“No! at noon-day, in the bustle of man’s work time,
Greet the unseen with a cheer! Bid him forward, breast and back as either
should be!
Strive and thrive! Cry! speed! fight on! fare ever _there_ as _here_!”
ROBERT
BROWNING.
The night was dark, and the dinner-table gleamed with light and silver.
Long sprays of autumn leaves covered the white cloth, and large pots of
early chrysanthemums stood about the room. Katherine, glancing over the
faces of the guests, felt an unreasoning anger at their beautiful
costumes and easy laughter. The hour she had just spent face to face
with her patient’s agony seemed the only reality; the dream (which
almost made her rub her eyes) was their host’s face. Arthur Field had
rarely looked more handsome as he glanced across the table at his wife,
or flashed keen wit and two-edged compliments at Lady Cheston, sitting
at his right hand. Katherine could only rest on the truest of all
platitudes, the exceeding strangeness of Truth.
Rosamonde looked flushed and a little stupid. Reggie had frequently to
repeat his remarks twice before she understood them. She kept up little
bursts of nervous laughter, that made Miss Smith wish to choke her. It
was impossible to tell what Arthur Field wished.
“Now you’re here, Mr. Field,” Lady Cheston began in a voluble aside, “do
tell us what Miss Linton’s doing, and why that woman, who looks like a
poached egg on a rasher of bacon, should manage things for your wife?”
Mr. Field glanced down the table at Miss Smith. She certainly looked
better in uniform. Her hair, uncapped, was very yellow, and her face,
without a dark background, very red.
“Miss Linton,” he explained, “came here for a holiday; she’s a nurse,
you know, in my hospital. I brought her here. She is a nice girl.”
“Oh! all girls are nice!” chuckled Lady Cheston, “and all rice puddings
are healthy, but I prefer ’em in the nursery.”
“As for Miss Smith,” said her host, ignoring her interruption, “she is
perhaps not what one could call a girl, but she is certainly a
treasure.”
“In that case,” said Lady Cheston, “pray bury her—or send for Captain
Kidd!”
Lilian Courteny, who was on Arthur’s other side, leaned forward. She was
a beautiful woman still, in spite of that inexplicable, hard barrier of
an unhappy marriage which was written in her eyes, and in the guarded
watchfulness of her proud head. Arthur Field, looking at her, felt that
she expected to be made to wince. He had seen the same look in the faces
of children with cruel mothers; if you spoke suddenly to them, they put
up their hands to protect themselves. Lilian Courtney merely raised her
eyebrows and tried to smile, but it gave one the same effect.
“Do you believe in treasures, Mr. Field,” she asked. “I always thought
doctors and nurses got a little farther than that.”
“How far,” questioned Arthur, “did you think we got?”
“Far enough,” she said, deepening her little smile, “to know that
treasures grow best in a fool’s paradise.”
“Ah,” said the surgeon, “I am not so sure that the only paradise belongs
to fools; if so, one certainly does well to lose it, yet I am inclined
to believe that in becoming more or less wise, one regains the paradise
without reassuming the folly.”
“And how can you regain it?” Lilian asked lightly. Rosamonde’s nervous
giggle sounded along the table. Lilian watched him.
“The old way, I suppose,” he said slowly; “we go through the world—and
die.”
“Ah! but I don’t want to die,” broke in Lady Cheston quickly. “I want, I
want—something quite different from that!”
“Then you’re still in the Fool’s Paradise,” said Arthur, “depending upon
the unexpected to be favourable.” Rosamonde’s laugh grew too loud,
Lilian stared a little. Miss Smith moved uneasily in her chair. Then the
surgeon rose to his feet. Katherine’s lips parted; she, too, half-rose
from her chair; she noticed the peculiar swaying motion he had when he
stood erect; but no one saw her, they were all looking at him. Standing,
with his glass in his hand, he made them a little speech. He welcomed
them in his wife’s name, and in his own, telling them that although the
pleasure of their friendship, was for him in anticipation, he felt sure
that in this case the reality would be pleasanter still. He told them
that his long bachelorhood, owing to his wife’s ill-health, he believed,
had positively ended, and he congratulated himself on their all being
there to celebrate the event. Then, in terms which afterwards, his
guests unanimously agreed, were simply touching, he asked them to drink
to Rosamonde’s health and their future acquaintanceship.
Katherine watched him breathlessly. His eyes shone exultantly, in a kind
of savage mastery over his physical weakness. Someone rose opposite to
him, and replied courteously and heartily. There was a general tilting
up of glasses, and the toast was drunk. Arthur Field leaned forward a
little to return thanks. His lips moved, but no words came. Silence fell
over the party like a pall. How long it lasted no one could tell. A grey
pallor spread over the surgeon’s face, his hand shook, the glass slipped
out of it on to the floor with a crash, and, with a long, sighing groan,
he fell forward on his face. In an instant Katherine was beside him. The
guests’ attention was called off by Rosamonde—she broke into shriek
after shriek of hysterical laughter; Miss Smith went over to her, and
shook her. Lady Cheston said, “Well! I never!” There seemed nothing else
to say.
