THE SACRED CULT
When Caroline looked back upon it afterwards, she remembered that dinner
as the most depressing meal of her life. While she ate her food, with
the dutiful determination of the trained nurse who realizes that she is
obliged to keep up her strength, her gaze wandered for diversion to the
soft blues and pinks on the wall. The tapestries were so fresh that she
wondered if they were modern. More than ever the airy figure of Spring,
floating in primrose-coloured draperies through a flowery grove,
reminded her of Angelica. There was the same beauty of line, the same
look of sweetness and grace, the same amber hair softly parted under a
wreath of pale grey-green leaves. The very vagueness of the features,
which left all except the pensive outline to the imagination, seemed to
increase rather than diminish this resemblance.
"Have you ever noticed how much that figure is like Mrs. Blackburn?" she
asked, turning to the housekeeper, for the silence was beginning to
embarrass her. Mary was away and neither Blackburn nor Mrs. Timberlake
had uttered a word during the four short courses, which Patrick served
as noiselessly as if he were eluding an enemy.
Mrs. Timberlake lifted her eyes to the wall. "Yes, it's the living image
of her, if you stand far enough off. I reckon that's why she bought
it."
Blackburn, who was helping himself to coffee, glanced up to remark, "I
forgot to take sugar, Patrick," and when the tray was brought back, he
selected a lump of sugar and broke it evenly in half. If he had heard
the question, there was no hint of it in his manner.
Having finished a pear she had been forcing herself to eat, Caroline
looked inquiringly from Blackburn to Mrs. Timberlake. If only somebody
would speak! If only Mary, with her breezy chatter, would suddenly
return from New York! From a long mirror over the sideboard Caroline's
reflection, very pale, very grave, stared back at her like a face seen
in a fog. "I look like a ghost," she thought. "No wonder they won't
speak to me. After all, they are silent because they can think of
nothing to say." Unlike in everything else, it occurred to her that
Blackburn and the housekeeper had acquired, through dissimilar
experiences, the same relentless sincerity of mind. They might be blunt,
but they were undeniably honest; and contrasted with the false values
and the useless accessories of the house, this honesty impressed her as
entirely admirable. The brooding anxiety in Blackburn's face did not
change even when he smiled at her, and then rose and stood waiting while
she passed before him out of the dining-room. It wasn't, she realized,
that he was deliberately inconsiderate or careless in manner; it was
merely that the idea of pretending had never occurred to him. The
thought was in her mind, when he spoke her name abruptly, and she turned
to find that he had followed her to the staircase.
"Miss Meade, I have to see a man on business for a half hour. I shall be
in the library. If there is any change, will you send for me?"
She bowed. "Yes, I shall be with Letty all the time."
"As soon as Baker goes, I'll come up. I asked the doctor to spend the
night."
"He said he couldn't get here before ten or eleven, but to telephone if
we needed him," broke in Mrs. Timberlake. "Mammy Riah has gone to the
nursery, Miss Meade. Is there any reason why she shouldn't stay?"
"None in the world." As Caroline turned away and ascended the stairs,
she remembered that there had been no question of Angelica. "I wish I
could understand. I wish I knew what it means," she said to herself in
perplexity. She felt smothered by the uncertainty, the coldness, the
reserve of the people about her. Everybody seemed to speak with tight
lips, as if in fear lest something might escape that would help to clear
away the obscurity. It was all so different from The Cedars, where every
thought, every joy, every grief, was lived in a common centre of
experience.
When she opened the nursery door, Mammy Riah glanced up from the fire,
where she was crouching over the low fender. "I'se mortal feared,
honey," she muttered, while she held out her wrinkled palms to the
blaze. She had flung a shawl of crimson wool over her shoulders, and the
splash of barbaric colour, with her high Indian cheek bones and the low
crooning sound of her voice, gave her a resemblance to some Oriental
crooked image of Destiny. As the wind rocked the elms on the lawn, she
shivered, and rolled her glittering eyes in the direction of Letty's
bed.
