Chapter IV

There were some people in Bleaburn to whom the sign in heaven looked very differently. On the night when the people assembled in the street to question each other about it, Mary was at the Billiters’ house, where, but for her, all would have been blank despair. Mrs. Billiter lay muttering all night in the low delirium of the fever; and Mary could not do more for her than go to the side of her mattress now and then, to speak to her, and smooth her pillow, or put a cool hand on her forehead, while one of the dying children hung on the other shoulder. At last, the little fellow was evidently so near death that the slightest movement on her part might put out the little life. As he lay with his head on her shoulder, his bony arms hanging helpless, and his feet like those of a skeleton across her lap, she felt every painful breath through her whole frame. She happened to sit opposite the window; and the window, which commanded a part of the brow of the hollow, happened to be open. Wherever the Good Lady had been, the windows would open now; and, when closed, they were so clear that the sunshine and moonlight could pour in cheerfully. This September night was sultry and dry; and three fever patients in two little low rooms needed whatever fresh air could be had. There sat Mary, immoveable, with her eyes fixed on the brow from which she had seen more than one star come up, since she last left her seat. She now and then spoke cheerfully to the poor mutterer in the other room, to prevent her feeling lonely, or for the chance of bringing back her thoughts to real things: and then she had to soothe little Ned, lying on a bed of shavings in the corner, sore and fretful, and needing the help that she could not stir to give. His feeble cry would have upset any spirits but Mary’s; but her spirits were never known to be upset, though few women have gone through such ghastly scenes, or sustained such tension of anxiety.

“I cannot come to you at this moment, Ned,” said she, “but I will soon,—very soon. Do you know why your brother is not crying? He is going to sleep,—for a long quiet sleep. Perhaps he will go to sleep more comfortably if you can stop crying. Do you think you can stop crying, Ned?”

The wailing was at once a little less miserable, and by degrees it came to a stop as Mary spoke.

“Do you know, your little brother will be quite well, when he wakes from that long sleep. It will be far away from here,—where daddy is.”

“Let me go, too.”

“I think you will go, Ned. If you do, you will not live here any more. You will live where daddy is gone.”

“Will Dan Cobb tease me then? Dan does tease us so!”

Mary had to learn who Dan Cobb was,—a little boy next door, who was not in the fever as yet. He was always wanting Ned’s top. Would he want Ned’s top in that place where they were all going to be well?

“No,” said Mary; “and you will not want it, either. When we go to that place, we have no trouble of carrying anything with us. We shall find whatever we want there.”

“What shall I play at?”

“I don’t know till we go and see; but I am sure it will be with something better than your top. But, Ned, are you angry with Dan? Do you wish that he should have the fever? And are you glad or sorry that he has no top?”

By this time the crying had stopped; and Ned, no longer filling his ears with his own wailing, wondered and asked what that odd sound was,—he did not like it.

“It will soon be over,” said Mary, very gently. “It is your brother just going to sleep. Now, lie and think what you would say to Dan, if you were going a long way off, and what you would like to be done with your top, when you do not want it yourself. You shall tell me what you wish when I come to you presently.”

Whether Ned was capable of thinking she could not judge, but he lay quite silent for the remaining minutes of his little brother’s life;—a great comfort to Mary, who could not have replied, because the mere vibration of her own voice would now have been enough to stop entirely the breathings which came at longer and longer intervals. Her frame ached, and her arms seemed to have lost power,—so long was it since she had changed her posture. At such a moment it was that the great comet came up from behind the brow. The apparition was so wonderful, and so wholly unexpected, that Mary’s heart beat; but it was from no fear, but rather a kind of exhilaration. Slowly it ascended, proving that it was no meteor, as she had at the first moment conjectured. When the bright tail disclosed itself, she understood the spectacle, and rejoiced in it, she scarcely knew why.

