Christian's Mistake Part 11

He saw her likewise--a figure, the like of which, husband and father as he had been, he had never seen before. No household experience of his had ever yet shown him a woman in that light--the dearest light in which any man can behold her.

A figure, quite different from the stately lady in white splendors of six hours before, sitting, dressed in a sober, soundless, dark-colored gown, motionless by the dim lamplight, but with the soft eyes open and watchful, and the tender hands ever ready for those endless wants of sickness at night, especially sickness that may be tending unto death, or unto the awful struggle between life and death, which most women have at some time of their lives to keep ward over till danger has gone by--just the sort of figure, in short, that every man is sure to need beside him, once or more, in his journey between the cradle and the grave. Happy he over whose cradle it has bent, and who, nearing the grave, shalt have such a one upon whose bosom he may close his weary eyes.

When Christian saw her husband, she stirred, and put up a linger far silence, Dr. Grey crossed the room, trying hard to make his step light and noiseless, but piteously failing in the attempt. Still Arthur was not disturbed.

"He sleeps sound, Christian. Does he suffer very much, do you think?"

"Not now."

"Will he ever recover?"

"I hope so. Oh, please G.o.d, I trust so! Dr. Anstruther said there was no reason why he should not."

"And you--you think so too?" with a touching appeal.

"Yes, I do think so"

Dr. Grey seemed relieved. In a kind of helpless, childlike way, he stood behind her and watched all she did for the child, who waked thirsty, and cried and moaned, but by-and--by was soothed to sleep again.

His father shuddered as he gazed upon him.

"He looks as if he were dead--my poor boy!"

"You must not look at him, You must go to bed," said Christian, with a gentle authority.

"Presently. And you--are you not afraid to sit up here alone?"

"Oh no."

"You never seem to be afraid of any thing."

"Not of much--I have gone through such a deal" said Christian, with a faint smile. "But, papa, indeed you must go to bed."

Nevertheless, they stood a little longer looking down upon Arthur, whose breathing grew softer into natural sleep. Then, with a mutual impulse given by the unity of a common grief the husband and wife turned and kissed one another.

"G.o.d bless you, my darling, my poor children's mother, the first they ever--"

He stopped, and never finished the sentence.

Chapter 6

_"Love that asketh love again, Finds the barter naught but pain; Love that giveth in full store, Aye receives as much, and more._

_"Love, exacting nothing back, Never knoweth any lack; Love, compelling love to pay, Sees him bankrupt every day."_

LIFE in the sick-room--most of us know what that is; how the whole world narrows itself within four walls, and every fanciful grief and morbid imagining slips off, pressed down into nothingness by the weight of daily, hourly cares, and commonplace, yet all-engrossing realities.

Christian was a born nurse--and nurses, like poets, are born, not made.

You may recognize the faculty in the little girl of ten years old, as she steals into your room to bring you your breakfast, and takes the opportunity to arrange your pillow, and put your drawers in order, and do any other little helpful office which you may need; and you miss it painfully in the matron of sixty, who, with perhaps the kindest intentions, comes to nurse you, taking for granted that she is the best person you could possibly have about you; and yet you would be thankful to shut the door upon her, and struggle, suffer, die alone; as Arthur, child as he was, would rather have died than suffer near his sick-bed either of his two aunts.

Phillis too--he screamed whenever he saw her, and with a jealousy not unnatural, and which Mrs. Grey was rather sorry for than annoyed at, she came into the room continually. At last it became a question almost of life and death, for the fever ran high; and even Dr.

Anstruther, cheery man as he was, began to look exceedingly grave.

The child must be kept quiet, and how to do it?

For in this crisis Christian found out, what every woman has to find out soon or late, the weak points in her husband. She saw that, like many another good and brave man, he was in this matter quite paralyzed; that she could rely only upon herself, and act for herself, or else tell him what he was to do, and help him to do it, just like a child. She did not care for him the less for this--she sometimes felt she cared for him, more; but she opened her eyes calmly to the facts of the case, and to her own heavy responsibility.

She consulted with Dr. Anstruther, and left him to explain things to whomsoever he would; then locked the door, and for eight days and nights suffered no one to cross the threshold of Arthur's room except the doctor.

It was a daring expedient, but the desperation of the time and Dr.

Anstruther's consent and co-operation, gave her courage; she was neither timid nor ignorant; she knew exactly what to do, and she believed, if it were G.o.d's will to save Arthur's life, He would give her strength to do it.

"My boy's life--only his life!" she prayed, more earnestly than she had ever prayed in her life before, and then prepared for the long solitary vigil, of which it was impossible to foresee the end. In its terrible suspense she forgot every thing except the present; day by day and hour by hour, as they slipped heavily along. She ceased to think of herself at all, scarcely even of her husband; her mind was wholly engrossed by her poor sick boy.

