CHAPTER VI.
‘How do you feel now, Margaret?’
‘Nearly over, Miss Nelly. I shall die with the morning.’
A week later, and the patient had got gradually worse. The constant exposure, the hard life, and the weeks of semi-starvation, had told its tale on the weak womanly frame. The exposure in the rain and cold on that eventful night had hastened on the consumption which had long settled in the delicate chest. All signs of mental exhaustion had passed away, and the calm hopeful waiting frame of mind had succeeded. She was waiting for death; not with any feeling of terror, but with hopefulness and expectation.
Up to the present, Eleanor had not the heart to ask for any memento or remembrance of the old life; but had nursed her patient with an unceasing watchful care, which only a true woman is capable of. All that day she had sat beside the bed, never moving, but noting, as hour after hour passed steadily away, the gradual change from feverish restlessness to quiet content, never speaking, or causing her patient to speak, though she was longing for some word or sign.
‘You have been very good to me, Miss Nelly. Had it not been for you, where should I have been now!’
‘Hush, Margaret; don’t speak like that. Remember, everything is forgiven now. Where there is great temptation, there is much forgiveness.’
‘I hope so, miss—I hope so. Some day, we shall all know.’
‘Don’t try to talk too much.’
For a while she lay back, her face, with its bright hectic flush, marked out in painful contrast to the white pillow. Eleanor watched her with a look of infinite pity and tenderness. The distant hum of busy Holborn came with dull force into the room, and the heavy rain beat upon the windows like a mournful dirge. The little American clock on the mantel-shelf was the only sound, save the dry painful cough, which ever and anon proceeded from the dying woman’s lips. The night sped on; the sullen roar of the distant traffic grew less and less; the wind dropped, and the girl’s hard breathing could be heard painfully and distinctly. Presently, a change came over her face—a kind of bright, almost unearthly intelligence.
‘Are you in any pain, Madge?’ Eleanor asked with pitying air.
‘How much lighter it is!’ said the dying girl. ‘My head is quite clear now, miss, and all the pain has gone.—Miss Nelly, I have been dreaming of the old home. Do you remember how we used to sit by the old fountain under the weeping-ash, and wonder what our fortunes would be? I little thought it would come to this.—Tell me, miss, are you in—in want?’
‘Not exactly, Madge; but the struggle is hard sometimes.’
‘I thought so,’ the dying girl continued. ‘I would have helped you after she came; but you know the power she had over your poor uncle, a power that increased daily. She used to frighten me. I tremble now when I think of her.’
‘Don’t think of her,’ said Eleanor soothingly. ‘Try and rest a little, and not talk. It cannot be good for you.’
The sufferer smiled painfully, and a terrible fit of coughing shook her frame. When she recovered, she continued: ‘It is no use, Miss Nelly: all the rest and all your kind nursing cannot save me now. I used to wonder, when you left Eastwood so suddenly, why you did not take me; but now I know it is all for the best. Until the very last, I stayed in the house.’
‘And did not my uncle give you any message, any letter for me?’ asked Eleanor, with an eagerness she could not conceal.
‘I am coming to that. The day he died, I was in his room, for she was away, and he asked me if I ever heard from you. I knew you had written letters to him which he never got; and so I told him. Then he gave me a paper for you, which he made me swear to deliver to you by my own hand; and I promised to find you. You know how I found you,’ she continued brokenly, burying her face in her hands.
‘Don’t think of that now, Margaret,’ said Eleanor, taking one wasted hand in her own. ‘That is past and forgiven.’
‘I hope so, miss. Please, bring me that dress, and I will discharge my trust before it is too late. Take a pair of scissors and unpick the seams inside the bosom on the left side.’
The speaker watched Eleanor with feverish impatience, whilst, with trembling fingers, she followed the instructions. Not until she had drawn out a flat parcel, wrapped securely in oiled paper, did the look of impatience transform to an air of relief.
‘Yes, that is it,’ said Margaret, as Eleanor tore off the covering. ‘I have seen the letter, and have a strange feeling that it contains some secret, it is so vague and rambling, and those dotted lines across it are so strange. Your uncle was so terribly in earnest, that I cannot but think the paper has some hidden meaning. Please, read it to me. Perhaps I can make something of it.’
‘It certainly does appear strange,’ observed Eleanor, with suppressed excitement.
