The Fruit of the Tree: Chapter 29

Chapter 29

FOUR more days had passed. Bessy seldom spoke when Justine was with her.
She was wrapped in a thickening cloud of opiates--morphia by day,
bromides, sulphonal, chloral hydrate at night. When the cloud broke and
consciousness emerged, it was centred in the one acute point of bodily
anguish. Darting throes of neuralgia, agonized oppression of the breath,
the diffused misery of the whole helpless body--these were reducing
their victim to a mere instrument on which pain played its incessant
deadly variations. Once or twice she turned her dull eyes on Justine,
breathing out: "I want to die," as some inevitable lifting or
readjusting thrilled her body with fresh pangs; but there were no signs
of contact with the outer world--she had ceased even to ask for
Cicely....

And yet, according to the doctors, the patient held her own. Certain
alarming symptoms had diminished, and while others persisted, the
strength to fight them persisted too. With such strength to call on,
what fresh agonies were reserved for the poor body when the narcotics
had lost their power?

That was the question always before Justine. She never again betrayed
her fears to Wyant--she carried out his orders with morbid precision,
trembling lest any failure in efficiency should revive his suspicions.
She hardly knew what she feared his suspecting--she only had a confused
sense that they were enemies, and that she was the weaker of the two.

And then the an�sthetics began to fail. It was the sixteenth day since
the accident, and the resources of alleviation were almost exhausted. It
was not sure, even now, that Bessy was going to die--and she was
certainly going to suffer a long time. Wyant seemed hardly conscious of
the increase of pain--his whole mind was fixed on the prognosis. What
matter if the patient suffered, as long as he proved his case? That, of
course, was not his way of putting it. In reality, he did all he could
to allay the pain, surpassed himself in new devices and experiments. But
death confronted him implacably, claiming his due: so many hours robbed
from him, so much tribute to pay; and Wyant, setting his teeth, fought
on--and Bessy paid.

* * * * *

Justine had begun to notice that it was hard for her to get a word alone
with Dr. Garford. The other nurses were not in the way--it was Wyant who
always contrived to be there. Perhaps she was unreasonable in seeing a
special intention in his presence: it was natural enough that the two
persons in charge of the case should confer together with their chief.
But his persistence annoyed her, and she was glad when, one afternoon,
the surgeon asked him to telephone an important message to town.

As soon as the door had closed, Justine said to Dr. Garford: "She is
beginning to suffer terribly."

He answered with the large impersonal gesture of the man to whom
physical suffering has become a painful general fact of life, no longer
divisible into individual cases. "We are doing all we can."

"Yes." She paused, and then raised her eyes to his dry kind face. "Is
there any hope?"

Another gesture--the fatalistic sweep of the lifted palms. "The next ten
days will tell--the fight is on, as Wyant says. And if any one can do
it, that young fellow can. There's stuff in him--and infernal
ambition."

"Yes: but do _you_ believe she can live--?"

Dr. Garford smiled indulgently on such unprofessional insistence; but
she was past wondering what they must all think of her.

"My dear Miss Brent," he said, "I have reached the age when one always
leaves a door open to the unexpected."

As he spoke, a slight sound at her back made her turn. Wyant was behind
her--he must have entered as she put her question. And he certainly
could not have had time to descend the stairs, walk the length of the
house, ring up New York, and deliver Dr Garford's message.... The same
thought seemed to strike the surgeon. "Hello, Wyant?" he said.

"Line busy," said Wyant curtly.

* * * * *

About this time, Justine gave up her night vigils. She could no longer
face the struggle of the dawn hour, when life ebbs lowest; and since her
duties extended beyond the sick-room she could fairly plead that she was
more needed about the house by day. But Wyant protested: he wanted her
most at the difficult hour.

"You know you're taking a chance from her," he said, almost sternly.

"Oh, no----"

He looked at her searchingly. "You don't feel up to it?"

"No."

He turned away with a slight shrug; but she knew he resented her
defection.

The day watches were miserable enough. It was the nineteenth day now;
and Justine lay on the sofa in Amherst's sitting-room, trying to nerve
herself for the nurse's summons. A page torn out of the calendar lay
before her--she had been calculating again how many days must elapse
before Mr. Langhope could arrive. Ten days--ten days and ten nights! And
the length of the nights was double.... As for Amherst, it was
impossible to set a date for his coming, for his steamer from Buenos
Ayres called at various ports on the way northward, and the length of
her stay at each was dependent on the delivery of freight, and on the
dilatoriness of the South American official.

