An Easter Dawn

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Title:     An Easter Dawn
Author: Eugenia Dunlap Potts [More Titles by Potts]

"AND THERE WAS LIGHT"

"Are you inflexible, Doris? Can nothing alter your decision?"

"Spare us both further pain, Warner. I cannot leave my blind mother. It is useless to ask it."

"And do I ask it? You can still care for your mother. I do not ask you to leave her."

The girl shook her head sadly.

"As a wife I must go with my husband. In the conflict of duties the mother must yield. No, no, it would be cruel."

"Even admitting this, is there not a way out of it? Will she not try to have her sight restored? Once relieved she might depend upon others, and be content without you. Then you could come to me."

"I dare not urge this. Think what she endured before--the operation, the mismanagement, the suffering, and the final loss of the eye itself. Oh, Warner, the recollection of that terrible time makes me shudder. I pray that she may forget it. I dare not urge another trial. Spare me that."

There was silence in the room, broken only by the ticking of the little mantle clock, till in a low suppressed voice she continued:

"And you know the awful blow that came so soon after, that has broken her down. She clings to me in so many ways. No, Warner, she might yield to my persuasions, but I should never forgive myself if things went wrong."

"Wrong?" echoed the man, bitter pain tugging at his heart. "How much more wrong could things go? But it is nothing to you that my life is made desolate, that loving you through all its best years I must quietly give you up, and that, too, when I am in condition to take care of you. Have I shown no consideration by waiting? Have I ever pressed my claim till I knew I could make you comfortable and happy? But why do I cringe and beg like this?" he added, setting his teeth hard with the pain of disappointment. "If you really loved me you could not quibble about the thing you call duty." And he strode back and forth, refusing to take in the situation.

Then the girl's forced composure gave way. This was not her first tilt with the man she loved, but he had never been so hard, so desperate, so unjust. Heroically she had tried to do her duty. Ignominously she now felt herself faltering in the way.

He could not bear her tears. The sight of her grief drove him from himself. Pausing before her, he said:

"Doris, I yield. Let it be as you say."

And he lifted her hand to his lips in adieu; though in his powerfully imposed self-restraint he could not be all tenderness. His tones were gentle, and in the look he cast upon her bowed figure there was no reproach.

He was gone; and Doris went back to the mother who was unconscious that she was wrecking the happiness of this devoted child; the only one left to her. One by one they had married and gone, and now in her darkened world she was enduring a more fearful weight of woe than blindness. Ralph, her youngest, and her darling, the Benjamin of her old age, had fled the country under the awful ban of murder. His employer, a hard man, had been found dead in his private office from a blow on the back of the head. Suspicion pointed to Ralph, who, poor, hot-headed fellow, had been heard to vow vengeance against the dead man for his harshness. A fellow clerk warned him in time to flee from the officers of the law. He could not go without seeing his mother. In the silence of the night he had clasped her trembling form in his stalwart young arms, and in broken, quivering tones, bade her trust in his innocence. "Mother, believe me, only believe me; I did not do it," and sped on in the darkness, an exile. She did believe in him. She would almost as soon have doubted her Savior's love. But her stern, unbending pride of race was wounded. Her loving heart was pierced in its tenderest spot, and in a few short weeks she was a fretful, peevish invalid, making wholesale but unconscious draughts upon her noble daughter's patience.

Five years had gone by since these household fetters had been forged for Doris. Young and lovely, she adorned every circle. Offers of marriage were unheeded, and her heart was untouched till Warner Douglas, the young physician, came. They had met when she was a school girl and he a student in the same town; and now it was revealed to her why he had chosen her place of residence as the starting point in his career. So they had loved and hoped on only to be crushed at last.

The day after her final rejection of his suit, the post brought a note that ran thus:

"Doris, good-bye; not for a day, or a week, but as long as may require to perfect my plans. I have spent a sleepless night, and this is my conclusion. There is one way out of this. Maddening as is your decision, I am forced to yield. But I shall not give you up without a struggle. I have determined to study the human eye as a specialty. The savings I had meant to devote to our united lives shall go to this end. If I do not write often and in lover-like fashion, it will be because I must be firm in my undertaking. When I have mastered the science, I hope to come back to you with healing in my hand for the mother for whose infirmities you sacrifice me. Do not think me bitter; I am trying to be kind. In any case, be my probation long or short, I shall be

"Ever yours,

"WARNER DOUGLAS."

