CHAPTER XV
Grave as was the gathering in the Sirdar's Palace at Khartoum, there was a still graver gathering that day at the British Agency in Cairo – the gathering of the wings of Death.
Lady Nuneham was nearing her end. Since Gordon's disgrace and disappearance she had been visibly fading away under a burden too heavy for her to bear.
The Consul-General had been trying hard to shut his eyes to this fact. More than ever before, he had immersed himself in his work, being plainly impelled to fresh efforts by hatred of the man who had robbed him of his son.
Through the Soudan Intelligence Department in Cairo he had watched Ishmael's movements in Khartoum, expecting him to develop the traits of the Mahdi and thus throw himself into the hands of the Sirdar.
It was a deep disappointment to the Consul-General that this did not occur. The same report came to him. again and again. The man was doing nothing to justify his arrest. Although surrounded by fanatical folk, whose minds were easily inflamed, he was not trying to upset governors or giving "divine" sanction for the removal of officials.
But meantime some mischief was manifestly at work all over the country. From day to day Inspectors had been coming in to say that the people were not paying their taxes. Convinced that this was the result of conspiracy, the Consul-General had shown no mercy.
"Sell them up," he had said, and the Inspectors, taking their cue from his own spirit but exceeding his orders, had done his work without remorse.
Week by week the trouble had deepened, and when disturbances had been threatened he had asked the British Army of Occupation, meaning no violence, to go out into the country and show the people England's power.
Then grumblings had come down on him from the representatives of foreign nations. If the people were so discontented with British rule that they were refusing to pay their taxes, there would be a deficit in the Egyptian treasury – how then were Egypt's creditors to be paid?
"Time enough to cross the bridge when you come to it, gentlemen," said the Consul-General, in his stinging tone and with a curl of his iron lip.
If the worst came to the worst England would pay, but England should not be asked to do so because Egypt must meet the cost of her own government. Hence more distraining and some inevitable violence in suppressing the riots that resulted from evictions.
Finally came a hubbub in Parliament, with the customary "Christian" prattlers prating again. Fools! They did not know what a subtle and secret conspiracy he had to deal with while they were crying out against his means of killing it.
He must kill it! This form of passive resistance, this attack on the Treasury, was the deadliest blow that had ever yet been aimed at England's power in Egypt.
But he must not let Europe see it! He must make believe that nothing was happening to occasion the least alarm. Therefore to drown the cries of the people who were suffering not because they were poor and could not pay, but because they were perverse and would not, he must organise some immense demonstration.
Thus came to the Consul-General the scheme of the combined festival of the King's Birthday and the – th anniversary of the British Occupation of Egypt. It would do good to foreign Powers, for it would make them feel that, not for the first time, England had been the torch-bearer in a dark country. It would do good to the Egyptians, too, for it would force their youngsters (born since Tel-el-Kebir) to realise the strength of England's arm.
Thus had the Consul-General occupied himself while his wife had faded away. But at length he had been compelled to see that the end was near, and towards the close of every day he had gone to her room and sat almost in silence, with bowed head, in the chair by her side.
The great man, who for forty years had been the virtual ruler of millions, had no wisdom that told him what to say to a dying woman; but at last, seeing that her pallor had become whiteness, and that she was sinking rapidly and hungering for the consolations of her religion, he asked her if she would like to take the sacrament.
"It is just what I wish, dear," she answered, with the nervous smile of one who had been afraid to ask.
At heart the Consul-General had been an agnostic all his life, looking upon religion as no better than a civilising superstition, but all the same he went downstairs and sent one of his secretaries for the Chaplain of St. Mary's – the English Church.
The moment he had gone out of the door Fatimah, under the direction of the dying woman, began to prepare the bedroom for the reception of the clergyman by laying a side-table with a fair white cloth, a large prayer-book, and two silver candlesticks containing new candles.
While the Egyptian nurse did this the old lady looked on with her deep, slow, weary eyes, and talked in whispers, as if the wings of the august Presence that was soon to come were already rustling in the room. When all was done she looked very happy.
"Everything is nice and comfortable now," she said, as she lay back to wait for the clergyman.
