Shirley
white Western isles with the poisoned exhalations of the East, dimming
the lattices of English homes with the breath of Indian plague. At other
times this future bursts suddenly, as if a rock had rent, and in it a
grave had opened, whence issues the body of one that slept. Ere you are
aware you stand face to face with a shrouded and unthought-of
calamity--a new Lazarus.
Caroline Helstone went home from Hollow's Cottage in good health, as she
imagined. On waking the next morning she felt oppressed with unwonted
languor. At breakfast, at each meal of the following day, she missed all
sense of appetite. Palatable food was as ashes and sawdust to her.
"Am I ill?" she asked, and looked at herself in the glass. Her eyes were
bright, their pupils dilated, her cheeks seemed rosier, and fuller than
usual. "I look well; why can I not eat?"
She felt a pulse beat fast in her temples; she felt, too, her brain in
strange activity. Her spirits were raised; hundreds of busy and broken
but brilliant thoughts engaged her mind. A glow rested on them, such as
tinged her complexion.
Now followed a hot, parched, thirsty, restless night. Towards morning
one terrible dream seized her like a tiger; when she woke, she felt and
knew she was ill.
How she had caught the fever (fever it was) she could not tell. Probably
in her late walk home, some sweet, poisoned breeze, redolent of
honey-dew and miasma, had passed into her lungs and veins, and finding
there already a fever of mental excitement, and a languor of long
conflict and habitual sadness, had fanned the spark to flame, and left a
well-lit fire behind it.
It seemed, however, but a gentle fire. After two hot days and worried
nights, there was no violence in the symptoms, and neither her uncle,
nor Fanny, nor the doctor, nor Miss Keeldar, when she called, had any
fear for her. A few days would restore her, every one believed.
The few days passed, and--though it was still thought it could not long
delay--the revival had not begun. Mrs. Pryor, who had visited her
daily--being present in her chamber one morning when she had been ill a
fortnight--watched her very narrowly for some minutes. She took her hand
and placed her finger on her wrist; then, quietly leaving the chamber,
she went to Mr. Helstone's study. With him she remained closeted a long
time--half the morning. On returning to her sick young friend, she laid
aside shawl and bonnet. She stood awhile at the bedside, one hand placed
in the other, gently rocking herself to and fro, in an attitude and with
a movement habitual to her. At last she said, "I have sent Fanny to
Fieldhead to fetch a few things for me, such as I shall want during a
short stay here. It is my wish to remain with you till you are better.
Your uncle kindly permits my attendance. Will it to yourself be
acceptable, Caroline?"
"I am sorry you should take such needless trouble. I do not feel very
ill, but I cannot refuse resolutely. It will be such comfort to know you
are in the house, to see you sometimes in the room; but don't confine
yourself on my account, dear Mrs. Pryor. Fanny nurses me very well."
Mrs. Pryor, bending over the pale little sufferer, was now smoothing the
hair under her cap, and gently raising her pillow. As she performed
these offices, Caroline, smiling, lifted her face to kiss her.
"Are you free from pain? Are you tolerably at ease?" was inquired in a
low, earnest voice, as the self-elected nurse yielded to the caress.
"I think I am almost happy."
"You wish to drink? Your lips are parched."
She held a glass filled with some cooling beverage to her mouth.
"Have you eaten anything to-day, Caroline?"
"I cannot eat."
"But soon your appetite will return; it _must_ return--that is, I pray
God it may."
In laying her again on the couch, she encircled her in her arms; and
while so doing, by a movement which seemed scarcely voluntary, she drew
her to her heart, and held her close gathered an instant.
"I shall hardly wish to get well, that I may keep you always," said
Caroline.
Mrs. Pryor did not smile at this speech. Over her features ran a tremor,
which for some minutes she was absorbed in repressing.
"You are more used to Fanny than to me," she remarked ere long. "I
should think my attendance must seem strange, officious?"
"No; quite natural, and very soothing. You must have been accustomed to
wait on sick people, ma'am. You move about the room so softly, and you
speak so quietly, and touch me so gently."
"I am dexterous in nothing, my dear. You will often find me awkward, but
never negligent."
Negligent, indeed, she was not. From that hour Fanny and Eliza became
ciphers in the sick-room. Mrs. Pryor made it her domain; she performed
all its duties; she lived in it day and night. The patient
remonstrated--faintly, however, from the first, and not at all ere long.
Loneliness and gloom were now banished from her bedside; protection and
solace sat there instead. She and her nurse coalesced in wondrous union.
Caroline was usually pained to require or receive much attendance. Mrs.
Pryor, under ordinary circumstances, had neither the habit nor the art
of performing little offices of service; but all now passed with such
ease, so naturally, that the patient was as willing to be cherished as
the nurse was bent on cherishing; no sign of weariness in the latter
ever reminded the former that she ought to be anxious. There was, in
fact, no very hard duty to perform; but a hireling might have found it
hard.
