University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII.
WHICH CONTAINS BOTH LOVE AND DEATH.

Good Mr. Waldo drove back to Ptolemy seriously troubled
by the calamity which had come upon the household
of Lakeside. Its helpless condition, now that the housekeeper
was struck down, rendered immediate assistance necessary;
but whence was the help to come? He could think of no
woman at the same time willing and competent to render it—
except his wife—and on her rested the entire care of his own
house, as they were unable to afford a servant. The benevolent
clergyman actually deliberated whether he should not let
her go, and ask the hospitality of one of his parishioners during
her absence, in case no other nurse could be found.

As he turned into the short private lane leading to his
stable, a rapid little figure, in pink muslin, entered the front
yard. It was Miss Caroline Dilworth, who had just returned
from a farm-house on the road to Mulligansville, where she
had been sewing for a fortnight past. She entered the plain
little sitting-room at the same moment with Mr. Waldo. The
clergyman's wife greeted her with astonishing brevity, and
turned immediately to her husband.

“What was the matter?” she asked; “is Bute so much
worse?”

“Bute worse!” ejaculated Miss Dilworth, opening her eyes
in amazement.

“No,” said Mr. Waldo, answering his wife, “the doctor
thinks his chance is a little better, though he is still out of his
head; but she has the fever now, and her case seems worse
than his. I am distressed about them: there is nobody there

except the old negro woman, and Mrs. Babb needs a careful
nurse immediately.”

“What is it? Do tell me what it is?” cried Miss Dilworth,
catching hold of the clergyman's arm with both hands.

He explained the case to her in a few words. To the astonishment
of both, the little sempstress burst into a violent flood
of tears. For a minute or two the agitation was so great that
she was unable to speak.

“It's d-dreadful!” she sobbed at last. “Why—why didn't
you send w-word to me? But I'll g-go now: don't put out
your horse: take—take me there!”

“Carrie! do you really mean it?” said Mrs. Waldo.

Miss Caroline Dilworth actually stamped her foot. “Do
you think I'd make fun about it?” she cried. “Yes, I mean
to go, if I must go a-foot. He—they must have somebody, and
there's nobody can go so well as I can.”

“I think she is right, wife,” said the clergyman.

Mrs. Waldo hesitated a moment. “I know you would
be kind and careful, Carrie,” she said at length, “and I could
come every day, and relieve you for a while. But are you sure
you are strong enough for the task?”

Miss Dilworth dried her eyes with her handkerchief and
answered: “If I'm not, you'll soon find it out. I'm going
over to Friend Thurston's to get some of my things to take
along.”

“I'll call for you in a quarter of an hour, with the buggy,”
said Mr. Waldo.

The little sempstress was off without saying good-by. As
she went down the plank walk towards the Widow Thurston's
cottage, she pushed her tangled curls behind her ears, and then
held her hands clenched at her side, too much in earnest to
give her head a single toss or allow her feet a single mincing
step. All the latent firmness in her lithe figure was suddenly
developed. It spoke in her rapid, elastic gait, in the compression
of the short red lips, and the earnest forward glance
of her eyes, under their uplifted lids. During the spring and

summer she had been gradually coming to the conviction that
she had treated Bute Wilson shamefully. The failure of the
little arts which she had formerly employed with so much success
had hastened this conviction. The softest drooping of her
eyes, the gentlest drawl of her voice, ceased to move him from
his cold, grave indifference. She began to feel that these
charms only acquired their potency through the sentiments of
those upon whom they were exercised. Had she not again
and again cast them forth as nets, only to haul them in at last
without having entrapped the smallest fish?

Besides, in another way, her ambition had suffered a severe
check. The mistress of the school at Mulligansville having
fallen sick, Miss Dilworth took her place for a fortnight. Her
first sense of triumph in having attained what she considered
to be her true mission, even as the proxy of another, did not
last long. For a day or two, the novelty of her appearance
kept the school quiet; but, one by one, the rude country children
became familiar with her curls, with her soft green eyes,
and her unauthoritative voice. They grinned in answer to her
smile and met her frown with unconcealed derision; they ate
green apples before her very face; pulled each other's hair or
tickled each other under the arms; drew pictures on their
slates and upset the inkstands over their copy-books. The
bigger boys and girls threw saucy notes at each other across
the whole breadth of the school-room. They came to her with
“sums” which she found herself unable to solve; they read
with loud, shrill voices and shocking pronunciation; and when
the hour for dismissal came, instead of retiring quietly, they
sprang from their benches with frightful whooping and rushed
tumultuously out of the house. The “beautiful humanity” of
the occupation, which she had heard so extolled, burst like a
painted bubble, leaving no trace; the “moral suasion,” on
which she relied for maintaining discipline, failed her utterly;
the “reciprocal love” between teacher and pupil, which she
fancied she would develop in the highest degree, resolved itself
into hideous contempt on the one side and repugnance on

