 | CHAPTER IX. Vashti, or, "Until death us do part" |  |
9. CHAPTER IX.
“DOCTOR Sheldon, do you think she is dangerously
ill?”
“I am afraid, Salome, that she will soon become
so; for she is threatened with a violent attack of pneumonia,
which would certainly be very dangerous to a woman of her
age. It is a great misfortune that her brother is absent.”
“Dr. Grey reached New York three days ago.”
“Indeed! I will telegraph immediately, and hasten his
return.”
Dr. Sheldon was preparing a blister in the room adjoining
the one occupied by Miss Jane, and the orphan stood by his
side, twisting her fingers nervously over each other, and looking
perplexed and anxious. He returned to his patient, and when
he came out some moments later, and took up his hat, his countenance
was by no means reassuring.
“Although I know that you are very much attached to Miss
Jane, and would faithfully endeavor to nurse her, you are so
young and inexperienced that I do not feel quite willing to
leave her entirely to your guardianship; and, therefore, shall
send a woman here to-night who will fully understand the case.
She is a professional nurse, and Dr. Grey will be relieved to
hear that his sister is in her hands, for he has great confidence
in her good sense and discretion. I shall stop at the telegraph
office, as I go home, and urge him to return at once. Give me
his address. Do not look so dejected. Miss Grey has a better
constitution than most persons are disposed to believe, and she
may struggle through this attack.”
The new year was ushered in by heavy and incessant rains,
and, having imprudently insisted upon superintending the drainage
of a new sheep-fold and the erection of an additional cattleshed,
Miss Jane had taken a severe cold, which resulted in pneumonia.
Assiduously and tenderly Salome watched over her, and even
solicitude would not permit her to quit the apartment where
her benefactress lay struggling with disease; while Miss Jane
shrank from the stranger, and preferred to receive the medicine
from the hand of her adopted child.
When Dr. Sheldon stood by the bed early next morning, and
noted the effect of his treatment, Salome's keen eye observed
the dissatisfied expression of his face, and she drew sad auguries
from his clouded brow. He took a paper from his pocket, and
said, cheerfully, —
“Come, Miss Jane, get up a smile to pay me for the good
news I bring. Can you guess what this means?” holding an
envelope close to her eyes.
“More blisters and fever mixtures, I suppose. Doctor, my
poor side is in a dreadful condition.”
As she laid her hand over her left lung, she winced and
groaned.
“How much would you give to have your brother's hand,
instead of mine, on your pulse?”
“All that I am worth! But my boy is in Europe, and can't
come back to me now, when I need him most.”
“No, he is in New York. You have been dreaming, and forget
that he has reached America.”
“No, I never knew it. Salome, is there a letter?”
“No letter, but a dispatch announcing his arrival. I told
you; but you must have fallen asleep while I was talking to
you.”
“No such thing! I have not slept a wink for a week.”
“That is right, Miss Jane; scold as much as you like; it will
do you no harm. But, meantime, let me tell you I have just
heard from Dr. Grey, and he is now on his way home.”
Salome was sitting near the pillow, and suddenly her head
bowed itself, while her lips whispered, inaudibly, —
“Thank God!”
The invalid's face brightened, and, stretching her thin, hot
hand towards the orphan, she touched her shoulder, and said, —
“Do you hear that, my child? Ulpian is coming home.
When will he be here?”
“Day after to-morrow evening, I hope, if there is no detention
and he makes all the railroad connections. I trust you
will prove sufficiently generous to bear testimony to my professional
skill, by improving so rapidly that when he arrives there
will be nothing left to do but compliment my sagacity, and thank
me for relieving you so speedily. Is not your cough rather
better?”
She did not reply; and, bending down, he saw that she was
asleep.
“Doctor, I am afraid she is not much better.”
He sighed, shook his head, and beckoned Hester into the
hall in order to question her more minutely concerning the
patient.
That night and the next she was delirious, and failed to
recognize any one; but about noon on the following day she
opened her eyes, and, looking intently at Salome, who stood near
the foot of the bed, she said, as if much perplexed, —
“I saw Ulpian just now. Where is he?”
“He will be here this afternoon, I hope. The train is due at
two o'clock, and it is now a quarter past twelve.”
“I tell you I saw him not ten minutes since.”
“You are feverish, dear Miss Jane, and have been dreaming.”
“Don't contradict me! Am I in my dotage, think you? I
saw my boy, and he was pale, and had blood on his hands, and
it ran down his beard and dripped on his vest. You can't
deceive me! What is the matter with my poor boy? I will
see him! Give me my crutches this instant!”
