Least Said, Soonest Mended
Copyright© 2025 by Agnes Giberne
Chapter 10: Sharp and Sudden
YES; they did their best to stop in time. But it was no use; for the brakes of those days were slow-acting; and before the train could do more than begin to slacken, all was over.
The buffer caught him first, and swept him along; and then he was among the cruel wheels; and what they left of him was no longer—father!
It couldn’t have been more than a moment’s shock of pain. Not to him, I mean! But oh, the shock and pain to us who loved him!
He was so ready to go. He had loved and lived for his Master for many a year. Not that he was ever much of a talker about religion; but he lived it, which is worth a deal more. I know he was readier for death than we were for the sorrow of losing him.
Sunday after Sunday we pray in Church against sudden death. “From sudden death, good Lord, deliver us!” But doesn’t sudden death mean death unprepared for? I don’t think death can ever be “sudden” in the real sense of the word to those who are ready and waiting. I think the stroke of the buffer, which startled and swept him away, was nothing more nor less to father than just the voice of his Master bidding him “Come Home!” One moment of start and fright, maybe; and then—nothing but joy.
When the train came to a stop, a little way farther on, after the cruel deed was done—not that anybody could be blamed!—several gentlemen got out; and the driver of the engine sat down on the ground, and hid his face, and cried like a child at the awfulness of what had happened. But, poor fellow, nobody could find fault with him!
Mother saw the whole from first to last. She never took her eyes away; and when the mangled body was tossed out by the wheels upon the six-foot way, she went swiftly down, never faltering, and knelt beside it, and wouldn’t be torn away till the doctor came and told her all was over—as she might have seen. But they said she didn’t seem to see. Her eyes were fixed, and she never spoke a word, nor shed a tear.
I saw nothing more after the moment that the buffer struck father. It must have been a long faint. When I struggled back to sense, with a strange dreadful feeling that some sort of thunderbolt had fallen on us, Mr. Baitson and Lady Arthur and Mrs. Hammond were all standing over me, and I was down on the floor in our kitchen.
“Poor things! How terrible for them!” I heard Lady Arthur say.
“And they seeing it all! Why, it’s enough to kill ‘em—more than enough,” Mrs. Hammond said, in the brisk sort of way she had.
“Hush!” Mr. Baitson said, quite low.
And I opened my eyes, and looked at them all three. I didn’t know what had happened, and I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to be told. I only felt it was something frightful—something awful.
“Poor dear! I do believe it’ll kill her!” says Mrs. Hammond, with a click of her tongue meaning pity.
Mr. Baitson turned upon her, more fierce-like than I’d ever seen him, for he was commonly so quiet.
“If you can’t be silent, Mrs. Hammond, you will please to leave the room,” says he, under his breath, as it were; and Mrs. Hammond looked all taken aback, the more as Lady Arthur added—
“Hammond, you forget yourself! How can you be so unwise?”
And then Lady Arthur did nigh as unwisely herself, for she stooped down to kiss my forehead, and burst into tears.
“Hush! No agitation, pray!” Mr. Baitson says, in the same voice.
But somehow that kiss of Lady Arthur’s, being uncommon and unexpected, woke me up, and my memory too. In a moment I saw the train rushing up, and father standing on the line, and I tried to shriek “Father!” but the word wouldn’t come. I think I struggled up, sitting, and somebody got hold of my hand, and then I seemed to hear the buffer strike poor father, and everything turned again into a black mist.
I don’t seem to have any clear remembrance of the next coming-to, except that I was in bed, and a sort of horror was on me, and I called for mother, and she didn’t come. Then I got so tired, I didn’t know how to bear myself, nor how to lie; and Mr. Baitson gave me something to drink; and after that I seemed to go off sound asleep.
I haven’t a notion how long the sleep lasted. It might have been hours, or days, or weeks, if I’m to tell from my own feelings.
When I woke up, it was night. I was in my bed still, and a candle was burning. Somebody was leaning back in a chair, sound asleep. I sat up slowly, and looked at her, and I made out gradually that it was Mrs. Hammond.
