Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5)
Page 48
“Oh, yes, mum,” the second replied, and curtsied on the third step. Both continued to inch their way up, as though even a brief delay was intolerable.
Fascinated, Catherine continued to chart their enthusiasm, until at last she was forced to call out, “Wait just a minute, would you, please?” She saw the two exchange a glance of dread, and hastened to reassure them. “No, in a minute you can go up. It's perfectly all right. I just wanted to ask a question of you.”
“Of... us?” the first girl asked, striking herself lightly on her chest and looking comically incredulous.
Catherine waited for them to give her at least a small portion of their attention, then asked bluntly, directly, “Why are you so eager to watch your friend die?”
All at once a massive look of disbelief passed in unison across both their faces. “Die, mum? Susan ain't gonna die. What makes you say something awful like that?”
Suddenly feeling very much like a faithless heathen, and sorry for having asked the question, Catherine tried to think of a way out, couldn't, and answered as honestly as she knew how. “Because... I've seen fever patients before, many times, and when the fever is this bad, without respite, they seldom, if ever - ”
“Oh, don't count Susan among what should happen,” they protested. The first did most of the talking, though the second contributed her moral support by nodding broadly and continuously. “She ain't like no other, and we all know that, now, don't we? And so when Susan gets sick, Holy God sends someone special to...”
Catherine bowed her head, disheartened to hear her fears confirmed. Of course she knew Susan was special, but she also knew she was subjected to the same laws of nature, just like everyone else.
“...so you see, mum, nothin's going to happen to her, long as him's there, and he don't plan to leave.”
“Run along, then,” Catherine urged them with a tolerant smile.
“You comin', mum? It will be wonderful to see — General Booth, too, just what he's always preaching to us about, resurrection.”
Then they were gone, leaving Catherine stunned at both their claims and her own feeling of doubt. Where had that come from? She was a faithful servant of God, wasn't she? She did believe, did practice both the letter and the spirit of God's law.
Susan ain't gonna die. What makes you say something awful like that?
As the conflict grew within her, she felt a kind of paralysis. She continued to grip the banister but seemed incapable of lifting her foot to take the first step, seemed most content in safe inaction, staring unseeing at the worn dark green frayed runners which covered the steps.
When she finally reached the door, she was surprised to find it closed. It never was, in the event one of the patients had to call out to the limited nursing staff.
She listened, thinking to hear something that would give her a clue, heard nothing, and briefly closed her eyes to pray, though now the words seemed hollow. In an attempt to escape from what felt like the husk of herself, she pushed open the door and saw a moving spectacle. Twenty-five, thirty workers on their knees surrounding Susan's bed, all heads bowed save one, the man named John, who sat on the same low chair he'd inhabited for three days and two nights, a basin of water resting on his knees, his hands moving back and forth across her forehead with a cloth he continuously dipped in the basin in an attempt to keep it cool.
She saw the man lean forward, concentrating on Susan's face, whispering something to her — or so Catherine thought, for she heard someone whispering but could not distinguish the words or the source. No one was moving, but the awesome weight of all those eyes focused on one limited arena, that of the low bed and the man who had now, for the first time in three days, abandoned the low stool and was seated on the side of the bed.
The whispering was coming from him; Catherine was certain of it now, and occasionally heard a single word before his voice fell into intimacy again. “Eden” and “heather,” and once she heard an entire phrase clearly, “...the sun on Eden Rising.” He spoke on for a few moments in this incredibly soft, private manner. Then, without warning, his voice fell silent as though from exhaustion or despair.
For the rest of them, all that could be said was they gave the impression of being held so fast by a mutual point of interest that no one appeared to be breathing.
The man seated on the edge of the bed whispered something else, cut off this time by a clear and discernible break in his voice. Catherine felt the tension continue to build to an almost unbearable point, saw now, along with everyone else, an incredible movement coming from the man, saw him bend forward over Susan as though he were preparing to...
He was.
...to lift her, gently at first, as though he were afraid of harming her, then with clear vigor and intent, cradling her as he would a child, his body obscuring everything except one arm, which dangled uselessly at a distorted angle, the white muslin sleeve bearing evidence of the intense fever, the hand beneath the cuff small, pale, and still.
Now Catherine bowed her head along with the others. The brief sense of joy had been annihilated by the clear sight of that one limp hand, which did not speak of life or energy or will, but spoke simply of the draining exhaustion and blessed surrender of death after a painful illness.
God go with her and receive her, for she was a good and faithful servant This prayer was Catherine's, very silent, very private, already mourning the gifted little nurse. “Too slight to do any good,” had been General Booth’s initial judgment, but in a few short months she’d proved herself to be a most valuable, competent, and capable member of General Booth’s female staff.
