Chapter Fourteen

by Mrs. Elizabeth Prentiss
Edited by Amber Moeller

"Is that all you are going to give me? Why Maggie, child, I am starving."

"That is all you'll get till twelve, no, till half-past twelve," replied Maggie, decidedly.

"At this rate I shall never leave my bed," said Horace. "How can you be so hard upon me?"

"I gave you a great spoonful more than the doctor said I might. Don't be unreasonable, Horace dear. You do not realize how very, very ill you have been."

"You have misunderstood the doctor, I have no doubt. I am not gaining in the least. How can I, fed on slops, like a baby, and fed by teaspoonful at that."

Yes, this was the end of all her tears and sleepless nights; he was just as ungrateful, and just as unreasonable as a sick boy.

"I would like some water, at any rate. I suppose you don't begrudge me that. Don't look like an injured innocent, for pity's sake."

And as soon as she had given him the water and taken her seat, he wanted more light in the room, and when she rose, wearily, to let in more, he complained that her shoes creaked, though, owing to this frequent complaint, she wore no shoes at all. And then he asked her if it was not nearly twelve, when his next portion of beef-tea was due; and when she reminded him that it was to come at half-past twelve, he would fain have disputed with her on that point, only she would not keep up her side of the contest.

The truth is he was really more to be pitied now than during the days when he lay between life and death, belonging to neither. And fortunately for him, though Maggie had never had one sick day, she had seen enough illness in others to know how to make allowances for him. What pained her was his apparent want of love for her. He never gave her a smile, or apologised for the trouble he cost her, or spoke in the old tender way. Once this would have nearly killed her, but now she took it patiently, biding her time in full faith that he would become his real self as soon as his strength returned. Yes, and biding her time in a new life that had come to her she knew not how or when, but of which she was distinctly conscious. It will be remembered that immediately on hearing that he was restored to her, she had mentally declared that she would consecrate herself to Christ as fully and as entirely as a human soul could do on earth. And this not from gratitude that his life was spared, but because of the terrible revelation his danger had made to her, of the strength of her love to him, and of the bondage in which she dwelt to it. She saw, as by a flashing of lightening, that those who will love created beings as she loved must have a love infinitely higher, unless they would sin and suffer infinitely; that she must give herself, not less to the husband of her youth, but more to her Saviour. And when she knelt by the bedside on the morning when hope for Horace had first dawned upon her, a subtle, mysterious change passed over her soul. She went up into regions she had never traversed; came back to all the little homely details of the sick-room, to tender ministrations, to loving cares and loving tones; Maggie, yet not Maggie. If, as Horace slowly recovered, he found any change in her, it was one that gladdened and satisfied him; he nothing to ask from her that it did not give. And yet she had passed out from a land of bondage; nothing could ever wring from her eyes such tears of anguish as she had shed for him; and she knew it. Perhaps such a change as this is usually gradual. But there is no reason why it should not be as sudden and as decisive as regeneration itself.

Unconsciously, not knowing what she said, Maggie let drop a word now and then that let Aunt Jane see what had been going on within her. As she had not learned it from books, the Holy Spirit being her only teacher, she used the language of no school when she spoke of a sweet, soul-satisfying love to Christ that had come to her, as something new in her experience, but which she did not claim as anything rare or exceptional. Indeed, it had not come with observation, nor did it dispose so much to talk as to action. Every little deed was done now with a glad alacrity that created a sunshine wherever she went, and whereas she had been gentle and affectionate and charming before, there was now an added grace that made those who saw her day by day take note of her, not that she had been, but was with Jesus.

"Aunt Jane," said Horace, when he was beginning to be himself again, and was full of love and gratitude to every living thing, "did you ever see a more angelic creature that my Maggie?"

"I know of a word that describes her better and goes beyond yours," was the reply.

"Why, what word? But whatever it is it cannot do justice to the heavenly patience with which she put up with me when I was beginning to get well. I was like an old bear."

"Like a young bear, you mean. I really think an old one would have behaved better."