I didn’t want Mrs. Hammond, and I didn’t want her to speak to me. I had woke up better, and quite clear in mind. Only I had a feeling that I mustn’t let myself think yet about what was come to us.
Something had happened—something dreadful—and down in my heart I knew what it was. But I tried to think I didn’t know. I wanted to see and speak to mother. And if I began to think about the other, I shouldn’t be able.
I got out of bed, stepping softly, and put on my dressing-gown. It wasn’t easy, I was that weak and shaken; but still I did it. And I took the candle in my hand, swaying as I walked, for I could scarce keep myself upright. Passing the glass, I had a glimpse of such a white changed face. It didn’t look like Kitty Phrynne. But I went straight to the door, and out upon the landing.
There wasn’t a sound nor a stir outside, except that the floor creaked beneath me. I waited a moment, and listened.
Father and mother’s room was opposite, and the door stood ajar. I had a sort of wonder—were they both sleeping there quietly?
Well, they wouldn’t hear me, if I peeped in. I thought I would: just to make sure all was right. Mother would tell me I was silly, but that wouldn’t matter.
I said all this to myself, in my thoughts, knowing it wasn’t true, yet somehow half believing it.
When I pushed open the door of the room, I found it dark within. So I went softly on towards the bed, carrying my candle, and I found it hadn’t been slept in.
I stayed a moment, looking, and feeling, oh so strange! I didn’t know what to let myself think.
Then I saw I wasn’t alone. Somebody was sitting in a chair near the fireplace; sitting still, her hands folded together. I went a step or two nearer, and stopped again. For it was mother; and I was frightened to see mother like that, all alone in the dark, not stirring nor speaking.
She hadn’t undressed; and her face was pale, with a sort of stiffened look. But she wasn’t unconscious; for her eyes were following me about, staring hard in a cold dull way. I had never seen her so before.
“Mother!” I said, and I went nearer.
But she didn’t answer.
I said again “Mother!”
There wasn’t a movement, only her eyes were on me still.
Then I came almost close. I wanted to take her hand. I did so crave a kiss, and a word of comfort.
But all of a sudden she drew her chair back.
“Keep off!” says she, in a rough voice, quite hoarse, not like mother’s.
I began to shake all over, and turned queer again.
“Mother, don’t you know me?” says I. “It’s your little Kitty. Don’t you know me?”
“Keep off!” says she, just in the same way.
I think if I hadn’t been able to cry, I must have fainted again; but I found myself the next moment sobbing most dreadfully, not able to stop, and holding on to the foot of the bed, not able to stand alone.
Mother didn’t stir, nor show any pity. She only kept her eyes fixed in that cold stare.
But my sobbing woke up Mrs. Hammond, and she bustled across into mother’s room in no time.
“Dear, dear, dear me!” says she, in a fluster, and half-vexed. “Kitty, whatever are you after?” says she; “coming in here, and you wasn’t to leave your bed! Why, Mrs. Phrynne, you don’t mean to say you’re up and dressed still, and it’s two o’clock in the morning. So particular as I begged you to make haste into bed!—now, didn’t I? I don’t know whatever in the world Mr. Baitson ‘ll say to me, that I don’t,” says she.
“Take that girl away,” says mother, stern-like.
“Take Kitty away! Why, so I will,” says Mrs. Hammond. “Poor little Kitty! she isn’t fit to be up, I’m sure—nor you neither, for the matter of that. Come, you’ll make haste into bed now, won’t you? And Kitty’s going to get to sleep again. Give her a kiss now before she goes, won’t you, Mrs. Phrynne?”
But mother said “No!” as hard as could be, and turned her head away.
I didn’t know how to bear it. I threw myself down on the floor at her feet, and I cried in a sort of shriek, “O mother, mother, forgive me! O mother, love me!” But she wouldn’t say one word, and only pushed her chair farther back out of my reach.
Mrs. Hammond pulled me up, and got me somehow across the passage, pretty near carrying me, I think.
