Kitabı oku: «Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles», sayfa 18

CHAPTER VI.
THE FEAR GROWING GREATER

We must leap over some months. A story, you know, cannot stand still, any more than we can.

Spring had come round. The sofa belonging to Mrs. Reece's parlour was in Mrs. Halliburton's, and Janey was lying on it—her blue eyes bright, her cheeks hectic, her fair curls falling in disorder. Through autumn, through winter, it had appeared that Dobbs's prognostications of evil for Jane were not to be borne out, for she had recovered from the temporary indications of illness, and had continued well; but, with the early spring weather, Jane failed, and failed rapidly. The cough came back, and great weakness grew upon her. She was always wanting to be at rest, and would lie about anywhere. Spreading a cloak on the floor, with a pillow for her head, Janey would plant herself between her mother and the fire, pulling the cloak up on the side near the door. One day Dobbs came in and saw her there.

"My heart alive!" uttered Dobbs, when she had recovered her surprise; "what are you lying down there for?"

"I am tired," replied Janey; "and there's nowhere else to lie. If I put three chairs together, it is not comfortable, and the pillow rolls off."

"There's the sofa in our room," said Dobbs. "Why don't you lie on that?"

"So I do, you know, Dobbs; but I want to talk to mamma sometimes."

Dobbs disappeared. Presently there was a floundering and thumping heard in the passage, and the sofa was propelled in by Dobbs, very red with the exertion. "My missis is indignant to think that the child should be upon the floor," cried she, wrathfully. "One would suppose some folks were born without brains, or the sofa might have been asked for."

"But, Dobbs," said Janey—and she was allowed to "Dobbs" as much as she pleased, unreproved—"what am I to lie on in your room?"

"Isn't there my easy chair, with the high foot-board in front—as good as a bed when you let it out?" returned Dobbs, proceeding to place Janey comfortably on the sofa. "And now let me say what I came in to say, when the sight of that child on the cold floor sent me shocked out again," she added, turning to Jane. "My missis's leg is no better to-day, and she has made up her mind to have Parry. It's erysipelas, as sure as a gun. Every other spring, about, she's laid up with it in her legs, one or the other of 'em. Ten weeks I have known her in bed with it–"

"The very best preventive to erysipelas is to take an occasional warm bath," interrupted Jane.

The suggestion gave immense offence to Dobbs. "A warm bath!" she uttered, ironically. "And how, pray, should my missis take a warm bath? Sit down in a mashing-tub, and have a furnace of boiling water turned on to her? Those new-fangled notions may do for Londoners, but they are not known at Helstonleigh. Warm baths!" repeated Dobbs, with increased scorn: "hadn't you better propose a water-bed at once? I have heard that they are inventing them also."

"I have heard so, too," pleasantly replied Jane.

"Well, my missis is going to have Parry up, and she intends that he shall see Janey and give her some physic—if physic will be of use," added Dobbs, with an incredulous sniff. "My missis says it will. She puts faith in Parry's physic as if it was gold; it's a good thing she's not ill often, or she'd let herself be poisoned if quantity could poison her! And, Janey, you'll take the physic, like a precious lamb; and heaps of nice things you shall have after it, to drive the taste out. Warm baths!" ejaculated Dobbs, as she went out, returning to the old grievance. "I wonder what the world's coming to?"

Mr. Parry was called in, and soon had his two regular patients there. Mrs. Reece was confined to her bed with erysipelas in her leg; and if Janey seemed better one day, she seemed worse the next. The surgeon did not say what was the matter with Jane. He ordered her everything good in the shape of food; he particularly ordered port wine. An hour after the latter order had been given Dobbs appeared, with a full decanter in her hand.

"It's two glasses a day that she is to take—one at eleven and one at three," cried she without circumlocution.

"But, indeed, I cannot think of accepting so costly a thing from Mrs. Reece as port wine," interrupted Jane, in consternation.

"You can do as you like, ma'am," said Dobbs with equanimity. "Janey will accept it; she'll drink her two glasses of wine daily, if I have to come and drench her with it. And it won't be any cost out of my missis's pocket, if that's what you are thinking of," logically proceeded Dobbs. "Parry says it will be a good three months before she can take her wine again; so Janey can drink it for her. If my missis grudged her port wine or was cramped in pocket, I should not take my one glass a day, which I do regular."

