Jessamine Part 21

And, again--"I suppose this is what people mean when they talk of not realizing a sorrow!"

As if aught but overwhelming appreciation of the might of a present calamity could crush the heart into deadness.

She was picking the faded leaves from the creepers, and crumbling them into dust, when Eunice came in. Jessie's protracted absence after the conference with the doctor had excited her apprehensions, and she stole down, while her father slept, to inquire into the cause. Immeasurably relieved at sight of her sister's att.i.tude and occupation, she smiled as she aroused her from her reverie.

"I could not think what had become of you, dear! What does Dr.

Winters think of father?"

"Sit down, Eunice, and I will tell you!" said Jessie, dreamy pity in her eyes, but no change in her hard, hollow voice.

Eunice sank into the nearest chair, laying her hand quickly upon her heart.

"You cannot mean--"

"That he is dying? Yes!" interrupted the other; and in the same awful composure, she repeated the doctor's verdict, _verbatim_.

"Now"--she concluded--"I will go back to him. You may come presently, when you have had time to think over the matter."

The beryl eyes were washed with many tears before they again met Jessie's across the sick-bed, but, after that, Eunice bore herself bravely. Hour after hour, they sat in the hushed upper chamber, facing their nearing desolation, without a plaint or an audible sigh. Below stairs, all was silent as the grave. Patsey, with an indefinable idea that the house should be set in order for the coming of the grim guest, had dusted the furniture, set back the chairs in straight rows against the walls in parlor and dining-room, and closed all the blinds on the lower floor; made her kitchen neat as Miss Eunice could have wished; then seated herself upon the upper step of the side porch, her arms wrapped in her clean ap.r.o.n.

Jessie's orders were positive that no one besides the doctors should be admitted, and as the servant's lookout commanded the front gate, she intercepted the many callers who flocked to the Parsonage, at the swift rumor of the pastor's extreme illness.

"We will keep him to ourselves while he stays with us!" the younger sister had answered the other's fear lest this proceeding should give offence to "the people." "He has belonged to them for thirty years. At the last, we may surely claim him!"

"But they love him dearly!" expostulated Eunice. "He is their spiritual father and guide."

"He is our _all_!" was the curt reply, and Eunice forbore to argue further.

In the midst of her grief, she was slightly afraid of Jessie. The wide eyes that were caverns of gloom; the tuneless accents that never shook or varied, cowed her into quiet and obedience.

There was little to be done. The sick man slept--if it were sleep--except when aroused to take medicine or food. At these periods, he recognized his children, and spoke coherently, although briefly. His kind heart and gentle breeding were with him to the end. His utterances were of thankfulness for the services they rendered, and love for those who bent over him, that not a word should be lost of that they felt, at each awakening, might be the last sentence they should ever hear from him.

He spoke once intelligibly and calmly of the nearing separation.

"I am going fast!" he said to Eunice, who was lifting his head upon her arm that she might adjust the pillow. "The Father is very good.

The 'precious blood' avails--even for me--for me! I go empty-handed, but rich--for there is the 'unspeakable gift!'" Closing his eyes he murmured softly to himself.

Eunice bowed her ear, and held her breath to catch the words.

"'The token was an arrow, with the point sharpened by love, let easily into the heart!' G.o.d is good--very good!"

It had been the testimony of his whole life.

"Jessie, dear! my little girl! you are wearing yourself out for me!"

he said, at another time. "I wish Roy were here! But HIS will be done! HE knows my darling's needs--her temptations--her trials. Like as a Father pitieth his children, dear! And it is true! Recollect that I told you so, this--and when--and how!"

She was to recollect it in the Father's good time. Now the words meant little, after she had heard the dying parent's wish for Roy's return. She said something in her own heart that was like a thanksgiving that her father was spared the one pang which the coming of the man he would have her marry, would bring,--that the sea rolled between them.

"We shall be cared for, Papa!" she replied, quietly.

"I know! The promise is sure," and he slept again, like a child at even-time upon the mother's breast.

"The 'great peace' is his!" said Eunice, in pious grat.i.tude.

