"You see, when you are out of temper it shows you are suffering; and that"s hard for us to bear--not the temper, of course, but the knowledge. So you"ve got to spare us, Harriet. Understand?"
"I understand."
"It will be hard work for you," he said, cheerfully; and somehow the words meant, not pity, but "_Shoulder arms!_"
For an instant they gazed, eye to eye--the woman devoured by pain, the old man with his calm demand; and then the soul of her rose with a shout. What! there was something left for her to do? She need not merely sit still and die? She need not wait idly for the end? It was a splendid summons to the mind--a challenge to the body that had dogged and humiliated the soul, that had wrung from her good-humored courage irritability and unjust anger, that had dragged her pride in the dust of shame, yes, even--even (alone, and in the dark), but even of tears.
"_Make it as easy as possible for those that stand by._"
Some might say that that austere command was the lash of the whip; but to Miss Harriet it was the rod and the staff. The Spartan old man had suddenly revealed to her that as long as the body does not compel the soul, there is no shame. As long as she could hold her tongue, she said to herself, she need not be ashamed. Let the body whimper as it may, if the soul is silent it is master. Miss Harriet saw before her, not humiliation and idleness and waiting, but fierce struggle.... And it was a struggle. It was no easy thing to be amiable when good Maria Welwood wept over her; or when Martha King told her, flatly and frankly, that she was doing very wrong not to make more effort to eat; or even when Mrs. Dale hoped that she had made her peace with Heaven.
"Heaven had better try to make its peace with me, considering," said Miss Harriet, grimly; but when she saw how she had shocked Mrs. Dale, she made haste to apologize. "I didn"t mean it, of course. But I am nervous, and say things to let off steam." Such an admission meant much from Miss Harriet, and it certainly soothed Mrs. Dale.
But most of all, Harriet Hutchinson forbade her body to dictate to her soul when Miss Annie hung whimpering about her with frantic persistence of pity. Never in all their years together had Miss Harriet shown such tenderness to Annie as now, when the poor old child"s mere presence was maddening to her. For Annie could think of nothing but the pain which could not be hidden, and her incessant entreaty was that it should be stopped. "Wouldn"t you rather be dead, sister?"
"Yes, Annie."
"Well, then, be dead."
"I can"t, Annie. Now let us talk of something else. Tell me what the black hen did when the speckled hen stole her nest."
Annie joyously told her story, as she had told it dozens of times before; while Harriet Hutchinson turned her face to the wall. Annie sat on her heels on the floor beside the bed, rocking back and forth, and talking: "And so the speckled hen flew off. Sister, I"ll get you your big bottle?"
No answer.
"Sister, don"t you want to smell the bottle?"
"No, Annie. No--no--_no_! Oh, Annie, don"t you want to go and see your chickens?"
"Why not?"
"Because it wouldn"t be right, Annie."
"Why wouldn"t it be right, sister?"
"Because," said Harriet Hutchinson--"because I suppose that"s one of the things that would "make it harder for those that stand by.""
"I don"t understand," poor old Annie said, timidly.
"Well, Annie, that"s the only reason I know of. Oh, Annie, Annie! it is the only reason there is; it is the root of its being wrong." ...
And then the long moan. When Miss Annie heard that sound she shivered all over; it was the elemental protest of the flesh, which cannot understand the regal and unconquered soul.
Those were hard days for w.i.l.l.y King, what with his affection and his sympathy and his daily struggles with Miss Annie; "for she is frantic,"
he told Dr. Lavendar. They were walking up the hill together in the late afternoon. Miss Harriet had sent for the old man, on whom now she leaned even more than on William King, for Dr. Lavendar gave her granite words instead of w.i.l.l.y"s tenderer sympathy. "She insists that I shall give Miss Harriet something--"stuff out of Harriet"s bottle,"
she says. I suppose she means chloroform. I wish to G.o.d I could."
"G.o.d will do His own work, William."
"Yes, sir; but it"s such a waste--this courage that fairly breaks our hearts."
"Waste! William, what are you talking about? We are every one of us richer for it. I told her so yesterday."
