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
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