"Was I so very ill-natured? Maggie says she did not mind it."

"But she did. Be careful of her, Horace, for though she has always had good health, she is strung on delicate threads. I do not think it would take a great deal to break some of them."

"I will," he said earnestly. "If anything should happen to her, I should not live a week."

"We never know what we can live through. It is not so easy to die as we fancy. And I think it is a great thing to learn to be willing and glad to live, after all that we rested and leaned on is gone."

Horace had not learned that lesson, nor did he feel like learning it. He lay back luxuriously in a delightful chair Aunt Jane had lent him--she was always lending it to somebody--and ate slowly, to make it last as long as possible, a bit of chicken Maggie had just brought to him, and which she had prepared with her own hands.

"How different this is from Mary's cooking," he said. "It is a good thing to have for one's wife an angel who isn't above indulging one's whims when one is sick. Come here, darling! Are you sure it hasn't made your back ache, or anything, to stand over the fire getting up my dinner?"

"No," she said, laughing, "I am not at all sure. My back does ache and so does my head. But I am going to have a cup of tea for lunch, with Aunt Jane, and then I shall be all right."

"All right!" responded Horace. "That is exactly what I said when I was first taken sick. Maggie, if you've gone and caught the fever, we'll both go off together, for I couldn't live a minute without you."

"Foolish boy!" she said, standing behind him and soothing him with her hands as well as her words; "if I had been and gone and caught the fever, I should have been and gone and died long ago."

She spoke playfully, but those two who loved her so felt great uneasiness; Horace looked at Aunt Jane, she glanced quickly at him, and their eyes met.

Maggie was really feeling very ill. But she kept up and kept about and was full of sallies gay and sweet, that made them laugh in spite of her gradually increasing pallor. At last Horace, weakened and unmanned by his illness, broke into such a great flood of tears that poor Aunt Jane could with difficulty restrain hers.

"She is going to have the fever, and if she does, she will certainly die," he moaned.

"Hush, Horace!" said Maggie, dropping the tone she had assumed.

He stopped, like a frightened child, instantly.

"Listen to me, dear! I think I am going to be very sick. And I promise you that if I can get well, for your sake, I will. But if I can't--if I'm going you'll let me go, won't you? You won't keep my back with crying and praying, from going to be with my . . .

But she had been brave too long. Aunt Jane had only time to catch her in her arms before she was quite insensible; and Horace, too feeble to get out of his chair, could only look on, with groans that would have rent the heart of his little wife, could she have heard them.

She had the fever, there was no doubt about that, nor was it strange, after all the fatigue and anxiety she had undergone. Such things are happening every day, and nobody finds any fault with them till somebody puts them in a book. Then let that somebody beware! For books should not paint life as it really is, but as inexperienced young people think it ought to be.

Yes, our Maggie was very ill, and the same sorrowful scenes were to be rehearsed that had already been witnessed in that little home. A dispatch brought both Mr. and Mrs. Wyman to the sick room, prayers were offered in secret and in public, every kindness possible was shown, Maggie's little girls got together at the Mission and cried and clung to each other, and the sick child across the street lay with a breaking heart upon her bed and refused to be comforted. But Horace, helpless, lonely, bewildered, cried and prayed and cried by turns; he had come to a full stop and gained strength no more. People said they had been lovely and pleasant in their lives, and that death would not divide them, and that if one must go, it was well that the other should go too.

It was not that Maggie was so hopelessly ill, but that in her delirium she spoke so incessantly and lovingly of Christ, or rather spoke with Him as if already in His immediate and conscious presence, that everybody said she was on the wing, and all ready for heaven, too good, too saintly to be contented here, and that Horace ought not to keep her back by his prayers and tears, as they had heard she had feared he would. And yet something did keep her back; "she could not die," and did not. It is not true that as soon as human beings reach a certain point in the divine life they are snatched out of this: saints move about us and among us every day. They live to be our examples; to be our dearly beloved and cherished ones; to remind us of heaven, whose spirit they have won; to pray for us and with us; to inspire and to cheer us. They are saints, but they see not the mark in their own foreheads; they wrestle with the powers of the air, and with their own spiritual infirmities; they err sometimes, and sin sometimes, though sorely against their will, but they are bearing right onward, and are more than conquerors through Him who loved them.

