THE regiment had been six years in India and was ordered home before that lingering and perpetually-recurring malady of Mr. Tredgold’s came to an end. It had come and gone so often—each seizure passing off in indeed a reduced condition of temporary relief and comfort, but still always in a sort of recovery—that the household had ceased to be alarmed by them as at first. He was a most troublesome patient, and all had to be on the alert when he was ill, from his personal attendant down to the grooms, who might at a moment’s notice be sent scouring over the country after the doctor, without whom the old man did not think he could breathe when his attacks came on, and this notwithstanding the constant presence of the professional nurse, who was now a regular inmate; but the certainty that he would “come round” had by this time got finally established in the house. This gave a sense of security, but it dispelled the not altogether unpleasant solemnity of excitement with which a household of servants await the end of an illness which may terminate in death. There was nothing solemn about it at all—only another of master’s attacks!—and even Katherine was now quite accustomed to be called up in the middle of the night, or sent for to her father’s room at any moment, as the legitimate authority, without any thrill of alarm as to how things might end. Nobody was afraid of his life, until suddenly the moment came when the wheel was broken at the cistern and the much frayed thread of life snapped at last.
These had been strange years. Fortunately the dark times that pass over us come only one day at a time, and we are not aware that they are to last for years, or enabled to grasp them and consent that so much of life should be spent in that way. It would no doubt have appalled Katherine, or any other young woman, to face steadily so long a period of trouble and give herself up to live it through, consenting that all the brightness and almost all the interest of existence should drop from her at the moment when life is usually at its fairest. She would have done it all the same, for what else could she do? She could not leave her father to go through all these agonies of ending life by himself, even though she was of so little use to him and he had apparently such small need of natural affection or support. Her place was there under all circumstances, and no inducement would have made her leave it; but when Katherine looked back upon that course of years it appalled her as it had not done when it was in course of passing day by day. She was twenty-three when it began and she was twenty-nine when it came to an end. She had been old for her age at the first, and she was still older for her age in outward appearance, though younger in heart, at the last—younger in heart, for there had been no wear and tear of actual life any more than if she had spent these years in a convent, and older because of the seclusion from society and even the severe self-restraint in the matter of dress, which, however, was not self-restraint so much as submission to necessity, for you cannot do two things with one sum of money, as many a poor housekeeper has to ascertain daily. Dressmakers’ bills for Katherine were not consistent with remittances to Stella, and it was naturally the least important thing that was sacrificed. She had accordingly lost a great deal of her bloom and presented an appearance less fair, less graceful—perhaps less loveable—to the eyes of Dr. Burnet as she rose from the lonely fireside in her black dress, slim and straight, slimmer perhaps and straighter than of old—pale, without either reflection or ornament about her, looking, he thought, five-and-thirty, without any elasticity, prematurely settled down into the rigid outlines of an old maid, when he went into the well-known drawing-room in an October evening to tell her that at last the dread visitor, anticipated yet not believed in for so long, was now certainly at hand.
Dr. Burnet had behaved extremely well during all these years. He had not been like the rector. He had borne no malice, though he had greater reason to do so had he chosen. He never now made use of her Christian name and never allowed himself to be betrayed into any sign of intimacy, never lingered in her presence, never even looked at the tea on the little tea-table over which he had so often spent pleasant moments. He was now severely professional, giving her his account of his patient in the most succinct phrases and using medical terms, which in the long course of her father’s illness Katherine had become acquainted with. But he had been as attentive to Mr. Tredgold as ever, people said; he had never neglected him, never hesitated to come at his call night or day, though he was aware that he could do little or nothing, and that the excellent nurse in whose hands the patient was was fully capable of caring for him; yet he always came, putting a point of honour in his sedulous attendance, that it never might be said of him that he had neglected the father on account of the daughter’s caprice and failure. It might be added that Mr. Tredgold was a little revenue to the doctor—a sort of landed estate producing so much income yearly and without fail—but this was a mean way of accounting for his perfect devotion to his duty. He had never failed, however other persons might fail.