the other. She was finally indebted to one of the biggest and
coarsest of the boys—a fellow who almost made her tremble
every time he came near her—for sufficient help to prevent
the school from falling into chaos before the fortnight came to
an end. This boy, who was the bully of the school, and whose
voice had a cracked hoarseness denoting the phase of development
through which he was passing, was impressed with a
vague respect for her curls and her complexion, and chivalrously
threw his influence, including his fists, on her side. It was
not pleasant, however, to hear the older girls giggle and whisper
when he came: “There's the mistress's beau!”

Bute, also, increased in value in proportion as he became
inaccessible. She confessed to herself that no masculine eyes
had ever looked at her with such honest tenderness as his: and
they were handsome eyes, whatever his nose might be. She
had always liked to hear his voice, too, in the old time: now
it was no longer the same. It was changed to her, and she
had not imagined that the change could make her so restless
and unhappy. Still, she did not admit to herself that she really
loved him: their intercourse had had none of that sentimental
poetic coloring—that atmosphere of sighs, murmurs, thrills, and
silent raptures—which she fancied should accompany Love.
He was even coarsely material enough to sneer at the idea of
“kindred spirits!” Yet he loved her, for all that; she felt it
in his altered manner, as she had never felt it before.

The unexpected shock of the news which Mr. Waldo communicated
to her was a sudden betrayal of herself. Had she
possessed the least power of introversion, she would have been
amazed at it. But her nature was not broad enough to embrace
more than a single sensation. The burst of tears and
the impulse to offer her services came together, and all that
she felt was: “If Bute dies, I shall be wretched.” She continued
to repeat this to herself, on her way to the Widow
Thurston's, adding: “I'll do my best to save him and his
stepmother, and I don't care who knows it, and I don't care
what they say.”

“Why, what's the matter, child?” exclaimed the widow, as
Miss Dilworth walked into the sitting-room, erect, determined,
and with a real expression on her usually vapid face.

The latter explained her purpose, not without additional
tears. “Nobody else would be likely to go,” she said: “they
would be afraid of catching the fever. But I'm not afraid:
I've seen the like before: I may be of use, and I ought to be
there now.”

The widow looked at her with a gentle scrutiny in her eyes,
which made Miss Dilworth drop her lids for the first time and
bring forward her curls from behind her ears. The glance
changed to one of tender sympathy, and, checking a sigh which
would have brought a memory with it, the old woman said:

“I think thee's right.”

Thus encouraged, the necessary preparations were soon
made, and in an hour from that time Miss Carrie Dilworth was
at Lakeside.

The negress, who knew her, received her with a mixture of
rejoicing and grief: “Bress de Lord, honey!” she exclaimed;
“things is goin' bad. I'se mighty glad you come. Somebody's
got to see to 'um, all de time, an' de cookin' mus' be 'tended
to, ye knows.”

Mrs. Babb, after a long sleep, was again awake, but in a
state of physical prostration which prevented her from leaving
her bed. Her anxiety lest Arbutus should not receive the
proper care, aggravated her condition. She kept his medicines
on a chair by her bedside, and demanded constant reports of
him, which neither Patrick nor Melinda could give with sufficient
exactness to satisfy her.

Miss Dilworth, somewhat nervously, ascended the kitchen
stairs and entered the housekeeper's room. But the sight of
the haggard, bony face, the wild restlessness in the sunken
eyes, and the thin gray hair streaming loosely from the queer,
old-fashioned night-cap, restored her courage through the inspiration
of pity. She went forward with a quick, light step,
and stooped down beside the bed.

“I have come to help, Mrs. Babb,” she said.

