Scenes of Clerical Life: Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Day after day, with only short intervals of rest, Janet kept her place in
that sad chamber. No wonder the sick-room and the lazaretto have so often
been a refuge from the tossings of intellectual doubt--a place of repose
for the worn and wounded spirit. Here is a duty about which all creeds
and all philosophies are at one: here, at least, the conscience will not
be dogged by doubt, the benign impulse will not be checked by adverse
theory: here you may begin to act without settling one preliminary
question. To moisten the sufferer's parched lips through the long
night-watches, to bear up the drooping head, to lift the helpless limbs,
to divine the want that can find no utterance beyond the feeble motion of
the hand or beseeching glance of the eye--these are offices that demand
no self-questionings, no casuistry, no assent to propositions, no
weighing of consequences. Within the four walls where the stir and glare
of the world are shut out, and every voice is subdued--where a human
being lies prostrate, thrown on the tender mercies of his fellow, the
moral relation of man to man is reduced to its utmost clearness and
simplicity: bigotry cannot confuse it, theory cannot pervert it, passion,
awed into quiescence, can neither pollute nor perturb it. As we bend over
the sick-bed, all the forces of our nature rush towards the channels of
pity, of patience, and of love, and sweep down the miserable choking
drift of our quarrels, our debates, our would-be wisdom, and our
clamorous selfish desires. This blessing of serene freedom from the
importunities of opinion lies in all simple direct acts of mercy, and is
one source of that sweet calm which is often felt by the watcher in the
sick-room, even when the duties there are of a hard and terrible kind.

Something of that benign result was felt by Janet during her tendance in
her husband's chamber. When the first heart-piercing hours were
over--when her horror at his delirium was no longer fresh, she began to
be conscious of her relief from the burden of decision as to her future
course. The question that agitated her, about returning to her husband,
had been solved in a moment; and this illness, after all, might be the
herald of another blessing, just as that dreadful midnight when she stood
an outcast in cold and darkness had been followed by the dawn of a new
hope. Robert would get better; this illness might alter him; he would be
a long time feeble, needing help, walking with a crutch, perhaps. She
would wait on him with such tenderness, such all-forgiving love, that the
old harshness and cruelty must melt away for ever under the
heart-sunshine she would pour around him. Her bosom heaved at the
thought, and delicious tears fell. Janet's was a nature in which hatred
and revenge could find no place; the long bitter years drew half their
bitterness from her ever-living remembrance of the too short years of
love that went before; and the thought that her husband would ever put
her hand to his lips again, and recall the days when they sat on the
grass together, and he laid scarlet poppies on her black hair, and called
her his gypsy queen, seemed to send a tide of loving oblivion over all
the harsh and stony space they had traversed since. The Divine Love that
had already shone upon her would be with her; she would lift up her soul
continually for help; Mr. Tryan, she knew, would pray for her. If she
felt herself failing, she would confess it to him at once; if her feet
began to slip, there was that stay for her to cling to. O she could never
be drawn back into that cold damp vault of sin and despair again; she had
felt the morning sun, she had tasted the sweet pure air of trust and
penitence and submission.

These were the thoughts passing through Janet's mind as she hovered about
her husband's bed, and these were the hopes she poured out to Mr. Tryan
when he called to see her. It was so evident that they were strengthening
her in her new struggle--they shed such a glow of calm enthusiasm over
her face as she spoke of them, that Mr. Tryan could not bear to throw on
them the chill of premonitory doubts, though a previous conversation he
had had with Mr. Pilgrim had convinced him that there was not the
faintest probability of Dempster's recovery. Poor Janet did not know the
significance of the changing symptoms, and when, after the lapse of a
week, the delirium began to lose some of its violence, and to be
interrupted by longer and longer intervals of stupor, she tried to think
that these might be steps on the way to recovery, and she shrank from
questioning Mr. Pilgrim lest he should confirm the fears that began to
get predominance in her mind. But before many days were past, he thought
it right not to allow her to blind herself any longer. One day--it was
just about noon, when bad news always seems most sickening--he led her
from her husband's chamber into the opposite drawing-room, where Mrs.
Raynor was sitting, and said to her, in that low tone of sympathetic
feeling which sometimes gave a sudden air of gentleness to this rough
man--'My dear Mrs. Dempster, it is right in these cases, you know, to be
prepared for the worst. I think I shall be saving you pain by preventing
you from entertaining any false hopes, and Mr. Dempster's state is now
such that I fear we must consider recovery impossible. The affection of
the brain might not have been hopeless, but, you see, there is a terrible
complication; and, I am grieved to say, the broken limb is mortifying.'

Janet listened with a sinking heart. That future of love and forgiveness
would never come then: he was going out of her sight for ever, where her
pity could never reach him. She turned cold, and trembled.

