Scenes of Clerical Life

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by George Eliot

"Now, my dear Mrs Dempster, let me persuade you not to remain in the room at

  present. We shall soon relieve these symptoms, I hope; it is nothing but the

  delirium that ordinarily attends such cases."

  "Oh, what is the matter? what brought it on?"

  "He fell out of the gig; the right leg is broken. It is a terrible accident, and

  I don't disguise that there is considerable danger attending it, owing to the

  state of the brain. But Mr Dempster has a strong constitution, you know: in a

  few days these symptoms may be allayed, and he may do well. Let me beg of you to

  keep out of the room at present: you can do no good until Mr Dempster is better,

  and able to know you. But you ought not to be alone; let me advise you to have

  Mrs Raynor with you."

  "Yes, I will send for mother. But you must not object to my being in the room. I

  shall be very quiet now, only just at first the shock was so great; I knew

  nothing about it. I can help the nurses a great deal; I can put the cold things

  to his head. He may be sensible for a moment, and know me. Pray do not say any

  more against it: my heart is set on being with him."

  Mr Pilgrim gave way, and Janet, having sent for her mother and put off her

  bonnet and shawl, returned to take her place by the side of her husband's bed.

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  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 burthen 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 tha
t 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 become 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 come 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.

  CHAPTER XXV.

  The faces looked very hard and unmoved that surrounded Dempster's grave, while

  old Mr Crewe read the burial-service in his low, broken voice. The pall-bearers

  were such men as Mr Pittman, Mr Lowme, and Mr Budd�men whom Dempster had called

  his friends while he was in life; and worldly faces never look so worldly as at

  a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a

  coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night.

  The one face that had sorrow in it was covered by a thick crape-veil, and the

  sorrow was suppressed and silent. No one knew how deep it was; for the thought

  in most of her neighbours' minds was, that Mrs Dempster could hardly have had

  better fortune than to lose a bad husband who had left her the compensation of a

  good income. They found it difficult to conceive that her husband's death could

  be felt by her otherwise than as a deliverance. The person who was most

  thoroughly convinced that Janet's grief was deep and real, was Mr Pilgrim, who

  in general was not at all weakly given to a belief in disinterested feeling.

  "That woman has a tender heart," he was frequently heard to observe in his

  morning rounds about this time. "I used to think there was a great deal of

  palaver in her, but you may depend upon it there's no pretence about her. If

  he'd been the kindest husband in the world she couldn't have felt more. There's

  a great deal of good in Mrs Dempster�a great deal of good."

  "I always said so," was Mrs Lowme's reply, when he made the observation to her;

  "she was always so very full of pretty attentions to me when I was ill. But they

  tell me now she's turned Tryanite; if that's it we shan't agree again. It's very r />
  inconsistent in her, I think, turning round in that way, after being the

  foremost to laugh at the Tryanite cant, and especially in a woman of her habits;

  she should cure herself of them before she pretends to be over-religious."

  "Well, I think she means to cure herself, do you know," said Mr Pigrim, whose

  goodwill towards Janet was just now quite above that temperate point at which he

  could indulge his feminine patients with a little judicious detraction. "I feel

  sure she has not taken any stimulants all through her husband's illness; and she

  has been constantly in the way of them. I can see she sometimes suffers a good

  deal of depression for want of them�it shows all the more resolution in her.

  Those cures are rare; but I've known them happen sometimes with people of strong

  will."

  Mrs Lowme took an opportunity of retailing Mr Pilgrim's conversation to Mrs

  Phipps, who, as a victim of Pratt and plethora, could rarely enjoy that pleasure

  at first-hand. Mrs Phipps was a woman of decided opinions, though of wheezy

  utterance.

  "For my part," she remarked, "I'm glad to hear there's any likelihood of

  improvement in Mrs Dempster, but I think the way things have turned ont seems to

  show that she was more to blame than people thought she was; else, why should

  she feel so much about her husband? And Dempster, I understand, has left his

  wife pretty nearly all his property to do as she likes with; that isn't behaving

  like such a very bad husband. I don't believe Mrs Dempster can have had so much

  provocation as they pretended. I've known husbands who've laid plans for

  tormenting their wives when they're underground�tying up their money and

  hindering them from marrying again. Not that I should ever wish to marry again;

  I think one husband in one's life is enough in all conscience;"� here she threw

  a fierce glance at the amiable Mr Phipps, who was innocently delighting himself

  with the facetioe in the Rotherby Guardian, and thinking the editor must be a

  droll fellow�"but it's aggravating to be tied up in that way. Why, they say Mrs

  Dempster will have as good as six-hundred a-year at least. A fine thing for her,

  that was a poor girl without a farthing to her fortune. It's well if she doesn't

  make ducks and drakes of it somehow."

  Mrs Phipps's view of Janet, however, was far from being the prevalent one in

  Milby. Even neighbours who had no strong personal interest in her, could hardly

  see the noble-looking woman in her widow's dress, with a sad sweet gravity in

  her face, and not be touched with fresh admiration for her�and not feel, at

  least vaguely, that she had entered on a new life in which it was a sort of

  desecration to allude to the painful past. And the old friends who had a real

  regard for her, but whose cordiality had been repelled or chilled of late years,

  now came round her with hearty demonstrations of affection. Mr Jerome felt that

  his happiness had a substantial addition now he could once more call on that

  "nice little woman Mrs Dempster," and think of her with rejoicing instead of

  sorrow. The Pratts lost no time in returning to the footing of old-established

  friendship with Janet and her mother; and Miss Pratt felt it incumbent on her,

  on all suitable occasions, to deliver a very emphatic approval of the remarkable

  strength of mind she understood Mrs Dempster to be exhibiting. The Miss Linnets

  were eager to meet Mr Tryan's wishes by greeting Janet as one who was likely to

  be a sister in religious feeling and good works; and Mrs Linnet was so agreeably

  surprised by the fact that Dempster had left his wife the money "in that

  handsome way, to do what she liked with it," that she even included Dempster

  himself, and his villanous discovery of the flaw in her title to Pye's Croft, in

  her magnanimous oblivion of past offences. She and Mrs Jerome agreed over a

  friendly cup of tea that there were "a maeny husbands as was very fine spoken

 

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