The Fruit of the Tree: Chapter 27

Chapter 27

THE house was empty again.

A week had passed since Bessy's accident, and friends and relations had
dispersed. The household had fallen into its routine, the routine of
sickness and silence, and once more the perfectly-adjusted machine was
working on steadily, inexorably, like a natural law....

So at least it seemed to Justine's nerves, intolerably stretched, at
times, on the rack of solitude, of suspense, of forebodings. She had
been thankful when the Gaineses left--doubly thankful when a telegram
from Bermuda declared Mrs. Carbury to be "in despair" at her inability
to fly to Bessy's side--thankful even that Mr. Tredegar's professional
engagements made it impossible for him to do more than come down, every
second or third day, for a few hours; yet, though in some ways it was a
relief to be again in sole command, there were moments when the weight
of responsibility, and the inability to cry out her fears and her
uncertainties, seemed almost unendurable.

Wyant was her chief reliance. He had risen so gallantly above his
weakness, become again so completely the indefatigable worker of former
days, that she accused herself of injustice in ascribing to physical
causes the vague eye and tremulous hand which might merely have
betokened a passing access of nervous sensibility. Now, at any rate, he
had his nerves so well under control, and had shown such a grasp of the
case, and such marked executive capacity, that on the third day after
the accident Dr. Garford, withdrawing his own assistant, had left him in
control at Lynbrook.

At the same time Justine had taken up her attendance in the sick-room,
replacing one of the subordinate nurses who had been suddenly called
away. She had done this the more willingly because Bessy, who was now
conscious for the greater part of the time, had asked for her once or
twice, and had seemed easier when she was in the room. But she still
gave only occasional aid, relieving the other nurses when they dined or
rested, but keeping herself partly free in order to have an eye on the
household, and give a few hours daily to Cicely.

All this had become part of a system that already seemed as old as
memory. She could hardly recall what life had been before the
accident--the seven dreadful days seemed as long as the days of
creation. Every morning she rose to the same report--"no change"--and
every day passed without a word from Amherst. Minor news, of course, had
come: poor Mr. Langhope, at length overtaken at Wady Halfa, was
hastening back as fast as ship and rail could carry him; Mrs. Ansell,
anchored at Algiers with her invalid, cabled anxious enquiries; but
still no word from Amherst. The correspondent at Buenos Ayres had simply
cabled "Not here. Will enquire"--and since then, silence.

Justine had taken to sitting in a small room beyond Amherst's bedroom,
near enough to Bessy to be within call, yet accessible to the rest of
the household. The walls were hung with old prints, and with two or
three photographs of early Italian pictures; and in a low bookcase
Amherst had put the books he had brought from Hanaford--the English
poets, the Greek dramatists, some text-books of biology and kindred
subjects, and a few stray well-worn volumes: Lecky's European Morals,
Carlyle's translation of Wilhelm Meister, Seneca, Epictetus, a German
grammar, a pocket Bacon.

It was unlike any other room at Lynbrook--even through her benumbing
misery, Justine felt the relief of escaping there from the rest of the
great soulless house. Sometimes she took up one of the books and read a
page or two, letting the beat of the verse lull her throbbing brain, or
the strong words of stoic wisdom sink into her heart. And even when
there was no time for these brief flights from reality, it soothed her
to feel herself in the presence of great thoughts--to know that in this
room, among these books, another restless baffled mind had sought escape
from the "dusty answer" of life. Her hours there made her think less
bitterly of Amherst--but also, alas, made her see more clearly the
irreconcilable difference between the two natures she had striven to
reunite. That which was the essence of life to one was a meaningless
shadow to the other; and the gulf between them was too wide for the
imagination of either to bridge.

As she sat there on the seventh afternoon there was a knock on the door
and Wyant entered. She had only time to notice that he was very
pale--she had been struck once or twice with his look of sudden
exhaustion, which passed as quickly as it came--then she saw that he
carried a telegram, and her mind flew back to its central anxiety. She
grew pale herself as she read the message.

"He has been found--at Corrientes. It will take him at least a month to
get here."

"A month--good God!"

"And it may take Mr. Langhope longer." Their eyes met. "It's too
long----?" she asked.

"I don't know--I don't know." He shivered slightly, turning away into
the window.

