CHAPTER XX.
The mountains stand still and drowsy in the sleepiness of midday.Through the mistiness of the air, the russet glories of the dyingbracken blaze on their breasts: the oak-woods still keep their deepdusk green, but the sycamore has felt the kiss of winter, and isgrowing red and sere beneath it. The sun is reigning, sole despot ofthe sky, having banished every rebel cloud beyond the horizon's limits.It is almost always fine weather when we are most miserable. Whateverpoets say to the contrary, Nature is not sympathetic: rather is shevery insolent to us in her triumphant, durable beauty. She loves to sayto us, "Though you are weeping, my eyes are dry: though you are verysick and feeble, I am strong and fair: though you are most short-lived,here to-day and gone to-morrow, I am eternal, I _endure_."
In the meadow below the house, Jack's sheep are browsing--theCheviots that he was so proud of: down the stony, steep back-road thecart-horses come jogging, to be watered at the pool at the hill-foot.With shortened breath and straining muscles, Esther runs fleetly pastthem, not daring to look into the carter's face. Through the gate, bythe stables, and then the familiar little old house comes in sight,with its high-pitched roof and its old-fashioned chimney-pots. Whitepigeons are walking about on the gravelled sweep, bowing and scraping,and making love, with a formal solemnity worthy of Sir CharlesGrandison. The Virginia creeper's scarlet banners wave from the wall;the hall-window is open; on the ledge lies a tabby cat, with one eyeopen and the other shut; two cocks are crowing in emulous rivalry inthe farmyard. Everything looks peaceful, happy, _alive_. Gathering alittle feeble hope from these signs, Esther collects her small remnantof breath, and runs towards the door. She has nearly reached it, when,stepping hastily out from the porch, one comes to meet her: _one_, butnot _the_ one: he will pass through that porch but once again, and thennot of his own accord, but borne heavily on others' shoulders. Unableto frame any speech, Esther looks up mutely in Brandon's face (for itis he), and there reads her doom. "He is dead--he is dead!" she seeswritten wetly on either eye.
"He is better off than we are," says the young man, brokenly, takinghold of both her hands.
She sits down heavily on the bench in the porch: what hurry is therenow? After all, it is but a poor shabby remnant of us that Death getswhen he makes his final claim upon us; in most of us the greater,better part has died long before. Of Esther, three-fourths died as shesat on the oak bench in the porch that autumn morning: breath remained,and blood still circulated through veins and arteries, and speech andhearing were left; but youth, and hope, and heart, died very suddenlyand utterly, to come back to life again never any more. She sitsstaring vacantly at the seat opposite her for several minutes, and thenspeaks distinctly, almost loudly: "How long ago?"
"About eight," answers Brandon, briefly and sadly, turning away hishead to hide his womanish tears for the young fellow that fell asleepso gently in his arms, in the early morning, when other folks werewaking.
"What was it killed him?" asks the girl, in the same hard, clear voice.
Bob looks at her in astonishment: he had been steeling himself againstfaintings, hysterics, a terrible scene of shrieks and waitings, butthis conscious stony collectedness fills him with a fearful surprise.
"It was diphtheria," he answers, sorrowfully taking her hand again, andstroking it, while his hot tears fall thick upon it.
She leaves it in his, passive as the hand of a statue, unknowing,indifferent, whether he held it or not.
"Did he suffer much?" she inquires, lifting her lovely, hopeless eyespiteously to his face.
"Not at the last," answers Brandon, evasively, almost under his breath.
Silence for a few seconds: the cocks are still crowing, the pigeonscourting, the cat purring on the window-sill: Nature is fond of thesehorrible contrasts.
Presently she speaks again: "Why was not I sent for before?" she asksin a rough, harsh whisper.
"We telegraphed for you yesterday morning, the instant that we foundthere was any danger," he replies, speaking very gently, but wincing alittle under the reproach implied in her question.
"And it did not reach me till this morning. If I had had it when Iought, I suppose I should have been in time to see him," she says, withapathy, looking away towards the misty hill.
"He sent you his love," says Brandon, struggling again with that samebreaking in his voice. "Dear fellow! he was quite happy!"
"Was he?" she says, with the same vacant look. "I'll go to him." As shespeaks, she rises and moves towards the door.
"You had better not," he says hastily, laying his hand on her arm.
"Why?" inquires she, looking at him with perfect calmness; "are youafraid of my fainting or going into hysterics? You need not be; it isonly that I am not the least sorry that Jack is dead, and that I wantto be."
"It is not that," he answers, earnestly; "but--but--you know, dear,that it is a terribly infectious complaint."
"Is it?" she answers, a ray of animation lighting up her haggard face."I'm glad; perhaps God will let me catch it!"
Seeing that she is resolute, he ceases trying to dissuade her. In thesmall dark hall, old Luath is lying on the rug; seeing Esther enter, heraises himself quickly, and goes to meet her, with heavy tail waggingand affectionate eyes, on which age is written in blue dimness. Nowthat the master's sister has come home, he is sure that the mastercannot be far behind. He is waiting for him, waiting to walk round thefarm; he has been waiting this long time, thinking that he has goneupon a journey; and so he has. But oh! Luath, it is a journey on whichman may take neither horse nor dog, neither wife, nor sister, norfriend; a journey on which some man, woman, or child is setting offevery minute that beats; and whence no explorers return, with maps andcharts, and wondrous tales, to vaunt themselves of their exploits, andbe extolled and praised as benefactors to their race. Let us hope thatit is because they find that country most pleasant that they come notagain. In the drawing-room a canary is shrilling his loud, sharp song:they have thrown a shawl over his cage to keep him quiet; but throughthe shawl the sun pierces, and the bird's keen clear jubilation goesup to meet it. How can he sing so very gaily now Jack is dead? At theroom-door they pause.