"I can never repay you and Mrs. Reece for your kindness and generosity to Jane," sighed Mrs. Halliburton.

"You can do it when you are asked," was Dobbs's retort. "There's the wing and merrythought of a fowl coming in for her dinner, with a bit of sweet boiled pork. I don't give myself the ceremony of cloth-laying, now my missis is in bed, but just eat it in the rough; so the child had better have hers brought in here comfortably, till my missis is down again. And, Janey, you'll come upstairs to tea to us; I have taken up the easy chair."

"Thank you very much, Dobbs," said Janey.

"And don't you let them cormorants be eating her dinners or drinking her wine," said Dobbs, fiercely, as she was going out. "Keep a sharp look-out upon 'em."

"They would not do it!" warmly replied Jane. "You do not know my boys yet, if you think they would rob their sick sister."

"I know that boys' stomachs are always on the crave for anything that's good," retorted Dobbs. "You might skin a boy if you were forced to it, but you'd never drive his nature out of him; and that's to be always eating!"

So she had even this help—port wine! It seemed almost beyond belief, and Jane lost herself in thought.

"Mamma, you don't hear me!"

"Did you speak, Janey?"

"I say I think Dobbs got that fowl for me. Mrs. Reece is not taking meat, and Dobbs would not buy a fowl for herself. She will give me all the best parts, and pick the bones herself. You'll see. How kind they are to me! What should I have done, mamma, if I had only our plain food? I know I could not eat it now."

"God is over us, my dear child," was Jane's reply. "It is He who has directed this help to us: never doubt it, Jane. Whether we live or die," she added pointedly, "we are in His hands, and He orders all things for the best."

"Can to die be for the best?" asked Janey, sitting up to think over the question.

"Why, yes, my dear girl; certainly it is, if God wills it. How often have I talked to you about the rest after the grave! No more tears, no more partings. Which is best—to be here, or to go to that rest? Oh, Janey! we can put up surely with illness and with crosses here, if we may only attain to that. This world will last only for a little while at best; but that other will abide for ever and for ever."

A summons from Mr. Parry's boy: Miss Halliburton's medicine had arrived. Miss Halliburton made a grievous face over it, when her mamma poured the dose out. "I never can take it! It smells so nasty!"

Jane held the wine-glass towards her, a grave, kind smile upon her face. "My darling, it is one of earth's little crosses; try and not rebel against it. Here's a bit of Patience's jam left, to take after it."

Janey smiled bravely as she took the glass. "It was not so bad as I thought, mamma," said she, when she had swallowed it.

"Of course not, Janey; nothing is that we set about with a brave heart."

But, with every good thing, Janey did not improve. Her mother shrank from admitting the fact that was growing only too palpable; and Dobbs would come in and sit looking at Janey for a quarter of an hour together, never speaking.

"Why do you look at me so, Dobbs?" asked Janey, one day, suddenly. "You were crying when you looked at me last night at dusk."

Dobbs was rather taken to. "I had been peeling onions," said she.

"Why do you shrink from looking at the truth?" an inward voice kept repeating in Mrs. Halliburton's heart. "Is it right, or wise, or well to do so?" No; she knew that it could not be.

That same day, after Mr. Parry had paid his visit to Mrs. Reece, he looked in upon Janey. "Am I getting better?" she asked him. "I want to go into the green fields again, and run about."

"Ah," said he, "we must wait for that, little maid."

Jane went out to the door with him. When he put out his hand to say good morning, he saw that she was white with emotion, and could not speak readily. "Will she live or die, Mr. Parry?" was the whispered question that came at last.

"Now don't distress yourself, Mrs. Halliburton. In these lingering cases we must be content to wait the issue, whatever it may be."

"I have had so much trouble of one sort or another, that I think I have become inured to it," she continued, striving to speak more calmly. "These several days past I have been deciding to ask you the truth. If I am to lose her, it will be better that I should know it beforehand: it will be easier for me to bear. She is in danger, is she not?"

"Yes," he replied; "I fear she is."

"Is there any hope?"

"Well, you know, Mrs. Halliburton, while there is life there is hope."