Justine sat down to dash off messages to Mr. Tredegar and the Gaineses:
Amherst's return must be made known at once. When she glanced up, Wyant
was standing near her. His air of intense weariness had passed, and he
looked calm and ready for action.

"Shall I take these down?"

"No. Ring, please. I want to ask you a few questions."

The servant who answered the bell brought in a tea-tray, and Justine,
having despatched the telegrams, seated herself and began to pour out
her tea. Food had been repugnant to her during the first anguished
unsettled days, but with the resumption of the nurse's systematic habits
the nurse's punctual appetite returned. Every drop of energy must be
husbanded now, and only sleep and nourishment could fill the empty
cisterns.

She held out a cup to Wyant, but he drew back with a gesture of
aversion.

"Thanks; I'm not hungry."

"You ought to eat more."

"No, no. I'm very well."

She lifted her head, revived by the warm draught. The mechanical act of
nourishment performed, her mind leapt back to the prospect of Amherst's
return. A whole month before he reached Lynbrook! He had instructed her
where news might find him on the way ... but a whole month to wait!

She looked at Wyant, and they read each other's thoughts.

"It's a long time," he said.

"Yes."

"But Garford can do wonders--and she's very strong."

Justine shuddered. Just so a skilled agent of the Inquisition might have
spoken, calculating how much longer the power of suffering might be
artificially preserved in a body broken on the wheel....

"How does she seem to you today?"

"The general conditions are about the same. The heart keeps up
wonderfully, but there is a little more oppression of the diaphragm."

"Yes--her breathing is harder. Last night she suffered horribly at
times."

"Oh--she'll suffer," Wyant murmured. "Of course the hypodermics can be
increased."

"Just what did Dr. Garford say this morning?"

"He is astonished at her strength."

"But there's no hope?--I don't know why I ask!"

"Hope?" Wyant looked at her. "You mean of what's called recovery--of
deferring death indefinitely?"

She nodded.

"How can Garford tell--or any one? We all know there have been cases
where such injury to the cord has not caused death. This may be one of
those cases; but the biggest man couldn't say now."

Justine hid her eyes. "What a fate!"

"Recovery? Yes. Keeping people alive in such cases is one of the
refinements of cruelty that it was left for Christianity to invent."

"And yet--?"

"And yet--it's got to be! Science herself says so--not for the patient,
of course; but for herself--for unborn generations, rather. Queer, isn't
it? The two creeds are at one."

Justine murmured through her clasped hands: "I wish she were not so
strong----"

"Yes; it's wonderful what those frail petted bodies can stand. The fight
is going to be a hard one."

She rose with a shiver. "I must go to Cicely----" The rector of Saint
Anne's had called again. Justine, in obedience to Mrs. Gaines's
suggestion, had summoned him from Clifton the day after the accident;
but, supported by the surgeons and Wyant, she had resisted his admission
to the sick-room. Bessy's religious practices had been purely
mechanical: her faith had never been associated with the graver moments
of her life, and the apparition of a clerical figure at her bedside
would portend not consolation but calamity. Since it was all-important
that her nervous strength should be sustained, and the gravity of the
situation kept from her, Mrs. Gaines yielded to the medical commands,
consoled by the ready acquiescence of the rector. But before she left
she extracted a promise that he would call frequently at Lynbrook, and
wait his opportunity to say an uplifting word to Mrs. Amherst.

The Reverend Ernest Lynde, who was a young man, with more zeal than
experience, deemed it his duty to obey this injunction to the letter;
but hitherto he had had to content himself with a talk with the
housekeeper, or a brief word on the doorstep from Wyant. Today, however,
he had asked somewhat insistently for Miss Brent; and Justine, who was
free at the moment, felt that she could not refuse to go down. She had
seen him only in the pulpit, when once or twice, in Bessy's absence, she
had taken Cicely to church: he struck her as a grave young man, with a
fine voice but halting speech. His sermons were earnest but ineffective.

As he rose to meet her, she felt that she should like him better out of
church. His glance was clear and honest, and there was sweetness in his
hesitating smile.

"I am sorry to seem persistent--but I heard you had news of Mr.
Langhope, and I was anxious to know the particulars," he explained.

Justine replied that her message had overtaken Mr. Langhope at Wady
Haifa, and that he hoped to reach Alexandria in time to catch a steamer
to Brindisi at the end of the week.

"Not till then? So it will be almost three weeks--?"

