After this Meredith’s malady made gradual but rapid progress. When Colin and his friend returned from Rome in the evenings, after their expeditions there, they thought they could see a difference in his looks even from the morning. He ceased to move about; he ceased to go out; finally he ceased to get up from his bed. All these changes were accomplished very gra{268}dually, with a heart-breaking regularity of succession. Alice, who was constantly engaged about him, doing every kind of office for him, was fortunately too much occupied to take full cognizance of that remorseless progress of decay; but the two friends, who watched it with eyes less urgent than those of love, yet almost more painfully pitiful, could trace all the little advances of the malady. Then there came the time, the last stage of all, when it was necessary to sit up with him all night—an office which Colin and Lauderdale shared between them, to let the poor little sister have a little reluctant rest.
The season had warmed into May, of all seasons the sweetest in Italy. To see the sun shine, it seemed impossible to think that he would not shine for ever; and, when the window of the sick room was opened in the early morning, such a breath of life and happiness came in—such a sweet gust of air, wild from the great breadth of the Campagna, breathing of dews and blossoms—as felt to Colin’s lips like an elixir of life. But that breathing balm imparted no refreshment to the dying man. He was not suffering much; he was only weary to the bottom of his soul—languid and yet restless, eager to be moved, yet unable to bear any motion. While Alice withdrew behind them by times to shed the tears that kept always gathering, and say a prayer in her heart for her dying brother—a prayer in which, with a child’s simplicity, she still left room for his restoration, and called it possible—the two others watched with the profoundest interest that which was not only the dying of a friend, but the waning of a life. To see him so individual and characteristic, with all the notable features and even faults of his mind as distinct and apparent as if he had been in the strongest health, and yet so near the end, was the strangest spectacle. What was it the end of? He directed them all from his deathbed, and, indeed, controlled them all, with a will stronger than ever before, securing his own way in face of all their remonstrances, and, indeed, seemed to grow more and more strong, absolute, and important, as he approached the final stage of weakness—which is a sight always wonderful to see. He kept on writing his book, propped up upon pillows, as long as he had strength enough to hold the pen; but, when that power too failed him, the unyielding soul coerced itself into accepting the pen of another, and dictated the last chapter, at which Alice laboured during the day, and which occasionally, to beguile the tedium of the long night-watches, his other attendants were permitted to carry on.{269}
The nights grew shorter and shorter as the season advanced, and sometimes it was by the lovely light of the dawning morning, instead of the glimmer of the lamp, that these solemn sentences were written. At other moments, when the patient could not sleep, but was content to rest, wonderful scraps of conversation went on in that chamber of death. Meredith lay gaunt and wasted among his pillows—his great eyes filling the room, as the spectators sometimes thought; and by his bedside rose, sometimes the gigantic figure of Lauderdale, dimly visible by means of the faint night-light—sometimes Colin’s young softened face and air of tender compassion. It did not occur to any of the three to ask by what right they came together in relations so near and sacred. The sick man’s brothers, had he possessed them, could not have watched him with more care, or with less doubt about his claim upon all their ministrations: but they talked with him as perhaps no brother could have talked—recognising the reality of his position, and even discussing it as a matter in which they too had the profoundest interest. The room was bare enough, and contained little comfort to English eyes—uncarpeted, with bare tiles underneath the feet, and scantily furnished with an old sofa, a chair or two, and a table. There were two windows, which looked out upon the Campagna which the dying man was to see no more, nor cared to see. But that great living picture, of no benefit to him, was the only one there; for poor Meredith had himself caused to be taken down from the wall a print of the Madonna, and the little cross with its basin for holy water underneath, which had hung at the head of his bed. He had even sent away a picture of the Crucifixion—a bad, yet not unimpressive copy. “I want no outward symbols,” said the sick man; “there will be none where I am going,” and this was the beginning of one of those strange talks by night.
“It’s awfu’ difficult to ken,” said Lauderdale. “For my part it’s a great wonder to me that there has never been any revelation worthy of credit out of that darkness. That poor fellow Dives, in the parable, is the only man I mind of that takes a Christian view of the subject. He would have sent one to tell. The miracle is, that nae man was ever permitted to come.”