Jessie was mute.

So the afternoon went by, and the shortening twilight of Autumn drew on apace. The shutters of the southern windows were unclosed to admit the air which evening had not made raw. The fleecy clouds were packed in a c.u.mulose ma.s.s upon the horizon, and this began to rise in portentous majesty, as the sun set behind it. Dun, while day lasted, with ragged, bra.s.sy edges, it darkened and thickened as Jessie watched it from her seat at the bed-head, into a banner of blackness absorbing the light from the rest of the heavens, and blotting out the earth from her sight. The silence was breathless.

Not an insect chirped or leaf rustled. Even the pine boughs were motionless. The mill wheel was still; the roar of the waterfall was the only sound abroad under the inky sky. The sisters could no longer see each other, but all the waning light in the room seemed concentred upon the pallid face between them. The effect of the pale radiance and the brooding quiet about them was weird--unearthly.

Eunice could bear it no longer.

"I will bring the night-lamp!" she said, rising.

She had hardly reached the foot of the staircase, when Jessie heard the garden-gate shut, and steps upon the gravel-walk leading to the kitchen; next, a stifled scream from Patsey, and a low, manly voice in rebuke or rea.s.surance. Listening, as for her life, the deadly cold of hands and feet creeping up to her heart, she caught a faint exclamation from Eunice; then, the cautious tread of feet in the hall to the parlor-door, which was shut behind those who went in; after which all was quiet again.

For one moment, the darkness was Egyptian, and the night more freezing than winter. The watcher struggled to arise, to raise her hands to her madly throbbing head, but a dull paralysis was upon her limbs. It was not more than three minutes, but it seemed an hour, before will a.s.serted its sway so far as to call back the blood in a tingling rush to the heart and extremities. Her trial was at hand.

This--the _coup de grace_ of the appointed torture--was not to be spared her, and she awaited it dumbly. But for the moveless face upon the pillow beside her, she must have rushed away to hide herself in thicket or cave--perhaps in the river-bed from which she had been rescued so lately. _That_ she could not leave. Her father slept on, the pale, unearthly glimmering abiding still upon the broad brow and n.o.ble features. He was beyond the reach of earthly solicitude--the swimming and buffeting, the toil and anxiety, were forever overpast; his feet already touched the solid ground. He was very far off from her--bruised, struggling, condemned to endure the consequences of her own and another's wrong-doing.

A weary season of sickness and dread elapsed ere Eunice entered with the lamp. She put it down upon a stand in a distant corner, came around to Jessie's side, and stooped to listen to her father's breathing before she spoke.

Her voice was husky and uneven, and there was the shine of fresh tears upon her cheeks.

"There is some one down stairs who wishes to see you, dear," she said, laying her hand upon her sister's, to support her in case she should be overcome by the great joy in store for her. "Some one you will be glad and thankful to meet again!"

"Is it Roy Fordham?" asked the hard voice, while Jessie did not start or stir.

Eunice saw that her prefatory measures were thrown away.

"It is! He sailed a fortnight earlier than he expected; arrived in America but yesterday. Dear sister! our Heavenly Father has sent him to us in our sorest need. He is waiting, love!"

"Then let him come up. I shall not leave this room."

CHAPTER XVI.

Every object in the dimly lighted chamber seemed, to Jessie's strained eyes, to stand out with painful distinctness, as her long-absent lover entered. Most clearly of all, she saw his familiar figure; noticed even the full beard and gray travelling-suit, while he crossed the floor toward her. She arose, mechanically, and went forward a step to meet his fleet, noiseless advance.

"My own one! my precious darling!"

He had her in his arms before she could resist, if she had meant to do so. There were tears in his eyes and voice as he kissed her, and he held her closely, warmly, as a mother would a suffering child.

She undid his embrace with fingers strong and chill as steel.

"My father is very ill!" she faltered, and retreated to his pillow.

Disturbed by the movement and sound of his name, Mr. Kirke awoke.

The recess in which his bed stood was in partial shadow, but his gaze rested at once upon Roy, and he tried to lift his head.