Who shall tell of the moods and feelings, the alternating between hope
and despair, that govern the mind of the looker-on at the conflict
between life and death about the bed of one who is dear; the futility of
tears, of intercession; the long drawn agony of suspense? Day by day,
hourly almost, the mood varies, hope fluctuates, till finally depression
settles upon the spirit, crushes it, reduces it to a state of dull
acquiescence in the inevitable ordering of things.
Had Zoe Lawless been permitted to take an active part in the nursing the
suspense would have told on her less, but it was almost beyond endurance
to be denied all access to the room where the man she loved, and had so
little understood, lay for the greater part of the time delirious,
yielding up his life without a struggle for it, owning himself beaten,--
done.
Mr Burton gave her frequent bulletins, sometimes hopeful, sometimes,
despite his utmost endeavour to appear sanguine before her, depressed.
The final issue had become to him also a matter of tremendous
importance. He had a very warm regard for this man of striking
personality, who had come into his quiet monotonous life and drawn him
as a protagonist into the midst of startling and unusual events. And he
was profoundly sorry for the beautiful woman who was his wife, and yet
appeared to have no place nor share in his life. Mr Burton, knowing
nothing of the circumstances surrounding the lives of these two,
refrained from criticising either. He formed his liking impartially,
and reserved judgment.
Every morning Mrs Lawless accompanied him part of the way to the
school, and sometimes in the evening she would meet him coming home. He
was the only human being to whom she could talk unreservedly. Colonel
Grey had gone back to the coast after having arranged for a daily
bulletin. He told Mr Burton to telegraph for him if his presence was
needed, and this Mr Burton also undertook to do, supposing him to mean
in the event of a fatal termination.
The days passed; they grew warmer; but Lawless made no progress towards
recovery.
"He is not going to get well," Zoe said with conviction one morning to
the doctor when she interviewed him after he left the sick-room.
The doctor looked nonplussed.
"He makes no fight," he answered, as though puzzled to account for this
ready giving in. Then he added, with one of his rare attempts at
encouragement: "But he is still with us."
The hope thus sparingly dealt out was not sufficiently convincing to
reassure her. She felt that the sand in the glass was running low. If
only she might be allowed to sit beside him, to touch him! ... She
feared that he might slip from her in his sleep perhaps, and that she
might not know in time.
"You'll call me--you'll be sure to call me," she said to the nurses
continually, "if there's any change for the worse?"
And one morning the call came. She was in bed when the nurse tapped at
the door. She did not stay to dress herself, but slipping on a loose
wrapper, pinned her hair up carelessly, and hurried to the sick-room.
The doctor had been sent for but had not yet arrived. Both nurses were
in the room. The night-nurse, who was only then relieved, remained to
be of assistance. Lawless had been violently sick. He now lay back on
the pillow exhausted with closed eyes, breathing so slightly that he
scarcely seemed to breathe at all. He had all the appearance of a man
who is rapidly sinking.
"Is it the end?" Zoe whispered to one of the nurses in an awestruck
voice.
"I'm afraid so," the woman answered, and placed a chair for her beside
the bed.
She sank into it, and leaning forward looked fearfully at the quiet
figure, the closed eyes, the pinched grey features. Almost she could
fancy that he was dead already. She took one of the listless hands. It
lay in hers limply, without response, without sense of feeling. She
drew it to her and kissed it. Then she laid her head upon the pillow
beside his and drew his face to hers, and held it pressed close against
her cheek.
And so the doctor found her when he entered with her jealous arms
clasping the inert figure, satisfying their long starvation of denial by
contact, and with the glowing beauty of her warm rounded cheek resting
against the shrunken colourless face on the pillow that had given no
sign of life or movement since her entry. The doctor leant over the
bed. He placed a quiet hand upon her shoulder to prevent her moving,
and bending, low looked intently into the still face.
"He is asleep," he said, and straightened himself and moved noiselessly
away.
And Zoe Lawless remained where she was, undisturbed by everything and
everyone about her, as oblivious as the sick man of external things.
