darkened room. Anne watches his thin
hands grow thinner, his sunken eyes grow bigger; yet remains strangely
calm, almost contented.
Very near the end there comes an hour when John wakes as from a dream,
and remembers all things clearly.
He looks at her half gratefully, half reproachfully.
“Anne, why are you here?” he asks, in a low, laboured voice. “Did they
not give you my message?”
For answer she turns her deep eyes upon him.
“Would you have gone away and left me here to die?” she questions him,
with a faint smile.
She bends her head down nearer to him, so that her soft hair falls
about his face.
“Our lives were one, dear,” she whispers to him. “I could not have
lived without you; God knew that. We shall be together always.”
She kisses him, and laying his head upon her breast, softly strokes it
as she might a child’s; and he puts his weak arms around her.
Later on she feels them growing cold about her, and lays him gently
back upon the bed, looks for the last time into his eyes, then draws
the lids down over them.
His people ask that they may bury him in the churchyard hard by, so
that he may always be among them; and, Anne consenting, they do all
things needful with their own hands, wishful that no unloving labour
may be mingled with their work. They lay him close to the porch, where,
going in and out the church, their feet will pass near to him; and one
among them who is cunning with the graver’s chisel shapes the stone.
At the head he carves in bas-relief the figure of the good Samaritan
tending the brother fallen by the way, and underneath the letters, “In
Remembrance of John Ingerfield.”
He thinks to put a verse of Scripture immediately after; but the gruff
doctor says, “Better leave a space, in case you want to add another
name.”
So the stone remains a little while unfinished; till the same hand
carves thereon, a few weeks later, “And of Anne, his Wife.”