So Maggie came slowly back to the world where she was needed, and she and Horace entered once more the limited arena on which they were yet to fight the battle of life.

Both were changed. Both were more serious, yet more uniformly glad; they clung to each other more fondly, and yet with a joyful consciousness that whatever might now betide, their happiness could never be wrecked, for it rested not on one perishable life, but on a rock that has borne the shock of ages.

For Horace, if his experience had not been identical with that of Maggie, had learned that to love as an idolator is not to love as a Christian. And while he was full of thoughtful, tender services, and watched over her as he had never done before, and had entered into closer union with her than even that of the marriage tie, for there is no love like that which unites those who live to Christ, he knew, and she knew, that he was no longer a slave to her, as she was not longer a slave to him. The baptism of fire had purified their souls, and they had come out from it, hand in hand, and with songs to sing to other ears. It is true they were misjudged by those who had suffered less and learned less; but who has passed through this difficult, complex journey of life unassailed, and nobly understood?

"That poor little Mrs. Wheeler has been at death's door, I hear," quoth Harriet Foot, sitting at table with her friend Georgianna. "He caught a fever in some of those dirty holes she had got him in the way of investigating, and came near to dying, and then she took it from him and came near to dying too."

"Poor thing!" said Georgianna. "The last time I saw her she had on cotton gloves."

"They say," pursued Miss Harriet, "that she wanted to die, but Horace wouldn't let her."

"Wanted to die? Well!" cried Georgianna. "However, I don't wonder. They are so poor, and live in such small, mean ways. It was very selfish in him, I think, to get married when he was only making a living."

"It depends upon what he took her from," said Harriet.

"I've dropped them," continued Georgianna. "Of course, she could not come into our set; I invited her once, but she did not come; was afraid to, I suppose; I merely asked her out of ceremony: I knew he would not let her come."

"But why couldn't she come into our set?" demanded her husband, who never lost a chance to take up, and set down, his glorious creature.

Georgianna vouchsafed no reply, but pretended not to hear.

"I suppose her sister, who married Tom White, will come into our set," he went on. "And of the two, Mrs. Wheeler is the prettier and the more charming."

"Why, where can you have seen them?" cried Harriet.

"I saw them at my wedding, for one place," was the reply.

"At your wedding? Fie, you should have had eyes for no one save Georgy. Should he, Georgy?"

"It is of no consequence to me for whom he has eyes," replied Georgy.

"I was going to say," resumed Harriet, who was not particularly fond, now that it was an old story, of hearing those two quarrel together, "that those two creatures, Mr. Wheeler and his wife, are in love with each other to this day. While he was sick she nearly killed herself with watching him day and night."

"I declare I am getting in love with the little thing myself," Mr. Reed put in, casting a glance at his wife to see if this shot had reached her.

"And then when she came down with the fever, he did nothing but weep and wail week after week."

"Quite romantic!" said Georgianna. "You do pick up the nicest little dishes of gossip, Harriet."

"Oh, I could tell a great deal more, if Mr. Reed were not present. The woman they had as nurse is nursing my sister now, and she heard the praying, and saw the crying and the kissing, and the dying embraces; such goings on! They must have been happy together, poor as they were, or they would not have made such a time at the idea of parting. It is a genuine case of love in a cottage."

"I hate such people," Georgianna declared. "They set themselves up to be better than the rest of the world, and are full of cant. It is a pity, after all, that I gave poor Horace the mitten. He is such a very handsome fellow, and I could have made something of him."

She looked triumphantly across the table at her husband, and met a look full of hatred, but he restrained the answer that trembled on his lips.

