Carolina Lee Part 11

"Exactly--just to show that He could. Well, then I plunged into a madness I called gaiety, and grew more and more unhappy because I saw that each day I was putting myself further and further from the man I loved. Then, as if to fill my already full cup to overflowing, mamma grew very much worse, so much so that I wanted her to die. I really felt that she had exhausted all that _materia medica_ could do for her, and that death was the only way to end it, both for her and for us. Then I heard of a Christian Science pract.i.tioner, named Mrs. Seixas. I went to see her, and, impossible as it may sound, in the first fifteen minutes, I had told her the whole truth, mortifying as it was. But she seemed not only to inspire confidence, but to radiate help. I felt that, although I was a perfect stranger to her, yet she wanted to help me--that she would go out of her way to do it, and that the reason she would do it was because she loved much. I took her to mamma that same day, and mamma's complete healing is so great a marvel that we never can get used to it. Our happiness is almost too much to bear."

Rosemary's eyes filled with tears which rolled down her cheeks.

Carolina viewed her with an astonishment that she could ill conceal.

Rosemary G.o.ddard to be talking, nay, more, feeling like that! A question was so unmistakably in Carolina's eyes, which her tongue could not gain permission to utter, that Rosemary found herself answering it.

"Then, when G.o.d had made me worthy of a good man's love, the desire of my heart came to me, in so sweet and natural a way that it broke down the last barrier of pride and left me humbly at the foot of the cross, marvelling at G.o.d's goodness!"

Carolina drew Rosemary's face down to hers and laid her cheek against it.

There was a long silence between them. Then Carolina said, fearfully:

"My hip is broken. Can that be cured?"

"G.o.d can do anything."

"So that I needn't use crutches?"

"Most certainly. You won't even limp. You will be made perfectly whole!"

"Just as I was before?"

"Just as you were before--except these bonds."

Carolina thought a moment.

"But what do I want to get well for? I have lost Guildford!"

"Nothing can be lost in Truth!"

Rosemary felt her two hands grasped firmly, and without thinking Carolina raised herself to a sitting posture in bed without pain.

"Do you mean to tell me that there is the--that Christian Science teaches that there is any remote possibility of my getting Guildford back?"

"Guildford belongs to you, and has never been lost. It is only error which makes such a law for you. Truth emanc.i.p.ates everybody and everything."

"I don't believe it!" said Carolina. "I can't! It's too good to be true! I don't understand it!"

"You do understand it!" said Rosemary.

"What makes you think so?"

"Because you are sitting up in bed, and you raised yourself without pain. That is because, for a moment, your soul accepted G.o.d as Love and the source of all supply. Unconsciously your mind looked into His mind, and you saw the truth."

"I believe that I could get up!" said Carolina, in a sort of ecstasy.

"I know that you can! Give me your hand."

Rosemary helped Carolina to dress, and in half an hour Carolina was sitting, for the first time in months, in a chair by the window, with Rosemary reading and marking for her the pa.s.sages in "Science and Health" which bore immediately upon her case. Carolina's mind opened under it like a flower.

"Oh, I need so much teaching!" cried Carolina. "Who will help me?"

"Did you know that my mother is a pract.i.tioner and holds cla.s.ses?" asked Rosemary.

Carolina almost felt her new-found rock melting beneath her feet at this intelligence.

"No, I did not. Will she take me? And will you help?"

"We will both do all we can for you with the greatest joy."

When Rosemary left, Kate came in and Carolina explained everything to her.

Kate called Noel St. Quentin by telephone and told him that Carolina had gone insane.

The next morning Carolina awakened with the happy consciousness that something pleasant had happened. Hitherto she had gone to sleep, glad of the respite of a few hours of unconsciousness. Simply not to know--simply not to be awake and to realize her load of pain and disappointment, had been her prayer. With her definite aim in life swept away, she felt rudderless, forlorn, despairing.