His tone was kindly; but she could not well mistake that, of human hope, there was none. Her lips were pale—her bosom was heaving. "I understand," she murmured. "Tell me one other thing: how near is the end?"

"That I really cannot tell you," he more readily replied. "These cases vary much in their progression. Do not be downcast, Mrs. Halliburton. We must every one of us go, sooner or later. Sometimes I wish I could see all mine gone before me, rather than leave them behind to the cares of this troublesome world."

He shook hands and departed. Jane crept softly upstairs to her own room, and was shut in for ten minutes. Poor thing! she could not spare time for the indulgence of grief, as others might! she must hasten to her never-ceasing work. She had her task to do; and ten minutes lost from it in the day must be made up at night.

As she was going downstairs, with red eyes, Mrs. Reece heard her footstep and called to her from her bed. "Is that you, ma'am?"

So Jane had to go in. "Are you better?" she inquired.

"No, ma'am, I don't see much improvement," replied the old lady. "Mr. Parry is going to change the lotion; but it's a thing that will have its course. How is Janey? Does he say?"

"She is much the same," said Jane. "She grows no better. I fear she never will."

"Ay! so Dobbs says; and it strikes me Parry has told her so. Now, ma'am, you spare nothing that can do her good. Whatever she fancies, tell Dobbs, and it shall be had. I would not for the world have a dying child stinted while I can help it. Don't spare wine; don't spare anything."

"A dying child!" The words, in spite of Jane's previous convictions; nay, her knowledge; caused her heart to sink with a chill. She proceeded, as she had done many times before, to express a tithe of her gratitude to Mrs. Reece for the substantial kindness shown to Janey.

"Don't say anything about it, ma'am," returned the old lady in her simple, straightforward way. "I have neither chick nor child of my own, and both I and Dobbs have taken a liking for Janey. We can't think anything we can do too much for her. I have spoken to Parry—therefore don't spare his services; at any hour of the day or night send for him if you deem it necessary."

With another attempt at heartfelt thanks, Jane went down. Full as her cup was to the brim, she was yet overwhelmed with the sense of kindness shown. From that time she set herself to the task of preparing Janey for the great change by gradual degrees—a little now, a little then: to make her long for the translation to that better land.

One evening, about eight o'clock, Patience entered—partly to inquire after Janey, partly to ask William if he would go to bring Anna from Mrs. Ashley's, where she had been taking tea. Samuel Lynn was detained in the town on business, and Grace had been permitted to go out: therefore Patience had no one to send. William left his books, and went out with alacrity. Patience sat down by Janey's sofa.

"I get so tired, Patience. I wish I had some pretty books to read! I have read all Anna's over and over again."

"And she won't eat solids now, and she grows tired of mutton-broth, and sago, and egg-flip, and those things," put in Dobbs, in an injured tone, who was also sitting there.

"I would try her with a little beef-tea, made with plenty of carrots and thickened with arrowroot," said Patience.

"Beef-tea, made with carrots and thickened with arrowroot!" ungraciously responded Dobbs, who held in contempt every one's cooking except her own.

"I can tell thee that it is one of the nicest things taken," said Patience. "It might be a change for the child."

"How's it made?" asked Dobbs. "It might do for my missis: she's tired of mutton broth."

"Slice a pound of lean beef, and let it soak for two hours in a quart of cold water," replied Patience. "Then put meat and water into a saucepan, with a couple of large carrots scraped and sliced. Let it warm gradually, and then simmer for about four hours, thee putting salt to taste. Strain it off; and, when cold, take off the fat. As the broth is wanted, stir it up, and take from it as much as may be required, boiling the portion, for a minute, with a little arrowroot."

Dobbs condescended to intimate that perhaps she might try it; though she'd be bound it was poor stuff.

William had hastened to Mr. Ashley's. He was shown into a room to wait for Anna, and his attention was immediately attracted by a shelf full of children's story-books. He knew they were just what Janey was longing for. He had taken some in his hand, when Anna came in, ready for him, accompanied by Mrs. Ashley, Mary, and Henry. Then William became aware of the liberty he had taken in touching the things, and, in his self-consciousness, the colour, as usual, rushed to his face. It was a frank, ingenuous face, with its fair, open forehead, and its earnest, dark grey eyes; and Mrs. Ashley thought it so.

