Meanwhile, Mrs. Parsons and Mary nursed him devotedly. Mary was quite splendid. In her loving quickness she forestalled all Jamie’s wants, so that they were satisfied almost before he had realised them. She was always bright and good-tempered and fresh; she performed with constant cheerfulness the little revolting services which the disease necessitates; nothing was too difficult, or too harassing, or too unpleasant for her to do. She sacrificed herself with delight, taking upon her shoulders the major part of the work, leaving James only when Mrs. Parsons forced her to rest. She sat up night after night uncomplainingly; having sent for her clothes, and, notwithstanding Mrs. Clibborn’s protests, taken up her abode altogether at Primpton House.
Mrs. Clibborn said it was a most improper proceeding; that a trained nurse would be more capable, and the Parsons could well afford it; and also that it was indelicate for Mary to force herself upon James when he was too ill to defend himself.
“I don’t know what we should do without you, Mary,” said Colonel Parsons, with tears in his eyes. “If we save him it will be your doing.”
“Of course we shall save him! All I ask you is to say nothing of what I’ve done. It’s been a pleasure to me to serve him, and I don’t deserve, and I don’t want, gratitude.”
But it became more than doubtful whether it would be possible to save James, weakened by his wound and by the privations of the campaign. The disease grew worse. He was constantly delirious, and his prostration extreme. His cheeks sank in, and he seemed to have lost all power of holding himself together; he lay low down in the bed, as if he had given up trying to save himself. His face became dusky, so that it was terrifying to look upon.
The doctor could no longer conceal his anxiety, and at last Mrs. Parsons, alone with him, insisted upon knowing the truth.
“Is there any chance?” she asked, tremulously. “I would much rather know the worst.”
“I’m afraid very, very little.”
Mrs. Parsons shook hands silently with Dr. Radley and returned to the sick room, where Mary and the Colonel were sitting at the bedside.
“Well?”
Mrs. Parsons bent her head, and the silent tears rolled down her cheeks. The others understood only too well.
“The Lord’s will be done,” whispered the father. “Blessed be the name of the Lord!”
They looked at James with aching hearts. All their bitterness had long gone, and they loved him again with the old devotion of past time.
“D’you think I was hard on him, dear?” said the Colonel.
Mary took his hand and held it affectionately.
“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I’m sure he never felt any bitterness towards you.”
James now was comatose. But sometimes a reflex movement would pass through him, a sort of quiver, which seemed horribly as though the soul were parting from his body; and feebly he clutched at the bed-clothes.
“Was it for this that he was saved from war and pestilence?” muttered the Colonel, hopelessly.
But the Fates love nothing better than to mock the poor little creatures whose destinies ceaselessly they weave, refusing the wretched heart’s desire till long waiting has made it listless, and giving with both hands only when the gift entails destruction.... James did not die; the passionate love of those three persons who watched him day by day and night by night seemed to have exorcised the might of Death. He grew a little better; his vigorous frame battled for life with all the force of that unknown mysterious power which cements into existence the myriad wandering atoms. He was listless, indifferent to the issue; but the will to live fought for him, and he grew better. Quickly he was out of danger.
His father and Mary and Mrs. Parsons looked at one another almost with surprise, hardly daring to believe that they had saved him. They had suffered so much, all three of them, that they hesitated to trust their good fortune, superstitiously fearing that if they congratulated themselves too soon, some dreadful thing would happen to plunge back their beloved into deadly danger. But at last he was able to get up, to sit in the garden, now luxuriant with the ripe foliage of August; and they felt the load of anxiety gradually lift itself from their shoulders. They ventured again to laugh, and to talk of little trivial things, and of the future. They no longer had that panic terror when they looked at him, pale and weak and emaciated.
Then again the old couple thanked Mary for what she had done; and one day, in secret, went off to Tunbridge Wells to buy a little present as a proof of their gratitude. Colonel Parsons suggested a bracelet, but his wife was sure that Mary would prefer something useful; so they brought back with them a very elaborate and expensive writing-case, which with a few shy words they presented to her. Mary, poor thing, was overcome with pleasure.
“It’s awfully good of you,” she said. “I’ve done nothing that I wouldn’t have done for any of the cottagers.”
“We know it was you who saved him. You — you snatched him from the very jaws of Death.”
Mary paused, and held out her hand.
“Will you promise me one thing?”
“What is it?” asked Colonel Parsons, unwilling to give his word rashly.
“Well, promise that you will never tell James that he owes anything to me. I couldn’t bear him to think I had forced myself on him so as to have a sort of claim. Please promise me that.”
“I should never be able to keep it!” cried the Colonel.
“I think she’s right, Richmond. We’ll promise, Mary. Besides, James can’t help knowing.”
The hopes of the dear people were reviving, and they began to look upon Jamie’s illness, piously, as a blessing of Providence in disguise. While Mrs. Parsons was about her household work in the morning, the Colonel would sometimes come in, rubbing his hands gleefully.
“I’ve been watching them from the kitchen garden,” he said.
