Dolores by Ivy Compton-Burnett

Author:Ivy Compton-Burnett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: IVY Compton-Burnett
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter VIII.

“No, no; read more slowly, Sigismund. I cannot follow what it means. You used not to read to me so quickly.”

There was a querulous, quavering note in the aged tones. The last days of the many which Janet Claverhouse had seen, had carried a change. That which sorrow had failed, and the ills of the flesh had spared to bring, was wrought by the surer force of days. The grasshopper had become a burden, and filial tendance was an added weariness.

With the sound of the feeble voice, the son slackened and lowered his tones; but before he had turned the page, it broke in again.

“No, no; I do not hear, Sigismund. You read in a whisper. You can shut the book; I will not listen any more. You do not try to make it easy for me. I am old; and you do not care to help me any longer.”

Claverhouse laid down the book he had been holding closely to his eyes, and placed his hand on the shrunken fingers on the coverlet.

“My dear old mother!” he said.

Janet’s eyes filled with the easy tears of bodily weakness.

“I am old, and complaining, and you do not care for me,” she said with faint sobs. “But I shall not be with you much longer. You will soon be rid of the burden of me. But when you were helpless, I never thought you were a burden.”

Claverhouse moved his hand and was silent; and the aged creature saw that the wounding power of the words of her feebleness could not be deadened by their helpless utterance.

“Ah! I am an ungrateful old woman,” she said, as if half-speaking her own thoughts, half-quoting those she judged to be her son’s. “I expect too much of every one. I expect them to bear with me, and suffer with me from morning till night, and give them nothing in return but more to bear with. It will be a good thing when I am gone, and my son can live his own life without the burden.”

Claverhouse was still silent. This prostration of the vital creature, he had honoured through the years as her who had borne him, in the aged weakness of other women, was a grief with a subtle bitterness. He could almost find it in him to wish, that the end had come some seven years earlier, in a sickness which had stricken her first feebleness, and given in its passing a new hold on life.

“My dear little mother!” he said at last, taking the tiny hand. “Weakness and weariness are hard for a spirit such as yours. But endurance, as other things, grows great in you. You need not doubt me. I know when it is weakness speaking, and when it is yourself.”

Janet shed a few more tears, but of a quieter kind which brought a calmer mood; and then lay back on her pillows, and presently passed into sleep. The son sat by her chair, with his face towards her, but his eyes looking into space.

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