Reggie suggested that they should all go into the drawing-room. He and
the man who had made the nice little speech carried the surgeon
upstairs. When Reggie came down to get some more brandy for Katherine,
he found Miss Smith still shaking Rosamonde in the dining-room.
“Hadn’t you better take her to her room?” he asked. Miss Smith glared at
him, and he hurried away on his errand. After he had gone Miss Smith
took Rosamonde by the shoulders, and pushed her, before her, upstairs,
and into her room.
Rosamonde fell asleep on her bed, while Miss Smith was undressing her.
Lilian Courtney went out into the garden wondering if Arthur Field had
regained his Paradise.
Lady Cheston talked a great deal to everybody about the way poor, dear
Lord Cheston, who was always eating the wrong things, went off in an
apoplectic fit, and her companions listened respectfully, awed by her
experience with the unseen; certainly Lord Cheston had died, but they
had never fully realized it before. Then a bustling young country doctor
who had been called in, came downstairs to say that though undoubtedly
Mr. Field was in a serious way, there was no immediate danger, and that
his patient had particularly begged him to ask everybody to remain, as
he hoped to be about again soon.
“I may say, on my own authority,” said the little doctor, with great
importance, “that in _my_ opinion, I greatly fear my esteemed colleague
is not correct in his last statement.” A buzz of talk started up after
his departure, which was interrupted by Reggie stating lazily that he
had lit everybody’s candles, and that they would probably all go out
soon.
The guests went upstairs on tiptoe, and possibly, for the first time in
their lives, noticed that silk skirts are noisy. After all there was no
thunderstorm—the clouds had moved on elsewhere. The big harvest moon
swung high, and clear over the trees, and rays of moonlight crept
through the blind into the surgeon’s room. Katherine, sitting by his
bed-side, thought it was already morning; the night was very long.
“Nurse!” said the voice from the bed. The girl turned towards him
startled. He beckoned to her to come nearer.
“Oh! but you mustn’t talk!” she said.
“That means I shall not have much longer to talk,” he said slowly; “I
know that quite well. All the more reason, to my mind, to express myself
fully. I have not more than a day or two to live.” Katherine put her
fingers on his pulse; it was intermittent and very feeble. “A thread
with knots,” he explained, still smiling; “we shall come by-and-bye to a
knot that won’t come undone. I have always felt badly at losing a case.
It’s a thing one can’t get used to. Death interferes with skill, and
won’t explain. When one is puzzling out a sum he rubs it off the slate
like a child in a temper, ‘I can’t do it, and you sha’n’t.’” There were
pauses between his words. He seemed like a swimmer coming through the
surf—he had to dive each wave as it came, or he would be carried off
his feet, before the breath came. He was being beaten to exhaustion, but
he was a strong swimmer. “Have you ever thought,” he went on, “how
arbitrary nature is? Idiot children are always very strong; they can’t
reason, but they can do harm. Nature is like that; she cuts through a
law by a catastrophe, and claps her hands at the débris. One can clap
too, only in this case, I am the débris.” He stopped exhausted, and she
gave him a stimulant by his side. “We have learned to make compromises,”
he said, as she put the glass down, “this will float the débris a little
longer.”
“Oh! don’t talk like that!” said Katherine, feeling an immense pity, and
an immense weakness rush over her. “Indeed, indeed there is a reason! a
destination! a completion of things! If your powers leave this world it
is because there is a fuller, richer channel for them in some other
world. There is no waste, no loss.” She saw, with passionate terror in
her eyes, that he could not follow her. He saw that she was troubled,
and he made an effort to understand, but the words were beyond his
attenuated powers of sense; he could only shake his head.
“All right,” he said, after a little, “don’t worry—that was a good
thought of yours about the duplicate key.” But consciousness in him was
too strong a force to be left in abeyance; a moment more and it flashed
out again. She saw a new look come into his eyes—a look she had never
even dreamed of; it was so infinitely gentle, as if his sight enclosed
some picture too fragile to risk a fall.
“What is it?” Katherine asked him.
“You’re very good,” he whispered, “but I want—Daphne,” and his eyes
closed to shut out the difference. When he opened them again he looked
at her coldly. “You need not sit up, nurse,” he said, in usual tones. “I
have everything I need.”
She leaned over him. “To-morrow,” she said, “Daphne goes to stay with
Lady Middleton. I heard from her to-day. I will send over for her to
come here. You would like to see her.” He gazed fixedly in front of him.
“I am—obliged,” he said at last. “You are very thoughtful.” Katherine
felt the tears rush to her eyes, and to avoid his seeing them turned to
pull a curtain straight; but she need not have done so, for Arthur Field
would not have seen her. His own eyes were full of tears—tears that had
never fallen over a grief that had never died.
“Nurse,” he said, after a moment. She stood beside him again with the
little glass, but he pushed it from him, “don’t be cheated,” he said,
looking at her with piercing eyes, “some things are pretty good, but
they don’t satisfy, and some things are pretty terrible to face, but
they are worth the facing. I can see such a lot now only—it’s too
late!” Katherine knelt by him, and laid her hand on his.