“Help, eh?” answered the housekeeper, in a weak, husky
voice; “well—I've got to take any help that comes. Hard
pushed, it seems. Thought you didn't keer about none of us.
What are you good for, anyhow?”

“I've helped nurse before, Mrs. Babb. I'll do my best, if
you'll let me try. Which medicine do you take?”

The housekeeper lay silent for a while, with her eyes on the
sempstress's face. She was so weak that neither her first
feeling of astonishment nor her second feeling of repugnance
possessed a tithe of their usual force; the sense of her own
helplessness overpowered them both. “That bottle with the
red stuff,” she said at last. “A tea-spoonful every two hours.
Three o'clock, next. Take keer!” she gasped, as Miss Dilworth
moved to the chair, “you'll knock every thing down
with that hair o' yourn!”

The medicines were at last carefully arranged on a small
table, the tea-spoonful administered, the pillows shaken up and
smoothed, and, the invalid having declared herself comfortable,
Miss Dilworth slipped out of the room. When she returned,
ten minutes afterwards, her hair was drawn over her temples
in masses as smooth as its former condition would allow, and
fastened in a knot behind. The change was nevertheless an
advantageous one; it gave her an air of sober womanhood
which she had never before exhibited. The old woman
noticed it at once, but said nothing. Her eyes continually
wandered to the door, and she was growing restless.

“Shall I go and see how he is?” whispered Miss Carrie.

A strong expression of dislike passed over the housekeeper's
face. For a few minutes she did not speak; then, as no one
came, she finally groaned: “I can't go myself.”

Miss Carrie opened the door of Bute's room with a beating
heart. The curtains were down, to keep out the afternoon
sun, and a dim yellow light filled the chamber. The air was
close, and impregnated with a pungent etherous smell. In an
old arm-chair, near the bed, sat Patrick, dozing. But that

shorn head, that pale, thin face, and lean, hanging arm, did
they really belong to Bute? She approached on tiptoe,
holding her breath, and stood beside him. A rush of tenderness,
such as she had never felt towards any man, came over
her. She longed to lay the wasted head on her bosom, and
bring back color into the cheeks from the warmth of her own
heart. He turned and muttered, with half-closed eyes, as if
neither asleep nor awake, and even when she gently took the
hand that lay on the coverlet, the listless fingers did not acknowledge
her touch. Once he looked full in her face, but
vacantly, as if not even seeing her.

A horrible fear came over her. “Is he worse?” she whispered
to the Irishman.

“No, he's no wurrse, Miss—maybe a bit better than he
wur.”

“When must he have his medicine?”

“I've jist guv' it to him. He'll be quieter now. Could ye
stay here and laive me go to the barrn for an hour, jist?”

Miss Carrie reported to the housekeeper, and then relieved
Patrick. She noiselessly moved the arm-chair nearer the bed,
seated herself, and took Bute's feverish hand in her own.
From time to time she moistened his parched lips and cooled
his throbbing temples. His restless movements ceased and he
lay still, though in a state of torpor, apparently, rather than
sleep. It was pitiful to see him thus, stripped of his lusty
strength, his red blood faded, the strong fibres of his frame
weak and lax, and the light of human intelligence gone from
his eye. His helplessness and unconsciousness now, brought
into strong relief the sturdy, homely qualities of his mind and
heart: the solemn gulf between the two conditions disclosed
his real value. Miss Dilworth felt this without thinking it,
as she sat beside him, yearning, with all the power of her
limited nature, for one look of recognition, though it expressed
no kindness for her; one rational word, though it might not
belong to the dialect of love.

No such look, no such word, came. The hour slowly

dragged out its length; Patrick came back and she returned
to the housekeeper's room. The physician paid a second visit in
the evening, expressed his satisfaction with her nursing, thus
far, and intrusted her with the entire care of administering
the medicines. He advised her, however, not to be wasteful
of her strength at the outset, as the patients would not soon
be able to dispense with careful watching. It was arranged
that the old negress should occasionally relieve her at night.
In regard to the invalids, he confessed that he had some hope
of Bute's recovery; in a day or two the crisis of the fever
would be over; but Mrs. Babb, though her attack was much
less violent, inspired him with solicitude. The apathetic condition
of her system continued, in spite of all his efforts, and
the strong will which might have upheld her, seemed to be
suddenly broken.