"Were you looking at our books?" asked Henry, who was in a remarkably good humour.

"I am sorry to have touched them," replied William. "I was thinking of something else."

"I would be nearly sure thee were thinking of thy sister," cried Anna, who had an ever-ready tongue.

"Yes, I was," replied William candidly. "I was wishing she could read them."

"I have told her about the books," said Anna, turning from William to the rest. "I related to her as much as I could remember of 'Anna Ross:' that book which thee had in thy hand, William. She would so like to read them; she is always ill."

"Is she very ill?" inquired Mrs. Ashley.

"She is dying," replied Anna.

It was the first intimation William had received of the great fear. His countenance changed, his heart beat wildly. "Oh, Anna! who says it?" he cried out, in a low, wailing tone.

There was a dead silence. Anna's announcement sounded sufficiently startling, and Mrs. Ashley looked with sympathy at the evidently agitated boy.

"There! that's my tongue!" cried Anna repentantly. "Patience says she wonders some one does not cut it out for me."

Mary Ashley—a fair, gentle little girl, with large brown eyes, like Henry's—stepped forward, full of sympathy. "I have heard of your sister from Anna," she said. "She is welcome to read all my books; you can take some to her now, and change them as often as you like."

How pleased William was! Mary selected four, and gave them to him. "Anna Ross," "The Blind Farmer," "Theophilus and Sophia," and "Margaret White." Very old, some of the books, and childish; but admirably suited to what people were beginning to call Jane—a dying child.

"I say," cried out Henry, a little aristocratic patronage in his tone, as William was departing, "how do you get on with your Latin?"

"I get on very well. Not quite so fast as I should with a master. I have to puzzle out difficulties for myself, and I am not sure but that's one of the best ways to get on. I go on with my Greek, too; and Euclid, and–"

"How much time do you work?" burst forth Henry.

"From six o'clock till half-past nine. A little of the time I am helping my brothers."

"There's perseverance, Henry!" cried Mrs. Ashley; and Master Henry shrugged his shoulders.

"Anna," began William, as they walked along, "how do you know that Janey is so ill?"

"Now, William, thee must ask thy mother whether she is ill or not. She may get well—how do I know? She was ill last summer, and Hannah Dobbs would have it she was in a bad way then; but she recovered. Dost thee know what Patience says?"

"What?" asked William eagerly.

"Patience says I have ten ears where I ought to have two; and I think thee hast the same. Fare thee well," she added, as they reached her door. "Thank thee for coming for me."

William waited at the gate until Anna was admitted, and then hastened home. Jane was alone, working as usual.

"Mamma, is it true that Janey is dying?"

Jane's heart gave a leap; and poor William, as she saw, could scarcely speak for agitation. "Who told you that?" she asked in low tones.

"Anna Lynn. Is it true?"

"William, I fear it may be. Don't grieve, child! don't grieve!"

William had laid his head down upon the table, the sobs breaking forth. His poor mother left her seat, and bent her head down beside him, sobbing also.

"William, for my sake don't grieve!" she whispered. "God alone knows what is good. He would not take her unless it were for the best."

CHAPTER VII.
THE END

April passed. May was passing; and the end of Jane Halliburton was at hand. There was no secret now about her state; but she was going away very peacefully.

In this month, May, there occurred another vacancy in the choir of the cathedral. Little Gar—but he was growing too big now to be called Little Gar—proved to be the successful candidate; so that both boys were now in the choir.

"It will be such a help to me, learning to chant, should I ever try for a minor canonry," boasted Gar, who never tired of telling them that he meant to be a clergyman.

"Gar, dear, did you ever sit down and count the cost?" asked Mrs. Halliburton. "I fear it will not be your luck to go to college."

"Labor omnia vincit," cried out Gar. "You have heard us stumbling over our Latin often enough, mamma, to know what that means. Frank will need to count the cost, too, if he is ever to make himself into a barrister; and he says he will be one."

"Oh, you two vain boys!" cried Jane, laughing.

"Mamma," spoke up Janey from the sofa—and her breathing was laboured now—"is there harm in their wishing this?"

