A week had passed since Bessy's accident, and friends and relations had dispersed1. The household had fallen into its routine, the routine of sickness and silence, and once more the perfectly-adjusted machine was working on steadily2, inexorably, like a natural law....
So at least it seemed to Justine's nerves, intolerably stretched, at times, on the rack of solitude3, of suspense4, of forebodings. She had been thankful when the Gaineses left--doubly thankful when a telegram from Bermuda declared Mrs. Carbury to be "in despair" at her inability to fly to Bessy's side--thankful even that Mr. Tredegar's professional engagements made it impossible for him to do more than come down, every second or third day, for a few hours; yet, though in some ways it was a relief to be again in sole command, there were moments when the weight of responsibility, and the inability to cry out her fears and her uncertainties5, seemed almost unendurable.
Wyant was her chief reliance. He had risen so gallantly6 above his weakness, become again so completely the indefatigable7 worker of former days, that she accused herself of injustice8 in ascribing to physical causes the vague eye and tremulous hand which might merely have betokened10 a passing access of nervous sensibility. Now, at any rate, he had his nerves so well under control, and had shown such a grasp of the case, and such marked executive capacity, that on the third day after the accident Dr. Garford, withdrawing his own assistant, had left him in control at Lynbrook.
At the same time Justine had taken up her attendance in the sick-room, replacing one of the subordinate nurses who had been suddenly called away. She had done this the more willingly because Bessy, who was now conscious for the greater part of the time, had asked for her once or twice, and had seemed easier when she was in the room. But she still gave only occasional aid, relieving the other nurses when they dined or rested, but keeping herself partly free in order to have an eye on the household, and give a few hours daily to Cicely.
All this had become part of a system that already seemed as old as memory. She could hardly recall what life had been before the accident--the seven dreadful days seemed as long as the days of creation. Every morning she rose to the same report--"no change"--and every day passed without a word from Amherst. Minor11 news, of course, had come: poor Mr. Langhope, at length overtaken at Wady Halfa, was hastening back as fast as ship and rail could carry him; Mrs. Ansell, anchored at Algiers with her invalid12, cabled anxious enquiries; but still no word from Amherst. The correspondent at Buenos Ayres had simply cabled "Not here. Will enquire"--and since then, silence.
Justine had taken to sitting in a small room beyond Amherst's bedroom, near enough to Bessy to be within call, yet accessible to the rest of the household. The walls were hung with old prints, and with two or three photographs of early Italian pictures; and in a low bookcase Amherst had put the books he had brought from Hanaford--the English poets, the Greek dramatists, some text-books of biology and kindred subjects, and a few stray well-worn volumes: Lecky's European Morals, Carlyle's translation of Wilhelm Meister, Seneca, Epictetus, a German grammar, a pocket Bacon.
It was unlike any other room at Lynbrook--even through her benumbing misery13, Justine felt the relief of escaping there from the rest of the great soulless house. Sometimes she took up one of the books and read a page or two, letting the beat of the verse lull14 her throbbing15 brain, or the strong words of stoic16 wisdom sink into her heart. And even when there was no time for these brief flights from reality, it soothed17 her to feel herself in the presence of great thoughts--to know that in this room, among these books, another restless baffled mind had sought escape from the "dusty answer" of life. Her hours there made her think less bitterly of Amherst--but also, alas18, made her see more clearly the irreconcilable19 difference between the two natures she had striven to reunite. That which was the essence of life to one was a meaningless shadow to the other; and the gulf20 between them was too wide for the imagination of either to bridge.
As she sat there on the seventh afternoon there was a knock on the door and Wyant entered. She had only time to notice that he was very pale--she had been struck once or twice with his look of sudden exhaustion21, which passed as quickly as it came--then she saw that he carried a telegram, and her mind flew back to its central anxiety. She grew pale herself as she read the message.
"He has been found--at Corrientes. It will take him at least a month to get here."
"A month--good God!"
"And it may take Mr. Langhope longer." Their eyes met. "It's too long----?" she asked.
"I don't know--I don't know." He shivered slightly, turning away into the window.
Justine sat down to dash off messages to Mr. Tredegar and the Gaineses: Amherst's return must be made known at once. When she glanced up, Wyant was standing22 near her. His air of intense weariness had passed, and he looked calm and ready for action.
"Shall I take these down?"
"No. Ring, please. I want to ask you a few questions."
The servant who answered the bell brought in a tea-tray, and Justine, having despatched the telegrams, seated herself and began to pour out her tea. Food had been repugnant to her during the first anguished24 unsettled days, but with the resumption of the nurse's systematic25 habits the nurse's punctual appetite returned. Every drop of energy must be husbanded now, and only sleep and nourishment26 could fill the empty cisterns27.