"As nearly as I can calculate, a month."

The rector hesitated. "And Mr. Amherst?"

"He is coming back too."

"Ah, you have heard? I'm glad of that. He will be here soon?"

"No. He is in South America--at Buenos Ayres. There will be no steamer
for some days, and he may not get here till after Mr. Langhope."

Mr. Lynde looked at her kindly, with grave eyes that proffered help.
"This is terrible for you, Miss Brent."

"Yes," Justine answered simply.

"And Mrs. Amherst's condition----?"

"It is about the same."

"The doctors are hopeful?"

"They have not lost hope."

"She seems to keep her strength wonderfully."

"Yes, wonderfully."

Mr. Lynde paused, looking downward, and awkwardly turning his soft
clerical hat in his large kind-looking hands. "One might almost see in
it a dispensation--_we_ should see one, Miss Brent."

"_We?_" She glanced up apologetically, not quite sure that her tired
mind had followed his meaning.

"We, I mean, who believe...that not one sparrow falls to the ground...."
He flushed, and went on in a more mundane tone: "I am glad you have the
hope of Mr. Langhope's arrival to keep you up. Modern science--thank
heaven!--can do such wonders in sustaining and prolonging life that,
even if there is little chance of recovery, the faint spark may be
nursed until...."

He paused again, conscious that the dusky-browed young woman, slenderly
erect in her dark blue linen and nurse's cap, was examining him with an
intentness which contrasted curiously with the absent-minded glance she
had dropped on him in entering.

"In such cases," she said in a low tone, "there is practically no chance
of recovery."

"So I understand."

"Even if there were, it would probably be death-in-life: complete
paralysis of the lower body."

He shuddered. "A dreadful fate! She was so gay and active----"

"Yes--and the struggle with death, for the next few weeks, must involve
incessant suffering...frightful suffering...perhaps vainly...."

"I feared so," he murmured, his kind face paling.

"Then why do you thank heaven that modern science has found such
wonderful ways of prolonging life?"

He raised his head with a start and their eyes met. He saw that the
nurse's face was pale and calm--almost judicial in its composure--and
his self-possession returned to him.

"As a Christian," he answered, with his slow smile, "I can hardly do
otherwise."

Justine continued to consider him thoughtfully. "The men of the older
generation--clergymen, I mean," she went on in a low controlled voice,
"would of course take that view--must take it. But the conditions are so
changed--so many undreamed-of means of prolonging life--prolonging
suffering--have been discovered and applied in the last few years, that
I wondered...in my profession one often wonders...."

"I understand," he rejoined sympathetically, forgetting his youth and
his inexperience in the simple desire to bring solace to a troubled
mind. "I understand your feeling--but you need have no doubt. Human
life is sacred, and the fact that, even in this materialistic age,
science is continually struggling to preserve and prolong it,
shows--very beautifully, I think--how all things work together to
fulfill the divine will."

"Then you believe that the divine will delights in mere pain--mere
meaningless animal suffering--for its own sake?"

"Surely not; but for the sake of the spiritual life that may be
mysteriously wrung out of it."

Justine bent her puzzled brows on him. "I could understand that view of
moral suffering--or even of physical pain moderate enough to leave the
mind clear, and to call forth qualities of endurance and renunciation.
But where the body has been crushed to a pulp, and the mind is no more
than a machine for the registering of sense-impressions of physical
anguish, of what use can such suffering be to its owner--or to the
divine will?"

The young rector looked at her sadly, almost severely. "There, Miss
Brent, we touch on inscrutable things, and human reason must leave the
answer to faith."

Justine pondered. "So that--one may say--Christianity recognizes no
exceptions--?"

"None--none," its authorized exponent pronounced emphatically.

"Then Christianity and science are agreed." She rose, and the young
rector, with visible reluctance, stood up also.

"That, again, is one of the most striking evidences--" he began; and
then, as the necessity of taking leave was forced upon him, he added
appealingly: "I understand your uncertainties, your questionings, and I
wish I could have made my point clearer----"

"Thank you; it is quite clear. The reasons, of course, are different;
but the result is exactly the same."

She held out her hand, smiling sadly on him, and with a sudden return of
youth and self-consciousness, he murmured shyly: "I feel for you"--the
man in him yearning over her loneliness, though the pastor dared not
press his help....

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