'But do you think he will die,' she said, 'without ever coming to
himself? without ever knowing me?'

'One cannot say that with certainty. It is not impossible that the
cerebral oppression may subside, and that he may become conscious. If
there is anything you would wish to be said or done in that case, it
would be well to be prepared. I should think,' Mr. Pilgrim continued.
turning to Mrs. Raynor, 'Mr. Dempster's affairs are likely to be in
order--his will is ...'

'O, I wouldn't have him troubled about those things,' interrupted Janet,
'he has no relations but quite distant ones--no one but me. I wouldn't
take up the time with that. I only want to ...'

She was unable to finish; she felt her sobs rising, and left the room. 'O
God!' she said, inwardly, 'is not Thy love greater than mine? Have mercy
on him! have mercy on him!'

This happened on Wednesday, ten days after the fatal accident. By the
following Sunday, Dempster was in a state of rapidly increasing
prostration; and when Mr. Pilgrim, who, in turn with his assistant, had
slept in the house from the beginning, came in, about half-past ten, as
usual, he scarcely believed that the feebly struggling life would last
out till morning. For the last few days he had been administering
stimulants to relieve the exhaustion which had succeeded the alternations
of delirium and stupor. This slight office was all that now remained to
be done for the patient; so at eleven o'clock Mr. Pilgrim went to bed,
having given directions to the nurse, and desired her to call him if any
change took place, or if Mrs. Dempster desired his presence.

Janet could not be persuaded to leave the room. She was yearning and
watching for a moment in which her husband's eyes would rest consciously
upon her, and he would know that she had forgiven him.

How changed he was since that terrible Monday, nearly a fortnight ago! He
lay motionless, but for the irregular breathing that stirred his broad
chest and thick muscular neck. His features were no longer purple and
swollen; they were pale, sunken, and haggard. A cold perspiration stood
in beads on the protuberant forehead, and on the wasted hands stretched
motionless on the bed-clothes. It was better to see the hands so, than
convulsively picking the air, as they had been a week ago.

Janet sat on the edge of the bed through the long hours of candle-light,
watching the unconscious half-closed eyes, wiping the perspiration from
the brow and cheeks, and keeping her left hand on the cold unanswering
right hand that lay beside her on the bed-clothes. She was almost as pale
as her dying husband, and there were dark lines under her eyes, for this
was the third night since she had taken off her clothes; but the eager
straining gaze of her dark eyes, and the acute sensibility that lay in
every line about her mouth, made a strange contrast with the blank
unconsciousness and emaciated animalism of the face she was watching.

There was profound stillness in the house. She heard no sound but her
husband's breathing and the ticking of the watch on the mantelpiece. The
candle, placed high up, shed a soft light down on the one object she
cared to see. There was a smell of brandy in the room; it was given to
her husband from time to time; but this smell, which at first had
produced in her a faint shuddering sensation, was now becoming
indifferent to her: she did not even perceive it; she was too unconscious
of herself to feel either temptations or accusations. She only felt that
the husband of her youth was dying; far, far out of her reach, as if she
were standing helpless on the shore, while he was sinking in the black
storm-waves; she only yearned for one moment in which she might satisfy
the deep forgiving pity of her soul by one look of love, one word of
tenderness.

Her sensations and thoughts were so persistent that she could not measure
the hours, and it was a surprise to her when the nurse put out the
candle, and let in the faint morning light. Mrs. Raynor, anxious about
Janet, was already up, and now brought in some fresh coffee for her; and
Mr. Pilgrim having awaked, had hurried on his clothes, and was coming in
to see how Dempster was.

This change from candle-light to morning, this recommencement of the same
round of things that had happened yesterday, was a discouragement rather
than a relief to Janet. She was more conscious of her chill weariness:
the new light thrown on her husband's face seemed to reveal the still
work that death had been doing through the night; she felt her last
lingering hope that he would ever know her again forsake her.

But now, Mr. Pilgrim, having felt the pulse, was putting some brandy in a
tea-spoon between Dempster's lips; the brandy went down, and his
breathing became freer. Janet noticed the change, and her heart beat
faster as she leaned forward to watch him. Suddenly a slight movement,
like the passing away of a shadow, was visible in his face, and he opened
his eyes full on Janet. It was almost like meeting him again on the
resurrection morning, after the night of the grave.

'Robert, do you know me?'

He kept his eyes fixed on her, and there was a faintly perceptible motion
of the lips, as if he wanted to speak.

But the moment of speech was for ever gone--the moment for asking pardon
of her, if he wanted to ask it. Could he read the full forgiveness that
was written in her eyes? She never knew; for, as she was bending to kiss
him, the thick veil of death fell between them, and her lips touched a
corpse.

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