Shadow in the North

Chapter Twenty - Reunions and Farewells

Martha was gone - sent off for a visit with her mother. Mrs Hale was in the final throes now, and her suffering was great. Mr Hale, with that wilful blindness, would try to find hope in the brief moments of respite from her paroxysms of attack, yet these reprieves grew shorter and less frequent, and thus his hope diminished, until even he - gentle as he was - could not but despair at the bleakness before him. Margaret was weary; her mother's suffering stole from her, the limited resources of strength she held, herself, and she poured all she could into lifting her mother's spirits to the last; but Mrs Hale longed for her son, longed for unbroken rest, and could find little comfort in anything. And Mr Hale - now brought low with the realisation that his wife should not last the week - leaned heavily upon his daughter, so that Margaret had sapped from her, the dying embers of her own reserves. Isabel felt for her friend with the kindly compassion of any good doctor, and spent many an hour conversing with Mr Hale whilst Mrs Hale slept, but she was not his daughter - nor his favourite pupil - and thus, when the crisis came, it was not she whom he could take comfort in, but his daughter, Margaret.

Isabel tended to Mrs Hale in those final days with all the care of an attentive doctor, and all the affection of a close relative, despite having not known the lady long, nor ever having acquired a great closeness with her. She was not surprised to find that once the draughts were given and tonics slipped past crepe lips, her ministrations were cast aside in favour of Margaret and the loyal Dixon, for it was how it ought to have been, but she felt so very useless, and so utterly alone, for here was a family on the precipice of grief, and she was not part of that family. Nor was she the doctor, for she was bound by the limitations of the time; the expertise of the characters upon the page, and she knew that had she been in her time, she could have done something more for Mrs Hale. Thus, she could not cling to the warmth of family, nor could she stomach the exclusion from the sorrowers. She had not that true and trusty position of doctor, but a shy impostor of it, which she felt little more than a shadow of whom she had been.

She walked from Mrs Hale's room - leaving Margaret and Dixon about their bedside vigil - and passed the drawing room, where Mr Hale laid his head upon his hands in submission, and crept into the kitchen; a wont of solitude and warming tea. There came a rap against the door, and Isabel, fearing she knew who the knocker would be, cautiously unbolted the door. A tall, but slender figure - lithe and slight, as was Mr Hale - stood before her; a shadow against the luminous street.

'Is this the Hale residence?' asked the stranger, with a flicker of doubt.

'Frederick?' came her whispered reply. He nodded and pushed past her, into the safety of the kitchen, where she hastily bolted the door and moved towards the stairs. 'I shall call Margaret or Mr Hale.' But she did not need to, for Margaret had left her mother's bedside and now came upon the room. Seeing her brother stood beside Isabel, she tottered, and then - recollecting herself - she held out her hands in supplication and ran to him.

'Frederick!' cried she; her sobs the tears of grief and loss, relief and happiness at this over-due reunion, laced finally, with a trembling of fear, for her brother was in England, and so his life was unsafe.

'Oh, Margaret!' sighed he, pulling her into an affectionate embrace. 'I came as soon as I could. Mother! She is still alive?' asked Frederick, his voice cracking with trepidation.

'Yes, dear brother! She is alive - so very ill and close to death now, but alive. You shall see her.'

'Thank God!'

'Let me take you to father,' urged Margaret. 'He despairs in the drawing room, but seeing you shall lift his spirits!' And she took her brother's hand, leading him quickly from the room. Isabel faltered; ought she follow or hold back? She knew not. She lingered, listening to the gentle tread of Margaret's graceful step upon the stairs, closely followed by that heavier, unfamiliar tramp of Frederick. Their step quietened, and Frederick's stopped altogether, whilst Margaret's carried on towards the drawing room. The moments passed until she heard Mr Hale exclaim in a weakened, trembling voice, and then his light steps hurried towards his study, to be reunited with his son.