“No! no! no!” she said, “you leave out God.” He lay watching her
grieved, earnest eyes.
“So He won’t let go?” he said, smiling. “Well, then—if He’s there—I’ll
go to Him, and if He isn’t—I’ll just rest!” He closed his eyes, and
presently as she watched him, she saw that he was asleep.
Then, in a flash, her old thoughts became new to her. She felt a
passionate hope and pain, that changed her from a good woman into an
infinite being; immortality, which had been her faith, became a
certainty. Her life rose from its narrow, outward landmarks, into a
thing of eternity, a spark of that which neither knows death, nor
accepts it. It seemed in that instant of time, as if she had passed
scatheless through a fire, had leapt into some strong, unbroken circle
of life in whose centre, was the very source of it all. A fire which
indeed consumed, until nothing was left, but the answering spark of Life
and Light, unhindered and unfettered utterly. “I will not be cheated,”
she cried in her heart. “The perishable perishes simply to show the
Imperishable its invincible, unutterable Triumph.” Her thoughts swept
over her past life, catching up memories, hopes, ambitions, as if to
hurry with them into the warmth and shelter that had mastered every
fear, she had ever known or feared to know. She grew radiant over this
new wonder, and longed, as the human soul must long, for the soul she
loved best to grow radiant too. Then she ceased to think of things in
the abstract, and the face of the man she did not wish to believe she
loved, by turns entreated and compelled her to answer, not as she might
have answered before the change of a moment had illuminated her life,
but with the eternal answer of the heart that sees beyond. “I love—not
because you are—but because God is. I am Love’s answer to you, your
eternal counterpart, which claims us Children of God, who are not afraid
to enter into His Courts with the Light of Him in our faces, and the
Love of Him in our hearts.” So Death and Love together seemed equal
pledges to Katherine of other worlds; and duty (by which she had lived
before) was a word she had forgotten, she turned quickly to do all she
could for Arthur, but not because she ought—ought had lost itself in
the privilege of service. The shaded lamp burned low, and the growing
outlines of things by the window told her the night was over.
The surgeon’s pulse beat very feebly now, his nostrils worked painfully,
and his lips were blue. The curious sharpness of feature that the
approach of Death reveals showed in his face. She wondered if his spirit
could wait till Daphne came. She heard a faint tap at the door, and
crept noiselessly to answer it.
The increasing light showed, to her astonishment, Miss Smith. “You
cannot come in,” said Katherine, “he is asleep.”
“I will come in!” hissed the other nurse, “get out of my way!” Katherine
gazed at her in surprise, but she was strong, and firmly barred the way
against the intruder. “You cannot possibly come in,” she repeated, “and
if you do not go away, he will wake, and it will kill him!” Miss Smith’s
glare at her was of something rendered too furious for reason, then,
with a sudden, miserable sense of impotence, the poor woman began to
shake with sobs. Katherine very gently closed the door and locked it.
“What is it?” said her patient quite composedly.
“Miss Smith, sir, to ask how you were.” The surgeon looked annoyed, then
his face lightened.
“Let her come in,” he said, “but don’t go away.”
“I shall certainly not do that, sir,” said Katherine quickly. She obeyed
him unwillingly. Miss Smith hung back at first and came in frightened.
She was not placed more at her ease by the surgeon’s sharp, cold glance
at her.
“Come nearer,” he said. “It is very tiresome to have to shout—when one
is—dying!”
“Oh, sir—Mr. Field, I mean—you aren’t! I can’t bear it!” Miss Smith
murmured desperately.
“You are not asked to,” said the surgeon quietly, “at present. I have
sent for you because you are the only person who has ever understood—my
wife. I have tried to cure her, that is why I am here. I should like to
feel that it has not been quite useless. Will you help her? I have
settled most of my money on her, on the condition that she places
herself under your orders—or some substitute to be chosen by Miss
Linton. If, in ten years’ time she is not a complete cure, her income
will be very much limited, and you will be freed from the care of her,
the rest of my money will then go to the hospital, except that you or
your substitute shall have a small income for life. Choose?” He closed
his eyes and Katherine held the glass to his lips; he struggled to
swallow it, and, after a moment’s terrible tension, he rallied. Miss
Smith, who had started forward, made up her mind.
“Miss Linton need not look for a substitute, sir!” she cried, “I will
stay with your wife until I die, or she dies—so help me, God.”
“I daresay He will,” murmured the surgeon with an amused look. “If He
exists. He certainly ought to—if He can!” Katherine opened the door and
Miss Smith, with her heart full of anger and pain, looked passionately
and unavailingly at the man who held her in obedience, even at the door
of death. Then, seeing that for the moment he had left consciousness
behind him, she tossed her head at her enemy and ran to her own room.
Katherine, closing the door again, took up a new wonder. She had seen a
small soul in a great moment, but the moment had not been great enough
to enlarge the soul. “It takes more to redeem a soul,” she remembered
hearing. She imagined, as she thought of Miss Smith, that it would take
a great deal more.