But even then she could not help thinking the one thought that made a tug at her resignation. It was about Gordon.
"I am quite ready to die, Fatimah," she said, "but I should have loved to see my dear Gordon once more."
This was what she had been waiting for, praying for, eating her heart and her life out for.
"Only to see and kiss my boy! It would have been so easy to go then."
Fatimah, who was snuffling audibly, as she straightened the eider-down coverlet over the bed, began to hint that if her "sweet eyes" could not see her son she could send him a message.
"Perhaps I know somebody who could see it reaches him, too," said Fatimah, in a husky whisper.
The old lady understood her instantly.
"You mean Hafiz! I always thought as much. Bring me my writing-case – quick!"
The writing-case was brought and laid open before her, and she made some effort to write a letter, but the power of life in her was low, and after a moment the shaking pen dropped from her fingers.
"Ma'aleysh, my lady!" said Fatimah soothingly. "Tell me what you wish to say. I will remember everything."
Then the dying mother sent a few touching words as her last message to her beloved son.
"Wait! Let me think. My head is a little … just a little … Yes, this is what I wish to say, Fatimah. Tell my boy that my last thoughts were about him. Though I am sorry he took the side of the false prophet, say I am certain he did what he thought was right. Be sure you tell him I die happy, because I know I shall see him again. If I am never to see him in this world I shall do so in the world to come. Say I shall be waiting for him there. And tell him it will not seem long."
"Could you sign your name for him, my heart?" said Fatimah, in her husky voice.
"Yes, oh yes, easily," said the old lady, and then with an awful effort she wrote —
"Your ever-loving Mother."
At that moment Ibrahim in his green caftan, carrying a small black bag, brought the English chaplain into the room.
"Peace be to this house," said the clergyman, using the words of his Church ritual, and the Egyptian nurse, thinking it was an Eastern salutation, answered, "Peace!"
The Chaplain went into the "boys' room" to put on his surplice, and when he came out, robed in white, and began to light the candles and prepare the vessels which he placed on the side-table, the old lady was talking to Fatimah in nervous whispers —
"His lordship?" "Yes!" "Do you think, my lady – "
She wanted the Consul-General to be present and was half afraid to send for him; but just at that instant the door opened again, and her pale, spiritual face lit up with a smile as she saw her husband come into the room.
The clergyman was now ready to begin, and the old lady looked timidly across the bed at the Consul-General as if there were something she wished to ask and dared not.
"Yes, I will take the sacrament with you, Janet," said the old man, and then the old lady's face shone like the face of an angel.
The Consul-General took the chair by the side of the bed and the Chaplain began the service —
"Almighty, ever-living God, Maker of mankind, who dost correct those whom Thou dost love – "
All the time the triumphant words reverberated through the room the dying woman was praying fervently, her lips moving to her unspoken words and her eyes shining as if the Lord of Life she had always loved was with her now and she was giving herself to Him – her soul, her all.
The Consul-General was praying too – praying for the first time to the God he did not know and had never looked to —
"If Thou art God, let her die in peace. It is all I ask – all I wish."
Thus the two old people took the sacrament together, and when the Communion Service came to a close, the old lady looked again at the Consul-General and asked, with a little confusion, if they might sing a hymn.
The old man bent his head, and a moment later the Chaplain, after a whispered word from the dying woman, began to sing —
"Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear,
It is not night if Thou be near …"
At the second bar the old lady joined him in her breaking, cracking voice, and the Consul-General, albeit his throat was choking him, forced himself to sing with her —
"When the soft dews of kindly sleep
My wearied eyelids gently steep…"
It was as much as the Consul-General could do to sing of a faith he did not feel, but he felt tenderly to it for his wife's sake now, and with a great effort he went on with her to the end —
"If some poor wandering child of Thine
Have spurned to-day the voice divine …"
The light of another world was in the old lady's eyes when all was over, and she seemed to be already half way to heaven.
CHAPTER XVI
All the same there was a sweet humanity left in her, and when the Chaplain was gone and the side-table had been cleared, and she was left alone with her old husband, there came little gleams of the woman who wanted to be loved to the last.
"How are you now?" he asked.
