The Measure of a Man Part 36

Love that is true must hush itself, Nor pain by its useless cry; For the young don't care, and the old must bear, And Time goes by--goes by.

One morning John said to his mother, "Today Martha is queen of the May.

Tomorrow they will pack, and do their last shopping and on Friday afternoon they promise to be home. The maids and men will be all in their places by tonight, and I think Jane will be pleased with the changes I have made."

"She ought to be, but ought often stands for nothing. It cost thee a goodish bit when thou hedn't much to count on."

"Not so much, mother--some paint and paper and yards of creton."

"And new white curtains 'upstairs and downstairs and in my lady's chamber.' Add to that men's and women's wage; and add to that, the love that could neither be bought nor sold."

"She is worth it all many times over."

"Happen she may be. Her aunt has had a heartbreaking lesson. She may say a few words to unsay words that she never should have spoken."

"I shall be thinking of Martha all day. I hope she will keep her confidence."

"What art thou talking about? Martha will do herself no injustice. It isn't likely. What is the matter with thee, John? Thou art as down-hearted as if all had gone wrong instead of right. O thou of little faith!"

"I know and I am sorry and ashamed, mother."

The next morning John had a charming letter from Jane. Martha had done wonderfully. She had played her part to perfection and there were only exclamations of delight at the airy, fairy cleverness of her conceptions of mimic royalty. Jane said the ill.u.s.trated papers had all taken Martha's picture, and in fact the May Day Dream had been an unqualified, delightful success. "And the praise is all given to Martha, John. I shall have her likeness taken today as she appeared surrounded by her ladies. We shall surely see you at home on Friday."

John was so immensely proud of this news, that he went up the hill earlier than usual in order to give it to his mother. And her att.i.tude disappointed him. She was singularly indifferent, he thought, and answered his excited narrative by a fervent wish that they "were safely back at Hatton." He wondered a little but let the circ.u.mstance pa.s.s.

"She has been worried about some household misdoing," he thought, and he tried during their dinner together to lead her back to her usual homely, frank cheerfulness. He only very partially succeeded, so he lit a cigar and lay down on the sofa to smoke it. And as his mother knit she lifted her eyes occasionally and they were full of anxious pity. She knew not _why_, and yet in her soul there was a dark, swelling sorrow which would not for any adjuration of Scripture nor any imploration of prayer, be stilled.

"I wonder what it is," she whispered. "I wonder if Jane----" then there was a violent knocking at the front door, and she started to her feet, uttering as she did so the word, "_Now!_" She knew instinctively, whatever the trouble was, it was standing at her threshold, and she took a candle in her hand and went to meet it face to face. It was a stranger on a big horse with a telegram. He offered it to Mrs. Hatton, but John had quickly followed his mother and he took it from her and read its appalling message:

Come quickly! Martha is very, very ill!

A dark, heavy cloud took possession of both hearts, but John said only, "Come with me, mother." "No," she answered, "this is Jane's opportunity.

I must not interfere with it. I shall be with you, dear John, though you may not see. My kiss and blessing to the little one. G.o.d help her!

Hurry, John! I will have your horse at the door in ten minutes."

In that long, dark, hurrying ride to London, he suddenly remembered that for two days he had been haunted by a waylaying thought of some verses he had read and cut out of a daily paper, and with the remembrance, back they came to his mind, setting themselves to a phantom melody he could hardly refrain himself from softly singing,

"Many waters go softly dreaming On to the sea, But the river of Death floweth softest, By tower and tree.

"No rush of the mournful waters Breaks on the ear, To tell us when Life is strongest, That Death flows near.

"But through throbbing hearts of cities In the heat of the day, The cool, dark River pa.s.seth On its silent way.

"This is the River that follows Wherever we go, No sand so dry and thirsty, But these strange waters flow.

"Many waters go softly dreaming On to the sea, But the river of Death flows softest To Thee and me.

"And the Lord's voice on the waters Lingereth sweet, He that is washed needest only To wash his feet."

CHAPTER XIII

THE LOVE THAT NEVER FAILS

Go in peace, soul beautiful and blest!

Yet high above the limits of our seeing, And folded far within the inmost heart, And deep below the deeps of conscious being, Thy splendor shineth! There O G.o.d! Thou art.

When John reached London it was in the gray misty dawning. The streets were nearly deserted, and an air of melancholy hung over the long rows of low dwellings. At Harlow House he saw at once that every window was shrouded, and he turned heartsick with the fear that he was too late. A porter, whose eyes were red with weeping, admitted him, and there was an intolerable smell of drugs, the odor of which he recollected all the days of his future life.

"She is still alive, sir--but very ill."

John could not answer, but his look was so urgent and so miserable the man divined the hurry of heart and spirit that he was possessed by and without another word led him to the room where the child lay dying. The struggle was nearly over and John was spared the awful hours of slow strangulation which had already done their work. She was not insensible.