"Well," said William King, thoughtfully, "perhaps so; in this case we are richer, I admit. But suppose it were a baby that was suffering--or a dog? Only, we wouldn"t let the dog suffer. Dr. Lavendar, one of these days--you and I won"t live to see it, but one of these days--"
"There is Miss Annie now," said Dr. Lavendar. "Why--look at her!"
The old woman came fluttering down the path towards the green gate in the privet hedge; she was smoothing her hair back from her temples, with her strange, girlish gesture, and she was smiling, but there was a new and solemn age in her face that made the two men look at each other, startled and wondering.
"Dr. Lavendar! w.i.l.l.y!" she said, her voice breaking with joy, "Harriet is dead--oh, Harriet is dead!"
They stopped short in the pathway. "What--what?" stammered William King.
"Oh, Harriet is dead!" the old woman said; "and I"m so happy." She came and leaned on the closed gate at the foot of the path, smiling up into their faces. "She isn"t hurt any more. Oh, I can breathe, I can breathe, now," said Miss Annie, laying her withered hands upon her throat and drawing a deep breath.
"When?" said the doctor.
"Oh, just a little while ago. As soon as she got dead I opened the windows and let the air blow in; she likes the wind when she isn"t hurt."
William King said, suddenly, "_My G.o.d!_" and turned and ran up the path, into the house, into the room, where, indeed, there was no more hurting.
"Annie," Dr. Lavendar said, "were you with her?"
"Yes," Miss Annie said. "Harriet was hurt very much. But when she smelled her bottle she stopped being hurt."
Dr. Lavendar leaned against the gate, his breath wavering; then he sat down on the gra.s.s, and rested his forehead on his hands clasped on the top of his stick. He was unable to speak. Miss Annie came out into the road and looked at him curiously. After a while he said, feebly, "Annie, tell me about it."
"w.i.l.l.y wouldn"t give Harriet sugar in a paper to stop the hurting. And Harriet said she couldn"t get her bottle. She said it would be wrong for her to get it."
Dr. Lavendar lifted his head with a quick gesture of relief. "What!
Harriet, didn"t get it herself?"
"Oh no," Miss Annie said. "I got it. And I went into Harriet"s room.
Harriet"s eyes were shut, and she was--was moaning," said Miss Annie, shivering. "So I put some stuff out of the bottle on a towel and held it for Harriet to smell. And Harriet opened her eyes and looked frightened, and she said, "No, no!" And I said, "Yes; I"m the oldest and you must do what I say." And she said, "Augustine! Augustine!"
But Augustine can"t hear. And I held it down and I said, "You won"t be hurt any more." And Harriet pushed it away and said "No." And then she shut her eyes. And after a while she didn"t say anything more.
And I held it, oh, a long time. And then I looked, and Harriet"s eyes were shut. And now she"s dead! And it doesn"t hurt any more. You come and look at her, and you"ll see it doesn"t hurt any more. Now she wouldn"t thank King George to be her uncle! Oh, she"s dead," said Miss Annie, nodding her head and laughing; "a happy sleep." She was standing there in the dusty road in front of him, telling the story, her hands behind her, rocking slightly backward and forward, like a child repeating a lesson. The long afternoon shadows stretched from the trees across the road, and, swaying lightly, flecked her gray head with sunshine.
"Annie," said Dr. Lavendar, "come here and sit beside me."
She came, happily enough, and let him take her hand and hold it, patting it softly for a moment before he spoke.
"Annie, it was not right to give Harriet the stuff out of the bottle; our Heavenly Father stops the hurting when He thinks best. So it does not please Him for us to do it when we think best."
"But w.i.l.l.y gave Harriet one sugar in a paper, and that stopped it a little," Miss Annie said, puzzled; "and if he stopped it a little, why shouldn"t it all be stopped?" The obvious logic of the poor mind admitted of no answer--certainly no argument.
Dr. Lavendar said, gravely, stroking the hand, as wrinkled as his own: "It was not right, my child. You will believe me when I say so? And I do not want any one to know that you did a thing that was not right.
So I want you to promise me now that you will not tell any one that you did it. Will you promise me?"
"w.i.l.l.y knows it, I guess," Miss Annie said.