"Better so much better," she said, smiling upon him, and caressing with her wrinkled hand the other wrinkled hand that lay on the eider-down quilt.
The great Consul-General, sitting on the chair by the side of the bed, felt as helpless as before, as ignorant as ever of what millions of simple people know – how to talk to those they love when the wings of Death are hovering over them. But the sweet old lady, with the wisdom and the courage which God gives to His own on the verge of eternity, began to speak in a lively and natural voice of the end that was coming and what was to follow it.
He was not to allow any of his arrangements to be interfered with, and, above all, the festivities appointed for the King's Birthday were not to be disturbed.
"They must be necessary or you would not have them, especially now," she said, "and I shall not be happy if I know that on my account they are not coming off."
And then, with the sweet childishness which the feebleness of illness brings, she talked of the last King's Birthday, and of the ball they had given in honour of it.
That had been in their own house, and the dancing had been in the drawing-room, and the Consul-General had told Ibrahim to set the big green arm-chair for her in the alcove, and sitting there she had seen everything. What a spectacle! Ministers Plenipotentiary, Egyptian Ministers, ladies, soldiers! Such gorgeous uniforms! Such glittering orders! Such beautiful toilets!
The old lady's pale face filled with light as she thought of all this, but the Consul-General dropped his head, for he knew well what was coming next.
"And, John, don't you remember? Gordon was there that night, and Helena – dear Helena! How lovely they looked! Among all those lovely people, dear… He was wearing every one of his medals that night, you know. So tall, so brave-looking, a soldier every inch of him, and such a perfect English gentleman! Was there ever anything in the world so beautiful? And Helena, too! She wore a silvery silk, and a kind of coif on her beautiful black hair. Oh, she was the loveliest thing in all the room, I thought! And when they led the cotillion – don't you remember they led the cotillion, dear? – I could have cried, I was so proud of them."
The Consul-General continued to sit with his head down, listening to the old lady and saying nothing, yet seeing the scene as she depicted it and feeling again the tingling pride which he, too, had felt that night but permitted nobody to know.
After a moment the beaming face on the bed became clouded over, as if that memory had brought other memories less easy to bear – dreams of happy days to come, of honours and of children.
"Ah well, God knows best," she said in a tremulous voice, releasing the Consul-General's hand.
The old man felt as if he would have to hurry out of the room without uttering another word, but, as well as he could, he controlled himself and said —
"You are agitating yourself, Janet. You must lie quiet now."
"Yes, I must lie quiet now, and think of … of other things," she answered.
He was stepping away when she called on him to turn her on her right side, for that was how she always slept, and upon the Egyptian nurse coming hurrying up to help, she said —
"No, no, not you, Fatimah – his lordship."
Then the Consul-General put his arms about her – feeling how thin and wasted she was, and how little of her was left to die – and turning her gently round he laid her back on the pillow which Fatimah had in the meantime shaken out.
While he did so her dim eyes brightened again, and stretching her white hands out of her silk nightdress she clasped them about his neck, with the last tender efforts of the woman who wanted to be fondled to the end.
The strain of talking had been too much for her, and after a few minutes she sank into a restless doze, in which the perspiration broke out on her forehead and her face acquired an expression of pain, for sleep knows no pretences. But at length her features became more composed and her breathing more regular, and then the Consul-General, who had been standing aside, mute with anguish, said in a low tone to Fatimah —
"She is sleeping quietly now," and then he turned to go.
Fatimah followed him to the head of the stairs and said in a husky whisper —
"It will be all over to-night, though – you'll see it will."
For a moment he looked steadfastly into the woman's eyes, and then, without answering her, walked heavily down the stairs.
Back in the library, he stood for some time with his face to the empty fireplace. Over the mantelpiece there hung a little picture, in a black-and-gilt frame, of a bright-faced boy in an Arab fez. It was more than he could do to look at that portrait now, so he took it off its nail and laid it, face down, on the marble mantel-shelf.
Just at that moment one of his secretaries brought in a despatch. It was the despatch from the Sirdar, sent in cypher but now written out at length. The Consul-General read it without any apparent emotion and put it aside without a word.