She threw down the calendar and leaned back, pressing her hands to her
temples. Oh, for a word with Amherst--he alone would have understood
what she was undergoing! Mr. Langhope's coming would make no
difference--or rather, it would only increase the difficulty of the
situation. Instinctively Justine felt that, though his heart would be
wrung by the sight of Bessy's pain, his cry would be the familiar one,
the traditional one: _Keep her alive!_ Under his surface originality,
his verbal audacities and ironies, Mr. Langhope was the creature of
accepted forms, inherited opinions: he had never really thought for
himself on any of the pressing problems of life.

But Amherst was different. Close contact with many forms of wretchedness
had freed him from the bondage of accepted opinion. He looked at life
through no eyes but his own; and what he saw, he confessed to seeing. He
never tried to evade the consequences of his discoveries.

Justine's remembrance flew back to their first meeting at Hanaford, when
his confidence in his own powers was still unshaken, his trust in others
unimpaired. And, gradually, she began to relive each detail of their
talk at Dillon's bedside--her first impression of him, as he walked down
the ward; the first sound of his voice; her surprised sense of his
authority; her almost involuntary submission to his will.... Then her
thoughts passed on to their walk home from the hospital--she recalled
his sober yet unsparing summary of the situation at Westmore, and the
note of insight with which he touched on the hardships of the
workers.... Then, word by word, their talk about Dillon came
back...Amherst's indignation and pity...his shudder of revolt at the
man's doom.

"_In your work, don't you ever feel tempted to set a poor devil free?_"
And then, after her conventional murmur of protest: "_To save what,
when all the good of life is gone?_"

To distract her thoughts she stretched her hand toward the book-case,
taking out the first volume in reach--the little copy of Bacon. She
leaned back, fluttering its pages aimlessly--so wrapped in her own
misery that the meaning of the words could not reach her. It was useless
to try to read: every perception of the outer world was lost in the hum
of inner activity that made her mind like a forge throbbing with heat
and noise. But suddenly her glance fell on some pencilled sentences on
the fly-leaf. They were in Amherst's hand, and the sight arrested her as
though she had heard him speak.

_La vraie morale se moque de la morale...._

_We perish because we follow other men's examples...._

_Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of
Lami�--bugbears to frighten children...._

A rush of air seemed to have been let into her stifled mind. Were they
his own thoughts? No--her memory recalled some confused association with
great names. But at least they must represent his beliefs--must embody
deeply-felt convictions--or he would scarcely have taken the trouble to
record them.

She murmured over the last sentence once or twice: _The opinions of the
many--bugbears to frighten children...._ Yes, she had often heard him
speak of current judgments in that way...she had never known a mind so
free from the spell of the Lami�.

* * * * *

Some one knocked, and she put aside the book and rose to her feet. It
was a maid bringing a note from Wyant.

"There has been a motor accident beyond Clifton, and I have been sent
for. I think I can safely be away for two or three hours, but ring me up
at Clifton if you want me. Miss Mace has instructions, and Garford's
assistant will be down at seven."

She looked at the clock: it was just three, the hour at which she was to
relieve Miss Mace. She smoothed the hair from her forehead, straightened
her cap, tied on the apron she had laid aside....

As she entered Bessy's sitting-room the nurse came out, memoranda in
hand. The two moved to the window for a moment's conference, and as the
wintry light fell on Miss Mace's face, Justine saw that it was white
with fatigue.

"You're ill!" she exclaimed.

The nurse shook her head. "No--but it's awful...this afternoon...." Her
glance turned to the sick-room.

"Go and rest--I'll stay till bedtime," Justine said.

"Miss Safford's down with another headache."

"I know: it doesn't matter. I'm quite fresh."

"You _do_ look rested!" the other exclaimed, her eyes lingering
enviously on Justine's face.

She stole away, and Justine entered the room. It was true that she felt
fresh--a new spring of hope had welled up in her. She had her nerves in
hand again, she had regained her steady vision of life....

But in the room, as the nurse had said, it was awful. The time had come
when the effect of the an�sthetics must be carefully husbanded, when
long intervals of pain must purchase the diminishing moments of relief.
Yet from Wyant's standpoint it was a good day--things were looking well,
as he would have phrased it. And each day now was a fresh victory.