She held out a cup to Wyant, but he drew back with a gesture of aversion.
"Thanks; I'm not hungry."
"You ought to eat more."
"No, no. I'm very well."
She lifted her head, revived by the warm draught28. The mechanical act of nourishment performed, her mind leapt back to the prospect29 of Amherst's return. A whole month before he reached Lynbrook! He had instructed her where news might find him on the way ... but a whole month to wait!
She looked at Wyant, and they read each other's thoughts.
"It's a long time," he said.
"Yes."
"But Garford can do wonders--and she's very strong."
Justine shuddered30. Just so a skilled agent of the Inquisition might have spoken, calculating how much longer the power of suffering might be artificially preserved in a body broken on the wheel....
"How does she seem to you today?"
"The general conditions are about the same. The heart keeps up wonderfully, but there is a little more oppression of the diaphragm."
"Yes--her breathing is harder. Last night she suffered horribly at times."
"Oh--she'll suffer," Wyant murmured. "Of course the hypodermics can be increased."
"Just what did Dr. Garford say this morning?"
"He is astonished at her strength."
"But there's no hope?--I don't know why I ask!"
"Hope?" Wyant looked at her. "You mean of what's called recovery--of deferring31 death indefinitely?"
She nodded.
"How can Garford tell--or any one? We all know there have been cases where such injury to the cord has not caused death. This may be one of those cases; but the biggest man couldn't say now."
Justine hid her eyes. "What a fate!"
"Recovery? Yes. Keeping people alive in such cases is one of the refinements32 of cruelty that it was left for Christianity to invent."
"And yet--?"
"And yet--it's got to be! Science herself says so--not for the patient, of course; but for herself--for unborn generations, rather. Queer, isn't it? The two creeds33 are at one."
Justine murmured through her clasped hands: "I wish she were not so strong----"
"Yes; it's wonderful what those frail34 petted bodies can stand. The fight is going to be a hard one."
She rose with a shiver. "I must go to Cicely----" The rector of Saint Anne's had called again. Justine, in obedience35 to Mrs. Gaines's suggestion, had summoned him from Clifton the day after the accident; but, supported by the surgeons and Wyant, she had resisted his admission to the sick-room. Bessy's religious practices had been purely36 mechanical: her faith had never been associated with the graver moments of her life, and the apparition37 of a clerical figure at her bedside would portend38 not consolation39 but calamity40. Since it was all-important that her nervous strength should be sustained, and the gravity of the situation kept from her, Mrs. Gaines yielded to the medical commands, consoled by the ready acquiescence41 of the rector. But before she left she extracted a promise that he would call frequently at Lynbrook, and wait his opportunity to say an uplifting word to Mrs. Amherst.
The Reverend Ernest Lynde, who was a young man, with more zeal42 than experience, deemed it his duty to obey this injunction to the letter; but hitherto he had had to content himself with a talk with the housekeeper43, or a brief word on the doorstep from Wyant. Today, however, he had asked somewhat insistently44 for Miss Brent; and Justine, who was free at the moment, felt that she could not refuse to go down. She had seen him only in the pulpit, when once or twice, in Bessy's absence, she had taken Cicely to church: he struck her as a grave young man, with a fine voice but halting speech. His sermons were earnest but ineffective.
As he rose to meet her, she felt that she should like him better out of church. His glance was clear and honest, and there was sweetness in his hesitating smile.
"I am sorry to seem persistent--but I heard you had news of Mr. Langhope, and I was anxious to know the particulars," he explained.
Justine replied that her message had overtaken Mr. Langhope at Wady Haifa, and that he hoped to reach Alexandria in time to catch a steamer to Brindisi at the end of the week.
"Not till then? So it will be almost three weeks--?"
"As nearly as I can calculate, a month."
The rector hesitated. "And Mr. Amherst?"
"He is coming back too."
"Ah, you have heard? I'm glad of that. He will be here soon?"
"No. He is in South America--at Buenos Ayres. There will be no steamer for some days, and he may not get here till after Mr. Langhope."
Mr. Lynde looked at her kindly46, with grave eyes that proffered47 help. "This is terrible for you, Miss Brent."
"Yes," Justine answered simply.
"And Mrs. Amherst's condition----?"
"It is about the same."
"The doctors are hopeful?"
"They have not lost hope."
"She seems to keep her strength wonderfully."
"Yes, wonderfully."
Mr. Lynde paused, looking downward, and awkwardly turning his soft clerical hat in his large kind-looking hands. "One might almost see in it a dispensation--_we_ should see one, Miss Brent."
"_We?_" She glanced up apologetically, not quite sure that her tired mind had followed his meaning.