"Not at all. They are laudable aims. Only Frank and Gar are so poor and friendless that I fear the hopes are too ambitious to end in anything but disappointment."

Janey called Gar to her, and pulled his face down to a level with hers, whispering softly, "Strive well, Gar, and trust in God."

Later, when Jane had to be out on an indispensable errand, Dobbs came in to sit with Janey. She brought her some jelly in a saucer.

"I am nearly tired of it, Dobbs," said Janey. "I grow tired of everything. And I don't like to say so, because it seems so ungrateful."

"It's the nature of illness to get tired of things," responded Dobbs, who thought it was her mission never to cease buoying Janey up with hope. "You'll be better when the hot weather comes in."

"No, I shan't, Dobbs. I shall never get better now."

A combination of feelings, indignation predominating, nearly took away Dobbs's breath. "Who on earth has been putting that grim notion in your head?" asked she.

"It is true, Dobbs."

"True!" ejaculated Dobbs. "Who has been saying it to you? I want to know that."

"Mamma for one. She–"

"Of all the stupids!" burst forth Dobbs, drowning what Janey was about to say. "To frighten the child by telling her she's going to die!"

"It does not frighten me, Dobbs. I like to lie and think of it."

Dobbs fell into a doubt whether Janey was in her senses. "Like to lie and think of being screwed down in a coffin, and put into the cold ground, and left there till the judgment day!" uttered she.

"Oh, but, Dobbs, you must know better than that," returned Jane. "We are not put into the coffin; it is only our bodies that are put into the coffin; we go into the world of departed spirits."

"De-par-ted what?" ejaculated Dobbs, whose notions of the future—the life after this life—were not very definite; and who could not have been more astonished had Jane begun to talk to her in Greek.

"Mamma has always tried to explain these things to us," said Jane. "She has made them as clear to us as they can be made, and she has taught us not to fear death. She says a great mistake is often made by those who bring up children. They are taught to run away from death as something gloomy and frightful, instead of being shown its bright side."

"Well, I never heard the like!" exclaimed Dobbs, lost in wonder. "How can there be a bright side to death?—in a horrid coffin, with brass nails and tin-tacks that screw you down?"

Tears filled Janey's eyes. "Oh, Dobbs, you must learn better than that, or how will you ever be reconciled to death? Don't you know that when we die, we—our spirit, that is, for it is our spirit that lives and thinks—leave our body behind us? There's no more consciousness in our body, and it is put into the grave till the last day. It is like the shell that the silkworm casts away when it comes into the moth: the life is in the moth: not in the cast-off shell. You cannot think what trouble mamma has taken with us always to explain these things; and she has talked to me so much lately."

"And where does the spirit go—by which, I suppose, you mean the soul?" asked Dobbs.

Janey shook her head, to express her ignorance at the best. "It is all a mystery," she said; "but mamma has taught us to believe that there's a place for the departed, and that we shall be there. It is not to be supposed that the soul, a thing of life, could be boxed up in a coffin, Dobbs. When Jesus Christ said to the thief on the cross, 'To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise,' he meant that world. It is a place of light and rest."

"And the good and bad are there together?"

Again Janey shook her head. "Don't you remember, in the parable of the rich man and the beggar, there was a great gulf between them, and Abraham said that it could not be passed? I dare say it will be very peaceful and happy there: quite different from this world, where there's so much trouble and sickness. Why should I be afraid of death, Dobbs?"

Dobbs sat looking at her, and was some minutes before she spoke. "Not afraid to die!" she slowly said. "Well, I should be."

Janey's eyes were wet. "Nobody need be afraid to die when they have learnt to trust in God. Don't you know," she answered with something like enthusiasm, "that many people, when dying, have seen Jesus waiting for them? What does it matter, then, where our bodies are put? We are going to be with Jesus. Indeed, Dobbs, there's nothing sad in dying, if you only can look at it in the right way. It is those who look at it in the wrong way that are afraid to die."

"The child's as learned as a minister!" was Dobbs's inward comment. "Ours told us last Sunday evening at Chapel that we were all on the high road to perdition. I'd rather listen to her creed than to his: it sounds more encouraging. Their ma hasn't brought 'em up amiss; and that's the truth!"

