Winter Is Past

by Ruth Axtell Morren

  Althea took out her handkerchief and covered her eyes, knowing that something momentous had just occurred. She realized that Rebecca would not be with them much longer, but she felt, too, the deep joy of knowing where Rebecca was going.

  “Rebecca.” She spoke softly, wondering whether the girl had fallen asleep.

  “Yes, Miss Althea?” Her dark eyes looked joyfully into Althea’s.

  “Would you like to be baptized, the way we’ve read about?”

  She considered for a moment before a slow smile spread across her face. “Yes. Just like Jesus when the dove came upon Him.”

  “Yes.”

  Althea prayed before going to see Simon. She asked God for favor with her employer in the matter pertaining to his daughter’s baptism. With great trepidation she knocked on the library door. When Simon bid her enter his sanctum, she felt like Esther entering the king’s chamber. It had been a while since she’d crossed the threshold of that room.

  “What is it?” he asked as she approached his desk. “Is it Rebecca?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Seeing he was ready to rise from his chair, she stopped him with a motion of her hand. “She’s sleeping. Mrs. Higgs is with her.” She cleared her throat as she watched him resettle himself in his seat. “I merely wanted to ask you for something.”

  He said nothing, his somber eyes attentive.

  “Would you consider allowing Rebecca to receive baptism?”

  She could see he had not expected that. He rubbed a hand across his jaw, his glance going back to the papers on his desk. “One more of your God’s requisites before entry is granted into Paradise?”

  Althea said nothing.

  Silence fell. Then he looked at her and asked abruptly, “Is this your idea or Rebecca’s?”

  “I asked her if she would like to be baptized and she expressed her wish for it.”

  At his look of skepticism, she added, “You may ask her yourself. I did not influence her in her decision.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” he replied dryly. The silence drew out so long, Althea thought he wasn’t going to reply, when he sighed deeply. “Very well.”

  As Althea breathed a prayer of thanksgiving, Simon asked, “What must I do to have it arranged?”

  “It’s all right. I can see to it.”

  “How will it be done? A baptismal font?”

  Althea hesitated. “I was thinking…perhaps we could use the tub where she is bathed. I know she is weak, but if the room and water are well heated, I don’t think it will cause her any harm.” She waited, praying silently.

  “You mean immerse her fully in water?” His dark eyes expressed their shock.

  “But only for an instant. We’d have her right out and into dry things immediately and into her warm bed.”

  His look was hostile. “I think it’s madness.”

  She bit her lip. How could she tell him the physical aspects at this point didn’t much matter, that only the spiritual concerns had any import now?

  “Don’t expect me to attend,” he said abruptly.

  She blinked at him. Was that a consent?

  Swallowing her disappointment at his lack of interest in witnessing the event, grateful only that he wouldn’t oppose it, she said, “You needn’t if you don’t wish it.”

  “I don’t.” He took up his pen in dismissal.

  Althea asked the man who served as pastor at a chapel near the mission to come and administer the baptism. He came a few afternoons after her conversation with Simon. Giles and Harry had moved the tub up to Rebecca’s room and the maids had filled it with warm water. All the servants were present.

  Just as the pastor was ready to begin, the door opened quietly and Simon stepped in. He stood by the door, and everyone seemed instinctively to sense that he didn’t want his presence to be noted.

  Althea nodded to the pastor to begin.

  Knowing Rebecca’s weak condition, he kept things brief. He sat by her bed and took one of her hands in his. “Hello, my dear. I’m here to baptize you. Would you like that?” His voice was kindly.

  “Yes, I should like that.”

  “You just need to repent of your sins, Rebecca, and when you go under the water, you’re showing obedience in following Jesus in His death, being buried with Him, and when you come up out of the water, you’re believing you are raised to new life in Him. Do you think you’re ready to do that?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  The pastor led her in a short prayer, and then gave a nod to Harry, who approached the bed and bent down to pick up Rebecca. At that, Simon moved forward and touched his sleeve. “I’ll see to my daughter.”

  Harry stepped aside and allowed Simon to pick her up. At the pastor’s direction, Simon carried his nightgown-clad daughter over to the tub. Everyone drew near.

  The pastor began to read from the Bible. “‘Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.’

  “Today, Rebecca, you are bearing witness of the truth by following Jesus in baptism by water. Jesus declared before He departed this earth that ‘he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.’

  “Therefore, we now baptize you, Rebecca Aguilar, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” With those words, the pastor leaned forward and helped Simon submerge his daughter into the water.

  Althea felt the lump in her throat at the reading of the words and the sight of Rebecca being baptized, the meaning of the act hitting her afresh although she had witnessed countless baptisms. As soon as Rebecca came up, smiling, Althea and Dot hurried forward with warm towels and wrapped Rebecca in them. Simon carried her back over to the bed, where the two women quickly changed her wet garment for a dry one and tucked her back in.

  Simon left as soon as it was over, as quietly as he had come.