She was beyond thinking of the issues. She had ceased to wonder whether
this crisis in his illness which meant the turning-point one way or the
other would decide in his favour or not. He was hers. That was all
that mattered then. Whether it were life or death that claimed him, it
had given him to her. In the detachment of the moment that was the only
thing that held any reality for her. She had got outside of life for a
time. The things that went on in the world did not concern her; she had
drawn apart from it all to a remote distance and was happy in her
isolation with the body of her love.
All that day Lawless lay in the same comatose condition. It was
impossible to say when he slept and when he was awake. He never
appeared entirely conscious. At intervals the nurse gave him
nourishment or a dose of medicine. She did not disturb Mrs Lawless,
save at meal times to insist on her leaving the room in quest of food.
Zoe went reluctantly, and wandered back after a brief absence, and took
her place as before. Whether she had eaten in the interval was
problematical; but the change and movement were a relief.
She stayed with him until nine o'clock that night. When she left he was
sleeping soundly and comfortably; and, white and weary but
extraordinarily happy, she went to bed and fell promptly into a deep and
dreamless sleep.
And the next day the bedroom door was closed against her again. He was
better. He was fully conscious, but he made no demand to see her; and
in compliance with the doctor's wishes she remained outside.
"Yesterday was the crisis," he said to her. "He's turned the corner.
He isn't out of the wood, but if there are no excitements he ought to
pull through."
She smiled when he unnecessarily cautioned her to keep out of sight.
She was not at all likely to prejudice her husband's chances of
recovery, even though she never saw him again.
Her chief pleasure during the next few days was in listening to Mr
Burton's scraps of information concerning the wonderful doings and
sayings of the invalid on the occasions when he went, as he usually did
twice a day, into the sick-room. Even the accounts of the nourishment
he took were absorbingly interesting.
Mr Burton came out of the bedroom one morning laughing, and,
accompanied by Zoe, set out for his work. She looked at him wistfully
as they left the hotel together. The smile still lingered in his eyes
when they were out upon the road.
"I am all impatience," she said, "to hear what amuses you. Was it
something--Hugh said?"
"He called me a fool," Mr Burton said, and chuckled,--"a very
pronounced fool." He had, as a matter of fact, called him a damned
fool, but Mr Burton could not bring himself to use such an expression
before a woman. "That shows a very decided improvement. I think if
there had been anything handy he would have thrown it. Impatience is a
healthy sign."
"Oh!" she said, and the tears welled in her eyes so that she turned
aside her face to hide them. "If you only knew how jealous I feel--of
you!" And on another occasion she asked him: "Does he never mention
me?"
"No," Mr Burton answered with obvious reluctance. "You must remember,"
he added in a kindly desire to soften the negative, "that since he saw
you he has been so very ill that probably what happened before has been
entirely wiped out. It is possible that he has forgotten seeing you,
that he does not know you are here."
That day she gathered a great bunch of wild flowers, and arranged them
in a vase, and asked him to carry them to the sick-room.
"Say that a lady staying at the hotel sent them to him," she said.
He did her bidding. He carried the vase into the bedroom and placed it
on the dressing-table where the tired eyes could rest on it without
effort.
"Bloemetjes," he explained, and smiled at the patient.
"Ah!" Lawless smiled too. "Been botanising, have you? And I benefit
by the fruits of your labour. It's kind of you to remember a poor devil
who can't even crawl out into the sunshine. It's precious dull work
lying here, Burton. I don't know what I should do if it wasn't for your
visits--cut my throat, if they'd give me a chance."
"Oh! you grow better now with every day," Mr Burton answered
cheerfully. "Discontent is a proof of convalescence. You'll soon be
able to do your own botanising. By the way, I don't wish to appropriate
thanks that are not due to me. I had nothing to do with the gathering
of those flowers. A lady staying in the hotel sent them to you."
Lawless made no immediate response. His weary, fretful gaze sought the
flowers, rested upon them a moment, and then turned deliberately away.
"Very kind of her," he answered briefly, and was careful not to refer to
the subject again.
Mr Burton regretted that he had no more expansive message of
appreciation to carry away with him. But Mrs Lawless did not appear
disappointed. She had not expected more. His want of curiosity as to
the identity of the sender of the flowers told her what she desired to
know. He was fully aware that she was staying in the hotel.