Long Doris wept heart-breaking tears over this letter. Had she decided aright? She mused far into the night, and at last her tired spirit found comfort in the hope that her lover might one day unlock the prison doors of both her mother and herself. Next day and for many days she went about her duties mechanically, but her blind mother missed nothing, knew nothing. Wearisome vigils were those! Not for a moment could she trust her charge alone. With the perverseness of age she would try to grope her way about, and more than once had she wandered into danger. Besides this active, bodily vigilance, there were papers and books to read to her, and the post-office was fairly haunted by fruitless messages for tidings of the wandering boy. "How long, O Lord, how long?" was the burden of the mother's heart, and upon Doris fell the hopeless task of comforting.

Two years dragged their slow lengths. Time and sorrow made little change in Doris Hadyn. The fair, round cheeks had lost none of their bloom, for duty well performed brings its own reward. She was the moving spirit in all good works, and several of her young friends had gradually come to share her time in amusing and interesting her invalid mother.

Her lover's departure, leaving his patients to a brother physician, had been a nine-days' wonder, but now all were rejoicing in his success at the city hospitals. Several wonderful operations had made a great noise, and he awoke one morning to find himself famous. No more anxious care for the savings he had intended for himself and his bride. They were returning upon him tenfold. At last he wrote to Doris:

"Are you waiting for me? I am coming, not for an hour, or for a day, but to cast my lot once more near you. But first I shall come as the physician, since till that mission is ended, I am forbidden to come as a lover.

"WARNER."

Not even the reproach in this laconic letter could tinge her joy. He was coming; that was uppermost. He came, and Doris met him as she had parted--loving and faithful; so proud of him, too, but unalterable in her duty as before. She found his whole nature widened and broadened, just as in appearance he was more manly. He was then a clever practitioner: he was now the renowned oculist. From the first day his office swarmed with patients. Old, chronic cases seemed to spring up everywhere, and he found himself in a fair way of being taxed beyond the limit.

Gently he began his ministrations to the mother of his beloved. When he had won her confidence, he felt that the battle was half fought. She soon expressed a willingness to submit to anything, to undergo any pain, if only her sight might be restored. This he could not promise, but his experienced eye could detect nothing worse than a cataract obstructing the vision, and he convinced her that it was worth the trial.

One mild winter day she was taken to his office now fitted up with all the belongings of his service. With bated breath he adjusted his instrument. Heavy portieres shut out the daylight. Steadily the electric ray was thrown into the darkened eye. Shrinking with a thousand fears, and tortured with suspense, Doris sank upon a sofa. In silence he applied his tests. She could hear the beatings of her heart. Softly he questioned his patient, who hung upon his words for her life sentence.

At last, lying a hand almost caressingly upon each shoulder, he said:

"My dear Mrs. Hadyn, I think I can give you sight."

An involuntary cry broke from her lips, and Doris burst into convulsive tears. Then relaxing the tension of these many weary years, the bearer of good tidings folded his arms about the slight form for a moment as he led her to her mother. Not yet, even, would he give full rein to his hopes. He might fail. There was inflammation lurking behind the eye-ball, caused by contagion from its fellow, which, when carelessly bandaged too closely, had burst from its socket, irretrievably lost. He could but try; and now his humanity as well as his love nerved him to the task.

A preliminary course of treatment was ordered, and the Lenten season was nearly over when the eye was declared ready for the knife. The day was appointed, and the patient's own room was selected as the place. The night before, the doctor came in all worn and tired out from a hurried call to a neighboring city hospital. Doris knew his step and met him at the door.

"Come with me, Doris, into the library," he said.

Nervous with undefined apprehension, she followed him.

"Can you bear good news?" he asked, bending upon her eyes which held for her the light of loving sympathy. "Will you be as brave as you have been all these years? I was called away yesterday----"

"Ralph!" she gasped, catching his arm in the excitement of hope.