  Two weeks later, Rebecca passed away quietly in her sleep. Althea and Simon were both sitting by the bed. He felt her pulse then turned to Althea, his gaze unreadable. She felt for herself. Gently she laid Rebecca’s arm across her chest, knowing the little girl was no longer there with them. She slipped out of the room, leaving Simon alone with his daughter’s body. She didn’t know whether Rebecca had had a chance to say goodbye to her father or to tell him about her experience. She had been unconscious more than conscious in those days following her baptism.

  Althea sent for Dr. Roseberry, and after she accompanied him up to Rebecca’s room, she left him with Simon and went to inform the servants.

  By nightfall, Simon’s family had descended upon the house. She had no idea where Simon was, but assumed he was behind his closed library door. She helped prepare rooms for the family members that would be staying. She learned from his sister that the funeral would be the next day and that the family would spend a week at the house, sitting shiv’ah, observing the mourning period, during which time they would not leave the house and would spend the mornings and evenings reciting the mourning prayers.

  Simon’s mother and the eldest of the two sisters came at once and readied the house. They covered all the mirrors and brought low wooden stools on which the mourners would sit in the coming days.

  A special group of people took charge of Rebecca’s body for the ritual bathing and dressing in a shroud before it was laid in the plain wooden casket, which contained no metal fastenings of any sort. A special watch was kept over the casket until the time of interment.

  Althea sent word to her brother and his wife about the funeral. She discovered that regardless of Simon’s religious beliefs, or lack of them, his family had determined that his daughter would hav
e a full Jewish funeral with all the rites observed.

  Seeing she had little to do, Althea cleared out her things from her bedroom and made it available to Simon’s mother and father. She spent the night upstairs in the servants’ quarters in order to accompany them to the funeral the following day.

  The next day dawned clear and warm. Althea could see it would be another hot August day. Later that morning she stood with her brother and sister-in-law at the rear of the Jewish cemetery at Miles’ End. Many people had come to the burial. Althea spied Colonel Ballyworth amid the mourners.

  She watched as the simple wooden casket was lowered into the earth. Each of the family members covered it with a handful of earth. Then they tore at an article of their clothing. Most were wearing a black ribbon on their lapel especially made for the occasion.

  As they left the cemetery, they washed their hands in a ritual cleansing ceremony. She noticed Simon did not participate in any of the rites. Althea had not spoken to him at all since Rebecca’s death. He looked like a man turned to stone. All she could do was to hold on to that conversation she had had with Rebecca and the promise that the Lord would not leave her father comfortless.

  That night after the funeral the Lord gave her a Scripture: “A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench….” She could only trust that the Lord would not break that fragile reed that was Simon’s hurting soul, nor put out the smoldering spark left in the man she loved.

  She grieved for him, but could not help him. He was unreachable to any in those days, even to his own family. He didn’t leave the library, and Althea felt powerless to do any more in his household. She stayed one more day, in order to be sure she was not needed in any way. That evening she bid each one of the servants downstairs goodbye. They cried and hugged her, and she promised to be by to see them at a later date.

  She quietly packed her few dresses, the puppets she and Rebecca had made together, and a few other mementos, such as drawings, childish attempts at sewing, and a note Rebecca had written to Althea one day. As Althea wrapped them in a parcel she let the tears fall.

  “Yes, I shall miss you, my sweetheart,” she whispered, looking at Rebecca’s things.

  Before leaving she did one last thing. Knowing she could not go into his library, and not knowing whom else to entrust her gift with, she finally went to Giles.

  She handed him a Bible. “I would like you to give this to the master when you have an opportunity. I don’t want to disturb him at present.”

  Giles nodded, taking the book from her. As he did so, a folded paper fell out. Althea bent to retrieve it.

  “It’s for him,” she explained, placing the paper between the pages.

  He looked at her with kindly eyes, and she couldn’t help remembering how indifferently he had eyed her when she’d first arrived.

  “Very good, miss.”

  “Thank you, Giles.” Not knowing how else to express what she felt, she held out her hand. “Goodbye, then.”

  He enveloped her hand in his large, gnarled one. “We’ll miss you.”

  “And I you.” She hesitated. “Take care of Mr. Aguilar.”

  He nodded with understanding. “I shall do my best, miss.”

  As she left Green Street for the last time, she turned back for a final look at the house. If she viewed it from the world’s eyes, she would call her sojourn there a total loss. Her patient had not recovered, and her employer was as far away from his Savior as he’d ever been. The death of his daughter had undoubtedly sealed his heart against God.

  In her mind and body, Althea felt like a complete and utter failure. All she could do was trust that her labor had not been in vain. She recalled the Scripture about a servant’s acts of righteousness remaining forever. She had to believe that her obedience in fulfilling what the Lord had called her to do in Simon’s household would remain forever. She knew it was so. Although her heart mourned Rebecca, it also knew there was great rejoicing in Heaven.

  She went to her brother’s town house and spent an evening with them, but would not let them persuade her to stay longer. She knew where her place was, and she had been away too long already. She returned to the mission early the next day, closing the preceding chapter of her life.