James lay on a long chair, in a sheltered, shady place, and Mary sat beside him, reading aloud or knitting.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have done that, Richmond,” said his wife, with an indulgent smile, “it’s very cruel.”
“I couldn’t help it, my dear. They’re sitting there together just like a pair of turtle-doves.”
“Are they talking or reading?”
“She’s reading to him, and he’s looking at her. He never takes his eyes off her.”
Mrs. Parsons sighed with a happy sadness.
“God is very good to us, Richmond.”
James was surprised to find how happily he could spend his days with Mary. He was carried into the garden as soon as he got up, and remained there most of the day. Mary, as ever, was untiring in her devotion, thoughtful, anxious to obey his smallest whim.... He saw very soon the thoughts which were springing up again in the minds of his father and mother, intercepting the little significant glances which passed between them when Mary went away on some errand and he told her not to be long, when they exchanged gentle chaff, or she arranged the cushions under his head. The neighbours had asked to visit him, but this he resolutely declined, and appealed to Mary for protection.
“I’m quite happy alone here with you, and if anyone else comes I swear I’ll fall ill again.”
And with a little flush of pleasure and a smile, Mary answered that she would tell them all he was very grateful for their sympathy, but didn’t feel strong enough to see them.
“I don’t feel a bit grateful, really,” he said.
“Then you ought to.”
Her manner was much gentler now that James was ill, and her rigid moral sense relaxed a little in favour of his weakness. Mary’s common sense became less aggressive, and if she was practical and unimaginative as ever, she was less afraid than before of giving way to him. She became almost tolerant, allowing him little petulances and little evasions — petty weaknesses which in complete health she would have felt it her duty not to compromise with. She treated him like a child, with whom it was possible to be indulgent without a surrender of principle; he could still claim to be sp
oiled and petted, and made much of.
And James found that he could look forward with something like satisfaction to the condition of things which was evolving. He did not doubt that if he proposed to Mary again, she would accept him, and all their difficulties would be at an end. After all, why not? He was deeply touched by the loving, ceaseless care she had taken of him; indeed, no words from his father were needed to make him realise what she had gone through. She was kindness itself, tender, considerate, cheerful; he felt an utter prig to hesitate. And now that he had got used to her again, James was really very fond of Mary. In his physical weakness, her strength was peculiarly comforting. He could rely upon her entirely, and trust her; he admired her rectitude and her truthfulness. She reminded him of a granite cross standing alone in a desolate Scotch island, steadfast to wind and weather, unyielding even to time, erect and stern, and yet somehow pathetic in its solemn loneliness.
Was it a lot of nonsense that he had thought about the immaculacy of the flesh? The world in general found his theories ridiculous or obscene. The world might be right. After all, the majority is not necessarily wrong. Jamie’s illness interfered like a blank space between his present self and the old one, with its strenuous ideals of a purity of body which vulgar persons knew nothing of. Weak and ill, dependent upon the strength of others, his former opinions seemed singularly uncertain. How much more easy and comfortable was it to fall back upon the ideas of all and sundry? One cannot help being a little conscience-stricken sometimes when one thinks differently from others. That is why society holds together; conscience is its most efficient policeman. But when one shares common opinions, the whole authority of civilisation backs one up, and the reward is an ineffable self-complacency. It is the easiest thing possible to wallow in the prejudices of all the world, and the most eminently satisfactory. For nineteen hundred years we have learnt that the body is shameful, a pitfall and a snare to the soul. It is to be hoped we have one, for our bodies, since we began worrying about our souls, leave much to be desired. The common idea is that the flesh is beastly, the spirit divine; and it sounds reasonable enough. If it means little, one need not care, for the world has turned eternally to one senseless formula after another. All one can be sure about is that in the things of this world there is no absolute certainty.
James, in his prostration, felt only indifference; and his old strenuousness, with its tragic despair, seemed not a little ridiculous. His eagerness to keep clean from what he thought prostitution was melodramatic and silly, his idea of purity mere foolishness. If the body was excrement, as from his youth he had been taught, what could it matter how one used it! Did anything matter, when a few years would see the flesh he had thought divine corrupt and worm-eaten? James was willing now to float along the stream, sociably, with his fellows, and had no doubt that he would soon find a set of high-sounding phrases to justify his degradation. What importance could his actions have, who was an obscure unit in an ephemeral race? It was much better to cease troubling, and let things come as they would. People were obviously right when they said that Mary must be an excellent helpmate. How often had he not told himself that she would be all that a wife should — kind, helpful, trustworthy. Was it not enough?
And his marriage would give such pleasure to his father and mother, such happiness to Mary. If he could make a little return for all her goodness, was he not bound to do so? He smiled with bitter scorn at his dead, lofty ideals. The workaday world was not fit for them; it was much safer and easier to conform oneself to its terrestrial standard. And the amusing part of it was that these new opinions which seemed to him a falling away, to others meant precisely the reverse. They thought it purer and more ethereal that a man should marry because a woman would be a housekeeper of good character than because the divine instincts of Nature irresistibly propelled him.