She struggled into a partially upright position, but fell back
upon her pillow exhausted and panting for breath.
“You were delirious. I give you my word that he has not
yet come home. It was only a horrible dream. Hester will
assure you of the truth of what I say. You must lie still, for
this excitement will injure you.”
The nurse gave her a powerful sedative, and strove to divert
—
“It was not a dream. I saw my dear sailor-boy, and he was
hurt and bleeding. I know what I saw; and if you and Hester
swore till every star dropped out of heaven, I would not believe
you. If I am old and dying, my eyes are better than yours.
My poor Ulpian!”
Despite her knowledge of the feverish condition of the sick
woman, and her incredulity with reference to the vision that so
painfully disturbed her, Salome's lips blanched, and a vague,
nameless, horrible dread seized her heart.
Very soon Miss Jane fell into a heavy sleep, and, while the
nurse busied herself in preparing a bottle of beef-tea, the orphan
sat with her head pressed against the bed-post, and her eyes
riveted on the face of the watch in her palm, where the minutehand
seemed now and then to stop, as if for breathing-time, and
the hour-hand to have forgotten the way to two o'clock.
For nearly six months Salome had counted the weeks and
days, — had waited and hoped for the hour of Dr. Grey's return
as the happiest of her life, — had imagined his greeting, the
bright, steady glow in his fine eyes, the warm, cordial pressure
of his white hand, the friendly tones of his pleasant voice; for,
though he had failed to bid her good-by, fate could not cheat
her out of the interview that must follow his arrival. Fancy
had painted so vividly all the incidents that would characterize
this longed-for greeting, that she had lived it over a thousand
times; and, now that the meeting seemed actually at hand, she
asked herself whether it were possible that disappointment could
pour one poisonous drop into the brimming draught of joy that
rose foaming in amber bubbles to her parched lips.
In the profound silence that pervaded the darkened room,
the ticking of the watch was annoyingly audible, and seemed to
Salome's strained and excited nerves so unusually loud that
she feared it might disturb the sleeper. At a quarter to two
o'clock she went to the hearth and noiselessly renewed the fire,
laying two fresh pieces of oak across the shining brass andirons,
whose feet represented lions' heads.
She swept the hearth, arranged some vials that were scattered
on the dressing-table, and gave a few improving touches to a vase
filled with white and orange crocuses, then crept back to the
bedside and again picked up the watch. It still lacked fifteen
minutes of two, and, looking more closely, she found that it had
stopped. Tossing it into a hollow formed by the folds of the
coverlid, and repressing an impatient ejaculation, she listened
for the sound of the railroad whistle, which, though muffled by
distance, had not failed to reach her every day during the past
week.
Presently the silence, which made her ears ache, throbbed so
suddenly that she started, but it was only the “cuckoo!
cuckoo!” of the painted bird on the gilded clock. That clock
was fifteen minutes slower than Miss Jane's watch; and Salome
put her face in her hands, and tried to still the loud thumping
sound of the blood at her heart.
The train was behind time. Only a few moments as yet, but
something must have happened to occasion even this slight
delay; and, if something, — what?
Hester came in and whispered, —
“Dinner is ready, and Stanley is hungry. Has Miss Jane
stirred since I went out?”
“No; what time is it?”
“Half after two.”
“Oh, nonsense! You are too fast.”
“Not a minute, — begging your pardon. My brother stays
at the dépot, and keeps my watch with the railroad time.”
Salome went to the dining-room, gave Stanley his dinner,
and, anxious to escape observation, shut herself in the dim, cold
parlor, where she paced the floor until the cuckoo jumped out,
chirped three times, and, as if frightened by the girl's fixed
eyes, fluttered back inside the clock. More than an hour behind
time! Now, beyond all hope or doubt, there had been an accident!
Loss of sleep for several consecutive nights, and protracted
anxiety concerning Miss Jane, had so unnerved the
orphan that she was less able to cope successfully with this
harrowing suspense than on former occasions; still the sanguine
that apprehension conjured up, and she remembered that comparatively
trivial occurrences had sometimes detained the train,
which finally brought all its human freight safely to the dépot.
