"I"ve been cooking my dinner, and you see I eat a great deal. There, now, that"s positively my last word."
Bending over, she kissed me hurriedly, a tear fell on my face, and then before I could catch the fluttering hem of her ap.r.o.n, she had broken from me, and gone out, closing the door after her. For a minute I lay perfectly motionless, too weak for thought. Then opening my eyes with an effort, I stared straight up at the white ceiling, against which a green June beetle was knocking with a persistent, buzzing sound that seemed an accompaniment to the crooning lullaby of Aunt Euphronasia.
"Oh, we"se all gwine home ter glory, by en bye, lil" chillun, We"se all gwine home ter glory, by en bye."
"Will he break his wings on the ceiling, or will he fly out of the window?" I thought drowsily, and it appeared to me suddenly that my personal troubles--my illness, my anxiety for Sally, and even the poverty that must have pressed upon her--had receded to an obscure and cloudy distance, in which they became less important in my mind than the problem of the green June beetle knocking against the ceiling. "Will he break his wings or will he fly out?" I asked, with a dull interest in the event, which engrossed my thoughts to the exclusion of all personal matters. "I ought to think of Sally and the child, but I can"t. My head won"t let me. It has gone wrong, and if I begin to think hard thoughts I"ll go delirious again. There is jessamine blooming somewhere. Did she have a spray in her hair when she bent over me? Why did she wear a gingham ap.r.o.n at a ball instead of pink tarlatan? No, that was not the problem I had to solve. Will he break his wings or will he fly out?"
"Oh, we"ll fit on de golden slippers, by en bye, lil" chillun,"
crooned Aunt Euphronasia, rocking little Benjamin in the square of sunlight.
The song soothed me and I slept for a minute. Then starting awake in the cold sweat of terror, I struggled wildly after the problem which still eluded me.
"Has he flown out?" I asked.
"Who, Ma.r.s.e Ben?" enquired the old negress, stopping her rocking and her lullaby at the same instant.
"The June beetle. I thought he"d break his wings on the ceiling."
"Go "way f"om hyer, honey, he ain" gwine breck "is wings. Dar"s moughty little sense inside er dem, but dey ain" gwine do dat. Is yo" wits done come back?"
"Not quite. I feel crazy. Aunt Euphronasia!"
"W"at you atter, Ma.r.s.e Ben?"
"How did Sally manage?"
"Ef"n hit"s de las" wud I speak, she"s done managed jes exactly ez ef"n she wuz de Lawd A"moughty."
"And she didn"t suffer?"
"Who? She? Dar ain" none un us suffer, honey, we"se all been livin" on de ve"y fat er de lan", we is. Dar"s been roas" pig en shoat e"vy blessed day fur dinner."
She had talked me down, and I turned over again and lay in silence, until Sally came in with a dose of medicine and a cup of broth.
"Have I been very ill, Sally?"
"Very ill. It was the long mental strain, followed by the intense heat.
At one time we feared that a blood vessel was broken. Now, put everything out of your mind, and get well."
She had taken off her gingham ap.r.o.n, and was wearing one of her last summer"s dresses of flowered organdie. I remembered that I had always liked it because it had blue roses over it.
"How can I get well when I know that you have been starving?"
"But we haven"t been. We"ve had everything on earth we wanted."
"Then thank G.o.d you got help. Whom did you go to?"
Putting the empty gla.s.s aside, she began feeding me spoonfuls of broth, with her arm under my pillow.
"If you will be bad and insist upon knowing--I didn"t go to anybody. You said you couldn"t bear being helped, you know."
"I said it--oh, darling--but I didn"t think of this!"
"Well, I thought of it, anyway, and I wasn"t going to do while you were ill and helpless what you didn"t want me to do when you were well."
"You mean you told n.o.body all these weeks?"
"Well, I told one or two people, but I didn"t accept charity from them.
The General was away, you know, but some people from the office came over with offers of help--and I told them we needed nothing. Dr.
Theophilus was too far away to treat you, but he has come almost every day with a pitcher of Mrs. Clay"s chicken broth. Oh, we"ve prospered, Ben, there"s no doubt of that, we"ve prospered!"
"How soon may I get up?"
"Not for three weeks, and it will be another three weeks even if you"re good, before you can go back to the office."
A sob rose in my throat, but I bit it back fiercely before it pa.s.sed my lips.
"Oh, Sally, my darling, why did you marry me?"
"You cruel boy," she returned cheerfully, as she smoothed my pillows, "when you know that if I hadn"t married you there wouldn"t be any little Benjamin in the world."
After this the slow days dragged away, while I consumed chicken broth and milk punches with a frantic desire to get back my strength. Only to be on my feet again, and able to lift the burden from Sally"s shoulders!
Only to drive that tired look from her eyes, and that patient, divine smile from her lips! I watched her with jealous longing while I lay there, helpless as a fallen tree, and I saw that she grew daily thinner, that the soft redness never left her small, childlike hands, that three fine, nervous wrinkles had appeared between her arched eyebrows.
Something was killing her, while I, the man who had sworn before G.o.d to cherish her, was but an additional burden on her fragile shoulders. And yet how I loved her! Never had she seemed to me more lovely, more desirable, than she did as she moved about my bed in her gingham ap.r.o.n, with the anxious smile on her lips, and the delicate furrows deepening between her eyebrows.
"How soon? How soon, Sally?" I asked almost hourly, kissing the scar on her wrist when she bent over me.
"Be patient, dear."
"I am trying to be patient for your sake, but oh, it"s devilish hard!"
"I know it is, Ben. Another week, and you will be up."
"Another week, and this killing you!"
"It isn"t killing me. If it were killing me, do you think I could laugh?
And you hear me laugh?"
"Yes, I hear you laugh, and it breaks my heart as I lie here. If I"m ever up, Sally, if I"m ever well, I"ll make you go to bed and I will slave over you."
"There are many things I"d enjoy more, dear. Going to bed isn"t my idea of happiness."
"Then you shall sit on a cushion and eat nothing but strawberries and cream."
"That sounds better. Well, there"s something I"ve got to see about, so I"ll leave you with Aunt Euphronasia to look after you. The doctor says you may have a cup of tea if you"re good. We"ll make a party together."
An hour or two later, when the afternoon sunshine was shut out by the green blinds, and the room was filled with a gentle droning sound from the humming-birds at the jessamine, she drew up the small wicker tea table to my bedside, and we made the party with merriment. Her eyes were tired, the three fine nervous wrinkles had deepened between her arched eyebrows, and the soft redness I had objected to, covered her hands; yet that spirit of gaiety, which had seemed to me to resemble the spirit of the bird singing in the old grey house, still showed in her voice and her smile. As she brewed the tea in the little brown tea-pot and poured it into the delicate cups, with the faded pattern of moss rosebuds around the brim, I wondered, half in a dream, from what inexhaustible source she drew this courage which faced life, not with endurance, but with blitheness. Were the ghosts of the dead Blands and Fairfaxes from whom she had sprung fighting over again their ancient battles in their descendant?