“It’s no manner of use talking to your mother,” says she. “Don’t you see she isn’t her proper self? The shock’s turned her brain, I do believe; and she won’t have nothing to do with you yet. I don’t know whatever Mr. Baitson ‘ll say to me if I don’t get her into bed, and she’s as obstinate as a mule; but I’ve got to go and try again. She wouldn’t let me stay before, and I’m sure I’d no notion I was going to drop to sleep. Dear, dear me, it’s a terrible state of things. Now you just lie still, Kitty, and don’t you worry about your mother. She’ll be better soon, I make no doubt.”
I lay still, as I was told, for I was past doing anything else; but as for not worrying—well, I suppose Mrs. Hammond didn’t really mean it. She had to say something, and that did as well as anything else.
Worry is hardly the word either. It was so much deeper than “worry.”
I had no more sleep that night. Was it likely I should?
The blow that had fallen seemed too dreadful to be borne. My father, my kind gentle good father, gone from us in one moment, without warning, without good-bye! And to think that the last days of his life had been darkened and embittered by my ill-conduct and deceit! If it hadn’t been for those last words, and that last kiss of forgiveness, I think I must have died of remorse. The pain would have been more than I could bear.
The thought that his death itself might have been in part owing to what I had done—I mean to his mind being over-full—didn’t come to torture me till later. I had enough to bear without that—more than enough. As I lay through the slow hours of the early morning, racked with looking back and looking forward, I did feel as if my heart must break—as if I couldn’t live through the time that was coming.
When Mr. Baitson called, he said I must keep still, and not think of getting up; and, indeed, I had lost all wish to move. I only wanted to lie still, and to think of father’s last kiss. That was my one comfort, though tears came in floods with the recollection. But if I hadn’t spoken to him then, oh, how could I ever have borne it?
“Kitty, you must not leave your room again without my leave,” says Mr. Baitson.
“No, I won’t,” I said; “but I want mother! I want mother!”
“I hope she will be able to come to you soon,” he says gently. “Not for a day or two, at all events.”
“Is mother ill?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “There are different sorts of illness, Kitty. Such a shock must tell upon her, you know. I would rather have seen her bodily more ill, than this.”
I didn’t know what he meant, and I was too weak to ask.
“Somebody is coming to take care of you, whom you will be glad to see,” he went on.
I didn’t ask who. It only seemed so odd he should speak of me being “glad” about anything. I couldn’t think I ever should feel “glad” again.
And yet he was in the right. I knew it, two hours later, when my bedroom door opened, and Mary Russell walked in.
She looked so pale, and her eyes were red with crying. But when she sat down on the bed, and took me into her arms, I did feel a sort of rest that was almost like gladness.
“My poor Kitty!” she whispered.
“I don’t think I believe it,” I said, looking up in her face. “I don’t think it’s true.”
Then I broke down, and cried pitifully. But soon I said again, “It isn’t true. It can’t be true. I think we shall wake up.”
“Yes, by-and-by,” she said. “When we wake up in heaven, all sorrow over. That will be a wonderful awakening, Kitty,” says she. “And, dear, you’ll come there to meet him,” says she.
“O Mary, you won’t go! you won’t leave us!” I begged; for I felt as if there was nobody else to rest on.
“No,” she answered. “I am come to stay, so long as you both want me.”
“Mother wants you,” I said. “She doesn’t love me any more.”
“Kitty, it is not that,” Mary answered. “You mustn’t think it for a moment. Your poor mother isn’t fully herself with the trouble. If she could cry she would be better, but she can’t shed a tear, and till she does—”
“She wouldn’t kiss me,” I said. “Oh, I know I deserve it. I know it’s the punishment.”
Mary let me say so much, and then she told me not to talk any more. She whispered softly something about the love of God, and how He would take care of us all.
The difference of having her there! But nothing could lighten the great heavy load of pain.
We did not speak of Walter. His name never once came up. I thought of him, yet hardly cared to ask or hear. I could only feel that my father was gone. Everything to do with Walter seemed so small and far away—except the sorrow he and I had caused to father those last few days.
I was in bed about a fortnight, not able to get up: not regularly ill, but too weak and knocked down for anything else. And all that fortnight mother never came into my room.
She was up and about, I knew that. I could hear her step on the stairs, slow and dragging, but still mother’s step. She was busy about the house, doing her usual work; and Mr. Baitson said it was better for her than sitting still to brood, though she often did that too.
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