The shadow of death drew on apace to the sight of all, save the
consumptive, and her semi-imbecile mother. These seemed alike blind
to the fatal symptoms that were more strongly defined with every
passing day.
The paralytic sat in her wheeled chair, in the March
sunshine, at the window of her chamber, and talked droningly of
other times and paltry pleasures to that one of her daughters or
grand-children whose turn it was to minister to her comfort and
amusement, and insisted upon having all the neighborhood news
repeated in her dull ear with wearisome--to the
narrator--amplifications and reiterations, shaking with childish
laughter at the humorous passages, and whimpering at the pathetic.
Rosa cheated time of heaviness by unceasing demands upon her
attendants for service and diversion. Unable to sleep, except at
long intervals, in snatches of fitful dozing, she had a horror of
being alone for an instant, from dusk until dawn; was ingenious in
contrivances to surprise an unwary watcher nodding upon her post;
plenteous and plaintive in lamentations, if the device succeeded.
Fifty times a night her pillows must be shaken, her drink, food, or
medicine given, and after each of these offices had been performed,
occurred the petition: "Now--sit where I can see you whenever I open my eyes! It drives me
crazy to imagine for a moment that I am by myself. I want to be sure
all the while that some living human being is near at hand. I have
such frightful dreams! I awake always with the impression that I am
drowning or suffocating, or floating away into a sea of darkness
alone!"
With the light of day, her spirits revived, and her hopes of speedy
recovery.
"You need not grudge waiting upon me now, for I shall be up and
about shortly--well and spry as the best of you!" she would say.
"And while I am playing invalid, I mean to have my quantum of
attention. I have been avaricious of devotion all my life, and this
is a golden chance that may never happen again."
Her husband she would not willingly suffer to leave her for an
instant. But for Mrs. Sutton's management and kindly authority, he
would have been condemned to take his meals at her bedside and from
the same tray with herself. She would be removed from the bed to the
lounge by no other arms than his, and at any hour of the twenty-four
he was liable to be called upon to read, sing, or talk her into
composure. Variable as ever in mood and fancy, and more capricious
in the exhibition of these, she was fond, sullen, teasing, and
mirthful with him as the humor of the moment dictated; sometimes
assailing him with reproaches for his indifference and want of
regard for her wishes and tastes, now that she was no longer young,
pretty, and sprightly; at others, clinging to him with protestations
of repentance and love, bewailing her waywardness and imploring his
forbearance; then, taking him to task for the slightest
inadvertence--the spilling of a drop of her medicine or jarring of
her sofa or bed; anon lauding him to the skies as the most skilful
nurse she had, and enjoining upon all about her to render verbal
testimonial to his irreproachableness as husband and man--oh! it was
a wearisome, oftentimes a revolting duty to listen to and bear with
it all--keep in mind though one did that the intolerable
restlessness preluded centuries of dreamless repose.