“Don’t say so,” said Meredith. “Oh, my dear friend! if you could but know the joy it would give me to bring you to Christ before I die—to see you accept and receive Him. Has not He come to seek and to save?{270}”
“Callant,” said the watcher, with a long drawn breath, “I’ve longer acquaintance with Him than you can have; and if I dinna believe in Him I would hang myself, and get to an explanation of all things. If it was not for Him, wherefore should I, that have nobody dependent on me, endure the mystery? But that’s no answer to my question. He came to put a meaning in the world that has little enough signification without Him, but no to answer a’ the questions that a human spirit can put to heaven and earth. I’ve heard of bargains made between them that were to die and them that had to live—”
“You put it in a strange way, Lauderdale,” said the dying man; “most people would say, those who had to die. But what can any one want beyond what is revealed—Jerusalem the golden? How strange it is to think that a worm like me shall so soon be treading those shining streets, while you—you whom the world thinks so much better off—”
“Whisht,” said Lauderdale, with a husky voice. “Do you no think it would be an awfu’ satisfaction to us that stay behind if we could have but a glint of the shining streets you speak of? Many a long day we’ll strain our eyes and try hard to see you there, but a’ to little purpose. I’m no saying I would not take it on trust for myself, and be content with what God pleased; but it’s hard to part with them that belong to us, and ken nothing about them—where they are, or how they are—”
“They are in Heaven! If they were children of God they are with Him,” said the sick man, anxiously. “Lauderdale, I cannot bear to think that you do not believe—that perhaps I may not meet you there.”
“Maybe no,” said the philosopher; “there’s the awfu’ question. A man might go ranging about the shining streets (as you say) for ever, and never find them that belonged to him; or, if there’s no geographical limits, there may be others harder to pass. It’s awfu’ little comfort I can get for my own mind out of shining streets. How am I to picture you to myself, callant, when I take thoughts of you? I have the fancy in my mind to give you messages to friends I have away yonder; but how can I tell if you’ll ever see them? It’s no a question of believing or not believing; I put little faith in Milton, and none in the good books, from which two sources we draw a great part of our talk about Heaven. It’s no even to ken if they’re happy or no happy that troubles me. I’ve nae hesitation to speak of in leaving that in God’s hand. It’s but to have an inkling ever so slight where ye are, and how you are,{271}” said Lauderdale, unconsciously changing his pronouns, “and that ye keep thought of us that spend so many thoughts on you.”
After this there was a little pause, which fell into the perfect stillness of the night outside, and held the little dim-lighted chamber in the midst of all the darkness, like the picture of a shadowy “interior,” with two motionless figures, the living and the dying, painted upon the great gloom of night. Meredith, who, notwithstanding the superior intensity of his own thoughts, had been moved by Lauderdale’s—and who, used as he was to think himself dying, yet perhaps heard himself thus unconsciously reckoned among the dead with a momentary thrill—was the first to speak.
“In all this I find you too vague,” said the patient. “You speak about Heaven as if you were uncertain only of its aspect; you have no anxiety about the way to get there. My friend, you are very good to me—you are excellent, so far as this world goes; I know you are. But, oh, Lauderdale, think! Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Before you speculate about Heaven, ask yourself are you sure to get there?”
“Ay,” said Lauderdale, vaguely, “it’s maybe a wee like the question of the Sadducees—I’m no saying; and it’s awfu’, the dead blank of wisdom and knowledge that’s put forth for a response—no any information to you; nothing but a quenching of your flippant questions and impudent pretensions. No marrying nor giving in marriage there, and the curious fools baffled, but nae light thrown upon the darkness! I’ll have to wait like other folk for my answer; but, if it’s according to your new nature and faculties—which surely it must be—you’ll not forget to give us a thought at times? If you feel a wee lonely at the first—I’m no profane, callant; you’re but a man when a’s done, or rather a laddie, and you’ll surely miss your friends—dinna forget how long and how often we’ll think of you.”
“Shall you?” said the dying man. “I have given you nothing but trouble ever since I knew you, and it is more than I deserve. But there is One who is worthy of all your thoughts. When you think of me, O love Him, my dear friend, and so there will be a bond between us still.”
“Ay,” said Lauderdale once more. It was a word he used when his voice could not be trusted, and his heart was full. “Ay,” he repeated, after a long pause, “I’ll no neglect that grand bond. It’s a bargain between you and me no to be broken. If ye were free for such an act, it would be awfu’ friendly to bring me word how things are”—he continued, in a low tone, “though{272} it’s folly to ask, for if it had been possible it would have been done before now.”
“It is God who must teach and not me,” said the dying man. “He has other instruments—and you must seek Him for yourself, and let Him reveal His will to you. If you are faithful to God’s service, He will relieve you of your doubts,” said Arthur, who did not understand his friend’s mind, but even at that solemn moment looked at him with a perplexed mixture of disapproval and compassion. And thus the silence fell again like a curtain over the room, and once more it became a picture faintly painted on the darkness, faintly relieved and lighted up by touches of growing light,............