He had been very restless, attempting again and again to sit up in bed, and it had needed not only all her care but all her strength to keep him lying down. All night long, too, that terrible uncontrollable twitching5 of the muscles of leg and arm had gone on incessantly6, and again and again, for ten minutes or more at a stretch, she had kept one arm with steady pressure over those poor, jumping knees, while she held the other ready to prevent his getting up. It had been all she could do, in fact, to manage him alone, but she had been unwilling7, except at the last extremity8, to rouse Nurse James from the next room, for she had had a terribly tiring day yesterday with him. Yesterday, too, a second doctor had come down from London. The case was extremely grave, but all that could be done was being done.
Martin was lying rather more quiet just now, and Nurse Baker9 had moved from the bed to put out the{338} lamp and draw the blind up a little. His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling, and he was talking in a high, meaningless drone.
“No, Karl, I can’t do it” he was saying. “I don’t see it like that. I know I shall break down, because I haven’t the slightest idea of how it begins, and I can’t leave out the beginning. And father is angry with me, and when he is angry he frightens me. Hasn’t Stella come to see me? I had such a headache, you know; like a great piece of hot iron, you know, right inside my head. They took off the top of my head to put it there. I’m frightened of him when he’s like that. Where’s Stella? No; Lady Sunningdale was in the bird of para—para—parachute—I don’t know, in that hat anyhow, you fool with Sahara. That’s what made it so hot, and I can’t endure English chants. Oh, father, don’t, don’t. It isn’t my fault.”
His voice rose to a scream, and the nurse came quickly back to the bedside, just in time to prevent him rising.
The door opened gently, and Helen came in in her dressing-gown. And the terrible drone began again.
“And when we’re married, Helen and Frank shall come and stay with us, and I’ll play to them, if it gets cooler. But father mustn’t know; he mustn’t come. Karl is the loud pedal you see, and the music-stool, and I’m only the black notes. I hope they won’t play me much, as I’m all out of tune10 with the iron. And all those faces are there, a sea of them, and I’m all alone. If I break down father will be angry!”
He turned his head sideways on the pillow, closed his eyes, and was silent for a little. Helen, with quivering lip, was looking at that dear face, so thin{339} and hollow, so untidy and unshaven, with unspeakable love and longing11. Then the nurse left the bed and came to her. Helen did not ask if he was better.
“Can I help you in anything?” she said.
“No, dear Miss Helen, thank you. I think he will be quieter for a little now. But I should like Dr. Thaxter to be sent for at once, please. Yes, he is very ill. He is as ill as he can be. There, there, my dear!”
Helen clasped her hands together a moment, holding them out towards Martin with a dumb, beseeching12 gesture, as if imploring13 him.
“And I am so strong,” she said. “Why can’t I give him some of my strength! It is cruel.”
“Ah, if one only could do that,” said Nurse Baker. “But he is not suffering; he is quite unconscious.”
“May my father come in to see him a moment?” asked the girl.
“No; much better not. He does not know what he is saying, but he keeps on saying what you have heard. Now, will you send somebody for the doctor? There are certain things I don’t like about his looks. And then come back, dear, if you like. He never says a word his sister should not hear.”
Helen advanced to the side of the bed a moment, and just touched Martin’s hand, which lay outside the bedclothes. She could not speak, but just nodded to the nurse and went away.
She sent word to the stables that the cart was to go at once to fetch Dr. Thaxter, and then went to her father’s study, where he was waiting for her.
He was kneeling by his table, as he had knelt for{340} the last half-hour, but rose when she entered, and they stood together, hands clasped, a moment.
“No, dear father, he is no better,” she said. “He—he is very ill, indeed. And Nurse Baker thinks you had better not go in.”
Mr. Challoner looked at her with that dreadful dry-eyed despair that she had seen on his face so often during this last week.
“Does he still talk about me?” he asked.
Helen laid her hands on his shoulders.
“Yes, father,” she said; “but he does not know what he is saying. Indeed, he does not. He talks all sorts of nonsense. He has no idea what he says.”
“Ah, Helen, that is just it,” he moaned. “The poor lad speaks instinctively14; he says what has become a habit of thought. Oh, my God, my God!”
Helen knew her impotence to help him.
“I have sent for Dr. Thaxter,” she said. “Nurse Baker wanted him to come at once. And, father, there is another thing, which I have only just thought of. If Dr. Thaxter thinks—if he thinks that, we ought to send for a Roman priest.”
Mr. Challoner’s face changed suddenly.
“No,” he said, in a harsh whisper; “no Roman priest shall enter the house.”
“Ah, but he must, he must,” said Helen. “Think a moment. If Martin was conscious, you know he would wish it, and you would send for one.”
Mr. Challoner did not reply for a moment; then he lifted his hands with a helpless gesture.
“And it is Easter morning,” he said.
Somehow that cut at the girl’s heart more than anything.{341}
“Yes, dear father,” she said at length; “and is not that—whatever happens—enough for us all? Whoever we are, Frank, Martin, you, I, that is where we meet.”
Then for the first time since that day, now nearly a fortnight ago, when Martin had sat down dead tired on the seat by the front door, the blessed relief of tears came to his father, and he wept long, silently, a man’s hard, painful tears. And with those tears the upright hardness of him, the God-fearing, God-loving narrowness went from him. The bitter frosts of his nature melted, they were dissolved.
“Oh, Helen, if he lives,” he said at length.
“Ah, yes, dear father, or if he dies. Even if he dies, dear.”
She took his hands, holding them tightly.
“Oh, help me to remember that,” she whispered; “I shall need all the help you can give me. We shall want—we shall want all the help we can get—both of us. We will give it each other. And Stella——“
“You telegraphed to her?”
