It Never Can Happen Again

by William De Morgan

The name arouses enthusiasm. "Oh, very, very much too!" But this is too great a tax on the poor little lungs, tubercle-gripped, and an attempt to follow with a schedule of loves deserved and granted fails, and quiet is imperative.

Adeline Fossett turned down the light again, and remained silent, listening to the heavy breathing, with its ugly little spasmodic jerk now and again. She was unhappy in her mind, over and above grief. Here was this little thing with only a few days at most to live—she was convinced of that—and utterly unconscious of her state. Was it right—was it fair—to leave her so? All the traditions of her religious cult from youth upward said no; according to them, the dying were to prepare, or be prepared, for death. But when the patient was simply slipping almost painlessly away—seeming at least to suffer only from an inexplicable feverish unrest, never from acute pain that could not be denied at will—what was to be gained by thrusting on a childish mind a demand to face the black contingency, to make a formal acknowledgment of the grave? Would it not be safe to give one little soul Godspeed into the Unknown, whose only care was now that each of her many loves should be known to their recipients, each in its right degree? Would not those very loves be as garments to shelter the new-born soul in the world beyond, whether the date of its arrival was now or hereafter? She was shocked at the venturesome impiety of the question she half-asked herself:—Could she not trust God for that? A happy inspiration hinted at a half-answer in the affirmative, and biassed her to silence.

Another anxiety, perhaps more pressing still, took the place of that one. Ought she not to have written more explicitly to the Rectory about the child's state? On her arrival, in answer to Miss Fanshawe's telegram, she had found nothing to warrant prediction of the days, or even weeks, that the tension might be prolonged. All she could say with certainty was that Lizarann was at present quite unfit to be moved, but that it was impossible to foresee. We must wait on events. But she said never a word to set any hopes afoot. She had written almost daily; once in answer to a letter of Athelstan Taylor, telling how he might have to go away for a few days, and of his resolution of silence with respect to Jim. She was, at first, inclined to disapprove this course, but later saw that it was unavoidable, and wrote to that effect. Still, the idea of Jim in ignorance, nourishing hopes, perhaps, while his little lass lay there dying, was an excruciating one. She said to herself repeatedly that it was merely an idea; that the co-temporaneousness of a death with far greater unconsciousness of its possibility than Jim's was an everyday occurrence. What would the wife, who now hears of her husband's death months ago, have gained by the knowledge of her widowhood, had the news come sooner? She pictured other instances to persuade the idea away. But it remained.

Miss Fanshawe, to whom this case was only one of a hundred, said to her, "If you could spirit the child's father down here to be with her when she dies, that would be another matter. But you say that's impossible. Why give him ups and downs of anxiety? Tell him what you like by way of preparation, but not till it's all over." Miss Fossett felt the truth of this view, but the position grated on her moral sense. However, she felt she must submit to the discomfort of a sense of untruth for awhile. It was not to last long.

She must have been dozing, and for longer than she could have believed possible, when she waked suddenly to reply to the child, who had spoken, with, "Yes—darling! What did you say?"

"Aren't you going to bed, Teacher?"

"Yes, dear, presently."

"'Tin't night?"

"Yes, it's night. But that doesn't matter. I shall go to bed presently."

"When shall you go to bed?" After a pause, this.