For Jesus has loved me,
I cannot tell why!”’
What Charlotte Tucker experienced, on seeing that lowered hand, may be to some extent realised by reading her ‘Dream’ of the Second Advent, given in an earlier chapter. Heaven to her was ‘Home’; many of her nearest and dearest were already in Paradise; and ‘death,’ so called, would mean re-union with those dear ones. Charlotte Tucker could from her very heart re-echo the poet’s words,—with a most practical belief in them,—‘There is no Death; what seems so is Transition.’ During years past she had longed for this Transition; striving only not to be impatient, but to await cheerfully God’s own time.
And now, it seemed, she was to go! Not only to leave sin and sorrow behind; not only to be young and strong again; not only to see such beauty and glory as our Earth can never show; not only to ‘mount up with wings, as eagles,’ into splendid new spheres of knowledge and thought, of employment and work. All these things, though real, were secondary. The overwhelming delight of going Home, whether by the Coming of Christ, or through the ‘grave and gate of Death,’ was that she would meet her Lord and Master face to face! That was the grand expectation which thrilled her whole being, which drew from her an ‘almost shout’ of joy, even in extreme weakness,—the prospect of seeing Him, ‘Whom, not having seen,’ she loved.
So intense was the joy that it had a remarkable result. It appeared to take the same effect as a powerful stimulant upon her sinking strength. The very delight which she had in dying brought her back to life; the very rapture with which she desired to go kept her from going.
It is not needful to suppose that this alone saved her life. Skilled physicians and devoted nurses had done and were doing their utmost; and a fresh remedy was being tried, which brought down the very high fever. But the fact remains the same, that, until Charlotte Tucker was told that she would die, hopes of her recovery had been given up, at all events by those best qualified to judge; and that, from the time when she learned the verdict of the doctors, she began to revive. At the least we must allow that the stimulant afforded by this eager rejoicing was a marked assistance to other remedies; and that, without it, in all probability she might have sunk.
Nor need it be imagined that she was immediately out of danger. Improvement was very gradual, and anxiety lasted long. Weeks later she spoke of her own life as having been on Christmas Day still ‘trembling in the balance,’ and this was nearly a week before Christmas. But hope had revived, and every day it grew stronger.
Having once made up her mind that she was to die, it was, we may be sure, no easy matter for Charlotte Tucker to turn her mind earthward again. ‘She dwelt on the thought continually,’ wrote one of her nurses afterwards; and another friend said in a letter home, at the time, ‘She is deaf to any suggestion of possible recovery.’
Full directions were given as to presents which she wished to have sent to relatives and friends after her departure; and many messages also, expressive of intense delight in the prospect which she believed to lie before her. She was very particular as to her funeral. ‘I wish no one to wear black for me,’ she said. ‘My funeral must not cost more than five rupees. No coffin; only a plank to keep the body straight. You must make a recess in the grave, so that the earth may not fall on my face. No one must carry me but my dear Christian boys.’
Then she would believe herself to be in a Zenana once more, and she was giving a farewell address in Hindustani to all her Bibis. In the midst of such a serious exhortation would come in quotations from Shakespeare, or odd little remarks about her food, making it impossible for others not to smile, as the active mind passed rapidly from one subject to another. But still her radiant expectation and rejoicing never faltered.