"Don't come in! I'd rather have him to myself, please," Esther says, ina steady whisper.
"Promise not to kiss him, Essie!" Brandon rejoins, very earnestly; alsoin a whisper, "We cannot spare you too."
She takes no notice of his request, but, opening the door gently,enters the chamber, where the king of kings, and lord of lords,almighty Death--before whom we all grovelling do unwillingobeisance--is holding one of his myriad courts. It is but a small,slightly furnished room in which he is holding this one, but thatconcerns him but little. His majesty is so great that he can affordto dispense with the adventitious adjuncts of pomp and circumstance.Without his crown and sceptre, without his courtiers--Plague,Pestilence, and Famine--he is still very king and emperor.
The window is open, but the white curtains drawn--
"While through the lattice ivy shadows creep."
On the table stand physic-bottles--puny foils with which we fencewith death--and an open Bible, out of which Brandon, with shakingvoice, and a weak, dying hand held in his strong tender one, read theold comfortable words that have soothed many a transit, to the youngtraveller who was setting out meekly, and not fearfully, in the autumnmorning. Over the bed spreads a white sheet, and beneath it a formlessform!
Can that be Jack? Can that be Jack, lying still and idle in the brightmidday?--Jack, to whom the shelter of a house was ever irksome, whowas up and about at cock-crow, to whom all weathers were the same, andthe bracing wind blowing about the heathery hills the very breath ofhis nostrils? A feeling of incredulity steals over her. She walks tothe bed and turns down the sheet from the face, and the incredulitydeepens into incredulous awe. Oh, ye liars! all ye that say that sleepand death are alike! what kinship is there between the pliant relaxerof soft limbs, the light brief slumber, that, at any trivial noise,a trumpeting gnat or distant calling voice
, flies and is dissolved,and the grave stiff whiteness of that profoundest rest that nothousand booming cannons, no rock-rending earthquake, no earth-rivingthunderbolt can break? It is an insult to that strong narcotic toliken any other repose to that he gives. They have crossed the youngfellow's hands upon his unheaving breast, meekly, as the hands of onethat prayeth; and laid sprigs of grey-flowered rosemary in them. Shelooks at him steadfastly, a great, awful amazement in her dilated eyes.Is _this_ the boy that whistled "I paddle my own canoe"--whose step,glad and noisy, echoed about the stairs?--the boy that sat and smokedat the study window, with her fond head resting on his young slightshoulder?--the boy that was worried about failing crops and barrenland?--the boy whose laugh had a sincerer ring in it than any oneelse's, who made so many jokes, and had such a light heart? Can _this_be he--this white, awful, beautiful statue? Was ever crowned king, inpurple and minever, half so majestical as he, as he lies on his narrowbed in the scant poor room, with that serene stern smile that only deadmouths wear on his solemn changed face?--that smile that seems to say,"I have overcome! I _know!_"
Esther's love for Jack is great as love can be--greater than Jonathan'sfor David, greater than David's for Absalom; and this pale, pronefigure is unearthly fair and grand; but can she connect the two ideas?What have they to say to one another? Can she realise that if this formbe not her brother, neither will she find him again on the earth'sface, though she seek him carefully with tears. For one instant itcomes home to her; for one instant light darts into her soul--lightkeen and cruel as the forked lightning flash that, on some mirk night,glares blinding bright into a dark room, illumining every object aswith the furnace-fires of hell! She sinks on her trembling knees by thebedside, and says, with dumb, heart-wrung entreaty--"God! God! givehim back to me, or let me go where he is."
But the great Lord that said once, "Lazarus, come forth!" has said"Come forth!" to never another since him. "Lie thou still, till Icall thee!" He says; and none durst move hand or foot. But since hecannot come to her, why should not she go to him? Has the disease thatslew him spent all its force on that one slight frame? Is not thereenough of it left to kill her too? It was Juliet's thought when shespake reproachingly to her dead Romeo, as she looked into the emptypoison-cup--
"Oh, churl! drink all and leave no friendly drop, To help me after----."
Suddenly Brandon's beseeching words recur to her: "Promise not tokiss him, Essie!" If she kiss him, he may give her the boon of death.Instantly she rises, and stooping over him, lays her tremulous warmlips on his still cheek. The unearthly awful cold of the contactbetween the dead and the living strikes a chilly shrinking along herveins and limbs; but not for that shrinking does she desist. Againand again she kisses him, driven on by that strong drear hope, sayingmoaningly, "My boy,! my boy!--give it me! give it me!" Then unbeliefcomes back. This is not Jack: he is somewhere else. She will find himby-and-by. This is very terrible, this present experience, but shecatches herself thinking she will tell Jack all about it when shesees him. To the incredulity succeeds a stupid apathy. She sinks downupon her knees again, with her elbows resting on the counterpane, andfixes her stony eyes upon the dead stripling; watches him; looks athim steadfastly, without intermission; looks at "the shell of a flownbird," as the old philosopher very grandly said. She does not knowhow long she means to stay there; she does not know how long she hasalready staid there; when some one entering, lays his hand upon hershoulder, and says, with kindly gravity, "Come away, dear!"
"I am doing no harm!" she answers dully, not moving her eyes.
"Come, darling!" he says, not attempting to reason with her, butspeaking in the coaxing tone one would use to a fractious sickly child.
She answers neither "Ay" nor "Nay;" she neither resists nor consents,and so, half carrying, half leading, he takes her from the room, andthey leave poor Jack lying all alone in his shroud, smiling sternlysweet.