Justine went through her task mechanically. The glow of strength and
courage remained, steeling her to bear what had broken down Miss Mace's
professional fortitude. But when she sat down by the bed Bessy's moaning
began to wear on her. It was no longer the utterance of human pain, but
the monotonous whimper of an animal--the kind of sound that a
compassionate hand would instinctively crush into silence. But her hand
had other duties; she must keep watch on pulse and heart, must reinforce
their action with the tremendous stimulants which Wyant was now using,
and, having revived fresh sensibility to pain, must presently try to
allay it by the cautious use of narcotics.

It was all simple enough--but suppose she should not do it? Suppose she
left the stimulants untouched? Wyant was absent, one nurse exhausted
with fatigue, the other laid low by headache. Justine had the field to
herself. For three hours at least no one was likely to cross the
threshold of the sick-room.... Ah, if no more time were needed! But
there was too much life in Bessy--her youth was fighting too hard for
her! She would not sink out of life in three hours...and Justine could
not count on more than that.

She looked at the little travelling-clock on the dressing-table, and saw
that its hands marked four. An hour had passed already.... She rose and
administered the prescribed restorative; then she took the pulse, and
listened to the beat of the heart. Strong still--too strong!

As she lifted her head, the vague animal wailing ceased, and she heard
her name: "Justine----"

She bent down eagerly. "Yes?"

No answer: the wailing had begun again. But the one word showed her that
the mind still lived in its torture-house, that the poor powerless body
before her was not yet a mere bundle of senseless reflexes, but her
friend Bessy Amherst, dying, and feeling herself die....

Justine reseated herself, and the vigil began again. The second hour
ebbed slowly--ah, no, it was flying now! Her eyes were on the hands of
the clock and they seemed leagued against her to devour the precious
minutes. And now she could see by certain spasmodic symptoms that
another crisis of pain was approaching--one of the struggles that Wyant,
at times, had almost seemed to court and exult in.

Bessy's eyes turned on her again. "_Justine_----"

She knew what that meant: it was an appeal for the hypodermic needle.
The little instrument lay at hand, beside a newly-filled bottle of
morphia. But she must wait--must let the pain grow more severe. Yet she
could not turn her gaze from Bessy, and Bessy's eyes entreated her
again--_Justine_! There was really no word now--the whimperings were
uninterrupted. But Justine heard an inner voice, and its pleading shook
her heart. She rose and filled the syringe--and returning with it, bent
above the bed....

* * * * *

She lifted her head and looked at the clock. The second hour had passed.
As she looked, she heard a step in the sitting-room. Who could it be?
Not Dr. Garford's assistant--he was not due till seven. She listened
again.... One of the nurses? No, not a woman's step----

The door opened, and Wyant came in. Justine stood by the bed without
moving toward him. He paused also, as if surprised to see her there
motionless. In the intense silence she fancied for a moment that she
heard Bessy's violent agonized breathing. She tried to speak, to drown
the sound of the breathing; but her lips trembled too much, and she
remained silent.

Wyant seemed to hear nothing. He stood so still that she felt she must
move forward. As she did so, she picked up from the table by the bed the
memoranda that it was her duty to submit to him.

"Well?" he said, in the familiar sick-room whisper.

"She is dead."

He fell back a step, glaring at her, white and incredulous.

"_Dead?_--When----?"

"A few minutes ago...."

"_Dead--?_ It's not possible!"

He swept past her, shouldering her aside, pushing in an electric button
as he sprang to the bed. She perceived then that the room had been
almost in darkness. She recovered command of herself, and followed him.
He was going through the usual rapid examination--pulse, heart,
breath--hanging over the bed like some angry animal balked of its prey.
Then he lifted the lids and bent close above the eyes.

"Take the shade off that lamp!" he commanded.

Justine obeyed him.

He stooped down again to examine the eyes...he remained stooping a long
time. Suddenly he stood up and faced her.

"Had she been in great pain?"

"Yes."

"Worse than usual?"

"Yes."

"What had you done?"

"Nothing--there was no time."

"No time?" He broke off to sweep the room again with his excited
incredulous glance. "Where are the others? Why were you here alone?" he
demanded.

"It came suddenly. I was going to call----"

Their eyes met for a moment. Her face was perfectly calm--she could feel
that her lips no longer trembled. She was not in the least afraid of
Wyant's scrutiny.

As he continued to look at her, his expression slowly passed from
incredulous wrath to something softer--more human--she could not tell
what....

"This has been too much for you--go and send one of the others.... It's
all over," he said.

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