“Yes; she cannot get here till to-morrow!”
Then the girl gave way.
“To-morrow,” she said; “and it is only just to-day. Father, father, I can’t bear it. I can’t.”
But the strength she had given him so often during this last week was ready again to help her.
“Yes, dear Helen,” he said, speaking quite calmly again. “We can both bear whatever is to be. God does not send us anything that we are not capable of bearing, and of bearing without bitterness and without complaint. And whether it is life or death with our dear Martin, it is all life. We believe that, do we{342} not? Let us hold on to that, for it sustains the sorrows of all the world. There is nothing so sure as that. It is the Rock of Ages, Helen.”
There was the sound of wheels on the gravel15 outside.
“That will be the doctor, dear,” said he; “will you go and meet him, and—and the cart must wait if he thinks a priest should be sent for.”
She got up at once.
“Yes, father,” she said.
Helen went out into the hall. Dr. Thaxter had just come in, and at the same moment Nurse Baker hurried downstairs.
“Come up at once, please, doctor,” she said. “He—he came to himself a few minutes ago, after being delirious16 all night. I took his temperature. It is normal, just about normal.”
Helen’s face suddenly brightened.
“He is better, then?” she said.
Nurse Baker turned to her, as the doctor took off his coat, with infinite compassion17 in her kind, brown eyes.
“No, dear Miss Helen,” she said. “He is—ah, I need not explain to you. But it is very bad. It is—you must be very brave, my dear. Go to your father.”
She gave her a quick little kiss, and followed the doctor upstairs. Helen went back into the study.
“Something has happened,” she said. “I had no time to speak to Dr. Thaxter. They will send for us, dear. I think—I think that is what nurse meant.”
It was now about seven of the morning, and the sun about an hour above the horizon streamed gloriously into the room. It shone on the table, the sofa,{343} on the big chair where Helen and Martin as little children used to sit together, looking at Bible pictures. And she sat down in that chair now. The big things had been said between her father and her, and as they waited now both turned to little memories of the past.
“Martin used to sit by me,” she said.
“Yes; and then you grew too big. After that you used each to have a chair, one on each side of me.”
“And we did our lessons there,” said Helen. Then she stopped suddenly, for there was a foot on the stairs.
Nurse Baker came in.
“You must both come,” she said.
The blind was drawn18 up in Martin’s room, and the same wonderful sun flooded the room, and outside many thrushes were singing. There was but little apparatus19 of medicine there,—it was just a boy’s clean room: cricket bats and racquets stood in one corner, on the table there was a heap of music, school-books were in the bookcase by the door. And on the bed lay Martin. His eyes were still open, but they were blind and unseeing no more, and he turned them wearily to the door when Helen and his father entered. But when he saw them, they brightened a little. The doctor had stood back from the bed, Nurse Baker was by him. Then Martin spoke20.
“It is nice to be in my own room again,” he said in a voice just audible. “Oh, good-morning, Helen; good-morning, father. I have had horrible dreams, father. I dreamed you were angry with me. How silly. You are not angry?”
Mr. Challoner came up to the bed, and knelt there, his arm resting on the blanket.{344}
“No, dear lad,” he said. “I am not; indeed, I am not.”
Martin shifted his position a little.
“I’m glad,” he said, “because I’m so tired. Helen, I played well, really well, did I?”
“Yes, Martin; Karl Rusoff said—he said nobody ever played better.”
And she was silent because she could not say any more just then.
“And what is to-day?” asked Martin at length.
“It is Easter Sunday, dear Martin,” said his father.
Martin half raised his head.
“I ought to be at Mass,” he said, “but I can’t. It doesn’t matter, does it, if one can’t?”
His father came a little closer yet.
“No, dear boy,” he said. “It is Mass everywhere this morning. He was crucified, and this morning He rose again. That is all the world holds, and the heaven of heavens.”
“Yes, all,” said the boy. “And to-day——“
The whisper in which he had spoken died, and Dr. Thaxter took a step towards the bed, looked at him a moment, and then went back again.
For a minute or two Martin lay there quite still; then he put out his two hands on each side of the bed, one towards Helen, one to his father.
“I am awfully21 tired,” he said, “and I can’t talk. But I can listen still. Is Stella here?”
“No, Martin,” said Helen; “but she is coming as quickly as she can.”
“Ah! Father, say something, something that you and I both know and like.”{345}
Mr. Challoner gently kissed the boy’s hand; then he raised his head and spoke.
“The King of Love my Shepherd is,
Whose Goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am His,
And He is mine for ever.”
Helen was on the other side of the bed, and as her father’s voice faltered22 and stopped, she looked up.
“Shall father and I say it together, Martin?” she asked.
“Yes, together,” said he.
So sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both repeated the beautiful words. But just before the last verse Martin raised his head a little, looking straight in front of him. Then his father began:
“And so through all the length of days
Thy goodness faileth never——“
He paused, for he saw that look in dying eyes, those eyes that were so dear to him, which means that the great event is there, that the great, white presence has entered. Helen had seen, too.
Then Martin raised himself a little further and spoke no longer in a whisper,—
“Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise,
Within Thy courts for ever.”
Then he sank down again, withdrew his hand from his father’s, and put it on the pillow. Then he laid his face on it, as was his custom, and fell asleep.
The End
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收听单词发音
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1
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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2
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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3
flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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4
watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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5
twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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7
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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8
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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9
baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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11
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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12
beseeching
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| adj.恳求似的v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的现在分词 ) | |
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13
imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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14
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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15
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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16
delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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17
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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18
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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19
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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20
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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21
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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22
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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