But suddenly everything was changed. Her weakness vanished as if by magic. Instead of dreading to open her eyes and clarify her brain for thought her mind leaped to a lucid clearness without effort. The glow of happiness which pervaded her she could liken to nothing so much as the awakening in her hated school-days to the knowledge that to-day was Sat.u.r.day!

And what had brought her healing? Only a few hours' talk from Rosemary G.o.ddard which seemed to untangle all the knots of her existence and to wipe the mists from the window-panes, out of which she had been vainly trying to get a clear view of her life, its reason for being, and its duties. Always the question with Carolina had been "To what end?" And all the answers had been vague and unsatisfactory, until suddenly she had stumbled by reason of her infirmity upon one who could answer her vehement questions clearly and lucidly.

Emerson must have been largely of the thought when he wrote: "Put fear under thy feet!" Carolina, with her sensitive, mystic nature had been, in common with all imaginative persons, literally a slave to her fear.

What could it mean, this sudden freedom, except that she had found the only true way out of bondage?

With a little a.s.sistance, she was able to dress herself and sit in a chair to wait for the promised visit of Rosemary's mother.

She had known of Mrs. G.o.ddard for years, although she seldom appeared in public. No one spoke the name of her malady, but everyone knew of her intense suffering and of the days she spent unconscious from the effects of quieting drugs. Secretly every one expected to hear at any time of Mrs. G.o.ddard's madness or death, and Carolina had heard no news of her except what Rosemary had said until Mrs. G.o.ddard was announced and found her, dressed and sitting up to meet her guest, with outstretched hand and happy, smiling face. As usual Carolina's expressive countenance betrayed her.

"No wonder you look surprised, my dear," said Mrs. G.o.ddard, kissing the girl on the cheek with warmth. "Rosemary evidently did not have time yesterday to tell you what brought us both into Science. I was cured of cancer in its worst form. Did you never know?"

"I knew you were very, very ill and suffered horribly," said Carolina, "but--"

"I know. My friends were very kind. They never gave it a name. But that was it."

"Oh, how wonderful!" cried Carolina, with s.h.i.+ning eyes.

"Not half as wonderful as what it did for me mentally," said Mrs.

G.o.ddard. "I used to feel that I had brought my malady on myself by my way of life. I was the gayest of the gay in my youth, and in middle life I found that stimulants had such a hold on me that I was not myself unless I was drugged. I ran the gauntlet of those until I came to morphine. There I stayed, and whether the morphine came of the cancer or the cancer of the morphine I never knew. But the horror of my life I can readily recall. It came to a point when the best physicians and surgeons in New York said that there must be an operation and frankly added that no one could tell whether I would come out of it or not.

Pleasant, wasn't it?"

Carolina only clasped her hands together, and Mrs. G.o.ddard proceeded:

"Then Rosemary heard of Christian Science, and without saying a word to me, she looked up the names of one or two pract.i.tioners and called. The first one she did not care for and came away discouraged. But something told her to try again, and her second attempt led her to the door of the angel of healing who, under G.o.d, worked this cure, Mrs. Seixas.

Rosemary had not talked with her ten minutes before she knew that she had been led aright. She wanted Mrs. Seixas to get into the brougham and come at once, but according to Science practice she insisted upon Rosemary's coming home and getting my consent.

"You can imagine that I was not slow to accept the hope it offered, and that same afternoon I had my first treatment. Carolina, inside of an hour the pain all left me! Child, you have suffered, so you know, you can fathom as many cannot, what that means! I promised when the pain returned to call her by telephone, instead of taking the morphine, but it never did come back! She gave me treatments from her office every hour for the rest of the day and came back after dinner that night and gave me another. That was three years ago. To-day I am a well woman.

I eat whatever I please and not once has the old craving for stimulants attacked me. I am a free woman and a very happy one!"

"Oh, Mrs. G.o.ddard," cried Carolina, "thank you so much for telling me.

It helps me to know that I am being cured!"