Miss Dilworth fulfilled her duties with an astonishing
patience and gentleness. Even the old housekeeper, no longer
seeing the curls and drooping eyelids, or hearing the childish
affection of the voice, appeared to regard her as a different
creature, and finally trusted the medicines implicitly to her
care. On the day after her arrival, Bute, whose wan face and
vacant eyes haunted her with a strange attraction, fell into
a profound sleep. All that night he lay, apparently lifeless,
but for the faint, noiseless breath that came from his parted
lips. He could not be aroused to take his medicines. When
this was reported to Mrs. Babb, she said, as sternly as her
weakness would permit: “Let him alone! It's the turnin'
p'int; he'll either die or git well, now.”

This remark only increased Miss Dilworth's anxiety. Fifty
times during the night she stole into his room, only to find
him motionless, senseless as before. Patrick took advantage
of the quiet to sleep, and snored loud and hard in his arm-chair.
Once, moved by an impulse which she could not
resist, she stooped down and kissed the sick man's forehead.
The touch of her lips was light as a breath, but she rose,
trembling and blushing at herself, and slipped out of the room.

“Quiet—nothing but quiet as long as he sleeps!” said the
physician, next morning. Patrick was excluded from the
room, because, although he pulled off his boots, there were
two or three planks in the floor which creaked under his
weight. Miss Dilworth silently laid a row of bed-room rugs
from the door to the bedside, and went and came as if on
down, over the enormous tufted roses. No sound entered the
room but that of the summer wind in the boughs of the
nearest elm. Hour after hour of the clouded August day
went by, and still no change in the sleeper, unless an
increased softness in his listless hand, as she cautiously
touched it.

Towards sunset, after a restless day, Mrs. Babb fell asleep,
and Miss Dilworth went into Bute's room and seated herself
in the chair. The prolonged slumber frightened her. “Oh,”
she said to herself, “what would I do if he was to die. I've
treated him badly, and he would never know that I'm sorry
for it—never know that—that I love him! Yes, I know it
now when it's too late. If he were well, he's done loving me
as he used to—but he won't get well: he'll die and leave me
wretched!”

As these words passed through her mind, while she leaned
forward, with her face close to that of the invalid, she suddenly
noticed a change in his breathing. Its faint, regular
character was interrupted: it ceased a moment, and then his
breast heaved with a deeper inspiration. “Oh, he's dying!”
she whispered to herself in despair. Stooping down, she
kissed his forehead passionately, while her tears dropped fast
upon it. His arm moved; she rose, and met the glance of his
open eyes—clear, tender, happy, wondering, but not with the
blank wonder of delirium. It was Bute's self that looked at her
—it was Bute's first, faithful love that first came to the surface
from the very depth of his heart, before any later memory
could thrust itself between. He had felt the kiss on his forehead:
his eyes drew her, she knew not how, to his lips. His
right arm lifted itself to her neck and held the kiss a moment

fast: then it slid back again, and she sank into the chair,
covering her face with her hands, and weeping.

After a while Bute's voice came to her—weak and gentle;
but with its natural tone. “Carrie,” said he, “what is it?
What's happened?”

“Oh, Bute,” she answered, “you've been very sick: you've
been out of your head. And Mrs. Babb's sick too, and I've
come to take care of you both. I thought you were going to
die, Bute, and now you're going to get well, and I'm so glad—
so happy!”

“Why are you glad, Carrie? Why did you come?” he
asked, with an echo of the old reproach in his voice. The
memory of his disappointment had already returned.

Nothing was further from Miss Dilworth's mind than a resort
to her former arts. She was too profoundly and solemnly
moved: she would tell the truth, as if it were her own dying
hour. She took her hands from her face, lifted her head, and
looked at him. “Because I have treated you badly, Bute,”
she said: “because I trifled with you wickedly. I wanted
to make some atonement, and to hear you say you forgive
me.”

She paused. His eyes were fixed on hers, but he did not
answer.

“Can you forgive me, Bute?” she faltered. “Try to do it,
because I love you, though I don't expect you to love me any
more.”

“Carrie!” he cried. A new tint came to his face, a new
light to his eye. His hand wandered towards her on the
coverlet.

“Carrie,” he repeated, feebly grasping her hand with his
fingers and drawing her towards him, “once't more, now!” In
the kiss that followed there was forgiveness, answering love,
and a mutual compact for the future.

