Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/91

76 the earl had fancied? She listened intently, her ear being alive to every sound.

The medical men came in and out, but the dying man still lay as he was, and gave no token. Once more Jane urged upon them the claims of the countess—that she ought to be apprised of the danger; but they positively refused to listen. It grew dark, and the nurse brought in the night-lamp. Jane was watching her arrange it, watching her mechanically, when a voice was heard from the bed.

“Jane.”

It was her father’s; he had roused up to consciousness; it almost seemed to strength, for the voice was firm, and the sight and sense seemed clear. Jane put a few teaspoonfuls of jelly within his lips.

“Jane, I think I have seen the country on the other side. It’s better than Canaan was, and the rivers are like crystal, and the flowers on the banks are bright. I am nearly there, Jane; just one narrow strait to work through first, which looks dark; but the darkness is nothing, for I can see the light beyond it.”

Jane’s tears fell on the bed-clothes. She could not trust her voice to answer: and the earl was silent for a time.

“Such a great big ship, Jane,” he began again; “big enough to hold all the people in the world; and those who get into her are at rest for ever. No more cold watches to keep in the dark night; no more shifting sails; no more tacking and wearing; no more struggles with the storm and hurricane; the Great Commander does it all for us. You’ll come to me there, Jane? I am but going on a short while first.”

“Yes,” Jane softly whispered through her sobs, “to be together in bliss for ever and ever.”

“Where’s Clarice?” he suddenly exclaimed. “Is she not come?”

Jane had little doubt that he meant Laura.

“We did not expect Clarice,” she said. “And Laura is not here yet.”

“Jane, perhaps Clarice has gone into the beautiful ship before me. I may find her there.”

“I don’t know,” Jane faintly answered, feeling how worse than unsatisfactory was the uncertainty respecting Clarice in that dying hour. “Father, if—if Laura cannot be here in time, you will leave her your forgiveness?”

“It is left to her. You may give it to her again; my love and my full forgiveness. But she might have come for it. Perhaps he would not let her, Jane.”

“You forget,” she murmured; “Laura was not at home, and Mr. Carlton could not prevent her. Why should he wish to do so? I do not think he would.”

“Tell Laura I forgive him, too; and I hope he may get into the ship with the rest of us. But, Jane, I cannot like him; I never did. When Laura finds herself upon the quicksands, do you shelter her; she’ll have nobody else to do it.” Was that sentence spoken with the strange prevision that sometimes attends the dying?

A slight sound upon the muffled knocker. Jane’s quick ear caught it. She hoped it was Laura, but it was only Dr. James. He came into the earl’s room, and then went down to pay a visit to the countess.

After his departure Lord Oakburn again sank into what seemed a stupor, and lay so for an hour or two. As ten o’clock struck he started from it.

“Eliza, what’s the time?”

Jane glanced at his watch, which was hanging up, for he had not noticed the striking of the house clock.

“Five minutes past ten.”

“Oh, it’s you, Jane,” he said, with a sort of gladness that it was her, which found its echo in Jane’s heart; and he feebly put out his hand in search of hers. “My own Jane! with me at last! She doesn’t know how I have missed her.”

The last sentence appeared to be spoken as if he were oblivious of her presence, in that treachery of memory which frequently accompanies the dying: and there was a second glad echo within her.

“I am not in there yet, Jane, and the passage seems long. But there the ship is—what a sight! with her spars and her white sails. They are silvered over; and the spars are as glass, and the ship herself is gold. But it seems long to wait! How’s the tide?”

His voice had grown so indistinct that Jane had to bend down to listen, but the last question was spoken in a clear and anxious tone. She gave some soothing answer, not supposing that he meant the tide of reality—the matter-of-fact “high water at London Bridge” of the living, moving world.

“The tide, Jane, the tide?” he continued, pointing with his finger to his own nautical almanac, which lay on his dressing table. Jane rose and reached the book.

“The tide is coming in, father,” she said, after finding the place. “It will be high water at eleven o’clock.”

“Ay, ay. That’s what I am waiting for. I couldn’t go against the tide, Jane; it must turn. I am going out with the tide.”

Jane put the book back, and resumed her post by him.