THE END WHICH WAS THE BEGINNING
They were sorry they had let him come. A new night nurse was sent. Two
doctors, now. And, either I dreamed it or, at the worse times, Eric was
there as well. But always when I was myself, and the haunted night had
given way to day, his face was gone. Yet his care was all about me. The
doctors were friends of his; the nurses of his choosing.
I cannot explain why, but ferreting out these facts gave me something
less than the comfort they might be thought to bring. Why was he
troubling about me? Why was he not spending every thought and every hour
in trying to find Bettina?
Ranny had meant it well, telling me I had something to live for besides
Betty, and giving that something a name. But it was an ill turn; a sword
in my side for many a day and night. It gave me a ceaseless smart of
anger against Eric. I was jealous, too, that it had been Ranny, and not
Eric, who had been taking all these journeys. Ranny had been working
day and night. Ranny was the person we owed most to--Betty and I.
And was I to lie there, suffocated by all this care, and leave a boy
like Ranny (a boy I had expected so little of) to spend himself, soul
and substance, for my sister?
How dared Eric think that he and I were going to be happy, while Ranny
searched the capitals of Europe, and while Bettina....
. . . . .
One night, or early morning rather, stands out clear.
Vaguely I remembered a renewed struggle, and a fresh defeat. Now,
strangely, unaccountably, I had waked out of deep sleep with a feeling
quite safe and sure, at last, that Betty was free.
. . . . .
The night-light had burned out. A pearly greyness filled the room.
. . . . .
The nurse was sitting by the window, wrapped in a shawl.
Her head, leaning against the window-frame, was thrown back as though to
look at something.
I don't know whether it was the shawl drawn about drooped shoulders, or
the association of a lifted face by the window, but I thought of the
hop-picker. And of the promise I had made. Yes, and kept.
As long as I had been at Duncombe after that haggard woman passed, no
other with my knowing had gone hungry away.
Not all suffering, then, was utterly vain.
What was the white-capped figure looking at--so steadily, so long?
I raised myself on my elbow, and leaned forward till I, too, could see.
A tracery of branches, bare, against a clear-coloured sky; and through
the crossing lines, a little white moon looked through its sky-lattice
into the open window of my room.
I got up, so weak I had to cling hold of table and chair, till I stood
by the nurse. She was asleep, poor soul! But I hardly noticed her then.
I was looking up in a kind of ecstasy, for it seemed to me that a pale
young face--not like the Bettina I had known, and still Bettina's face,
was leaning down out of Heaven to bring me comfort.
But as I looked I saw there was high purpose as well as a world of pity
in the face--as though she would have me know that not in vain her
innocence had borne the burden of sin.
And I was full of wondering. Till, suddenly, I realised that not to
comfort me alone, nor mainly, was Betty leaning out of heaven ... _she
was come to do for others what no one had done for her_.
Then the agony of the sacrifice swept over me afresh. I remembered I had
gone back into that last Darkness saying, as I had said ten thousand
times before: "Why had this come to Betty?"
And now again I asked: "Why had it to be you?"
Through the gentle grey of morning Betty seemed to be leading me into
the Light. For the answer to my question was that the suffering of
evil-doers had never been fruitful as the suffering of the innocent had
been.
Was there, then, some life-principle in such pain?
A voice said: "You shall find in mortal ill, the seed of Immortal Good."
I knelt down by the window and thanked my sister.
Others shall thank her, too.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are indicated by _underscores_. Small caps are indicated by ALL
CAPS. In the original, mid-chapter breaks are indicated by either
asterisks (retained here) or by double-spaced lines (a row of dots
here).
Variations in spelling, hyphenation, and use of accents appear as in the
original. End-of-line hyphenations in the original are rejoined here.
Obvious typographical errors have been changed.
Contents: "NUMBUS" to "NIMBUS"
Page 2: "wheat-ears'" to "wheat-ear's" (a wheat-ear's hidden)
Page 12: "servants" to "servants'" (the servants' gossip)
Page 24: "Fairly" to "Fairy" (the Fairy Tale element)
Page 49: period added (my mother liked him.)
Page 52: "Helmstone's" to "Helmstones'" (acquaintance of the Helmstones')
Page 88: quote added (fragrance to their breath.")
Page 93: removed hyphen from "live-laborious days"
Page 175: "seedums" to "sedums" (mosses, sedums and suchlike)
Page 226: "d'automme" to "d'automne" (feuille d'automne touched)
Page 227: "Drew" to "Dew" (Dew Pond House)
Page 259: "then" to "them" (take them to my sister)