He should be here...
Catherine looked up, jarred by the thought that should not have intersected her prayer, and thus was the first to see it, though it was a matter of only seconds before others saw it as well, that one lifeless hand receiving messages from the brain, the fingers flexing once, the hand lifting ever so slowly at first, yet still it came, one arm, one hand lifting, angling around his shoulders.
Then the entire hand cupped around the back of that bowed head, the fingers reaching out in an attempt to smooth the mussed hair, coming to rest at last in a gentle cupped and enclosing gesture until it was difficult to tell who was giving succor and support to whom.
To her surprise, Catherine felt her eyes blur. Now throughout the room she heard others weeping, but could not look away from that one delicately cupped white hand which continued to caress the back of his neck in a gesture that signified merely all the love in the world.
East London Salvation Mission, London April 19, 1875
Never in his life had anything happened so effortlessly, with such a feeling of rightness.
Seated now at her bedside, watching her sleep in a soft glow of late-afternoon April sun, John charted carefully the entire miracle, the way in which the infinitesimally small light brown hairs which fringed her forehead curled into two perfect circles; the manner in which the soft hollows beneath her cheekbones formed two oval pools of purple shadow; the angle at which her head rested upon the pillow, as though someone had just called to her and she was on the verge of responding; that one small but so capable right hand resting atop the cover; the lips, still pale from the fever, slightly parted; the beautiful arch which the shadow of her eyes formed with her eyebrows...
He couldn't see enough, for there was so much, every angle and shade, tinge, and tone of her was pure miracle.
He leaned slowly back in his chair. Please wake up, he prayed, missing her even in sleep. Please continue to rest, he prayed again, knowing it was what she needed, longing for her to become strong and well again.
Briefly he closed his eyes to rest them, and scolded himself for being so … adolescent. She'd turned him down once — or rather turned down his gift of the cottage on Eden Rising. She was a talented, practicing professional, dedicated to a life of service. He had no right to expect anything of her, save the kind of loose bond two people have who have been of service to each other.
For a few moments Susan's simple beauty faded as in his mind's eye he saw those plain worn faces, who had no conception of the true nature of their requests or how wasted they were upon John. He'd talked briefly with Laurence Simmons about it, but the man had only counseled patience, truth, and passage of time.
That had been five days ago, and instead of diminishing, the requests were increasing. The only time they left him alone was when he was at Susan's bedside, as though this were the font of the first miracle and therefore sacred.
For several moments longer he stared down on her, his mind and heart torn now between the dilemma of his future, the perfection of the present, this moment, and the awesome weight of his past. If only... But he had no right. Gone were the days when he could blindly force his wishes on others. Quickly he bent over, still not fully capable of dealing with memory.
All at once he saw her eyes open, one hand lightly curled beside her head, her eyes still glistening feverishly from the severity of the illness, though Dr. Mercer had reassured him she was well out of danger and needed only rest.
For a moment, under the direct gaze of those eyes, he found he couldn't breathe. While he struggled to form words, she seemed more than content just to watch him, the expression on her face beyond his interpretation.
Suddenly, when he'd least expected it and certainly when he'd least needed it, he felt a tidal wave of heat rush over his face, searing everything in its path, rendering him as inarticulate and mute as a shy schoolboy.
Forever — or so it seemed — they stared at each other. When at last they spoke, they spoke at once, a muddle of voices in which nothing was clear.
“I'm sorry I — “
“I still can't believe — “
As they had started together, they broke off together, and again the room was filled with first a splintered echo, then silence, save for the street sounds outside the window.
She was the first to try again. “I... thought of you so often, and worried...” She broke off, her lips dry.
He moved back to the bed, still trying to think of something to say in return that did not sound inane or stupid.
“Are you... all right?” she asked.
Suddenly he was aware that inquiry should be coming from him to her. He nodded and sat down on the edge of the straight-backed chair. “And you?” He smiled. “You're the one - ”
“I... must get up,” she interrupted, reaching for the cover with one hand to push it back.
“No,” he protested, moving quickly to the edge of the bed. “Dr. Mercer says - ”
“I couldn't believe it was you.”
“And I couldn't believe it was you.”
“You've been ill “
“Just hungry.”
“What happened in Paris?”
He bowed his head, expecting the waves of grief to inundate him. “Later,” he murmured, pleased that for the first time the waves never developed. “May we speak of it later?”
“Of course. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have...”
“No, it's all right. It's just that...”
They continued to gaze at each other. Again it was impossible for him to read her expression. It looked amazingly like care and concern, but then, he could be wrong. He knew from experience she cared indiscriminately for the entire human race. Was there anything about her view of him that was different?