James shrugged his shoulders, and turned to look at Mary, who was coming towards him with letters in her hand.
“Three letters for you, Jamie!”
“Whom are they from?”
“Look.” She handed him one.
“That’s a bill, I bet,” he said. “Open it and see.”
She opened and read out an account for boots.
“Throw it away.”
Mary opened her eyes.
“It must be paid, Jamie.”
“Of course it must; but not for a long time yet. Let him send it in a few times more. Now the next one.”
He looked at the envelope, and did not recognise the handwriting.
“You can open that, too.”
It was from the Larchers, repeating their invitation to go and see them.
“I wonder if they’re still worrying about the death of their boy?”
“Oh, well, it’s six months ago, isn’t it?” replied Mary.
“I suppose in that time one gets over most griefs. I must go over some day. Now the third.”
He reddened slightly, recognising again the handwriting of Mrs. Wallace. But this time it affected him very little; he was too weak to care, and he felt almost indifferent.
“Shall I open it?” said Mary.
James hesitated.
“No,” he said; “tear it up.” And then in reply to her astonishment, he added, smiling: “It’s all right, I’m not off my head. Tear it up, and don’t ask questions, there’s a dear!”
“Of course, I’ll tear it up if you want me to,” said Mary, looking rather perplexed.
“Now, go to the hedge and throw the pieces in the field.”
She did so, and sat down again.
“Shall I read to you?”
“No, I’m sick of the ‘Antiquary.’ Why the goodness they can’t talk English like rational human beings, Heaven only knows!”
“Well, we must finish it now we’ve begun.”
“D’you think something dreadful will happen to us if we don’t?”
“If one begins a book I think one should finish it, however dull it is. One is sure to get some good out of it.”
“My dear, you’re a perfect monster of conscientiousness.”
“Well, if you don’t want me to read, I shall go on with my knitting.”
“I don’t want you to knit either. I want you to talk to me.”
Mary looked almost charming in the subdued light of the sun as it broke through the leaves, giving a softness of expression and a richness of colour that James had never seen in her before. And the summer frock she wore made her more girlish and irresponsible than usual.
“You’ve been very, very good to me all this time, Mary,” said James, suddenly.
Mary flushed. “I?”
“I can never thank you enough.”
“Nonsense! Your father has been telling you a lot of rubbish, and he promised he wouldn’t.”
“No, he’s said nothing. Did you make him promise? That was very nice, and just like you.”
“I was afraid he’d say more than he ought.”
“D’you think I haven’t been able to see for myself? I owe my life to you.”
“You owe it to God, Jamie.”
He smiled, and took her hand.
“I’m very, very grateful!”
“It’s been a pleasure to nurse you, Jamie. I never knew you’d make such a good patient.”
“And for all you’ve done, I’ve made you wretched and miserable. Can you ever forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive, dear. You know I always think of you as a brother.”
“Ah, that’s what you told the curate!” cried James, laughing.
Mary reddened.
“How d’you know?”
“He told Mrs. Jackson, and she told father.”
“You’re not angry with me?”
“I think you might have made it second cousin,” said James, with a smile.
Mary did not answer, but tried to withdraw her hand. He held it fast.
“Mary, I’ve treated you vilely. If you don’t hate me, it’s only because you’re a perfect angel.”
“I can never hate you,” she whispered.
“Oh, Mary, can you forgive me? Can you forget? It sounds almost impertinent to ask you again — Will you marry me, Mary?”
She withdrew her hand.
“It’s very kind of you, Jamie. You’re only asking me out of gratitude, because I’ve helped a little to look after you. But I want no gratitude; it was all pleasure. And I’m only too glad that you’re getting well.”
“I’m perfectly in earnest, Mary. I wouldn’t ask you merely from gratitude. I know I have humiliated you dreadfully, and I have done my best to kill the love you had for me. But I really honestly love you now — with all my heart. If you still care for me a little, I beseech you not to dismiss me.”
“If I still care for you!” cried Mary, hoarsely. “Oh, my God!”
“Mary, forgive me! I want you to marry me.”
She looked at him distractedly, the fire burning through her heart. He took both her hands and drew her towards him.
“Mary, say yes.”
She sank helplessly to her knees beside him.
“It would make me very happy,” she murmured, with touching humility.
Then he bent forward and kissed her tenderly.
“Let’s go and tell them,” he said. “They’ll be so pleased.”
Mary, smiling and joyful, helped him to his feet, and supporting him as best she could, they went towards the house.
Colonel Parsons was sitting in the dining-room, twirling his old Panama in a great state of excitement; he had interrupted his wife at her accounts, and she was looking at him good-humouredly over her spectacles.
“I’m sure something’s happening,” he said. “I went out to take Jamie his beef-tea, and he was holding Mary’s hand. I coughed as loud as I could, but they took no notice at all. So I thought I’d better not disturb them.”
Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated) Page 51