RELIEF.
It was dark, utterly dark, when she woke. For a minute she could not
remember where she was. The candle had burned out: it must be late. The
baby was on her lap--still, very still. One faint gleam of satisfaction
crossed her "during dark" at the thought that he slept so peacefully,
hidden from the gloom which, somehow, appeared to be all the same gloom
outside and inside of her. In that gloom she sat alone.
Suddenly a prayer was in her heart. It was moving there as of itself.
It had come there by no calling of it thither, by no conscious will of
hers. "O God," she cried, "I am desolate!--Is there no help for me?"
And therewith she knew that she had prayed, and knew that never in her
life had she prayed before.
She started to her feet in an agony: a horrible fear had taken
possession of her. With one arm she held the child fast to her bosom,
with the other hand searched in vain to find a match. And still, as she
searched, the baby seemed to grow heavier upon her arm, and the fear
sickened more and more at her heart.
At last she had light! and the face of the child came out of the
darkness. But the child himself had gone away into it. The Unspeakable
had come while she slept--had come and gone, and taken her child with
him. What was left of him was no more good to kiss than the last doll
of her childhood!
When Tom came home, there was his wife on the floor as if dead, and a
little way from her the child, dead indeed, and cold with death. He
lifted Letty and carried her to the bed, amazed to find how light she
was: it was long since he had had her thus in his arms. Then he laid
her dead baby by her side, and ran to rouse the doctor. He came, and
pronounced the child quite dead--from lack of nutrition, he said. To
see Tom, no one could have helped contrasting his dress and appearance
with the look and surroundings of his wife; but no one would have been
ready to lay blame on him; and, as for himself, he was not in the least
awake to the fact of his guilt.
The doctor gave the landlady, who had responded at once to Tom's call,
full directions for the care of the bereaved mother; Tom handed her the
little money he had in his pocket, and she promised to do her best. And
she did it; for she was one of those, not a few, who, knowing nothing
of religion toward God, are yet full of religion toward their fellows,
and with the Son of Man that goes a long way. As soon as it was light,
Tom went to see about the burying of his baby.
He betook himself first to the editor of "The Firefly," but had to wait
a long time for his arrival at the office. He told him his baby was
dead, and he wanted money. It was forthcoming at once; for literary
men, like all other artists, are in general as ready to help each other
as the very poor themselves. There is less generosity, I think, among
business-men than in any other class. The more honor to the exceptions!
"But," said the editor, who had noted the dry, burning palm, and saw
the glazed, fiery eye of Tom, "my dear fellow, you ought to be in bed
yourself. It's no use taking on about the poor little kid: _you_
couldn't help it. Go home to your wife, and tell her she's got you to
nurse; and, if she's in any fix, tell her to come to me."
Tom went home, but did not give his wife the message. She lay all but
insensible, never asked for anything, or refused anything that was
offered her, never said a word about her baby, or about Tom, or seemed
to be more than when she lay in her mother's lap. Her baby was buried,
and she knew nothing of it. Not until nine days were over did she begin
to revive.
For the first few days, Tom, moved with undefined remorse, tried to
take a part in nursing her. She took things from him, as she did from
the landlady, without heed or recognition. Just once, opening suddenly
her eyes wide upon him, she uttered a feeble wail of "_Baby!_" and,
turning her head, did not look at him again. Then, first, Tom's
conscience gave him a sharp sting.
He was far from well. The careless and in many respects dissolute life
he had been leading had more than begun to tell on a constitution by no
means strong, but he had never become aware of his weakness nor had
ever felt really ill until now.
But that sting, although the first sharp one, was not his first warning
of a waking conscience. Ever since he took his place at his wife's
bedside, he had been fighting off the conviction that he was a brute.
He would not, he could not believe it. What! Tom Helmer, the fine,
indubitable fellow! such as he had always known himself!--he to cower
before his own consciousness as a man unworthy, and greatly to be
despised! The chaos was come again! And, verily, chaos was there, but
not by any means newly come. And, moreover, when chaos begins to be
conscious of itself, then is the dawn of an ordered world at hand. Nay,
the creation of it is already begun, and the pangs of the waking
conscience are the prophecy of the new birth.
With that pitiful cry of his wife after her lost child, disbelief in
himself got within the lines of his defense; he could do no more, and
began to loathe that conscious self which had hitherto been his pride.
Whatever the effect of illness may be upon the temper of some, it is
most certainly an ally of the conscience. All pains, indeed, and all
sorrows, all demons, yea, and all sins themselves under the suffering
care of the highest minister, are but the ministers of truth and
righteousness. I never came to know the condition of such as seemed
exceptionally afflicted but I seemed to see reason for their
affliction, either in exceptional faultiness of character or the
greatness of the good it was doing them.
But conscience reacts on the body--for sickness until it is obeyed, for
health thereafter. The moment conscience spoke thus plainly to Tom, the
little that was left of his physical endurance gave way, his illness
got the upper hand, and he took to his bed--all he could have for bed,
that is--namely, the sofa in the sitting-room, widened out with chairs,
and a mattress over all. There he lay, and their landlady had enough to
do. Not that either of her patients was exacting; they were both too
ill and miserable for that. It is the self-pitiful, self-coddling
invalid that is exacting. Such, I suspect, require something sharper
still.
Tom groaned and tossed, and cursed himself, and soon passed into
delirium. Straightway his visions, animate with shame and confusion of
soul, were more distressing than even his ready tongue could have told.
Dead babies and ghastly women pursued him everywhere. His fever
increased. The cries of terror and dismay that he uttered reached the
ears of his wife, and were the first thing that roused her from her
lethargy. She rose from her bed, and, just able to crawl, began to do
what she could for him. If she could but get near enough to him, the
husband would yet be dearer than any child. She had him carried to the
bed, and thereafter took on the sofa what rest there was for her. To
and fro between bed and sofa she crept, let the landlady say what she
might, gave him all the food he could be got to take, cooled his
burning hands and head, and cried over him because she could not take
him on her lap like the baby that was gone. Once or twice, in a quieter
interval, he looked at her pitifully, and seemed about to speak; but
the back-surging fever carried far away the word of love for which she
listened so eagerly. The doctor came daily, but Tom grew worse, and
Letty could not get well.