She shook her head, briefly closed her eyes, then reopened them.
He realized she was tired and he was intruding. “I’m sorry. I'll...”
“John...” She'd never addressed him by his Christian name before, and did it now as effortlessly as though she'd addressed him thus always.
He looked down on her, thought he should respond, but again could think of nothing to say, nothing, at least, as eloquent and articulate as the volumes they were both speaking in the silence.
Every time she had awakened during the last few days, she had suffered moments of black dread.
Was he really here? Or had she dreamed it?
So confirmation was always first on the agenda, followed by a desire to speak rationally and coherently to him, as she'd imagined so often she would speak to him if she ever had another chance. But of rationality and coherence in her brain there was little.
Each time upon awakening he was there, right enough, the same face and yet vastly changed; the same frame and torso, yet they too were changed; the same mind and spirit, yet even they were changed. It was as though the old John had escaped his skin, had carelessly left it lying about and someone else was now inhabiting it, someone she did not recognize — therefore the point of confusion.
“John?” she repeated, knowing it was he, yet wanting, needing another confirmation.
“I'm here,” he obliged, reaching forward to cover her hand with his.
All at once she felt an incredibly strong impulse to smile. For almost a year she'd dreamed of a moment like this, never expecting there was even a remote chance of its coming true. Yet, now that it apparently had, all she could do was gape and repeat his name.
There were so many questions inside her head, she couldn't begin to articulate them. For now, until she regained enough strength to at least make an attempt to solve the mystery, she would have to be content with the dilemma that she had almost died, and in the brief interim while she was gone, this earth had become a paradise.
“Would you... care for water?” he asked, apparently as baffled by their prolonged silences as she.
Quickly she shook her head, not wanting to inconvenience him, then abruptly regretted her response. She was thirsty, but — more important — if she had allowed him to fetch water, she would have given him something to do, and perhaps have eased both of them.
“Yes,” she said, and again apologized. “I’m... sorry...”
Again a silence grew between them, this one not so good as others, this one speaking of too much uncertainty.
“John, a glass of water would be - ”
“I’ll get it,” he said too eagerly.
She watched him the length of the infirmary as far as she could keep him in view before he disappeared like a sudden deprivation behind the nurses’ screen, where a pitcher of fresh water was placed twice daily, generally one of her own chores.
Without a word he extended the glass of water to her and stood back.
“Thank you.” She smiled, taking the water, only to discover she was incapable of lifting her head to drink without spilling it.
He saw the dilemma and approached awkwardly, his hands out-reaching, wanting to help but not quite certain what they should do.
“Remember how we used to do it?” She smiled, weary of censoring each and every thought, ceaselessly worried that this one was inappropriate, that one too painful. Dear Lord, at this rate they would never converse again. “Back at Eden — you remember — when you were abed. Here, I need a boost, just enough to...”
With the help of sign language indicating his arm beneath her neck would make it possible for her to drink, she was delighted to have him respond immediately and felt an absurd schoolgirl flutter beneath her breast as he leaned over her, his left arm gently elevating her head while his right hand held the glass close to her lips. In this intimate position she found it diffic
ult to swallow, and managed only a gulp or two before her throat seemed to constrict, blocking all further passage.
As he continued to tilt the glass toward her lips, she finally was forced to splutter, “Enough...”
“I’m sorry...”
“It's fine...”
“I’m afraid we've spilled...”
“I used to do that, too. Remember?”
“Did you get enough?”
“Oh, yes. Thank you.”
“I’m afraid I lack your training.”
“You do very well.”
Silence.
He backed away, taking the half-filled glass of water with him, while she made an attempt to brush the spilled drops from the front of her nightgown.
When she looked up at him again, she found him staring down on her. Suddenly the awkwardness of their encounter seemed so absurd. They knew each other better than certain married couples. Each had witnessed the other in extremity. What was the matter with them now, that neither seemed capable of forming a single sentence?
“John, come...” She smiled, exhibiting a calm she did not feel. She assumed she had little to lose at this point. She had tried to eradicate him from her life and thoughts so often in the past. If he left now, what was so different?
At first he didn't seem to hear, continuing to stand a few feet back from the bed, still holding the half-filled glass of water, quite stricken, as though he'd committed an unforgivable crime by spilling a few drops of water. Just when she was about to ask again, he started slowly forward, bringing the glass with him, never once taking his eyes off her face.
Then there was nothing more behind which either could take refuge, no rationalization, no activity, no intrusion from others. In fact, the world seemed to be leaving them painfully alone. For a moment she studied his face and weakened, as though his presence were sapping her strength. “Thank you for your... attention,” she began simply.