Hers, though hitherto she had never loved him; for he was not lovable at all, that rough, selfish, headstrong Arthur, the plague of his aunts, and the terror of the nursery. But now, when he lay on his sick-bed, lingering on from day to day, in total dependence on her care, with a heavy future before him, poor child!--for he seemed seriously injured-- there came into his step-mother's weak, womanly heart a woman's pa.s.sionate tenderness over all helpless things. She did to him not only her duty, but something more. She learned to love him.

Had any one told her a while ago that she should stand for hours watching every change in that pale face, whose common, uncomely features grew spiritualized with sickness, till she often trembled on their unearthly sweetness; that twenty times in the night she would start up from her uncomfortable sofa-bed, listening for the slightest sound; that the sight of Arthur eating his dinner (often prepared by her own hands, for the servants of the Lodge were strangely neglectful), or of Arthur trying to play a game of draughts, and faintly smiling over it, should cause her a perfect ecstasy of delight, Christian would have replied "Impossible!" But heaven sometimes converts our impossibles and inevitables into the very best blessings we have--most right, most natural, and most dear.

As to Christian herself, she was, even externally, greatly changed. Pale as she looked, and no wonder, there was a light in her eye and a firmness in her step very different from those of the weary-looking woman who used to roam listlessly about the gloomy galleries or sit silently working in the equally gloomy drawing-room with Miss Gascoigne and Miss Grey.

Poor Aunt Maria, in her regular daily visit--she dared venture no more--to the sick-room door, would sometimes say hesitatingly, "My dear, how well you look still? You are sure you are not breaking down?"

And Christian, grateful for the only kindly woman's face she ever saw near her, would respond with a smile--sometimes with a kiss, which always alarmed Aunt Maria exceedingly.

As for Aunt Henrietta, she never came at all. Since the evening when she had marched out of the room in high dudgeon, she had taken not the smallest notice of the sick boy. His life or death was apparently of far less moment to her than her own offended dignity. Had he been left in her sole charge, she would doubtless have done her duty to him but to stand by and see another doing it? No! a thousand times no! That part, insignificant in itself, and yet often one of the very sweetest and most useful in life's harmonies, familiarly called "second fiddle," was a part impossible to be played by Miss Gascoigne.

What she did or said--though probably the first was little and the other a great deal--was happily unknown to Mrs. Grey. Her one duty lay clear before her, to save her poor boy's life, if any human means could do it. And sometimes, when she saw the agony and anxiety in his father's face, Christian felt a wild joy in spending herself and being spent, even to the last extremity, if by such means she could repay to her most good and tender husband that never-counted, unaccountable debt of love, which nothing ever does pay except return in kind.

Concerning Arthur himself, the matter was simple enough now. All his fractiousness, restlessness, and innumerable wants were easy to put up with; she loved the child. And he, who (except from his father) had never known any love before, took it with a wondering complacency, half funny, half pathetic. Sometimes he would say, looking at her wistfully, "Oh, it's so nice to be ill!" And once, the first time she untied his right arm, and allowed it to move freely, he slipped it around her neck, whispering, "You are very good to me, mother."

Christian crept away. She dared not clasp him or cry over him, he was so weak still; but she stole aside into the oriel window, her heart full almost to bursting.

After that he always called her "mother."

The other two children she scarcely ever saw. The need for keeping Arthur quiet was so vital, that of course they were not admitted to his room, and she herself rarely left it. Dim and far away seemed all the world, and especially her own poor life, whether happy or miserable, compared with that frail existence, which hung almost upon a thread.

At last the medical opinion was given that little Arthur might, with great care and incessant watching ("which it is plain he will have, Mrs.

Grey," added the old doctor, bowing and smiling), grow up to be a man yet.

When Dr. Anstruther said this, Christian felt as if the whole world had brightened.

She had no one to tell her joy to, for Dr. Grey was out, but she stood in her familiar retreat at the window--oh, what that window could have revealed of the last few weeks!--and her tears, long dried up, poured down like summer rain.

And then Dr. Grey came in, very much agitated; he had met the doctor in the street and been told glad tidings. She had to compel herself into sudden quietness, for her husband's sake, which, indeed, was a lesson now daily being learned, and growing every day sweeter in the learning.

"Christian," he said, when they had talked it all over, and settled when and where Arthur was first to go out of doors, with various other matter of fact things which she thought would soonest calm the father's emotion--"Christian, Dr. Anstruther tells me my boy could not have lived but for you and your care. I shall ever remember this--ever feel grateful."