"Don't give up, Mammy Riah," said Caroline consolingly. "You have nursed
children through worse illnesses than this."
"Yas'm, I know I is, but dar wan' noner dese yer signs dat I see now."
The flames leaped up suddenly, illuminating her stooping figure in the
brilliant shawl with an intense and sinister glow. "I ain't sayin'
nuttin'. Naw'm, I ain' lettin' on dat I'se seen whut I'se seen; but
dar's somebody done thowed a spell on dis place jes ez sho' ez you live.
Dar wuz a ring out yonder on de grass de fust thing dis mawnin', en de
fros' ain' never so much ez teched it. Naw, honey, de fros' hit ain'
never come a nigh hit. Patrick he seed hit, too, but he ain' let on
nuttin' about hit needer, dough de misery is done cotched him in bofe er
his feet."
"You don't really think we're conjured, Mammy?"
Mammy Riah cast a secretive glance over her shoulder, and the dramatic
instinct of her race awoke in every fibre of her body as she made a
vague, mournful gesture over the ashes. "I 'members, honey, I 'members,"
she muttered ominously. Though Caroline had been familiar with such
superstitions from infancy, there was a vividness in these mysteries and
invocations which excited her imagination. She knew, as she assured
herself, that there "wasn't anything in it"; yet, in spite of her
reason, the image of the old woman muttering her incantations over the
fire, haunted her like a prophetic vision of evil.
Turning away she went over to Letty's bed, and laid her small, cool
fingers on the child's pulse.
"Has there been any change?"
Miss Webster shook her head. "She hasn't stirred."
"I don't like her pulse."
"It seemed a little stronger after the last medicine, but it was getting
more rapid a minute ago. That old woman has been talking a lot of
heathen nonsense," she added in a whisper. "She says she found a
conjure ball at the front door this morning. I am from the Middle West,
and it sounds dreadfully uncanny to me."
"I know. She thinks we are conjured. That's just their way. Don't notice
her."
"Well, I hope she isn't going to sit up all night with me." Then, as
Mammy Riah glanced suspiciously round, and began shaking her head until
the shadows danced like witches, Miss Webster added in a more distinct
tone, "Is Mrs. Blackburn still hopeful? She is so sweet that I've quite
lost my heart to her."
"She wasn't at dinner," answered Caroline, and going back to the fire,
she sat down in a chintz-covered chair, with deep arms, and shaded her
eyes from the flames. In some incomprehensible way Mammy Riah and
Blackburn and Angelica, all seemed to hover in spirit round the glowing
hearth.
She was still sitting there, and her hand had not dropped from her eyes,
when Blackburn came in and crossed the floor to a chair at the foot of
Letty's bed. After a whispered word or two with Miss Webster, he opened
a book he had brought with him, and held it under the night lamp on the
candle-stand. When a quarter of an hour had passed Caroline noticed that
he had not turned a page, and that he appeared to be reading and
re-reading the same paragraph, with the dogged determination which was
his general attitude toward adversity. His face was worn and lined, and
there were heavy shadows under his eyes; but he gave her still the
impression of a man who could not be conquered by events. "There is
something in him, some vein of iron, that you can't break, you can't
even bend," she thought. She remembered that her father had once told
her that after the worst had happened you began to take things easier;
and this casual recollection seemed to give her a fresh understanding of
Blackburn. "Father knew life," she thought, "I wonder what he would have
seen in all this? I wonder how he would have liked Mr. Blackburn and his
political theories?" The profile outlined darkly against the shade of
the night lamp, held her gaze in spite of the effort she made, now and
then, to avert it. It was a strong face, and seen in this light, with
the guard of coldness dropped, it was a noble one. Thought and feeling
and idealism were there, and the serenity, not of the philosopher, but
of the soldier. He had fought hard, she saw, and some deep instinct told
her that he had conquered. A phrase read somewhere long ago returned to
her as clearly as if it were spoken aloud. "He had triumphed over
himself." That was the meaning of his look. That was the thought for
which she had been groping. He had triumphed over himself.