"Come, Harriet, we have idled long enough over our dessert," said Georgianna, rising. And when they had sailed off, leaving Mr. Reed to drink wine in moody loneliness, she added, "I do really wonder how, out of all my admirers, I chose to settle down on Theodore. There were at least half a dozen that would have suited me better, if I had only known it. I had no idea that it made so very much difference when one married; had you?"

"You ought not to let yourself be so annoyed by Mr. Reed's little ways," said Harriet.

"You might as well say I ought not to allow mosquitoes to sting me," was the reply. "Theodore has got just enough sense to make me sick of him, and no more. But I suppose it's pretty much the way with married people after they get used to each other."

"I don't know," replied Harriet; "people don't tell tales out of school."

But the eloquent story of Maggie's nursing rang in her ears, and made her thoughtful for once in her life. As she had intimated, she had heard things too sacred to repeat, had had a glimpse into a world whose threshold she had never crossed. She was a silly, vain girl, but she had a heart capable of being aroused and touched. "I wish those Wheelers did not live in such an out-of-the-way place," she said, after an interval of silence. "I always admired him."

"And he always detested you!" cried Georgianna, venting her growing ill-humour on her dearest friend, as some people always do. "And, at any rate, he is nothing to you now, if he is so desperately in love with his wife."

"That's just what I like in him."

"And it is just what I don't like in him, so let us talk about something else."

While this rambling conversation was going on, Horace and Maggie were sitting before their parlour fire. They were not yet well or strong, but it was a luxury, after the long weeks of illness, to be at last alone together and to talk over what each had suffered in the alarming, critical days of the other. Maggie's hand, white enough now, lay in her husband's, her head leaned on his shoulder; both were peacefully happy.

"Annie will be at home in a few days," she was saying. "I wish I had gained a little faster for her sake. She will be shocked to see her plump little Mag look so thin. Couldn't you manage to puff me up and round me out, or stuff me with cotton, or something?"

Horace smiled, and kissed the thin face as he had never done when it glowed with health and animation.

"I think," he said, "that something after the first meeting will shock Annie more than the effects of your illness."

"What can it be?" asked Maggie, lifting up her head.

"This house and the way in which we live. Annnie's marriage to a rich man has changed her."

"Yes, I know, but nothing could quite spoil her. And when she sees how happy we are . . . "

"She will not see it."

"Why not?"

Horace did not like to reply, as he might have done, "She is incapable of seeing it," and yet he wanted to prepare Maggie to find Annie greatly altered.

He had detected in her letters a certain something that his own past worldliness made him quick to recognize, but which had apparently escaped Maggie.

"I hear a carriage at the door," he said, rising. "They may have come."

Maggie's colour flew into her face; whatever else her illness had done, it had not made her heart cold, and the next moment she found herself in Annie's arms.

There was confusion and laughing and talking for a few moments, and then the sisters looked at each other curiously.

"How dreadfully ill you must have been!" cried Annie. "And Horace looks badly, too. It is a shame. But it is just your luck, Maggie. I always had all the good times, and you always had all the bad ones. Don't you remember, that it always happened that if any of the family were sick they took the opportunity when I was away and you were at home?"

And she laughed.

"You look just like a French fashion-plate," said Maggie; "I can't quite find my old Annie in these fine clothes, but I am sure she is in them somewhere."

"Of course she is. I hope you are strong enough to come and dine with me tomorrow. I've sent a despatch to father and mother to come right on; we didn't want to go there this time of year, but of course I wanted to see them."

"And the boys?" asked Maggie.

"Oh, the boys are not coming. In the hurry and flurry I forgot the boys. But they won't care."

"I am not strong enough to go out yet," said Maggie; "you will have to come here. Where are you staying?"

"At the Fifth Avenue. Tom didn't care to go to housekeeping, and as for me, after the easy life I've been leading, I'm sure I don't. Besides, we've only come home for a visit. We're going back again early in the spring."

"Oh, are you?" cried Maggie, in a tone of great regret.

