CHAPTER XX.
WEAKNESS.
Molly was confirmed in her surmise; for in an hour Sara was in a burning fever, and there was little sleep in the house that night. To have Sara ill was unprecedented—almost unbearable—and the whole household was visibly affected by it. Morton's face settled into a gravity which nothing could move, and Molly's dimpled visage had never looked so long and care-full.
Hetty bustled up and down, important and anxious, while Sam stood about in the hall, and asked everybody who passed along "how she wor a-doin' now."
The doctor came, looked wise, talked about malaria, exposure to the heat and over-fatigue, left some pills and powders, and went away again— after which the house settled down to that alert silence, so different from the restful quiet of an ordinary night. Sara, tossing to and fro in the fiery grasp of fever, moaned and talked, Hetty and Molly watching alternately beside her, while Morton tried to sleep in the next room, only to start from frightful dreams to the more harrowing reality that his beloved sister was actually and painfully ill.
It was a sharp illness, but not of long duration. The fever was broken up on the fourteenth day, but it left a very weak and ghostly Sara to struggle back to health once more. Still, there were no relapses, thanks to good care, for Hetty had been faithfulness itself, while Molly had settled down to her new duties with a steadiness no one would have expected. As for Morton, he would have brought up half the drugstore, if he had been permitted, and was made perfectly content whenever allowed to share the night-watches, which was seldom, as he had to work all day. In these Hetty was soon relieved by those members of the circle who had become personal friends of the girls; and as there was little to do, except give the medicines regularly, they thus managed well without calling in a regular nurse.
Three weeks from the day of her seizure Sara began to sit up in bed, looking once more something like the girl of old, though she still talked (to quote Molly) as if she had hot pebbles in her mouth, and the veins on her temples were much too clearly defined beneath the white skin.
Thus sitting, one delightful day, she read a note from Bertha, which had been awaiting her some time. It was a rapturous expression of thanks for the good place she had found with Mrs. Searle, and begged that she might see her as soon as Sara was able. Molly said, as she handed it, "She has been here two or three times, begging to do anything for you that was needed, and I promised you should see her just as soon as possible."
So, a day or two later, Bertha came. Sara would hardly have known her, and indeed the two seemed to have changed places,—Sara was the weakling now, Bertha the strong and rosy one.
"I have such a good place," she said, in answer to the former's questions; "Mrs. Searle is very kind to me. Of course she is exacting and fretful at times, but that is only because of her illness, and I can get along with it; but she has given me a pretty room, and allows me an hour or two for air and exercise every day. I am happier there than I have been since mother died."
"That is good!" said Sara.
"And only think," continued the pleased girl, "she is talking now of going to the seashore. You don't know how I long for a sight of the ocean! The only trouble is, she can't find a place quiet enough to suit her—she hates to go to a great hotel, or where there is a crowd."
Sara looked up with a sudden thought.
"Killamet would be quiet enough—how nice it would be if she'd take my house there!"
"Your house! Have you a house?"
"Yes, the children and I; it's not much of one—just a cottage, but perfectly comfortable in summer. If Mrs. Searle would send down some furniture, I think she could really make it cosey."
"I'll tell her about it" said Bertha, and did, with the result that the lady decided to take it for the next two months, at a fair rental.
This little excitement over, Sara had only herself and the children to think of, and in her weak physical condition these thoughts were far from pleasant.
What was to prevent Bertha's experience from becoming her own, or possibly Molly's, in case of evil fortune? If she should often be ill, who would care for them? She seemed to herself, just then, such a frail plank between them and want! She raised her white, blue-veined hands and looked at them; they did not seem made for struggling, and a sense of powerlessness, born of bodily weakness, enwrapped her in its hopeless gloom.
There is a certain period, after convalescence is well progressed, that is even more trying to many natures than actual illness—that time when we are supposed to be well, and yet have not quite resumed our wonted strength.
How the long-dropped burdens of our lives loom up before us now! Is it possible we ever bent our backs to such a load? Can we ever do it again? Yet, even as we hesitate, relentless necessity pushes us on, and bids us hoist the burden.
Sara felt this often now, and all her former bravery seemed gone with her strength. She had already decided that, next Monday, she must return to the museum, and bring up her neglected work; then there was a half- written article to be finished and copied, whose motive and central thought she had almost forgotten, while at her side loomed a basketful of stockings to be darned, and garments to be mended before the Sabbath dawn.