Turning towards the light, Eleanor read as follows:
Darling, we must now be friends. Remember, Nelly, in the garden you promised to obey my wishes. Under the care of Miss Wakefield I hoped you would improve but now I see it was not to be, and as prudence teaches us that all is for the best I must be content. Ask Edgar to forgive me the wrong I have done you both in the past, and this I feel his generous heart will not withhold from me. Now that it is too late I see how blind I have been, and could I live my life over again how different things would be. Times are changed, yet the memory of past days lingers within me, and like Niobe, I mourn you. When I am gone you will find my blessing a gift that is better than money.
The paper was half a sheet of ordinary foolscap, and the words were written without a single break or margin. It was divided perpendicularly by five dotted lines, and by four lines horizontally, and displayed nothing to the casual eye but an ordinary letter in a feeble handwriting.
The tiny threads of fate had begun to gather. All yet was dark and misty; but in the gloom, faint and transient, was one small ray of light.
Eleanor gazed at the paper abstractedly for a few moments, vaguely trying to find some hidden clue to the mystery.
‘You must take care of that paper, Miss Nelly. Something tells me it contains a secret.’
‘And have you been searching for me two long years, for the sole purpose of giving me this?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Yes, miss,’ the sufferer replied simply. ‘I promised, you know. Indeed, I could not look at your uncle and break a vow like mine.’
‘And you came to London on purpose?’
‘Yes. No one knew where I was gone. I have no friends that I remember, and so I came to London. It is an old tale, miss. Trying day by day to get employment, and as regularly failing. I have tried many things the last two bitter years. I have existed—I cannot call it living—in the vilest parts of London, and tried to keep myself by my needle; but that only means dying by inches. God alone knows the struggle it is for a friendless woman here to keep honest and virtuous. The temptation is awful; and as I have been so sorely tried, I hope it will count in my favour hereafter. I have seen sights that the wealthy world knows nothing of. I have lived where a well-dressed man or woman dare not set foot. Oh, the wealth and the misery of this place they call London!’
‘And you have suffered like this for me?’ Eleanor said, the tears now streaming down her face. ‘You have gone through all this simply for my sake? Do you know, Madge, what a thoroughly good woman you really are?’
‘I, miss?’ the dying girl exclaimed in surprise. ‘How can I possibly be that, when you know what you do of me! O no; I am a miserable sinner by the side of you. Do you think, Miss Nelly, I shall be forgiven?’
‘I do not doubt it,’ said Eleanor softly; ‘I cannot doubt it. How many in your situation could have withstood your temptation?’
‘I am so glad you think so, miss; it is comfort to me to hear you say that. You were always so good to me,’ she continued gratefully. ‘Do you know, Miss Nelly dear, whenever I thought of death, I always pictured you as being by my side?’
‘Do you feel any pain or restlessness now, Margaret?’
‘No, miss; thank you. I feel quite peaceful and contented. I have done my task, though it has been a hard one at times. I don’t think I could have rested in my grave if I had not seen you.—Lift me up a little higher, please, and come a little closer. I can scarcely see you now. My eyes are quite misty. I wonder if all dying people think about their younger days, Miss Nelly? I do. I can see it all distinctly: the old broken fountain under the tree, where we used to sit and talk about the days to come; and how happy we all were there before she came. Your uncle was a different man then, when he sat with us and listened to your singing hymns. Sing me one of the old hymns now, please.’
In a subdued key, Eleanor sang Abide with me, the listener moving her pallid lips to the words. Presently, the singer finished, and the dying girl lay quiet for a moment.
‘Abide with me. How sweet it sounds! “Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day.” I am glad you chose my favourite hymn, Miss Nelly. I shall die repeating these words: “The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.” Now it is darker still; but I can feel your hand in mine, and I am safe. I did not think death was so blessed and peaceful as this. I am going, going—floating away.’
‘Margaret, speak to me!’
‘Just one word more. How light it is getting! Is it morning? I can see. I think I am forgiven. I feel better, better! quite forgiven. Light, light, light! everywhere. I can see at last.’
It was all over. The weary aching heart was at rest. Only a woman, done to death in the flower of youth by starvation and exposure; but not before her task was done, her work accomplished. No lofty ambition to stir her pulses, no great goal to point to for its end. Only a woman, who had given her life to carry out a dying trust; only a woman, who had preserved virtue and honesty amid the direst temptation. What an epitaph for a gravestone! A eulogy that needs no glittering marble to point the way up to the Great White Throne.