A few hours after,he was lying on my bed,struck down by the first real sickness he had ever known.It was apparently a low agueish fever,which had been much about Norton Bury since the famine of last year.At least,so Jael said;and she was a wise doctoress,and had cured many.He would have no one else to attend him--seemed terrified at the mere mention of Dr.Jessop.I opposed him not at first,for well I knew,whatever the proximate cause of his sickness might be,its root was in that mental pang which no doctors could cure.So I trusted to the blessed quiet of a sick-room--often so healing to misery--to Jael's nursing,and his brother's love.
After a few days we called in a physician--a stranger from Coltham--who pronounced it to be this Norton Bury fever,caught through living,as he still persisted in doing,in his old attic,in that unhealthy alley where was Sally Watkins's house.It must have been coming on,the doctor said,for a long time;but it had no doubt now reached its crisis.He would be better soon.
But he did not get better.Days slid into weeks,and still he lay there,never complaining,scarcely appearing to suffer,except from the wasting of the fever;yet when I spoke of recovery he "turned his face unto the wall"--weary of living.
Once,when he had lain thus a whole morning,hardly speaking a word,I began to feel growing palpable the truth which day by day I had thrust behind me as some intangible,impossible dread--that ere now people had died of mere soul-sickness,without any bodily disease.Itook up his poor hand that lay on the counterpane;--once,at Enderley,he had regretted its somewhat coarse strength:now Ursula's own was not thinner or whiter.He drew it back.
"Oh,Phineas,lad,don't touch me--only let me rest."The weak,querulous voice--that awful longing for rest!What if,despite all the physician's assurances,he might be sinking,sinking--my friend,my hope,my pride,all my comfort in this life--passing from it and from me into another,where,let me call never so wildly,he could not answer me any more,nor come back to me any more.
Oh,God of mercy!if I were to be left in this world without my brother!
I had many a time thought over the leaving him,going quietly away when it should please the Giver of all breath to recall mine,falling asleep,encompassed and sustained by his love until the last;then,a burden no longer,leaving him to work out a glorious life,whose rich web should include and bring to beautiful perfection all the poor broken threads in mine.But now,if this should be all vain,if he should go from me,not I from him--I slid down to the ground,to my knees,and the dumb cry of my agony went up on high.
How could I save him?
There seemed but one way;I sprung at it;stayed not to think if it were right or wrong,honourable or dishonourable.His life hung in the balance,and there was but one way;besides,had I not cried unto God for help?
I put aside the blind,and looked out of doors.For weeks I had not crossed the threshold;I almost started to find that it was spring.
Everything looked lovely in the coloured twilight;a blackbird was singing loudly in the Abbey trees across the way;all things were fresh and glowing,laden with the hope of the advancing year.And there he lay on his sick-bed,dying!
All he said,as I drew the curtain back,was a faint moan--"No light!
I can't bear the light!Do let me rest!"
In half-an-hour,without saying a word to human being,I was on my way to Ursula March.
She sat knitting in the summer-parlour alone.The doctor was out;Mrs.Jessop I saw down the long garden,bonnetted and shawled,busy among her gooseberry-bushes--so we were safe.
As I have said,Ursula sat knitting,but her eyes had a soft dreaminess.My entrance had evidently startled her,and driven some sweet,shy thought away.
But she met me cordially--said she was glad to see me--that she had not seen either of us lately;and the knitting pins began to move quickly again.
Those dainty fingers--that soft,tremulous smile--I could have hated her!
"No wonder you did not see us,Miss March;John has been very ill,is ill now--almost dying."I hurled the words at her,sharp as javelins,and watched to see them strike.
They struck--they wounded;I could see her shiver.
"Ill!--and no one ever told me!"
"You?How could it affect you?To me,now"--and my savage words,for they were savage,broke down in a burst of misery--"nothing in this world to me is worth a straw in comparison with John.If he dies--"I let loose the flood of my misery.I dashed it over her,that she might see it--feel it;that it might enter all the fair and sightly chambers of her happy life,and make them desolate as mine.For was she not the cause?
Forgive me!I was cruel to thee,Ursula;and thou wert so good--so kind!
She rose,came to me,and took my hand.Hers was very cold,and her voice trembled much.
"Be comforted.He is young,and God is very merciful."She could say no more,but sat down,nervously twisting and untwisting her fingers.There was in her looks a wild sorrow--a longing to escape from notice;but mine held her fast,mercilessly,as a snake holds a little bird.She sat cowering,almost like a bird,a poor,broken-winged,helpless little bird--whom the storm has overtaken.
Rising,she made an attempt to quit the room.
"I will call Mrs.Jessop:she may be of use--""She cannot.Stay!"
"Further advice,perhaps?Doctor Jessop--you must want help--""None save that which will never come.His bodily sickness is conquered--it is his mind.Oh,Miss March!"and I looked up at her like a wretch begging for life--"Do YOU not know of what my brother is dying?""Dying!"A long shudder passed over her,from head to foot--but Irelented not.