In this reluctant mood, trying to rally her forces for renewed conflict with life's hard duties, she could not help thinking how different it might all be—how she might be cared for, instead of looking out for others; how she might be the centre of a home, enclosed and guarded, rather than, as now, trying vainly to encompass one, making a wall of her feeble self to shelter others—and hot tears of rebellious weakness filled her eyes, and dropped slowly upon the trembling little hands, which were painfully weaving the threads to and fro through a preposterous hole in one of Morton's socks.
A step in the hall made her hasten to dash away the tell-tale drops, as
Hetty knocked, before peeping in to say,—
"There's a gentleman in the parlor asking to see you, Miss Olmstead."
"A gentleman? One of the professors?"
"I don't think it is; I never see him before—it's a young man."
Sara rose, adjusted her dress a little, and descended to the drawing- room. In its close-shuttered condition she did not at first recognize the figure which rose to meet her, but a second look wrung from her almost a cry.
"Jasper?" "Yes, Sairay, it's me. You—you've been sick, I hear."
She bowed her head, unable to speak for the second.
"And you show it too," with an awed look into her lovely face, spiritualized by illness, as he took her extended hand.
"Yes," recovering herself, "but I'm nearly well now—how are they all in
Killamet?"
"Oh, so-so, I guess; but I haven't been home to stay any since last month—soon after Cousin Prue was here, it was. I had business in Norcross yesterday, and I come over from there by train. Mother wrote about your having the fever."
She had motioned him to a chair, and dropped into another herself, feeling weak in body, and perplexed in mind. Why had he come? Was he the answer to her repining thoughts? His voice roused her from the sort of lethargic state into which she had dropped for a moment.
"Sairay," he said, with a little choke, "I—I couldn't stay away any longer—when I heard about you—and I've come"—
He stopped again, but she did not help him out—she could not. With her fingers locked together in her lap, she waited for what was coming, with the feeling that she was drifting down stream, and had neither the strength, nor inclination, to arrest her swift descent. He drew a sigh that was almost a gasp, and plunged on,—
"Sairay, it's too hard for you—all—all this—and I—Oh! you know how I love you—I've always loved you, and what is the use in your working so when I'd give my very eyes to take care of you? Don't speak, Sairay," raising his hand in protest, "I've got a-going, now, and I want to say it all. I know I'm not good enough for you—who is?—but if love that never tires, and kindness, and—and—being as true as steel, and as tender as a mother, can count for anything, they'll plead for me, Sairay; I'm not much on fine speech-making, as you know."
He had risen, and stood before her, tall and stalwart, and, for the moment, such strength and tenderness seemed good to her—why not accept them, and be at rest? Perhaps he felt her yielding mood; at any rate, he held out both hands with an assured gesture.
"Say yes, Sairay—tell me you"—
There was a jarring slam and a flood of light; one of the shutters had blown open. Both started, glanced around, then faced each other again; but that noisy interruption had thoroughly aroused Sara. She looked at Jasper in this brighter light, and a quick revulsion of feeling swept over her. What was she doing? Would she lie to him?
She did not love him; did she dare to tell him that she did? A thought of another manly figure, bearing a certain refinement and nobility lacking in this, rose before her mind's eye, and when Jasper finished his sentence—"tell me you love me!" her answer was ready.
"I can't, Jasper," she said low, but firmly, "It wouldn't be"—
He stopped her again.
"Don't answer me now; take time to think—take till tomorrow. This is too sudden; nobody can know their minds all in a minute. I'll come again when you've had time to think."
She shook her head.
"No, Jasper, that is not necessary. You have always been one of my best friends—be so still! But—that is all. I can't give you what you ask for, and time will never change me—don't think it. The best way is to have perfect truth between us. Now, Jasper," trying to speak easily, "put this aside, and stay with us this evening. I want you to see Morton and"—
"I can't," said Jasper, in a voice of intense calmness (she could imagine him giving an order in just that tone, when life or death hung on the proper execution of it), "I—must go. You—you're sure you know your mind?"
"Yes, sure."
He picked up his hat,—she noticed it was a silk tile, and thought vaguely how incongruous it looked upon him, though she was used to little else among the students,—and jammed it absently down on his head, as he was accustomed to fasten on his tarpaulin during a storm.
"Good-by" he said hoarsely, turning towards the door.
She stepped towards him.
"Jasper, wait!"
He obeyed—but reluctantly.
"I beg of you, don't let this make you feel hard towards us all. I have depended on your goodness all my life—don't let it fail me now!"
She held out her hand with that look which few could resist, a look of winning trustfulness words cannot describe. Jasper hesitated, turned, looked into her face—and yielded.
"Sairay," he said, grasping her hand closely, "it's no use; you always did have your way, and you always will! I'll be anything to you that you want me to be, but—it's bitter hard luck!" and, wringing her hand till it ached, he left her.