She held tight the hand of her mother, kneeling by her side, and gazed at John with eyes wearing a new, deep look as if a veil had been rent and she with open face saw things sweet and wonderful. Her pale, mute mouth smiled faintly and she tried to stretch out her arms to him. There she lay, a smitten child, fallen after a bewildering struggle with a merciless foe. John with a breaking heart lifted her in his arms and carried her gently to-and-fro. The change and motion relieved her a little and what words of comfort and love he said in that last communion only G.o.d knows. But though he held her close in his strong arms, she found a way to pa.s.s from him to G.o.d. Quivering all over like a wounded bird, she gave John her last smile, and was not, for G.o.d took her. The bud had opened to set free the rose--the breathing miracle into silence pa.s.sed. Weeping pa.s.sionately, his tears washed her face. He was in an agony of piteous feeling in which there was quite unconsciously a strain of resentment.

"She is gone!" he cried, and the two physicians present bowed their heads. Then Jane rose and took the body from the distracted father's arms. She was white and worn out with suffering and watching, but she would allow no one to make the child's last toilet but herself. For this ceremony she needed no lace or satin, no gilt or mock jewelry. She washed the little form free of all earth's stain, combed loose the bright brown hair, matted with the sweat of suffering, and dressed her for the last--the last time, in one of the pretty white linen nightgowns she had made for her darling but a few weeks previously.

Oh, who dare inquire what pa.s.sed in Jane's soul during that hour? The G.o.d who wrote the child's name in His book before she was born, He only knew. Of all that suffered in Martha's loss, Jane suffered incredibly more than any other. She fell prostrate on the floor at the feet of the Merciful Father when this duty was done--prostrate and speechless.

Prayer was beyond her power. She was dumb. G.o.d had done it and she deserved it. She heard nothing John said to her. All that long, long day she sat by her dead child, until in the darkening twilight some men came into the room on tiptoe. They had a small white coffin in their care, and placed it on a table near the bed. Then Jane stood up and if an unhappy soul had risen from the grave, it could not have shocked them more. She stood erect and looked at them. Her tall form, in its crushed white gown, her deathly white face, her black eyes gleaming with the lurid light of despair, her pale quivering lips, her air of hopeless grief, shocked even these men, used to the daily sight of real or pretended mourners. With a motion of her hand she prevented them coming closer to the dead child, and then by an imperative utterance of the word, "_Go_," sent them from the room. With her own hand she laid Martha in her last bed and disposed its one garment about the rigid little limbs. She neither spoke nor wept for Ah! in her sad soul she knew that never day or night or man or G.o.d could bring her child back to her. And she remembered that once she had said in an evil moment that this dear, dead child was "one too many." Would G.o.d ever forgive her?

By a late train that night they left for Hatton Hall, reaching the village about the time for the mill to open. No bell summoned its hands to cheerful work. They were standing at various points, and when the small white coffin went up the hill, they silently followed, softly singing. At the great gates the weeping grandmother received them.

For one day the living and the dead dwelt together in hushed and sorrowful mourning, nor did a word of comfort come to any soul. The weight of that grief which hung like lead upon the rooms, the stairs, the galleries where her step had lately been so light, was also on every heart; and although we ought to be diviner for our dead, the strength of this condition was not as yet realized. John had shut himself in his room, and the grandmother went about her household duties silently weeping and trying to put down the angry thoughts which would arise whenever she remembered how stubbornly her daughter-in-law had refused to leave Martha with her, and make her trip to London alone. She knew it was "well with the child," but Oh the bitter strength of regrets that strain and sicken,

Yearning for love that the veil of Death endears.

Jane sat silent, tearless, almost motionless beside her dead daughter.

Now and then John came and tried to comfort the wretched woman, but in her deepest grief, there was a tender motherly strain which he had not thought of and knew not how to answer. "Her little feet! Her little feet, John! I never let them wander alone or stray even in Hatton streets without a helper and guide. O John, what hand will lead them upward and back to G.o.d? Those little feet!"

"Her angel would be with her and she would know the way through the constellations. Together they would pa.s.s swift as thought from earth to heaven. Martha loved G.o.d. They who love G.o.d will find their way back to Him, dear Jane."

The next day there was no factory bell. Nearly the whole village was ma.s.sed in Hatton churchyard, and towards sunset the crowd made a little lane for the small white coffin to the open grave waiting for it. None of the women of the family were present. They had made their parting in the familiar room that seemed, even at that distracting hour, full of Martha's dear presence. But Jane, sitting afterwards at its open window, heard the soft singing of those who went to the grave mouth with the child, and when a little later John and Harry returned together, she knew that _all had been_.

She did not go to meet them, but John came to her. "Let me help you, dear one," he said tenderly. "One is here who will give you comfort."

"None can comfort me. Who is here?"

"The new curate. He said words at the graveside I shall never forget. He filled them with such glory that I could not help taking comfort."

"O John, what did he say?"

"After the service was over, and the people dispersing, he stood talking to Harry and myself, and then he walked up the hill with us. I asked him for your sake."

"I will come down in half an hour, John."

"Then I will come and help you."

And in half an hour this craver after some hope and comfort went down, and then John renewed the conversation which was on the apparent cruelty of children being born to live a short time and then leave Earth by the inscrutable gate of Death.