When at last the breathing on her shoulder ceased, she let down the little corpse upon her knee, and could just see, by the faint light from the rush candle in the outer room, that the eyes were half closed, and the face expressive of no pain. She closed the eyes, and, after a moment’s silence, said:

“Now, Ned, I am coming to you, in a minute.”

“Is he asleep?”

“Yes. He is in the quiet long sleep I told you of.”

Ned feebly tried to make room for his brother on the poor bed of shavings; and he wondered when Mary said that she was making a bed in the other corner which would do very well. She was only spreading mammy’s cloak on the ground, and laying her own shawl over the sleeper; but she said that would do very well.

Mary was surprised to find Ned’s mind so clear as that he had really been thinking about Dan and the top. She truly supposed that it was the clearing before death. He said:

“You told me daddy was dead. Am I going to be dead?”

“Yes, I think so. Would not you like it?—to go to sleep, and then be quite well?”

“But, shan’t I see Dan, then?”

“Not for a long time, I dare say: and whenever you do, I don’t think you and he will quarrel again. I can give Dan any message, you know.”

“Tell him he may have my top. And tell him I hope he won’t have the fever. I’m sure I don’t like it at all. I wish you would take me up, and let me be on your knee.”

Mary could not refuse it, though it was soon to be going over again the scene just closed. Poor Ned was only too light, as to weight; but he was so wasted and sore that it was not easy to find a position for him. For a few minutes he was interested by the comet, which he was easily led to regard as a beautiful sight, and then he begged to be laid down again.

The sun was just up when Mary heard the tap at the door below, which came every morning at sunrise. She put her head out of the window, and said softly that she was coming,—would be down in two minutes. She laid poor Ned beside his brother, and covered him with the same shawl; drew off the old sheets and coverlid from the bed of shavings, bundled them up with such towels as were in the room, and put them out of the window, Warrender being below, ready to receive them. She did not venture to let the poor mother see them, delirious as she was. Softly did Mary tread on the floor, and go down the creaking stair. When she reached the street she drew in, with a deep sigh, the morning air.

“The poor children’s bedding,” she said to Warrender.

“They are gone?” he inquired. “What, both?”

“One just before midnight. The other half-an-hour ago. And their mother will follow soon.”

“The Lord have mercy upon us,” said Warrender, solemnly.

“I think it is mercy to take a family thus together,” replied Mary. “But I think of poor Aunty. If I could find any one to sit here for half-an-hour, I would go to her, and indeed, I much wish it.”

“There is a poor creature would be glad enough to come, ma’am, if she thought you would countenance it. A few words will tell you the case. She is living with Simpson, the baker’s man, without being his wife. Widow Johnson was very stern with her, and with her daughter, Billiter, for being neighbourly with the poor girl—though people do say that Simpson deceived her cruelly. I am sure, if I might fetch Sally, she would come, and be thankful; and——”

“O! ask her to come and help me. If she has done wrong, that is the more reason why she should do what good she can. How is Ann?”

“Pretty well. Rather worn, as we must all expect to be. She never stood so many hours at the wash-tub, any one day, as she does now every day: but then, as she says, there never was so much reason.”

“And you, yourself?”

“I am getting through, ma’am, thank you. I seem to see the end of the white-washing, for one thing. They have sent us more brushes of the right sort from O——, and I should like, if I could, to get two or three boys into training. They might do the outhouses and the lower parts, where there are fewest sick, while I am upstairs. But, for some reason or other, the lads are shy of me. There is some difference already, I assure you, ma’am, both as to sight and smell; but there might be more, if I could get better help.”

“And you are careful, I hope, for Ann’s sake, to put all the linen first into a tub of water outside.”

“Yes, surely. I got the carpenter’s men to set a row of tubs beside our door, and to promise to change the water once a day. I laughed at them for asking if they could catch the fever that way: and they are willing enough to oblige where there’s no danger. Simpson offered to look to our boiler as he goes to the bakehouse when, as he says, Ann and I ought to be asleep. I let him do it and thank him; but it is not much that we sleep, or think of sleeping, just now.”