"Yes, we've nothing to do here, and may as well travel and enjoy ourselves. Well, it is getting late, and I have not unpacked yet. I've brought lots of lovely things for you. Though I had the dresses made to fit me, and they'll hang on you like bags unless you make haste and fill up. Good night, dear. I'll come down in the morning as early as I can; that won't be very early, for Tom is lazy and won't get up, and won't let me either. I'll be along about lunch time."

It was nothing that Annie had said that made Maggie fly to hide herself in her husband's arms as soon as she had gone; it was something in her manner that betrayed a preoccupied mind, a heart less loving than of old.

"Marriage always changes people, you know dear," said Horace, soothingly.

"Yes; for the better or the worse," was the answer.

"And perhaps Annie finds us changed; she may miss something in us that she used to find."

"But it isn't warm, sisterly love," said Maggie, trying, however, not to be sad. "And perhaps, after all, Annie will seem more like herself tomorrow."

"How shockingly Maggie looks, doesn't she?" asked Annie, driving off with Tom. "Did you ever see a creature so changed? All her pretty colour gone, and her face so long and thin!"

"She looked very sweet, though, and was wonderfully glad to see you, as of course she would be. Horace has had a hard time of it; I could see that at a glance. I wonder how they would like a trip to Europe with us next Spring?"

"Oh, they wouldn't go at your expense, you may depend. Besides, your mother says they have grown so peculiar. We should not get on with them at all."

"They always were peculiarly delightful," said Tom. "I am sure I should have fallen in love with Maggie if I had not seen you first."

"Isn't it nice in you to talk that way," said Annie. "Maggie wouldn't have looked at you if you had gone down on your bended knees. Sometimes I wish I was as good as she is, and sometimes I'm glad I'm not. I shouldn't have suited you at any rate if I had been one of the very pious, strict sort."

"Why not?"

"Well, after the way we've been going on since we were married, I wonder you have the face to ask such a question!" she cried laughingly. "Dear me, what would Maggie say, if she knew?"

"We've done nothing wrong. Nothing that everybody else doesn't do who goes abroad."

"Have we behaved like saints?"

"Why no, not exactly!" Tom allowed.

"Well, Horace and Maggie have. You just get your mother to tell you about their poor folks, and their sick folks, and their prayer-meetings and their tea-parties; I declare I was afraid of them both, and almost glad to get away. I have no doubt Maggie will preach me a regular sermon tomorrow. She had it on her tongue's end last night."

"Well," said Tom, "I was brought up among people that belong to the church, and all that sort of thing. And I always thought till I was married that such people were different from the rest of us."

"Of all the horrid things you have ever said to me, this is the worst," said Annie, beginning to cry.

Tom protested that he meant no harm, kissed her, was ready to tear his hair to appease her. But she remained inconsolable. Coming home to Maggie and old associations had greatly stirred her; hearing of Maggie's life had sharply reproved her, and now her husband had said, by implication at least, that she was quite destitute of religion, and if she had often accused herself of that, she did not want to hear him say it.

"I was feeling badly enough before," she sobbed, "seeing Maggie looking as if a breath would blow her away, and now you've made me perfectly miserable. And I was so happy and had brought home such loads of pretty things, and thought we were going to have such a gay winter."

"So we will, dear," coaxed Tom.

Annie wept, however, till they reached the hotel, where she was consoled with a dainty little supper served in her own room, and then she looked over and tried on some of her finery and found it very becoming, which soothed her yet more. And Tom made amends for his unlucky speech by admiring and caressing her, and telling her how devotedly he loved her, so that her April-shower gave place to gratified smiles and condescending joyousness.

He lay awake some time that night, wondering why his random speech had wounded Annie so. He had not made it with special reference to her, or with the most remote idea of giving her pain; it was one of his innocent blunders, such as he was continually making, he thought, and which she was continually overlooking. Then he reflected on the seedy character of Horace's coat, and the air of restriction about his house and home, and determined to do something handsome for him if he could.

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