Chapter XXXIX: Was She Dead?

Clara read this bitter news, every word of it, as men drink poison or women kiss their rivals, with smothered loathing. Before it had been an apprehension which she had put aside as too improbable for belief. Now it was a dead certainty.

There must be a limit to human torture or it would kill its victim. At a certain point of mental agony feeling grows incapable and sinks back into leaden apathy. Indeed, some phases of suffering may pass for happiness. When suspense merges into certainty, a feeling of relief comes with it. When experience has taught us our full capacity for anguish, we know the limit and can measure it with something like philosophy.

When Clara read that letter she smiled. The worst had come. Fate had done its utmost. Friend and lover swept off at a single dash. Reputation; the very bread needful to her life trampled under foot or cruelly withheld.

On all this desolation the sun sank low with gathering threats of a storm. In her painful preoccupation Clara had forgotten the old woman whom she had left with closed eyes lying upon her bed. She now remembered, with a feeling of self-reproach, that the usual hour for tea had drifted by—an occasion that in ordinary times would have been a cause of special complaint. As she was passing toward the kitchen Betsey Vose met her with a tray in her hands going toward the old lady’s room.

“This is kind, Betsey,” she said. “I was not hungry and forgot.”

They entered the room together. Clara took a cup of tea from the tray and went up to the bed.

“Grandmother, here is your tea. Did you think I had forgotten you?”

There was no answer; no movement of the figure resting on the bed.

“Grandmother, wake up long enough to drink your tea. Tired as you are, it will do you good.”

No answer—no movement. The silence seemed unearthly. A nervous movement of Clara’s hand striking a teaspoon against the cup she held sounded through that deathly stillness like the first faint clash of a funeral bell.

“Grandmother! Oh, grandmother, do speak!”

The tray began to shake in Betsey Vose’s hands. Clara set the cup down from her weakening hold, and bent her face close to that of the old woman. A touch, a gasp, and she started back, her eyes widening with horror.

“She is cold! She is dead! No, no! God help us! it can’t be that!”

Betsey set down the tray. Reverently she went close to the bed and touched the little withered hand that lay outside the coverlet.

“It is cold, but that may come from fainting. Oh, if Ben were here! If we had some one to send for a doctor!”

“I will go!”

Wild as a bird set free in the wilderness, stung to new pain by a despairing hope, Clara Anderson went on her errand. She could not believe this new blow real. That slander, Bertha’s letter, and now this death—all these things could not happen in a single day. The idea was monstrously improbable.

It was strange how all these troubles mingled and rushed together on her brain. Shame, indignation, solemn grief—all assailed her by turns as she flew breathlessly toward the village. Once there her speed flagged; she drew her veil closely about her face to avoid the curious gaze of the neighbors whom she might chance to pass. The short distance that lay between her and the doctor’s house appeared interminable; she felt as if a thousand eyes were upon her; scores of evil tongues discussing her story and mocking her with scorn as she passed along. Even these thoughts crowded in with the terror of her suspense.

The doctor was not at home. No one could tell where he was to be found. Possibly he had dropped in to spend an hour with the minister.

Clara started for the parsonage. She opened the gate with a violent effort, passed through and hurried up the walk. The front door of the house was ajar. Clara did not knock, but pushing back the door entered the hall. She was familiar with the house, and turned down the passage toward the minister’s study with a vague hope that she might find the doctor there.

She went into the little sitting-room through which it was necessary to pass in order to reach the study. The twilight filled the apartment with dusky shadows, which to the excited fancy of the girl looked like human shapes coldly watching her and refusing either encouragement or comfort.

She reached the centre of the room and paused. The murmur of voices was audible from the study; she could look in and see how fruitless her search was. While she remained there, smitten to the heart with disappointment, the tones of the speakers became more distinct. She had no desire to stay so close to her bitter enemy, but was bereft of all power to move. Like some poor Christian forced into contest with wild beasts in a Roman amphitheatre, she stood paralyzed.