He came into the drawing-room very quietly and unannounced. He was not himself quite so gallant a figure as he had been when Katherine had left him planté là; he was a little stouter, not so perfect in his outline. They had both suffered more or less from the progress of years. She was thinner, paler, and he fuller, rougher—almost, it might be said, coarser—from five years more of exposure to all-weathers and constant occupation, without any restraining influence at home to make him think of his dress, of the training of his beard, and other small matters. It had been a great loss to him, even in his profession, that he had not married. With a wife, and such a wife as Katherine Tredgold, he would have been avowedly the only doctor, the first in the island, in a position of absolute supremacy. As it was a quite inferior person, who was a married man, ran him hard, although not fit to hold a candle to Dr. Burnet. And this, too, he set down more or less to Katherine’s account. It is to be hoped that he did not think of all this on the particular evening the events of which I take so long to come to. And yet I am afraid he did think of it, or at least was conscious of it all in the midst of the deeper consciousness of his mission to-night. He could scarcely tell whether it was relief or pain he was bringing to her—a simpler or a more complex existence—and the sense of that enigma mingled with all his other feelings. She rose up to meet him as he came in. The room was dimly lighted; the fire was not bright. There was no chill in the air to make it necessary. And I don’t know what it was which made Katherine divine the moment she saw the doctor approaching through the comparative gloom of the outer room that he was bringing her news of something important. Mr. Tredgold had not been worse than usual in the beginning of this attack; the nurse had treated it just as usual, not more seriously than before. But she knew at once by the sound of the doctor’s step, by something in the atmosphere about him, that the usual had departed for ever and that what he came to tell her of was nothing less than death. She rose up to meet him with a sort of awe, her lips apart, her breath coming quick.
“I see,” he said, “that you anticipate what I am going to say.”
“No,” she said with a gasp, “I know of nothing—nothing more than usual.”
“That is all over,” he answered with a little solemnity. “I am sorry I can give you so little hope—this time I fear it is the end.”
“The end!” she cried, “the end!” She had known it from the first moment of his approach, but this did not lessen the shock. She dropped again upon her seat, and sat silent contemplating that fact—which no reasoning, no explanation, could get over. The end—this morning everything as usual, all the little cares, the hundred things he wanted, the constant service—and afterwards nothing, silence, stillness, every familiar necessity gone. Katherine’s heart seemed to stand still, the wonder of it, the terror of it, the awe—it was too deep and too appalling for tears.
After awhile she inquired, in a voice that did not seem her own, “Is he very ill? May I go to him now?”
“He is not more ill than you have seen him before. You can go to him, certainly, but there are some things that you must take into consideration, Miss Tredgold. He is not aware of any change—he is not at all anxious about himself. He thinks this is just the same as the other attacks. If you think it necessary that he should be made aware of his condition, either because of his worldly affairs, or—any other——” Dr. Burnet was accustomed to death-beds. He was not overawed like Katherine, and there seemed something ludicrous to him in the thought of old Tredgold, an old man of the earth, earthly, having—other affairs.
Katherine looked up at him, her eyes looking twice as large as usual in the solemnity of their trouble and awe. There seemed nothing else in the room but her eyes looking at him with an appeal, to which he had no answer to give. “Would it make any difference—now?” she said.
“I cannot tell what your views may be on that subject. Some are very eager that the dying should know—some think it better not to disturb them. It will do him no harm physically to be told; but you must be the judge.”
“I have not thought of it—as I ought,” she said. “Oh, Dr. Burnet, give me your opinion, give me your own opinion! I do not seem able to think.”
“It might give him a chance,” said the doctor, “to put right some wrong he might otherwise leave behind him. If what you are thinking of is that, he might put himself right in any spiritual point of view—at this last moment.”
Katherine rose up as if she were blind, feeling before her with her hands. Her father, with all his imperfections—with nothing that was not imperfection or worse than imperfection—with a mind that had room for nothing but the lowest elements, who had never thought of anything higher, never asked himself whither he was going—— She walked straight forward, not saying anything, not able to bear another word. To put himself right—at the last moment. She felt that she must hasten to him, fly to him, though she did not know, being there, what she should do.
The room was so entirely in its usual condition—the nurse settling for the night, the medicines arranged in order, the fire made up, and the nightlight ready to be lighted—that it seemed more and more impossible to realise that this night there was likely to occur something different, something that was not on the invalid’s programme. The only thing that betrayed a consciousness of any such possibility was the look which the nurse rapidly gave Katherine as she came in. “I am putting everything as usual,” she said in a whisper, “but I think you should not go to bed.” That was all—and yet out of everything thus settled and habitual around him, he was going away, going absolutely away to no one could tell where, perhaps this very night. Katherine felt herself stupefied, confounded, and helpless. He was going away all alone, with no directions, no preparations for the journey. What could she tell him of the way? Could any guide be sent with him? Could any instinct lead him? A man accustomed only to business, to the state of the stocks and the money market. Her heart began to beat so fast that it sickened her, and she was conscious of scarcely anything but its sound and the heaving of her breast.
The invalid, however, was not composed as usual. He was very restless, his eyes shining from his emaciated face. “Ah, that’s you, Katie,” he said; “it’s too late for you to be up—and the doctor back again. What brings the doctor back again? Have you any more to do to me, eh, to-night?”