The day had been very cold and gloomy; and thick, low masses
of smoke-colored cloud scudded across the chill sky, whipped
along their skirts by a stinging north-east blast into dun, ragged,
trailing banners. Despite the keenness of the air, Salome
opened one of the parlor windows and leaned her face on the
broad sill, where a drizzling rain began to show itself. She had
read and heard just enough with reference to the phenomena of
clairvoyance to sneer at them in happy hours, and to recur helplessly
to the same subject with a species of silent dread when
misfortune seemed imminent. To-day, as Miss Jane's delirious
utterances haunted every nook and cranny of her excited brain,
permeating all topics of thought, she recalled many instances, on
legendary record, where the dying were endowed with talismanic
power over the secrets of futurity. Could it be possible that
Miss Jane had really seen what was taking place many miles
distant? Reason shook her hoary head, and jeered at such
childish fatuity; but superstitious credulity, goaded by an
intense anxiety, would not be silenced nor put to the blush, but
boldly babbled of Swedenborg and burning Stockholm.
Once she had heard Dr. Grey tell his sister, in answer to some
inquiry concerning the arcana of mesmerism, that he had bestowed
much time and thought upon the investigation of the
subject, and was thoroughly convinced that there existed subtle
psychological laws whose operations were not yet comprehended,
but which, when analyzed and studied, would explain the remarkable
influence of mind over mind, and prove that the dread
and baffling mysteries of psychology were merely normal developments
of intellectual power instead of supernatural or spiritual
manifestations.
This abstract view of the matter was, however, most unsatisfactory
at the present juncture; and the current of Salome's
reflections was abruptly changed by the sound of the locomotive
whistle, — not the prolonged, steady roar, announcing arrival, but
struck four, and, ere the echoes fell asleep once more in the
sombre corners of the quiet parlor, Dr. Sheldon drove up to the
front door and entered the house. Springing into the hall,
Salome met him, and laid her hand on his arm.
“Salome, your face frightens me. How is Miss Jane? Has
she grown worse so rapidly since I was here this morning?”
“I see little change in her. But you have locked bad news
behind your set teeth. Oh, for God's sake, don't torture me
one second longer! Tell me the worst. What has happened?”
“The down-train was thrown from an embankment twenty
feet high, and the cars took fire. Many lives have been sacrificed,
and it is the most awful affair I ever heard of.”
He had partially averted his head to avoid the sight of her
whitening and convulsed features; but, laying her hands heavily
upon his shoulders, she forced him to face her, and her voice
sank to a husky whisper, —
“Is he dead?”
“I hope not.”
“Speak out, — or I shall go mad! Is he dead?”
“Calm yourself, Salome, and let us hope for the best. We
know nothing of the particulars of this dreadful disaster, and
have learned the names of none of the sufferers. I have little
doubt that Dr. Grey was on the train, but there is no certainty
that he was injured. The regular up-train could not leave as
usual, because the track was badly torn up; but a locomotive
and three cars ran out a while ago with several surgeons and
articles required for the victims. Pray sit down, my poor child,
for you are unable to stand.”
“Where did it happen?”
“Near Silver Run water-tank, — about forty miles from here.
The accident occurred at twelve o'clock.”
Salome's grasp suddenly relaxed, and, tossing her hands above
her head, she laughed hysterically, —
“Ha, ha! Thank God, he is not dead! He is only hurt, —
only bleeding. Miss Jane saw it all, and he is not dead, or she
would have known it. Thank God!”
Dr. Sheldon was a stern man and renowned for his iron
nerves, but he shuddered as he looked at the pinched, wan face,
and heard the unnatural, hollow sound of her unsteady voice.
Had care, watching, and suspense unpoised her reason?
Something of that which passed through his mind looked out
of his eyes, and, interpreting their amazed expression, the girl
waved her hand towards the door, and added, —
“I am not insane. Go in, and Hester will explain.”
He turned away, and she went back to the dusky room and
threw herself down on the sofa, opposite to the portrait of
the U. S. surgeon.
Of what passed during the following two hours, she retained,
in after years, only a dim, confused, painful memory of prayers
and promises made to God in behalf of the absent.
Once before, when Miss Jane's death seemed imminent, she
had been grieved and perplexed by the possibility that Dr. Grey
would inherit the estate and usurp her domains; but to-day,
when the Great Reaper hovered over the panting, emaciated
sufferer, and simultaneously threatened the distant brother and
sole heir of the extended possessions which this girl had so long
coveted, the only thought that filled her heart with dread and
wrung half-smothered cries from her lips was, —
“Spare his life, oh, my God! Leave me penniless — take
friends, relatives, comforts, hopes of wealth — take all — take
everything, but spare that precious life and bring him safely
back to me! Have mercy on me, O Lord, and do not snatch
him away! for, if I lose him now, I lose faith in Christ — in
Thee — I lose all hope in time and eternity, and my sinful,
wrecked soul will go down forever in a night that knows no
dawning!”