  Simon wandered the dark halls of his house, listening to the silence. Even though the mourning period would go on for some time, with Kaddish prayers being said in the synagogue, the portion under his roof was over. After a week, his family had walked around the block, signaling the end of shiv’ah. Then they had departed, each to resume a normal life.

  He had barely spoken to them while they had been at his house. He hadn’t interfered with their rituals but neither had he permitted them to draw him in to their prescribed form of mourning.

  He walked the hallway one more time in his dressing gown and slippers. He thought about Job. That poor fellow had lost everything because of some game God had been playing with Satan. Is that what had happened to him? First his wife and now Rebecca. Had they been the innocent pawns caught in the middle? Had they been the expendable elements in Simon’s life when God had looked down on him and decided to allow Satan to amuse himself with his life?

  Was Simon going to be allowed to succeed in the political arena but not in the domestic? Was God saying, in effect, “I shall let you rise in Parliament, but you shall never know happiness in hearth and home?” What if God changed His mind and said to Satan, “You can have it all. Take whatever Simon has—only keep him alive, we want him to feel his losses.”

  Well, Simon wasn’t going to be caught in the middle anymore. They’d taken the best from him; he wasn’t going to participate in their game anymore. He’d fold his hand and withdraw from the play. It was too deep for him.

  Simon ended his midnight perambulation in Rebecca’s bedroom. The bed was made, everything put in order. It was almost as if his daughter were just away at her grandparents’ for a few days. Tomorrow she would be returning, her eyes sparkling, her words tumbling out, wanting to tell him all at once about everything she’d done. Simon walked past her row of dolls—What had she called them? He couldn’t for the life of him remember and he felt a stab of pain at the lapse. Sarah? Angel? Anna? Rebecca—yes, one was named after herself—and Althea. Althea. He picked up a porcelain one, remembering the countless tea parties he’d had with this one. Rebecca seated at her little table on her good days, propped up in bed on her bad ones, her dolls at her sides.

  “Abba, Miss Althea wants to know how you like your tea? Miss Althea is going to the ball next week. There’s a prince there she is going to be introduced to….”

  Where was Althea, anyway? Simon half turned, his eyes going to the door to the sitting room. He hadn’t seen her in how many days? He tried to recollect. He’d lost track of the days since the funeral. It seemed as if he’d been walking around in a fog since that day he’d beheld Rebecca’s warm features grow into a marble-like mask.

  He’d left the remains of his little girl to his family and sought refuge in the library, no longer aware of days or nights as he sat huddled in his chair, staring at his papers. Ivan, his valet, had come to see that he was dressed and ready for the funeral. His father had tried to comfort him. Simon had sat mute, not hearing the words, seeing only the man who could buy and sell others, as the Mother Goose rhyme went through his head, “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.”

  Simon stared at the chairs where he and Althea had shared so many evening conversations. What would she say about the situation now? She had been fond of Rebecca. Had she been able to accept her charge’s death so gracefully?

  All of a sudden Simon felt a desperate longing to talk to her as he used to, to unburden himself to someone who wouldn’t be ruffled by anything he said or offer platitudes to his pain. Even when she’d angered him, there was a comfort in her certainty.

  He tried to pinpoint when he’d seen her last. He was certain she had been at the funeral. W
ith no clear idea of what he intended, nor of any thought to the time, he entered her sitting room. Here, too, all was neat and silent. The moonlight illuminated the outline of the furniture, touching her chair by the fireplace where she’d sat reading that Bible every night.

  After some hesitation he knocked on her bedroom door, his need more pressing than any considerations of propriety. There was no answer. Of course not, he thought, thinking of the hour. He shouldn’t wake her. But his yearning at that moment for the human contact he’d been shunning since Rebecca’s death overwhelmed him.

  He knocked harder this time, calling out, “Miss Breton!”

  It was funny, she used to be up in seconds when Rebecca cried out in the night. But now only silence greeted him. He knocked and called again. Finally, hesitantly, he turned the knob and entered. It took only a second to discern through the moonlight that the bed was vacant. He walked over and stood by it for a moment. Then he walked around the rest of the room and found it empty of all personal belongings. There was not a trace of Miss Breton to be found.

  Had she, too, been a ripple in his existence? Gone now, every last trace? Like a dream, completely evanescing upon waking. Would the memory of her disappear as quickly? Had she even been real?

  Then he understood. She was gone. Of course she was gone. He didn’t need her anymore. Her patient had succumbed to her illness, so Miss Breton’s services were no longer required. When had she left? Directly after the funeral? Again he struggled to remember when he had last seen her. But the preceding days were indistinct, like a heavy opiate veil. The only clear memory was of shutting himself in his library, away from prying, sympathetic eyes. He had either sat in his chair or slept fitfully on his couch, the only sounds intruding being the soft footfalls of his valet or butler entering to leave him a tray of food and tea, along with a strong libation in the evenings.

  So, Miss Breton had vanished without a trace. Simon hadn’t even paid her her last quarter wages.