“Only to make sure that you’re comfortable,” Dr. Burnet said.
“Oh, comfortable enough—but restless. I don’t seem as if I could lie still. Here, Katie, as you’re here, change me a little—that’s better—a hold of your shoulder—now I can push myself about. Never been restless like this before, doctor. Nervous, I suppose you think?”
“No, you’ve never been like this before,” the doctor said, with an unconsciously solemn voice.
“Oh, papa,” cried Katherine, “you are very ill; I fear you are very ill.”
“Nothing of the sort,” he cried, pushing her away by the shoulder he had grasped; “nothing the matter with me—that is, nothing out of the ordinary. Come here, you nurse. I want to lie on the other side. Nothing like a woman that knows what she is about and has her living to make by it. Dear they are—cost a lot of money—but I never begrudged money for comfort.”
“Papa,” said Katherine. What could she say? What words were possible to break this spell, this unconsciousness and ignorance? It seemed to her that he was about to fall over some dreadful precipice without knowing it, without fearing it; was it better that he should know it, that he should fear, when he was incapable of anything else? Should the acute pang of mortal alarm before be added to—whatever there might be afterwards? Wild words whirled through her head—about the great judgment seat, about the reckoning with men for what they had done, and the cry of the Prophet, “Prepare to meet thy God.” But how could this restless old man prepare for anything, turning and returning upon his bed. “Papa,” she repeated, “have you anything to say to me—nothing about—about Stella?”
He turned his face to her for a moment with the old familiar chuckle in his throat. “About Stella—oh, you will hear plenty about Stella—in time,” he said.
“Not only about Stella, papa! Oh, about other things, about—about—” she cried in a kind of despair, “about God.”
“Oh,” he said, “you think I’m going to die.” The chuckle came again, an awful sound. “I’m not; you were always a little fool. Tell her, doctor, I’m going to sleep—tuck in the clothes, nurse, and put—out—the light.”
The last words fell from him drowsily, and calm succeeded to the endless motion. There was another little murmur as of a laugh. Then the nurse nodded her head from the other side of the bed, to show that he was really going to sleep. Dr. Burnet put his hand on Katherine’s arm and drew her into the dressing-room, leaving the door open between. “It may last only a few minutes,” he said, “or it may last for ever; but we can do nothing, neither you nor I. Sit down and wait here.”
It did last for ever. The sleep at first was interrupted with little wakings, and that chuckle which had been the accompaniment of his life broke in two or three times, ghastly, with a sort of sound of triumph. And then all sound died away.
Katherine was awakened—she did not know if it was from a doze or a dream—by a touch upon her arm. The doctor stood there in his large and heavy vitality like an embodiment of life, and a faint blueness of dawn was coming in at the window. “There was no pain,” he said, “no sort of suffering or struggle. Half-past four exactly,” he had his watch in his hand. “And now, Miss Tredgold, take this and go to bed.”
“Do you mean?” Katherine cried, rising hastily, then falling back again in extreme agitation, trembling from head to foot.
“Yes, I mean it is all over, it is all well over. Everything has been done that could be done for him. And here is your maid to take care of you; you must go to bed.”
But Katherine did not go to bed. She went downstairs to the drawing-room, her usual place, and sat by the dead fire, watching the blue light coming in at the crevices of the shutters, and listening to the steps of the doctor, quick and firm, going away upon the gravel outside. And then she went and wandered all over the house from one room to another, she could not tell why. It seemed to her that everything must have changed in that wonderful change that had come to pass without anyone being able to intervene, so noiselessly, so suddenly. She never seemed to have expected that. Anything else, it seemed to her now, might have happened but not that. Why, all the house had been full of him, all life had been full of him yesterday; there had been nothing to do but contrive what he should eat, how the temperature in the room should be kept up, how everything should be arranged for his comfort. And now he wanted nothing, nothing, nor was anything wanted for him. It did not seem to be grief that moved her so much as wonder, an intolerable pressure of surprise and perplexity that such a thing could have happened with so many about to prevent anything from happening, and that he should have been removed to some other place whom nobody could imagine to be capable of other conditions than he had here. What had he to do with the unseen, with sacred things, with heaven, with a spiritual life? Nothing, nothing, she said to herself. It was not natural, it was not possible. And yet it was true. When she at last lay down at the persuasion of Mrs. Simmons and the weeping Hannah, in the face of the new full shining day which had not risen for him, which cared for none of these things, Katherine still got no relief of sleep. She lay on her bed and stared at the light with no relief of tears either, with no sense of grief—only wondering, wondering. She had not thought of this change, although she knew that in all reason it must be coming. Still less did she think of the new world which already began to turn its dewy side to the light.