The next day she gathered fresh flowers, and Mr Burton carried them in
as before. On this occasion the recipient made no remark; so far as Mr
Burton saw he did not even look at them.
The little man carried away a sorely troubled heart. After his simple
fashion he had grown fond of Zoe Lawless. It was a real delight to him
to bear her any small crumb of comfort, to have to go to her
empty-handed distressed him beyond measure. She shook her head at sight
of his serious face and smiled faintly. She could always judge the
nature of the news he brought before he imparted it by the gravity or
gladness of his look. To-day it was very grave, and since the patient's
condition no longer called for serious anxiety, she knew her offering
had not been well received.
"He snubbed my poor little gift," she said.
And he wondered how she had divined it, and sought, as he always did
when he believed she was feeling hurt, to offer consolation.
"He's rather peevish to-day," he explained excusingly. "He gets weary
of lying there with nothing to do, and it makes him irritable. Not that
he said anything unkind about the flowers... He--he didn't appear to
notice them."
She nodded.
"I know," she said.
That day the doctor removed his veto.
"There is no reason why you shouldn't visit your husband now, Mrs
Lawless," he informed her, "if you are careful not to excite him, nor
stay long in the room."
She looked at him for a while thoughtfully, and a soft rose crept into
her cheeks.
"Since he is so far recovered," she answered quietly, "I think I will
not risk retarding his progress--unless he asks for me."
On the following day she gathered her flowers as before, and sent them
by her trusty messenger.
"He has got to look at them this morning," she announced as she gave
them into his hands. "Take them to the bedside, and just say, `Zoe
sends them.'"
Mr Burton quite blushed at the idea of taking such a liberty with her
name; but he seized the flowers and departed hastily upon his errand,
with many misgivings as to the reception that would be accorded him when
he presented this remarkable message to the invalid.
When he entered the bedroom the nurse withdrew. She usually did, but he
had never appreciated the tact of the proceeding as he did on that
particular morning. Lawless was resting propped up against a quantity
of pillows. He was colourless and wretchedly thin in face, but the
improvement in his appearance was already very marked. He gained ground
daily now.
He smiled his welcome when Mr Burton entered, but when his glance fell
on the bunch of bloemetjes he frowned.
"I wish you didn't bring that litter with you every morning," he
complained.
Mr Burton, remembering his instructions, walked deliberately to the
bedside and laid his offering on the pillow.
"Zoe sent them," he explained.
Lawless stared at him, and the blood mounted slowly to his hollow
cheeks.
"The devil!" he muttered.
Then suddenly a wave of angry emotion swept over him. He seized the
flowers in both hands, and flung them with all his feeble strength at
the surprised, concerned little man, who jumped aside to dodge the
missile as though it were a bomb.
"I was afraid you would resent the familiarity," he said apologetically.
"But she told me to use her name."
"Oh! go to blazes!" Lawless muttered, already ashamed of the outburst.
"What does it matter what you call her? ... Take back those bloemetjes
to her, you old idiot, and tell her that until her consideration moves
her to make her inquiries and offerings in person they have no interest
for me."
Mr Burton gathered up the strewn, rejected gift.
"She has got my white Flower of Innocence here, I see," he remarked, and
smiled with pleasure at sight of the bloom.
Lawless was lying with his face turned away, staring out of the window.
"You can leave that with me," he said quietly,--"as being appropriate."
Mr Burton carried the disordered bunch of flowers back to the giver
with a beaming countenance.
"He flung them at me," he explained delightedly.
Mrs Lawless looked hurt. The little man's pleasure in the scorn of her
gift appeared to her unkind.
"He kept back one bloom--a white one. But so long as you choose an
emissary to convey your gift, he is not interested in it, he says."
She looked at him in silence for a moment, her face flushing and paling
in turns. Then she went close to him, took the despised flowers from
him and rearranged them carefully. She put a flower in his coat, and
drawing back surveyed the effect and him with a tender, affectionate
smile.
"That is because this morning I shall not accompany you," she said.
"No," he answered musingly, and looked at her attentively over the tops
of his glasses. "I suppose you won't. I shall miss you; but I shall
not be lonely because I carry with me the glad heart."