’ ... One does learn such lessons, when lying still for weeks and weeks, with nothing to do but think. For instance, I remember grievous sins of omission, which I have never thought of before.... The duty of Intercessory prayer opens out before me. Of course, I have always prayed for you, love, and a great many more; no danger of forgetting. But I have forgotten numbers.’
In a circular letter to English friends, dated January 25, she again and more emphatically asserts her own non-expectation of death during the late illness: ‘On the worst day I talked Urdu, nothing else, from morning till night, to imaginary bibis. Almost every one thought me dying, except myself!... I asked the dear, kind, skilful doctor of my state; he did not know what to say, for he thought me sinking. I asked dear Mr. Weitbrecht, and he pointed his finger straight downwards. I quite understood, but did not believe myself dying for all that!’ This certainly was not the impression of those around her at the time, nor is it borne out by the things she said. No doubt she was striving to believe what she longed for,—was hoping that the doctors’ opinion, and not her own inner sense, might prove to be right.
Miss Tucker’s ‘horror of alcohol’ is particularly noted by Mr. Clark. When getting better, she one day remarked to him, ‘What a dear, good doctor Dr. Clark is! He has brought me through it all, without giving me any spirits.’ Then, turning to one of her nurses, ‘Isn’t it so, dear?’ A judicious answer was returned: ‘The doctor gave you just the right medicine, and you were very good in taking it.’ A little later, when having another dose of medicine, she said again, ‘Are you sure there is no alcohol in it?’ ‘It is what the doctor has ordered for you, Auntie dear. You must just take it, and ask no questions.’ As letters show, it was not till February that she learned the true state of the case, which was that she had been kept alive by small doses of stimulant every hour. The strongest brandy had tasted to her like water. As soon as Miss Tucker understood how matters had been, she wrote to her sister, to say:—
‘I made a great mistake in my letters home. If from them you have given to others a wrong impression, please kindly correct it when opportunity occurs. I wrote that I had had no stimulant in my illness. I thought that I had not; but I find that I was utterly wrong. I was kept from sinking, not only by quantities of quinine, but brandy also. It was strange that I should not have recognised it; but it was always mixed with something else.’
So steady now was the improvement in her health, that before the middle of February she was able to get out for drives; on the 14th she went to Church; and by the 18th she was back again in ‘dear Batala,’—not at the old palace, but in the Mission Bungalow, ‘Sonnenschein,’ with Miss Hoernle. A crowd of boys welcomed her at the Railway Station, on her arrival; and next day a grand Batala feast was given in her honour.
CHAPTER XV
A.D. 1886-1887
IN HARNESS ONCE MORE
So severe an illness could not fail to leave traces; and Charlotte Tucker came out of it more distinctly an old lady than she had ever been before. Ten years of perpetual toil had used up a large amount of even her superabundant vitality; and she could not expect to be again fully what she had been, either as to vigour or powers of endurance.
But although strength did not return quickly, and work had to be very slowly resumed, her interest in all that concerned Batala was as vivid as ever. The letters of 1886 are full of details about various High School boys,—either those who had been or those who still were scholars. Letters to Mrs. Hamilton were as long as ever,—longer indeed than in times of greater work-pressure,—and the shaky hand soon regained its firmness.