"Yes--Ralph," he said, placing his arm about her; "he is cleared at last. The man I was called to see was James Green, Ralph's fellow-clerk. He was run down by a heavy furniture van and badly crushed. I could not save him, but he knew me, and gave me this paper, which is a confession of his guilt. It completely exonerates your brother."

"Thank God!" she fervently exclaimed, clasping the paper to her heart.

"Shall we tell Mrs. Haydn?" he asked, still gravely supporting her.

"By all means," was her happy answer through shining tears; "now--this moment," leading him away. "Joy does not kill."

It did not kill; it only braced the grateful sufferer for the ordeal set for the next day.

"Find my boy as soon as you can and bring him to me," was her prayer; and with a sense of comfort long a stranger, the mother slept peacefully on this, her last night perhaps, of blindness.

The next day she was made ready for her couch, where she was to lie in perfect quiet after the operation. At two o'clock, Dr. Douglas, with two young assistants, entered easily and cheerfully upon his task.

"Are you strong enough to witness it?" he asked in alow voice, as Doris took her stand.

She bowed her head, and the work began. It was neither long nor difficult. A little cocaine in the eye, a quick, perpendicular incision, the deft scooping from the orifice of a hard, pearly ball like an opal setting, a cleansing of film by one skillful sweep, and all was over.

"Close the eye for a moment," was his order, as incomplete silence the trio hung upon the result.

"Now open it and look."

As the lids parted, he held his hand before them, moving his fingers in quick succession.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Well," he spoke playfully, as to a child; "what is it? I want you to tell me. Do you see anything?"

"Yes, I see--a hand, but--it looks blue."

At this the surgeon clasped his hands in thanksgiving, and exclaimed: "Victory! If you did not see the blue coloring at first, madam, I should be in despair."

Yes, victory was his, for his skill and for his love. He continued his tests, first by resting the eye, then by bringing objects within the range of vision. At last he gently led Doris in full view.

"It is Doris, my faithful, patient child, whose dear face I have not seen for so long," she said with emotion that threatened tears, but this the doctor forbade, and proceeded at once to carefully seal the patient's eyelids.

"Keep the room light, and watch her day and night. She must not touch the eye even in sleep," was his parting injunction.

"But, doctor, don't you bandage the eye? And my room was kept dark after the other operation was performed."

"No, madam, the room must be light, and I do not bandage the eye."

The days went by, each new one revealing some half-forgotten picture to the patient. She already loved Dr. Douglas as a son, and her bodily infirmities, real or fancied, were fast vanishing away. Ralph had been found, and a telegram said he was coming. Easter eve was here, and as the doctor took leave his grateful patient bade him good-night with unusual feeling,

"Through you," she said, "I am made to realize the precious promise, 'At evening time it shall be light.' Think what this anniversary must be to me! The morning will celebrate the resurrection of Him who was the Light of the world. Light, light, everywhere! How can I be thankful enough!"

"To-morrow I will set you free, my dear madam, and if you feel that I have done you a service, perhaps I may show you how to repay me." And with a warm pressure of her hand, and an unspoken good-night to Doris, he went away.

At the dawn of the morning Doris stood beside her mother when she awoke, and said lightly: "Whom do you want to see besides your grumpy old Doris, this bright morning?"

"Is he here? Ralph--my boy--has he come?" And his fond arms enwrapped her in joy too deep for words. She could not look at him enough--her bronzed and bearded baby boy.

Later on the doctor called, but he did not at once interrupt the mother and son. When at last he walked into the cheerful family room it was with Doris by his side.

"My dear Mrs. Hadyn," he began, "do you want to make me as grateful as you say you are? If so, only look!"

With the uncertain timidity she had not yet learned to overcome, she directed her once sightless eyes toward him. He stood with Doris clasped in his arms. The mother had not heeded his words of the previous evening, for they bore no hidden meaning to her. A light now broke over her features, while Ralph smilingly watched her.

"Doris, my child, how long have you loved this man?" were the only words she found to say.

"So long, mother, that I shall not try to remember."

[The end]
Eugenia Dunlap Potts's Short Story: An Easter Dawn

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