For six months she had been indeed, —
A meek, sweet statue at the silver shrines,
In deep, perpetual prayer for him she loved;”
now, instead of an humble suppliant for the boon that alone
should not be broken, and, battling with Jehovah, impiously
thrust her life down before Him as an accursed and intolerable
burden, unless her prayers were granted. Ah, what scorpions
and stones we gather to our boards, and then dare charge the
stinging mockeries against a long-suffering, loving God! Ten
days before, Salome had meekly prayed, “Thy will be done,”
and had comforted herself with the belief that at last she was
beginning to grow pious and trusting, like Miss Jane; but, at
the first hint of harm to Dr. Grey, she sprang up, utterly oblivious
of the protestations of resignation that were scarcely cold
on her lips, and furious as a tigress who sees the hunter approach
the jungle where all her fierce affections centre. God help us
all who pray orthodoxly for His will, and yet, when the emergency
arrives, fight desperately for our own, feeling wofully
aggrieved that He takes us at our word, and moulds the clay
which we make a Pharisaical pretense of offering!
A slow drizzling rain whitened the distant hills, that seemed
to blanch in their helplessness as the wind smote them like a
flail; and it wove a grayish veil over the leafless boughs of
bending, shivering elms, on the long, dim avenue. The wintry
afternoon closed swiftly, and, in its dusky dreariness, Salome
listened to the tattoo of the rain on the roof, and to the miserere
that wailed through the lonely chambers of her soul. The chill
at her heart froze her to numbness and oblivion of the coldness
of the atmosphere, and, when a servant came in to close the
window against the slanting sleet, she lay so still that the
woman thought her asleep, and stole away on tip-toe. The
room grew dark; but, through the half-opened door, the light
from the hall lamp crept in and fell on the gilded frame and
painted face of the portrait, tracing a silvery path along the
gloomy wall. As the night deepened, that wave of light rippled
and glittered until the handsome features in the picture seemed
to belong to some hierarch who peeped from a window of heaven,
into a world drenched with unlifting darkness.
That oval piece of canvas had become the one fetich to which
Salome's heart clung in silent adoration, defiant of the iconoclastic
for natures such as hers will always grovel in the dust, hugging
the mutilated fragments of their idol, rather than bow at some
new, fretted shrine, where other images hold sway, commanding
worship. Looking up almost wolfishly at that tranquil, shining
countenance, she said to her sullen, mourning heart, —
“There are no more like him, and, if we lose him, there is
nothing left in life, and all hope is at an end, and finis shall be
printed on the first page of the book of our existence; and ruin,
like a pitiless pall, shall cover what might have been a happy,
possibly a grand and good, human career. We did not intend
to love him, — no, no; we tried hard to hate him who stood
between us and affluence and indolent ease, but he conquered
us by his matchless magnanimity, and shamed our ignoble aims
and base selfishness, and put us under his royal feet; and now
we would rather be trampled by Ulpian, our king, than crowned
by any other man. Let us plead with Christ to spare the only
pilot who can save us from eternal shipwreck.”
Lying there so helpless yet defiant in her desolation, some
subtle thread of association, guided, perhaps, by the invisible
fingers of her guardian angel, led her mind to a favorite couplet
often quoted by Dr. Grey, —
And, groping through the darkness, touched God's hand.”
If the painted lips in the aureola on the wall had parted and
audibly uttered these words, they would scarcely have impressed
her more powerfully as a message from the absent; and, rising
instantly, the orphan prayed in chastened, humbled tones for
strength to be patient, for ability to trust God's wisdom and
mercy.
How often, when binding our idolized Isaacs upon the altar,
and, meekly submissive to what appears God's inexorable mandates,
we unmurmuringly offer our heart's dearest treasure, the
sacrificial knife is stayed, and our loathed and horrible Moriahs,
that erst smelt of blood and echoed woe, become hallowed
Jehovah-jirehs, all aglow, not with devouring flames, but the
thanksgiving strains. But Abraham's burden preceded Abraham's
boon, and the souls who cannot patiently endure the first
are utterly unworthy of the rapture of the last.
As the girl's mind grew calmer under the breath of prayer —
which stills the billows of human passion and strife as the
command of Jesus smoothed the thundering surf of Genesareth,
— she recollected that she had absented herself from the sick-room
for an unusually long time. How long, she could not
conjecture, for the face of the clock was invisible, and she had
ceased to count the cuckoo-notes; but her limbs ached, and a
fillet of fire seemed to circle her brow.