The soliloquy was interrupted by the return of Mrs. Halliburton. Almost immediately afterwards some visitors came in—Mary Ashley and Anna Lynn. It was the first time Mary had been there, and she had come to bring Janey some more books. She was one of those graceful children whom it is pleasant to look at. A contrast in attire she presented to the little Quakeress, with her silk dress, her straw hat, trimmed with a wreath of flowers and white ribbons, her dark curls falling beneath it. She was much younger than her brother Henry; but there was a great resemblance between them—in the refined features, the bright complexion, and the soft dark eyes. Somehow, through a remark made by Dobbs, the conversation turned upon Jane's inability to recover; and Mary Ashley heard with extreme wonder that death was not dreaded. "Her ma has taught her different," was Dobbs's comment.

"Mamma takes great pains with us," observed Mary; "but I should not like to die. How is it?" she added, turning to Mrs. Halliburton. "Jane is not much older than I, and yet she does not dread it!"

"My dear," was the reply, "I think it is simply this. Those whom God is intending to take from the world, He often, in His mercy and wisdom, weans from the love of it. You are healthy and strong, and the world is pleasant to you. Jane has been so long weak and ill that she no longer finds enjoyment in it; and this naturally causes her to look beyond this world to the rest and peace of the next. All things are well ordered."

Mary Ashley began to think they must be. Chattering Anna, vain Anna, sat gazing at Mary's pretty hat, her drooping curls; none, except Anna herself, knew with what envious longing. Anna, at any rate, was not tired of the world.

The end grew nearer and nearer. There came a day when Jane did not get up; there came a second, and a third. On the fourth morning, Janey, who had passed a comfortable night, compared with some nights which had preceded it, was sitting up in bed when her brothers came in from school. They hurried over their breakfast and ran up to her, carrying the remains of it in their hands.

The first few minutes after breakfast had always been devoted by Jane to reading to her children; in spite of her necessity for close working they were so devoted still. "I will read here this morning," she observed, as the boys stood around the bed.

"Mamma," interrupted Janey, "read about the holy city, in the Book of Revelation."

Mrs. Halliburton turned to the twenty-first chapter, and had read to the twenty-third verse—"And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof"—when Jane suddenly started forward in bed, her eyes fixed on some opposite point. Mrs. Halliburton paused, and endeavoured to put her gently back again.

"Oh, mamma, don't keep me!" she said in a strangely thrilling tone; "don't keep me! I see the light! I see papa!"

There was a strange light, not as of earth, in her own face, an ineffable smile on her lip, that told more of heaven. Her arms dropped; and she sank back on the pillow. Jane Halliburton had gone to her Heavenly Father; it may be also to her earthly one. Gar screamed.

Dobbs arrived in the midst of the commotion. And when Dobbs saw what had happened, she fell into a storm of anger, of passionate sobs, half ready to knock down Mrs. Halliburton with words, and the poor boys with blows. Why was she not called to see the last of her? The only young thing she had cared for in all the world, and yet she could not be allowed to wish her farewell! She'd never love another again as long as her days lasted! In vain they strove to explain to her that it was sudden, unexpected, momentary: Dobbs would not listen.

Mrs. Halliburton stole away from Dobbs's storm—anywhere. Her heart was brimful. Although she had known that this must be the ending, now that it had come she was as one unprepared. In her grief and sorrow, she was tempted for a moment—but only for a moment—to question the goodness and wisdom of God.

Some one called to her from the foot of the stairs, and she went down. She had to go down; she could not shut herself up, as those can who have servants to be their deputies. Anna Lynn stood there, dressed for school.

"Friend Jane Halliburton, Patience has sent me to ask after Janey this morning. Is she better?"

"No, Anna. She is dead."

Jane spoke with unnatural calmness. The child, scared at the words, backed away out at the garden door, and then flew to Patience with the news. It brought Patience in. Jane was nearly prostrate then.

"Nay, but thee art grieving sadly! Thee must not take on so."

"Oh, Patience! why should it be?" she wailed aloud in her despair and bereavement. "Anna left in health and joyousness; my child taken! Surely God is dealing hardly with me."

"Thee must not say that," returned Patience gravely. "But thee art not thyself just now. What truth was it that I heard thee impress upon thy child not a week ago? That God's ways are not as our ways."