THE LIVING AND THE DEAD.
"If our child lives, there is hope that my wife will live?"
"A strong hope. I speak with confidence."
"And if our child dies?"
"The mother will die."
No voice was speaking in the chamber of death, but Aaron heard again
these words, which had passed between the doctor and himself. If the
child lived, the mother would live; if the child died, the mother
would die.
A black darkness fell upon his soul. His mind, his soul, every
principle of his being, was engulfed in the one despairing thought
that Rachel was doomed, that, although she was sleeping peacefully
before his eyes, death would be her portion when she awoke to the fact
that her babe had been taken from her.
"If, when she wakes, all is well with the child, all will be well with
her."
The spiritual echo of the doctor's words uttered but a few hours ago.
He heard them as clearly as he had heard the others.
How to avert the threatened doom? How to save his Rachel's life?
Prayer would not avail, or he would have flown to it instinctively. It
was not that he asked himself the question, or that in his agony he
doubted or believed in the efficacy of prayer. It may be, indeed, that
he evaded it, for already a strange and terrible temptation was
invading the fortress of his soul. To save the life of his beloved was
he ready to commit a sin? What was the true interpretation of sin? A
perpetrated act which would benefit one human being to the injury of
another. Then, if an act were perpetrated which would ensure the
happiness and well-doing not of one human creature, but of three,
and would inflict injury upon no living soul, that act was not a
sin--unmistakably not a sin. But if this were really so, wherefore the
necessity for impressing it upon himself? The conviction that he was
acting justly in an hour of woe, that the contemplated act was not
open to doubt in a moral or religious sense, was in itself sufficient.
Wherefore, then, the iteration that it was not a sin?
He could not think the matter out in the presence of Rachel and of his
dead child. He stole down to his room, and gave himself up to
reflection. He turned down the gas almost to vanishing point, and
stood in the dark, now thinking in silence, now uttering his thoughts
aloud.
A friend had come to him and begged him to receive into his household
a babe, a girl, of the same age as his own babe lying dead in the room
above. She was deserted, friendless, alone. All natural claims had
been abandoned, and the infant was thrown upon the world, without
parents, without kith or kin. Even while he believed his own child to
be alive he had decided to accept the trust. Why should he hesitate
now that his child was dead? It was almost like a miraculous
interposition, or so he chose to present it to himself.
"Even as we spoke together," he said aloud, "my child had passed away.
Even as I hesitated the messenger was urging me to accept the trust.
It was as if an angel had presented himself, and said, 'The life of
your beloved hangs upon the life of a babe, and the Eternal has called
her child to Him. Here is another to take her place. The mother will
not know; she is blind, and has never seen the face of her babe, has
scarcely heard its voice. To-morrow she lives or dies--it is the
critical day in her existence--and whether she lives or dies rests
with you, and with you alone. Science is powerless to help her in her
hour of trial; love alone will lift her into life, into joy, into
happiness; and upon you lies the responsibility. It is for you to
pronounce the sentence--life or death for your beloved, life or death
for a good woman who, if you do not harden your heart, will shed peace
and blessings upon all around her. Embrace the gift that God has
offered you. Allow no small scruples to drive you from the duty of
love.' Yes," cried Aaron in a louder tone, "it was as if an angel
spoke. Rachel shall live!"
If there was sophistry in this reasoning he did not see it; but the
still small voice whispered,--
"It is a deception, you are about to practise. You are about to place
in your wife's arms a child that is not of her blood or yours. You are
about to take a Christian babe to your heart, to rear and instruct her
as if she were born in the old and sacred faith that has survived long
centuries of suffering and oppression. Can you justify it?"
"Love justifies it," he answered. "The good that will spring from it
justifies it. A sweet and ennobling life will be saved. My own life
will be made the better for it, for without my beloved I should be
lost, I should be lost!"
Again the voice: "It is of yourself you are thinking."
"And if I am," he answered, "if our lives are so interwoven that one
would be useless and broken without the other, where is the sin?"
Again the voice: "Ah, the sin! You have pronounced the word. Remember,
it is a sin of commission."
"I know it," he said, "and I can justify it--and can I not atone for
it in the future? I will atone for it, if the power is given me, by
charity, by good deeds. In atonement, yes, in atonement. If I can
relieve some human misery, if I can lift a weight from suffering
hearts, surely that will be reckoned to my account. I record here a
solemn vow to make this a purpose of my life. And the child!--she will
be reared in a virtuous home, she will have a good woman for a mother.
With such an example before her she cannot fail to grow into a bright
and useful womanhood. That will be a good work done. I pluck her from
the doubtful possibilities which might otherwise attend her; no word
of reproach will ever reach her ears; she will live in ignorance of
the sad circumstances of her birth. Is all this nothing? Will it not
weigh in the balance?"
Again the voice: "It is much, and the child is fortunate to fall into
the hands of such protectors. But I repeat, in using these arguments
you are not thinking of the child; you think only of yourself."
"It is not so," he said; "not alone of myself am I thinking. I am the
arbiter of my wife's earthly destiny. Having the opportunity of
rescuing her from death, what would my future life be if I stand idly
by and see her die before my eyes? Do you ask of me that I shall be
her executioner? The heart of the Eternal is filled with love; He
bestows upon us the gift of love as our divinest consolation. He has
bestowed it upon me in its sublimest form. Shall I lightly throw away
the gift, and do a double wrong--to the child that needs a home, to
the woman whose fate is in my hands? Afflict me no longer; I am
resolved, and am doing what I believe to be right in the sight of the
Most High."
The voice was silent, and spake no more.