She started up quickly, and ran with noiseless steps to the bed, for
Letty had opened her eyes and cried out.
"Is she awake?" asked Blackburn, and closing his book, he moved nearer.
Caroline's hand was on Letty's pulse, and she replied without looking at
him, "She is getting restless. Miss Webster, is it time for the
medicine?"
"It is not quite half-past ten. That must be the doctor now at the
door."
Rising hurriedly, Blackburn went out into the hall, and when he came
back, Doctor Boland was with him. As Caroline left the bedside and went
to the chair by the fire, she heard Blackburn ask sharply, "What does
the change mean, doctor?" and Doctor Boland's soothing response, "Wait
a while. Wait a while." Then he stooped to make an examination, while
Miss Webster prepared a stimulant, and Letty moaned aloud as if she were
frightened. A clock outside was just striking eleven when the doctor
said in a subdued tone, too low to be natural, yet too clear to be a
whisper, "Her pulse is getting weaker." He bent over the bed, and as
Caroline stood up, she saw Letty's face as if it were in a dream--the
flat, soft hair, the waxen forehead, the hard, bright eyes, and the
bluish circle about the small, quivering mouth. Then she crossed the
floor like a white shadow, and in a little while the room sank back into
stillness. Only the dropping of the ashes, and the low crooning of Mammy
Riah, disturbed the almost unendurable silence.
For the first hour, while she sat there, Caroline felt that the
discipline of her training had deserted her, and that she wanted to
scream. Then gradually the stillness absorbed her, and there swept over
her in waves a curious feeling of lightness and buoyancy, as if her mind
had detached itself from her body, and had become a part of the very
pulse and rhythm of the life that surrounded her. She had always lived
vividly, with the complete reaction to the moment of a vital and
sensitive nature; and she became aware presently that her senses were
responsive to every external impression of the room and the night. She
heard the wind in the elms, the whispering of the flames, the muttering
of Mammy Riah, the short, fretful moans that came from Letty's bed; and
all these things seemed a part, not of the world outside, but of her own
inner consciousness. Even the few pale stars shining through the window,
and the brooding look of the room, with its flickering firelight and
its motionless figures, appeared thin and unsubstantial as if they
possessed no objective reality. And out of this vagueness and
evanescence of the things that surrounded her, there stole over her a
certainty, as wild and untenable as a superstition of Mammy Riah's, that
there was a meaning in the smallest incident of the night, and that she
was approaching one of the cross-roads of life.
A coal dropped on the hearth; she looked up with a start, and found
Blackburn's eyes upon her. "Miss Meade, have you the time? My watch has
run down."
She glanced at the little clock on the mantelpiece. "It is exactly one
o'clock."
"Thank you." His gaze passed away from her, and she leaned back in her
chair, while the sense of strangeness and unreality vanished as quickly
as it had come. The old negress was mending the fire with kindling wood,
and every now and then she paused and shook her head darkly at the
flames. "I ain' sayin' nuttin', but I knows, honey," she repeated.
"Hadn't you better go to bed, Mammy Riah?" asked Caroline pityingly.
"Naw'm, I 'ouldn't better git to baid. I'se got ter watch."
"There isn't anything that you can do, and I'll call you, if there is a
change."
But the old woman shook her head stubbornly. "I'se got ter watch,
honey," she replied. "Dat's one er dem ole squitch-owls out dar now.
Ain't he hollerin' jes like he knows sump'n?"
Her mind was plainly wandering, and seeing that persuasion was useless,
Caroline left her to her crooning grief, and went over to Letty's bed.
As she passed the door, it opened without sound, as if it were pushed
by a ghost, and Mrs. Timberlake looked in with the question, "Is she any
better, doctor?"