With all this care it seemed strange the sick girl did not get well; yet
such was the case. She wasted like any snow-wreath in thaw; she faded
like any flower in drought. Miss Keeldar, on whose thoughts danger or
death seldom intruded, had at first entertained no fears at all for her
friend; but seeing her change and sink from time to time when she paid
her visits, alarm clutched her heart. She went to Mr. Helstone and
expressed herself with so much energy that that gentleman was at last
obliged, however unwillingly, to admit the idea that his niece was ill
of something more than a migraine; and when Mrs. Pryor came and quietly
demanded a physician, he said she might send for two if she liked. One
came, but that one was an oracle. He delivered a dark saying of which
the future was to solve the mystery, wrote some prescriptions, gave some
directions--the whole with an air of crushing authority--pocketed his
fee, and went. Probably he knew well enough he could do no good, but
didn't like to say so.
Still, no rumour of serious illness got wind in the neighbourhood. At
Hollow's Cottage it was thought that Caroline had only a severe cold,
she having written a note to Hortense to that effect; and mademoiselle
contented herself with sending two pots of currant jam, a recipe for a
tisane, and a note of advice.
Mrs. Yorke being told that a physician had been summoned, sneered at the
hypochondriac fancies of the rich and idle, who, she said, having
nothing but themselves to think about, must needs send for a doctor if
only so much as their little finger ached.
The "rich and idle," represented in the person of Caroline, were
meantime falling fast into a condition of prostration, whose quickly
consummated debility puzzled all who witnessed it except one; for that
one alone reflected how liable is the undermined structure to sink in
sudden ruin.
Sick people often have fancies inscrutable to ordinary attendants, and
Caroline had one which even her tender nurse could not at first explain.
On a certain day in the week, at a certain hour, she would--whether
worse or better--entreat to be taken up and dressed, and suffered to sit
in her chair near the window. This station she would retain till noon
was past. Whatever degree of exhaustion or debility her wan aspect
betrayed, she still softly put off all persuasion to seek repose until
the church clock had duly tolled midday. The twelve strokes sounded, she
grew docile, and would meekly lie down. Returned to the couch, she
usually buried her face deep in the pillow, and drew the coverlets close
round her, as if to shut out the world and sun, of which she was tired.
More than once, as she thus lay, a slight convulsion shook the sick-bed,
and a faint sob broke the silence round it. These things were not
unnoted by Mrs. Pryor.
One Tuesday morning, as usual, she had asked leave to rise, and now she
sat wrapped in her white dressing-gown, leaning forward in the
easy-chair, gazing steadily and patiently from the lattice. Mrs. Pryor
was seated a little behind, knitting as it seemed, but, in truth,
watching her. A change crossed her pale, mournful brow, animating its
languor; a light shot into her faded eyes, reviving their lustre; she
half rose and looked earnestly out. Mrs. Pryor, drawing softly near,
glanced over her shoulder. From this window was visible the churchyard,
beyond it the road; and there, riding sharply by, appeared a horseman.
The figure was not yet too remote for recognition. Mrs. Pryor had long
sight; she knew Mr. Moore. Just as an intercepting rising ground
concealed him from view, the clock struck twelve.
"May I lie down again?" asked Caroline.
Her nurse assisted her to bed. Having laid her down and drawn the
curtain, she stood listening near. The little couch trembled, the
suppressed sob stirred the air. A contraction as of anguish altered Mrs.
Pryor's features; she wrung her hands; half a groan escaped her lips.
She now remembered that Tuesday was Whinbury market day. Mr. Moore must
always pass the rectory on his way thither, just ere noon of that day.
Caroline wore continually round her neck a slender braid of silk,
attached to which was some trinket. Mrs. Pryor had seen the bit of gold
glisten, but had not yet obtained a fair view of it. Her patient never
parted with it. When dressed it was hidden in her bosom; as she lay in
bed she always held it in her hand. That Tuesday afternoon the transient
doze--more like lethargy than sleep--which sometimes abridged the long
days, had stolen over her. The weather was hot. While turning in febrile
restlessness, she had pushed the coverlets a little aside. Mrs. Pryor
bent to replace them. The small, wasted hand, lying nerveless on the
sick girl's breast, clasped as usual her jealously-guarded treasure.
Those fingers whose attenuation it gave pain to see were now relaxed in
sleep. Mrs. Pryor gently disengaged the braid, drawing out a tiny
locket--a slight thing it was, such as it suited her small purse to
purchase. Under its crystal face appeared a curl of black hair, too
short and crisp to have been severed from a female head.
Some agitated movement occasioned a twitch of the silken chain. The
sleeper started and woke. Her thoughts were usually now somewhat
scattered on waking, her look generally wandering. Half rising, as if
in terror, she exclaimed, "Don't take it from me, Robert! Don't! It is
my last comfort; let me keep it. I never tell any one whose hair it is;
I never show it."
Mrs. Pryor had already disappeared behind the curtain. Reclining far
back in a deep arm-chair by the bedside, she was withdrawn from view.
Caroline looked abroad into the chamber; she thought it empty. As her
stray ideas returned slowly, each folding its weak wings on the mind's
sad shore, like birds exhausted, beholding void, and perceiving silence
round her, she believed herself alone. Collected she was not yet;
perhaps healthy self-possession and self-control were to be hers no
more; perhaps that world the strong and prosperous live in had already
rolled from beneath her feet for ever. So, at least, it often seemed to
herself. In health she had never been accustomed to think aloud, but now
words escaped her lips unawares.
"Oh, I _should_ see him once more before all is over! Heaven _might_