Aaron turned up the gas, took the money which Mr. Moss had left upon
the table, and quietly left the house. As he approached the Salutation
Hotel, which was situated at but a short distance, he saw the light of
Mr. Moss's cigar in the street. That gentleman was walking to and fro,
anxiously awaiting the arrival of his friend.
"You are here, Cohen," he cried, "and the hour has barely passed. That
is a good omen. How pale you are, and you are out of breath. In order
that absolute secrecy should be preserved I thought it best to wait
outside for you. You have decided?"
"I have decided," said Aaron, in a husky voice. "I will receive the
child."
"Good, good, good," said Mr. Moss, his eyes beaming with satisfaction.
"You are acting like a sensible man, and you have lifted yourself out
of your difficulties. I cannot tell you how glad you make me, for I
take a real interest in you, a real interest. Remain here; I will
bring the babe, and we will go together to your house. It is well
wrapped up, and we will walk quickly to protect it from the night air.
I shall not be a minute."
He darted into the hotel, and soon returned, with the babe in his
arms. Upon Aaron's offering to take the child from him, he said,
gaily, "No, no, Cohen'; I am more used to carrying babies than you.
When you have a dozen of them, like me, I will admit that we are
equal; but not till then, not till then."
Although his joyous tones jarred upon Aaron he made no remark, and
they proceeded to Aaron's house, Mr. Moss being the loquacious one on
the road.
"The woman I brought with me does not know, does not suspect, where
the child is going to, so we are safe. She goes back to Portsmouth
to-night; I shall remain till the morning. The baby is fast asleep.
What would the world be without children? Did you ever think of that,
Cohen? It would not be worth living in. A home without children--I
cannot imagine it. When I see a childless woman I pity her from my
heart. They try to make up for it with a cat or a dog, but it's a poor
substitute, a poor substitute. If I had no children I would adopt one
or two--yes, indeed. There is a happy future before this child; if she
but knew, if she could speak, her voice would ring out a song of
praise."
When they arrived at the house Aaron left Mr. Moss in the room below,
and ran up to ascertain if Rachel had been disturbed. She had not
moved since he last quitted the room, and an expression of profound
peace was settling on her face. His own child lay white and still. A
heavy sigh escaped him as he gazed upon the inanimate tiny form. He
closed the door softly, and rejoined his friend.
"I will not stay with you, Cohen," said Mr. Moss; "you will have
enough to do. To-morrow you must get a woman to assist in the house.
You have the fifty pounds safe?" Aaron nodded. "I have some more money
to give you, twenty-five pounds, three months' payment in advance of
the allowance to be made to you for the rearing of the child. Here it
is, and here, also, is the address of the London lawyers, who will
remit to you regularly at the commencement of every quarter. You have
only to give them your address, and they will send the money to you. I
shall not leave Gosport till eleven in the morning, and if you have
anything to say to me I shall be at the Salutation till that hour.
Good-night, Cohen; I wish you happiness and good fortune."
Alone with the babe, who lay on the sofa, which had been drawn up to
the fire, Aaron stood face to face with the solemn responsibility he
had taken upon himself, and with the still more solemn deception to
which he was pledged. For awhile he hardly dared to uncover the face
of the sleeping child, but time was precious, and he nerved himself to
the necessity. He sat on the sofa, and gently removed the wrappings
which had protected the child from the cold night, but had not impeded
its powers of respiration.
A feeling of awe stole upon him; the child he was gazing on might have
been his own dead child, so strong was the resemblance between them.
There was a little hair upon the pretty head, as there was upon the
head of his dead babe; it was dark, as hers was; there was a singular
resemblance in the features of the children; the limbs, the feet,
the little baby hands, the pouting mouth, might have been cast in the
same mould. The subtle instinct of a mother's love would have enabled
her to know instinctively which of the two was her own babe, but it
would be necessary for that mother to be blessed with sight before she
could arrive at her unerring conclusion. A father could be easily
deceived, and the tender age of the children would have been an
important--perhaps the chief--factor in the unconscious error.
"Surely," Aaron thought, as he contemplated the sleeping babe, "this
is a sign that I am acting rightly." Men less devout than he might
have regarded it as a Divine interposition. But though he strove still
to justify his act, doubt followed every argument he used in his
defence.
The next hour was occupied in necessary details which had not hitherto
occurred to him. The clothing of the children had to be exchanged. It
was done; the dead was arrayed as the living, the living as the dead.
Mere words are powerless to express Aaron's feelings as he performed
this task, and when he placed the living, breathing babe in the bed in
which Rachel lay, and took his own dead child to an adjoining room,
and laid it in his own bed, scalding tears ran down his cheeks. "God
forgive me, God forgive me!" he murmured, again and again. He knelt by
Rachel's bed, and buried his face in his hands. He had committed
himself to the deception; there was no retreat now. For weal or woe,
the deed was done.
And there was so much yet to do, so much that he had not thought of!
Each false step he was taking was leading to another as false as that
which had preceded it. But if the end justified the means--if he did
not betray himself--if Rachel, awaking, suspected nothing, and heard
the voice of the babe by her side, without suspecting that it was not
her own, why, then, all would be well. And all through his life, to
his last hour, he would endeavour to make atonement for his sin. He
inwardly acknowledged it now, without attempting to gloss it over. It
_was_ a sin; though good would spring from it, though a blessing might
attend it, the act was sinful.
His painful musings were arrested by a knock at the street door. With
a guilty start he rose to his feet, and gazed around with fear in his
eyes. What did the knock portend? Was it in some dread way connected
with his doings? The thought was harrowing. But presently he
straightened himself, set his lips firmly, and went downstairs to
attend to the summons.