The doctor raised his head and glanced round at her. "She is no better,"
he answered. "Her pulse gets worse all the time."
Unconsciously, while they spoke, they had drawn together around Letty's
bed, and stooping over, Caroline listened with a rapidly beating heart,
to the child's breathing. Then, dropping on her knees, she laid her arms
about the pillow, as if she would hold the fragile little body to life
with all her strength.
She was kneeling there, it seemed to her hours later, when the door
swung wide on its hinges, and Angelica, in her white robes, with the
wreath of leaves on her hair, paused on the threshold like some Luca
della Robbia angel. Her golden hair made a light on her temples; her
eyes were deep and starry with triumph; and a glow hung about her that
was like the rosy incandescence of the stage. For a minute she stood
there; then, flushed, crowned, radiant, she swept into the room.
Blackburn had not lifted his head; there was no sign in his stooping
figure that he heard her when she cried out.
"Is Letty really so ill? Is she worse, Doctor Boland?"
The doctor moved a step from the bed, and reached out a protecting hand.
"She has been getting weaker."
"I'd sit down and wait, if I were you, Angelica," said Mrs. Timberlake,
pushing forward a chair. "There isn't anything else that you can do
now."
But, without noticing her, Angelica had dropped to her knees at
Caroline's side. A cry that was half a sob burst from her lips, and
lifting her head, she demanded with passionate reproach and regret, "Why
did nobody tell me? Oh, why did he let me go?" The words seemed driven
from her against her will, and when she had uttered them, she fell
forward across the foot of the bed, with her bare arms outstretched
before her.
The doctor bent over her, and instinctively, as he did so, he glanced up
at Blackburn, who stood, white and silent, looking down on his wife with
inscrutable eyes. He uttered no word of defence, he made no movement to
help her, and Caroline felt suddenly that the sympathy around him had
rushed back like an eddying wave to Angelica. "If he would only speak,
if he would only defend himself," she thought almost angrily. Without
turning, she knew that Angelica was led to the couch by the window, and
she heard Mrs. Timberlake say in unemotional tones, "I reckon we'd
better give her a dose of ammonia."
The voices were silent, and except for Mrs. Blackburn's sobs and Letty's
rapid breathing, there was no sound in the room. Suddenly from somewhere
outside there floated the plaintive whining of the dog that Caroline had
heard in the afternoon. "He must be missing Mary," she found herself
thinking, while Mammy Riah murmured uneasily from the hearth, "Hit's a
bad sign, w'en a dawg howls in de daid er night."
The hours dragged on like eternity, and without moving, without stirring
or lifting her eyes, Caroline knelt there, pouring her strength into the
life of the unconscious child. Every thought, every feeling, every
throbbing nerve, was concentrated upon this solitary consuming
purpose--"Letty must live." Science had done all it could; it remained
now for hope and courage to fight the losing fight to the end. "I will
never give up," she said sternly under her breath, "I will never give
up." If hope and courage could save, if it were possible for the human
will to snatch the victory from death, she felt, deep down in the
passionate depths of her heart, that, while she watched over her, Letty
could not die.
And then gradually, while she prayed, a change as light as a shadow
stole over the face of the child. The little features grew less waxen,
the glittering eyes melted to a dewy warmth, and it seemed that the blue
circles faded slowly, and even the close brown hair looked less dull and
lifeless. As the minutes passed, Caroline held her breath in torture,
lest the faintest sound, the slightest movement, might check the
invisible beneficent current.
At last, when the change had come, she rose from her knees, and with her
hand on Letty's pulse, looked up at Blackburn.
"The crisis is past. Her hand is moist, and her pulse is better," she
said.
He started up, and meeting her joyous eyes, stood for an instant
perfectly motionless, with his gaze on her face. "Thank God!" he
exclaimed in a whisper.
As he turned away and went out of the door, Caroline glanced over her
shoulder, and saw that there was a glimmer of dawn at the window.