The hours passed slowly; the night was very long; the old man did not go to bed. Not for the first time, he was asking himself searching questions about the mystery of life and death, but the great enigma was still baffling him. Could it be possible that while he had occupied himself with the mere shows and semblance of things, calling them by great names – Civilisation and Progress – that simple soul upstairs had been grasping the eternal realities?
There were questions that cut deeper even than that, and now they faced him one by one. Was it true that he had married merely in the hope of having some one to carry on his name and thus fulfil the aspirations of his pride? Had he for nearly forty years locked his heart away from the woman who had been starving for his love, and was it only by the loss of the son who was to have been the crown of his life that they were brought together in the end?
Thus the hoofs of the dark hours beat heavily on the great Proconsul's brain, and in the awful light that came to him from an open grave, the triumphs of the life behind him looked poor and small.
But meantime the palpitating air of the room upstairs was full of a different spirit. The old lady had apparently awakened from her restless sleep, for she had opened her eyes and was talking in a bright and happy voice. Her cheeks were tinged with the glow of health, and her whole face was filled with light.
"I knew I should see them," she said.
"See whom, my heart?" asked Fatimah, but without answering her, the old lady, with the same rapturous expression, went on talking.
"I knew I should, and I have! I have seen both of them!"
"Whom have you seen, my lady?" asked Fatimah again, but once more the dying woman paid no heed to her.
"I saw them as plainly as I see you now, dear. It was in a place I did not know. The sun was so hot, and the room was so close. There was a rush roof and divans all round the walls. But Gordon and Helena were there together, sitting at opposite sides of a table and holding each other's hands."
"Allah! Allah!" muttered Fatimah, with upraised hands.
The old lady seemed to hear her, for an indulgent smile passed over her radiant face and she said in a tone of tender remonstrance —
"Don't be foolish, Fatimah! Of course I saw him. The Lord said I should, and He never breaks His promises. 'Help me, O God, for Christ's sake,' I said. 'Shall I see my dear son again? O God, give me a sign.' And He did! Yes, it was in the middle of the night. 'Janet,' said a voice, and I was not afraid. 'Be patient, Janet. You shall see your dear boy before you die.'"
Her face was full of happy visions. The life of this world seemed to be no longer there. A kind of life from the other world appeared to reanimate the sinking woman. The near approach of eternity illumined her whole being with a supernatural light. She was dying in a flood of joy.
"Oh, how good the Lord is! It is so easy to go now! … John, you must not think I suffer any longer, because I don't. I have no pain now, dear – none whatever."
Then she clasped her wasted hands together in the attitude of prayer and said in a rustling whisper —
"To-night, Lord Jesus! Let it be to-night!"
After that her rapturous voice died away and her ecstatic eyes gently closed, but an ineffable smile continued to play on her faintly-tinted face, as if she were looking on the wings that were waiting to bear her away.
The doctor came in at that moment, and was told what had occurred.
"Delirium, of course," he said. A change had come; the crisis was approaching. If the same thing happened at the supreme moment the patient was not to be contradicted; her delusion was to be indulged.
It did not happen.
In the early hours of the morning the Consul-General was called upstairs. There was a deep silence in the bedroom, as if the air had suddenly become empty and void. The day was breaking, and through the windows that looked over to the Nile the white sails of a line of boats gliding by seemed like the passing of angels' wings. Sparrows were twittering in the eaves, and through the windows to the east the first streamers of the sunrise were rising in the sky.
The Consul-General approached the bed and looked down at the pallid face on the pillow. He wanted to stoop and kiss it, but he felt as if it would be a profanation to do so now. His own face was full of suffering, for the sealed chambers of his iron soul had been broken open at last.
With his hands clasped behind his back he stood for some minutes quite motionless. Then laying one hand on the brass head-rail of the bed, he leaned over his dead wife and spoke to her as if she could hear.
"Forgive me, Janet! Forgive me!" he said in a low voice that was like a sob.
Did she hear him? Who can say she did not? Was it only a ray from the sunrise that made the Egyptian woman think that over the dead face of the careworn and weary one, whose sweet soul was even then winging its way to heaven, there passed the light of a loving smile?