"We, I mean, who believe...that not one sparrow falls to the ground...." He flushed, and went on in a more mundane48 tone: "I am glad you have the hope of Mr. Langhope's arrival to keep you up. Modern science--thank heaven!--can do such wonders in sustaining and prolonging life that, even if there is little chance of recovery, the faint spark may be nursed until...."
He paused again, conscious that the dusky-browed young woman, slenderly erect49 in her dark blue linen50 and nurse's cap, was examining him with an intentness which contrasted curiously51 with the absent-minded glance she had dropped on him in entering.
"In such cases," she said in a low tone, "there is practically no chance of recovery."
"So I understand."
"Even if there were, it would probably be death-in-life: complete paralysis52 of the lower body."
He shuddered. "A dreadful fate! She was so gay and active----"
"Yes--and the struggle with death, for the next few weeks, must involve incessant53 suffering...frightful54 suffering...perhaps vainly...."
"I feared so," he murmured, his kind face paling.
"Then why do you thank heaven that modern science has found such wonderful ways of prolonging life?"
He raised his head with a start and their eyes met. He saw that the nurse's face was pale and calm--almost judicial55 in its composure--and his self-possession returned to him.
"As a Christian," he answered, with his slow smile, "I can hardly do otherwise."
Justine continued to consider him thoughtfully. "The men of the older generation--clergymen, I mean," she went on in a low controlled voice, "would of course take that view--must take it. But the conditions are so changed--so many undreamed-of means of prolonging life--prolonging suffering--have been discovered and applied56 in the last few years, that I wondered...in my profession one often wonders...."
"I understand," he rejoined sympathetically, forgetting his youth and his inexperience in the simple desire to bring solace57 to a troubled mind. "I understand your feeling--but you need have no doubt. Human life is sacred, and the fact that, even in this materialistic58 age, science is continually struggling to preserve and prolong it, shows--very beautifully, I think--how all things work together to fulfill59 the divine will."
"Then you believe that the divine will delights in mere9 pain--mere meaningless animal suffering--for its own sake?"
"Surely not; but for the sake of the spiritual life that may be mysteriously wrung60 out of it."
Justine bent61 her puzzled brows on him. "I could understand that view of moral suffering--or even of physical pain moderate enough to leave the mind clear, and to call forth62 qualities of endurance and renunciation. But where the body has been crushed to a pulp45, and the mind is no more than a machine for the registering of sense-impressions of physical anguish23, of what use can such suffering be to its owner--or to the divine will?"
The young rector looked at her sadly, almost severely63. "There, Miss Brent, we touch on inscrutable things, and human reason must leave the answer to faith."
Justine pondered. "So that--one may say--Christianity recognizes no exceptions--?"
"None--none," its authorized64 exponent65 pronounced emphatically.
"Then Christianity and science are agreed." She rose, and the young rector, with visible reluctance66, stood up also.
"That, again, is one of the most striking evidences--" he began; and then, as the necessity of taking leave was forced upon him, he added appealingly: "I understand your uncertainties, your questionings, and I wish I could have made my point clearer----"
"Thank you; it is quite clear. The reasons, of course, are different; but the result is exactly the same."
She held out her hand, smiling sadly on him, and with a sudden return of youth and self-consciousness, he murmured shyly: "I feel for you"--the man in him yearning67 over her loneliness, though the pastor68 dared not press his help....
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1
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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uncertainties
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| 无把握( uncertainty的名词复数 )； 不确定； 变化不定； 无把握、不确定的事物 | |
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gallantly
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| adv. 漂亮地，勇敢地，献殷勤地 | |
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indefatigable
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| adj.不知疲倦的，不屈不挠的 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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betokened
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| v.预示，表示( betoken的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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stoic
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| n.坚忍克己之人，禁欲主义者 | |
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soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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irreconcilable
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| adj.（指人）难和解的，势不两立的 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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anguished
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| adj.极其痛苦的v.使极度痛苦(anguish的过去式) | |
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systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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cisterns
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| n.蓄水池，储水箱( cistern的名词复数 )；地下储水池 | |
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draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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deferring
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| v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的现在分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从 | |
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refinements
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| n.（生活）风雅；精炼( refinement的名词复数 )；改良品；细微的改良；优雅或高贵的动作 | |
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creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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portend
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| v.预兆，预示；给…以警告 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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insistently
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| ad.坚持地 | |
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pulp
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| n.果肉，纸浆；v.化成纸浆，除去...果肉，制成纸浆 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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proffered
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mundane
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| adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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solace
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| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
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materialistic
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| a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的 | |
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fulfill
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| vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意 | |
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wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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authorized
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| a.委任的，许可的 | |
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exponent
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| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
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reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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pastor
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| n.牧师，牧人 | |
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