DEATH BETTER THAN LIFE.
When Dr. Spenlove left Mrs. Turner she sat for some time in a state of
dull lethargy. No tear came into her eyes, no sigh escaped from her
bosom. During the past few months she had exhausted the entire range
of remorseful and despairing emotion. The only comfort she had
received through all those dreary months sprang from the helpful
sympathy of Dr. Spenlove; apart from, that she had never been buoyed
up by a ray of light, had never been cheered by the hope of a brighter
day. Her one prevailing thought was that she would be better dead than
alive. She did not court death; she waited for it, and silently prayed
that it would come soon. It was not from the strength of inward moral
support that she had the courage to live on; it was simply that she
had schooled herself into the belief that before or when her child was
born death would release her from the horrors of life. Young as she
was she so fostered this hope that it became a conviction, and she
looked forward to the end with dull resignation. "If I live till my
baby is born," she thought, "I pray that it may die with me."
Here was the case of a woman without the moral support which springs
from faith in any kind of religion. In some few mortals such faith is
intuitive, but in most instances it requires guidance and wise
direction in childhood. Often it degenerates into bigotry and
intolerance, and assumes the hateful narrow form of condemning to
perdition all who do not subscribe to its own particular creed. Pagans
are as worthy of esteem as the bigots who arrogate to themselves the
monopoly of heavenly rewards.
Mrs. Turner was neither pagan nor bigot; she was a nullity. Her
religious convictions had not yet taken shape, and though, if she had
been asked "Are you a Christian?" she would have replied, "Oh yes, I
am a Christian," she would have been unable to demonstrate in what way
she was a Christian, or what she understood by the term. In this
respect many thousands of human beings resemble her.
Faith is strength, mightier than the sword, mightier than the pen,
mightier than all the world's store of gold and precious stones; and
when this strength is displayed in the sweetness of resignation, and
in submission to the Divine will which chastens human life with
sorrow, its influence upon the passions is sustaining, and purifying,
and sublime. If Mrs. Turner had been blessed with faith which
displayed itself in this direction, she would have been the happier
for it, and hard as were her trials, she would to the last have looked
forward with hope instead of despair.
The story related by Mr. Gordon to Dr. Spenlove was true in every
particular. There was no distortion or exaggeration; he had done for
Mrs. Turner and her father all that he said he had done. He had not
mentioned the word "love" in connection with the woman he had asked to
be his wife. She, on her part, had no such love for him as that which
should bind a man and a woman in a life-long tie; she held him in
respect and esteem--that was all. But she had accepted him, and had
contemplated the future with satisfaction until, until----
Until a man crossed her path who wooed her in different fashion, and
who lavished upon her flatteries and endearments which made her false
to the promise she had given. For this man she had deserted the home
which Mr. Gordon had provided for her, and had deserted it in such a
fashion that she could never return to it, could never again be
received in it, and this without a word of explanation to the man she
had deceived. She was in her turn deceived, and she awoke from her
dream to find herself a lost and abandoned woman. In horror she fled
from him, and cast her lot among strangers, knowing full well that she
would meet with unbearable contumely among those to whom she was
known. Hot words had passed between her and her betrayer, and in her
anger she had written letters to him which in the eyes of the law
would have released him from any obligation it might otherwise have
imposed upon him. He was well pleased with this, and he smiled as he
put those letters in a place of safety--to be brought forward only in
case she annoyed him. She did nothing of the kind; her scorn for him
was so profound that she was content to release him unconditionally.
So she passed out of his life as he passed out of hers. Neither of
these beings, the betrayed or the betrayer, reckoned with the future;
neither of them gave a thought to the probability that the skeins of
Fate, which to-day separated them as surely as if they had lived at
opposite poles of the earth, might at some future time bring them
together again, and that the pages of the book which they believed was
closed for ever might be reopened for weal or woe.
The child's moans aroused the mother from her lethargy. She had no
milk to give the babe; nature's founts were dry, and she went from
door to door in the house in which she lived to beg for food. She
returned as she went, empty-handed, and the child continued to moan.
Dr. Spenlove, her only friend, had bidden her farewell. She had not a
penny in her pocket; there was not a crust of bread in the cupboard,
not an ounce of coal, not a stick of wood to kindle a fire. She was
thinly clad, and she did not possess a single article upon which she
could have obtained the smallest advance. She had taken the room
furnished, but even if what it contained had been her property a
broker would have given but a few shillings for everything in it.
The little hand instinctively wandered to the mother's wasted breast,
and plucked at it imploringly, ravenously. The woman looked around in
the last throes of an anguish too deep for expression, except in the
appalling words to which she gave despairing utterance.
"Come," she cried, "we will end it!"
Out into the cold streets she crept, unobserved. She shivered, and a
pitiful smile crossed her lips.
"Hush, hush!" she murmured to her babe. "It will soon be over. Better
dead--better dead--for you and for me!"
She crept towards the sea, and hugged the wall when she heard
approaching footsteps. She need not have feared; the night was too
inclement for any but selfish consideration. The soft snow fell, and
enwrapped her and her child in its pitiless shroud. She paused by a
lamp-post, and cast an upward look at the heavens, in which she could
see the glimmering of the stars. Then she went on, and fretfully
pressed her babe close to her breast, to stifle the feeble sobs.
"Be still, be still!" she murmured. "There is no hope in life for
either of us. Better dead--better dead!"