The White Prophet, Volume II (of 2). Sir Hall Caine
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,