“Indeed,” said Mary, “you have a hard life of it, and without pay or reward, I am afraid. I never saw such——”

“Why, ma’am,” said Warrender, “you are the last person to say those sort of things. However, it is not a time for praising one another, when there are signs in the heaven, and God’s wrath on earth.”

“You saw the comet, did you? How beautiful it is! It will cheer our watch at nights now. Ah! you see I don’t consider it anything fearful, or a sign of anything but that, having a new sort of stars brought before our eyes to admire, we don’t understand all about the heavens yet, though we know a good deal; and just so with the fever: it is a sign, not of wrath, as I take it, but that the people here do not understand how to keep their health. They have lived in dirt, and damp, and closeness, some hungry and some drunken: and when unusual weather comes, a wet spring and a broiling summer, down they sink under the fever. Do you know, I dare not call this God’s wrath.”

Warrender did not like to say it, but the thought was in his mind, why people were left so ignorant and so suffering. Mary was quick at reading faces, and she answered the good fellow’s mind, while she helped to hoist the bundle of linen on his shoulder.

“We shall see, Warrender, whether the people can learn by God’s teaching. He is giving us a very clear and strong lesson now.”

Warrender touched his hat in silence, and walked away.

Aunty had for some time been out of danger from the fever, or Mary could not have left her to attend on the Billiters, urgent as was their need. But her weakness was so great that she had to be satisfied to lie still all day in the intervals of Mary’s little visits. Poor Jem brought her this and that, when she asked for it, but he was more trouble than help, from his incurable determination to shut all doors and windows, and keep a roaring fire: he did everything else, within his power, that his mother desired him, but on these points he was immoveable. If ever his mother closed her eyes, he took the opportunity to put more wood on the fire; and he looked so grievously distressed if requested to take it off again, that at last he was let alone. Mary was fairly accustoming him to occupy himself in bringing pails of water and carrying away all refuse, when she was summoned to the Billiters; but the hint was given, and the neighbours saw that they need no longer use water three or four times over for washing, while poor Jem was happy to carry it away, rinse the pails, and bring fresh. His cousin Mary had often of late found him thus engaged: but this morning he was at home, cowering in a chair. When she set the windows open, he made no practical objection; and the fire was actually out. Mary was not therefore surprised at Aunty’s reply to her inquiries.

“I am tolerably easy myself, my dear, but I can’t tell what has come over Jem; it seems to me that somebody must have been giving him drink, he staggered so when he crossed the room half-an-hour ago; yet I hardly think he would take it, he has such a dislike to everything strong. What a thing it is that I am lying here, unable to stir to see about it myself!”

“We will see about it,” said Mary, going to poor Jem. “I neither think he would touch drink, nor that any body would play such a trick with him at such a time. No,” she went on, when she had felt his pulse and looked well at his face, “it is not drink: it is illness.”

“The fever,” groaned the mother.

“I think so. Courage, Aunty! we will nurse him well: and the house is wholesome now, you know. You are through the fever: and his chance is a better one than yours, the house is so much more airy, and I have more experience.”

“But, Mary, you cannot go on for ever, without sleep or rest, in this way. What is to be done, I don’t see.”

“I do, Aunty. I am very well to-day. To-morrow will take care of itself. I must get Jem to bed; and if he soon seems to be moaning and restless, you must mind it as little as you can. It is very miserable, as you have good reason to know; but——”

“I know something that you do not, I see,” said Aunty. “A more patient creature than my poor Jem does not live in Bleaburn, nor anywhere else.”

“What a good chance that gives him!” observed Mary, “and what a blessing it is, for himself and for you! I must go to my cousin now presently; and I will send the doctor to see Jem.”

The poor fellow allowed himself to be undressed; and let his head fall on his bolster, as if it could not have kept up a minute longer. He was fairly down in the fever.