With a lingering gaze upon the radiant portrait, she quitted
the parlor, and went wearily back to renew her vigil.
Hester Dennison was cowering over the hearth, spreading her
bony hands towards the crackling flames, and, walking up to the
mantelpiece, Salome touched the nurse, and whispered, —
“Hester, what did the doctor say? Is there any change?”
“Hush!” The woman laid a finger on her lip, and glanced
over her shoulder.
There was only the subdued light of a shaded lamp mingling
with the flicker of the fire, and, as Salome's eyes followed those
of the nurse, they rested upon the figure of a man kneeling at
the bedside, and leaning his head against the pillow where Miss
Jane's white hair was strewn in disorder.
A cry of delight, which she had neither the prudence nor
power to repress, rang through the silent chamber, startling its
inmates, and partially arousing the invalid. Salome forgot that
life and death were grappling over the prostrate form of the
aged woman, — forgot everything but the supreme joy of knowing
that her idol had not been rudely shattered.
Springing to the bedside, she put out her hands, and exclaimed,
rapturously:
“Oh, Dr. Grey! Were you much hurt? Thank God, you
are alive and here! Indeed, He is merciful —”
“Hush! Have you no prudence? Quit the room, or be
quiet.”
Dr. Grey lifted his haggard face from the pillow, and the
light showed it pallid and worn by acute suffering, while a strip
of plaster pressed together the edges of a deep cut on his cheek.
His clothes glistened with sleet, and bore stains that in daylight
were crimson, though now they were only ominously dark.
The stern tones of his voice, suppressed though it was, stung
the girl's heart; and she answered, in a pleading whisper, —
“Only tell me that you are not severely injured. Speak one
kind word to me!”
“I am not dangerously hurt. Hush! Remember life hangs
in the balance.”
“Oh, Dr. Grey! will you not even shake hands with me,
after all these dreary months of absence? This is hard, indeed.”
She had stood at his side, with her hands extended imploringly;
and now he moved cautiously, and, silently holding up one
hand swathed in linen bands, pointed to his left arm, which was
tightly splintered and bandaged.
The mute gesture explained all, and, sinking to the carpet,
she pressed her lips to the linen folds, and to the coat-sleeve,
where sleet and blood-spots mingled.
He could not have prevented her, even had he desired to do
so; but at that instant his sister moaned faintly, and, bending
forward to examine her countenance, he seemed for some minutes
unconscious of the presence of the form crouching close by his
side.
After a little while he looked down, sighed, and whispered, —
“My child, do go to bed. You can do no good here, and too
much watching has already unstrung your nerves. Go to your
room, and pray that God will spare our dear Janet to us.”
Was this the welcome for which she had waited and longed —
of which she had dreamed by day and by night? Not a touch,
barely a brief, impatient glance, and a few reproving, indifferent
words. She had rashly dared fate to cheat her out of this long-anticipated
greeting, and the grim, grinning crone had accepted
the challenge, and now triumphantly snapped her withered
fingers in the face of the vanquished.
When coveted fruit that has been hungrily watched through
mellow into eagerly uplifted fingers, and breaks in a shower of
bitter dust on the sharpened and fastidious palate, it rarely
happens that the half-famished dupe relishes the taste; and
Salome rose, feeling stunned and mocked.
In one corner of the room stood a chintz-covered lounge, and,
creeping to it, she laid herself down; and, shading her features
with her hand, looked through her fingers at the pale, grieved face
of the anxious brother. Sometimes he stood up, studying the
placid countenance of the sufferer, and now and then he walked
softly to the fire-place, and held whispered conferences with
Hester relative to the course of treatment that had been pursued.
But everywhere Salome's eyes followed him; and finally, when
he chanced to glance at the couch, and noticed its occupant,
whom he imagined fast asleep, he pointed to a blanket lying on
a chair, and directed Hester to spread it over the girlish figure.
The thoughtful act warmed the orphan's heart more effectually
than the thick woollen cover; and when he sat down in an easy-chair
close to the bed, and within range of Salome's vision, she
yielded to the comforting consciousness of his presence. And,
while her lips were moving in thanks for his preservation and
return, exhausted nature seized her dues, and the girl fell
asleep and dreamed that Dr. Grey stood by the lounge, and
whispered, —
The rose of sunset folds its glory up
To burst again from out the heart of dawn,
And love is never lost, though hearts run waste,
And sorrow makes the chastened heart a seer;
The deepest dark reveals the starriest hope,
And Faith can trust her heaven behind the veil.”
| CHAPTER IX. Vashti, or, "Until death us do part" | |