“You've brought me back ag'in to life,” he murmured,
closing his eyes, while two bright tears crept out from under
the lids. She sat beside him, holding his hand. He seemed

too weak to say more, and thus ten minutes silently passed
away.

“Tell me how it happened,” said Bute, finally. “Where's
Mother Forty?”

“I must go to her at once!” cried Miss Dilworth, starting
up. “She's worrying herself to death on your account. And
the doctor said if you got awake you were to keep quiet, and
not talk. I must go, Bute: do lie still and try to sleep till
I come back. Oh, we oughtn't to have said any thing!”

“What we've said won't do me no harm,” he murmured,
with a patient, happy sigh. “Go, then, Carrie: I'll keep
quiet.”

Miss Dilworth went into the housekeeper's room so much
more swiftly than usual that the latter was awakened by the
rustling of her dress. She started and turned her head with
a look of terror in her eyes.

“Oh, Mrs. Babb!” cried the sempstress: “Bute's awake
at last. And his mind's come back to him! And he says he'll
get well!”

The old woman trembled visibly. Her bony hands were
clasped under the bed-clothes and her lips moved, but no
audible words came from them. Then, fixing her eyes on the
face of the kneeling girl, she asked: “What have you been
a-sayin' to him?”

Miss Dilworth involuntarily drooped her lids and a deep
color came into her face. “I asked him,” she answered, “to
forgive me for my bad behavior towards him.”

“Nothin' else?”

“Yes, Mrs. Babb, I said he could do it now, because I love
him.”

“You do, do ye?”

“Yes, and he has forgiven me.”

“Hnh!”

With this, her customary snort, when she was not prepared
to express a decided opinion, the housekeeper closed her eyes
and seemed to meditate. Presently, however, she turned her

head, and said, rather sternly, though without any signs of
bitterness:

“Go 'way now, gal! I want to be alone a spell.”

Miss Dilworth obeyed. When she returned, at the time
appointed for administering the medicine, Mrs. Babb had resumed
her state of passive patience. She made no further
inquiries about the conversation which had taken place, nor
about any which took place afterwards. A change had come
over her whole nature. She lay for hours, with her eyes open,
without speaking, evidently without suffering, yet keenly
alive to every thing that took place. She took her medicines
mechanically, with an air of listless obedience to the orders of
the physician, and without any apparent result. Stimulants
and sedatives alike failed to produce their customary effect.
From day to day she grew weaker, and the physician finally
declared that, unless she could be roused and stirred in some
way, to arrest the increasing prostration, he could do nothing
for her. As the knowledge of the favorable change in Bute's
case had left her as before, there was little hope that any
further source of excitement remained.

As for Bute, he rallied with a rapidity which amazed the
physician, who ascribed to an unusual vitality of his own the
life which the invalid had really drawn from another. The
only difficulty now was, to retard his impatient convalescence,
and Miss Dilworth was obliged to anticipate her conjugal authority
and enjoin silence when he had still a thousand happy
questions left unasked and unanswered. When that authority
failed, she was forced to absent herself from the room, on the
plea of watching Mrs. Babb. His impatience, in such case,
was almost as detrimental as his loquacity, and the little
sempstress was never at ease except when he slept.

After passing a certain stage in the fever, the housekeeper
began to sink rapidly. Her mind, nevertheless, made feeble
efforts to retain its ascendency—efforts which reacted on her
body and completed the ruin of its faculties. One day she astonished
Miss Dilworth by rising in her bed with a violent effort.

“I must go and see him!” she said: “help me into his
room!”

“Oh, you cannot!” cried Miss Dilworth, supporting her
with one arm around her waist. “Lie down: you are not
strong enough. He will be able to come to you in a day or
two.”

“No, no! to-day!” gasped the housekeeper. “I a'n't certain
o' knowin' him to-morrow, or o' bein' able to say to
him what I've got to say.” Thereupon her temporary
strength gave way, and she sank down on the bed in a fainting
state.

After she had somewhat revived, Miss Dilworth took counsel
with herself, and soon came to a decision. She went down
stairs and summoned Patrick, who carefully wrapped up Bute
and placed him in the arm-chair. She herself then assisted in
carrying him into the housekeeper's room, and placing him by
the bedside. A look of unspeakable fondness came over Mrs.
Babb's haggard face; the tears silently flowed from her eyes
and rolled down the wrinkles in her hollow cheeks.

“Cheer up, Mother Forty,” said Bute, who was the first to
speak. “I'm gittin' on famous' and 'll soon be round again.”

“It's as it should be, Arbutus,” she whispered, hoarsely,
catching her breath between the words; “the old 'un 'll go
and the young 'un 'll stay. 'T had to be one of us.”

“Don't say that; we'll take care of you—Carrie and me.
Won't we, Carrie?”

“Yes, Bute,” said Carrie, with her handkerchief to her
eyes.

Mrs. Babb looked from one to another, but without any
sign of reproof. She feebly shook her head. “What must be
must,” said she; “my time's come. P'raps I sha'n't see you
no more, Arbutus. Maybe I ha'n't done my duty by you
always; maybe I've seemed hard, once't and a while, but I
meant it for your good, and I don't want you to have any hard
thoughts ag'in me when I'm gone.”

“Mother Forty!” cried Bute, his eyes filling and overflowing,

“God knows I ha'n't nothin' ag'in you! You've been
as good to me as you knowed how; it's me that's been rough,
and forgitful o' how you took care o' me when I was a little
boy. Don't talk that a-way now, don't!”

“Do you really mean it, Arbutus? Do you forgive me my
trespasses, as I forgive them that trespass agi'n me? Can I go
to Jason and say I've done my duty by you?”

Bute could not answer: he was crying like a child. He
slid forward in the chair. Miss Dilworth put her arm around
his waist to steady him, and they sank down together on their
knees beside the bed. Bute's head fell forward on the coverlet.
The housekeeper placed both her hands upon it.

“Take my blessin', child!” she said, in a feebler voice.
“You've been a good boy, Arbutus. I'll tell her, and I'll tell
your mother. Maybe I'll have a seat betwixt her and Jason.
All I have'll be yourn. But you mustn't stay here: say good-by
to me and go.”

“Will you bless me, with him?” faltered Miss Carrie.

The left hand slowly moved to her head, and rested there.
“Be a good wife to him when the time comes, and I'll bless
you always. There a'n't many like him, and I hope you
know it.”

“I do know it,” she sobbed; “there's nobody like him.”

“I want you to leave the money where it is,” said the
housekeeper, “and only draw the interest. You'll have an
easier time of it in your old days than what I've had; but I
don't begrudge it to you. It's time you were goin'—say
good-by, child!”

The sempstress, small as she was, lifted Bute until his foster-mother
could catch and hold his head to her bosom. Then,
for the first time in his remembrance, she kissed him, once,
twice, not with any violent outburst of feeling, but with a
tender gravity as if it were a necessary duty, the omission of
which would not be agreeable to Jason Babb. Then she
turned over on the pillow, saying “Amen!” and was silent.
Patrick was summoned and Bute was speedily replaced in his

own bed, where Miss Dilworth left him to resume her place
by the housekeeper's side.

But that same night, about midnight, Mrs. Babb died.
She scarcely spoke again after her interview with Bute, except
to ask, two hours later, whether he seemed to be any the
worse on account of it. On being told that he was sleeping
quietly, she nodded her head, straightened her gaunt form as
well as she was able, and clasped her fingers together over her
breast. Thus she lay, as if already dead, her strong eyebrows,
her hooked nose, and her sharp chin marking themselves with
ghastly distinctness as the cheeks grew more hollow and the
closed eyes sank deeper in their sockets. Towards midnight a
change in her breathing alarmed Miss Dilworth. She hastily
called the old negress, who was sleeping on the kitchen settee.

“Honey,” said the latter, in an awe-struck whisper, as she
stood by the bedside, “she's a-goin' fast. She soon see de
glory. Don't you wish fur her to stay, 'case dat'll interfere
wid her goin'.”

Her breath grew fainter, and came at longer intervals, but
the moment when it ceased passed unnoticed by either of the
watchers. Melinda first recognized the presence of Death.
“You go an' lay down,” she said to Miss Carrie. “You can't
do no good now. I'll stay wid her till mornin'.”

The sempstress obeyed, for she was, in truth, wretchedly
weary. For the remainder of the night Melinda sat on a low
chair beside the corpse, swinging her body backwards and
forwards as she crooned, in a low voice: