CHAPTER XXXVI.AN OBSTINATE WOMAN.
Janetta, the indiscreet maid, would never forget the night when she blurted out the news of the railway wreck to her ailing mistress and sent her into that long, deathly swoon.
Mrs. Varian was not in the habit of fainting, and it gave Janetta a terrible scare, especially when the usual simple remedies failed to revive the unconscious lady.
Pale as a marble figure, her pallor heightened by the loosened tresses of raven hair and the inky lashes lying heavily against her cheek, she lay among the pillows, and though Janetta tried frantically first one thing and then another, no breath stirred the pulseless bosom of her mistress.
She ran down-stairs for a doctor, but every medico in the neighborhood had been summoned to the relief of the victims of the wreck. She could get no assistance for an hour, except that of terrified women.
Among them they succeeded in rousing her momentarily to a consciousness of the situation; but almost as soon as her dark eyes opened, she closed them again, murmuring mournfully:
“Let me die.”
And the remembrance of her trouble sent her immediately off into another spell almost as long as the first one.
The frightened and sympathetic women helped Janetta with all their skill and knowledge, until in about half an hour they saw Mrs. Varian’s breast heave faintly and her eyelids flutter.
“She’s coming to again, thank the Lord!” sobbed Janetta. “Now one of you women step in the next room and ask that doctor in there trying to bring a dead man to life to come in here and help us, and if he won’t come, to send me word how to stop her from going off again as soon as she opens her eyes and remembers.”
The house-maid went, and the housekeeper said:
“The man looked dead to me, but that doctor thought it might be temporary unconsciousness, and won’t leave off trying to save him till he’s sure. But, la! his leg was broke, and there’s a cut on the head—concussion of the brain, maybe, so the doctor said. It’s a pity for the poor man. He was a beauty of a fellow.”
“Wonder who he was?” observed another, while Mrs. Varian’s breathing grew more pronounced, and her dark eyes opened eagerly, as the housekeeper replied:
“His sister was with him—an old lady that didn’t get hurt at all, though her servant did. She said his name was Dawn.”
There was a faint, strangled gasp from the bed, and at that moment the physician entered the room.
“Oh, doctor, that poor man! did he ever come to?” eagerly inquired one of the women.
He answered in his quiet, professional tone:
“Yes; he recovered consciousness ten minutes ago; but I almost fear I had as well have let him go without disturbing his peace. He is more than likely fatally injured.”
Then he turned his attention to the patient, almost starting in alarm at the preternaturally solemn look of the great, wide open dark eyes.
But if he had but known it, his first words had been more potent than medicine in aiding her recovery.
“You have received a great shock, and I must immediately quiet your nerves,” he said, as his cool, steady fingers touched her pulse.
“Bend lower. I must speak to you,” she murmured, faintly.
He stooped down, and she whispered:
“Send away all but my maid.”
He looked around, and repeated:
“It is better for all these kind friends to withdraw now, as my patient will need absolute quiet. Her maid, of course, will remain.”
They all stole away very quietly, and he began to prepare a soothing potion for his strangely beautiful patient.
He was startled when she murmured:
“Doctor, you may give me something to strengthen me, but I will not take an opiate.”
“But, my dear lady—” he began, only to be interrupted by a feeble but resolute voice:
“No buts, my dear doctor, for my maid here can tell you that no one ever disputes my will. I must be strengthened, I tell you, for in a few minutes I shall go into the next room to visit your fatally injured patient.He is an old—friend—of mine, and I shall get you to send a telegram for me summoning his relations to his death-bed.”
“His sister is here,” he replied, pressing to her lips the strengthening draught she demanded.
She swallowed it, sighed and replied:
“There are others, sir—a daughter for one, and—but, Janetta, bring pencil and paper, and copy what I dictate.”
With wonderful strength and self-command for one recovering from such a seizure, she dictated the message that Arthur received the same night.
“Doctor, can you have this sent at once?” she inquired.
He replied dubiously:
“I will do so as soon as possible, but the telegraph line is very busy. There are seven victims.”
“Poor souls!—this must go at once at any cost. Do you hear, doctor? Send it at once if it costs a little fortune! They are so far away, his friends—and what if they come—too late!” her proud voice breaking.
“I will do my best—and as for you, madame, I advise you to rest quietly in your bed all night, or I will not answer for the consequences to your outraged nerves.”
“I tell you, sir, I will get up and go to that dying man at whatever cost to myself.”
“What an imperious woman!” he thought, and answered aloud:
“At least lie here until I send off the telegram and bring you news of my patient.”
“Tell me first, is there any immediate prospect of his death?” shudderingly.
“None that I could see. There is a fracture of the left leg and a cut on his head. Unless there are internal injuries, he might stand a chance, a bare chance, for recovery, but that long syncope was so alarming that I have scarcely any hope of saving him.”
“I will rest here till you return, doctor, then I must go to him. I tell you no one shall prevent me. I knew him long ago. My duty is by his side now.”
He saw by her frantic obstinacy that there was more beneath the surface than her words revealed. To oppose her would be quite useless.
So he said, assentingly:
“It shall be as you wish, and perhaps his sister will be glad of your help. She is a feeble old woman, sadly shaken by the shock. But at least lie quiet till my return, perfectly quiet, please.”
“I will,” she replied, reluctantly enough; and when he was gone, she turned toward Janetta, saying:
“This wounded man, Mr. Dawn, was a dear friend of my youth, and for the sake of past days, we must help his sister to nurse him till his daughter comes—or till he dies,” shudderingly again.
Janetta replied with secret amazement:
“I will do my best, madame, and I have been counted a skillful nurse, but I think you are quite too ill to leave your room—at least till to-morrow.”
“I am stronger than you think. My will-power will help me through,” replied the obstinate lady; and then she asked Janetta to dim the light and throw a gauze handkerchief over her face.
Janetta obeyed, then lay down on a sofa to watch andwait for the doctor’s return. She pretended to be asleep, thinking that this would suit her mistress best.
Soon she heard low, stifled sobs from beneath the tiny handkerchief, and guessed that an hysterical mood had followed on Mrs. Varian’s startling illness and agitation.
It was remarkable for Mrs. Varian—the proud, the cold, the imperious woman—but Janetta knew it was best to take no notice and attempt no soothing. The icy crust of years was broken up at last, and tears must have their way. They were the greatest panacea for hidden grief. But the alert maid said to herself:
“Such grief is not for an old friend simply. Doubtless he was once her lover. Then estrangement followed and broke their vows. I remember now that she became ill on the train at the sight of him, and abruptly changed her mind, getting off here to spend the night. Well, the Lord’s hand was in it, for we might have been killed had we stayed on the train,” she concluded, without stopping to ask herself why she and Mrs. Varian should have been of so much more value to the world than others that He should have taken special care to save their lives.
It touched her deeply to hear that stifled sobbing, and she longed to speak some comforting words; but she knew it was not best, but lay still till the passion exhausted itself and Mrs. Varian was passive once more awaiting the doctor’s return.
It was an hour before he returned, and said:
“I have succeeded in sending off the telegram, and I find Mr. Dawn in a comatose state from which nothing perhaps can rouse him till to-morrow. It would be quite useless your going to him.”
“Yet, doctor, I must look upon his face to-night!” And she raised herself in bed, throwing out beseeching hands.
“I will wait then in the corridor for you and your maid,” he replied, withdrawing.
Janetta quickly attired her mistress in a comfortable robe, and gathered her dark, streaming tresses into a loose knot. Giving her the support of her arm, she led her out to the old doctor, who quickly came forward to meet them.
“I have just sent the sister—old Mrs. Flint—to bed, as she will not be needed now,” he said, leading Mrs. Varian into his patient’s room.
She needed his arm, for she trembled like a leaf in a gale. All her pride was trampled in the dust by the love of old days that rushed over her like a storm, laying waste all the barriers that anger and scorn had raised between her heart and the man lying there so deathly white and still, as if hovering Death had already claimed him for his victim.
Doctor Deane drew forward a large arm-chair to the side of the bed, placed Mrs. Varian in it, and abruptly withdrew, beckoning Janetta to follow.
“You may wait outside the door while I go in to see another patient. I think the lady would prefer to be alone for a time,” he said; for he also had his suspicions of something uncommon in the past of his two strange patients.
He was right. Mrs. Varian was glad at last to be alone with Everard Dawn.
She gazed with despairing eyes at his bandaged head, silent, pallid lips and closed blue eyes.
She bent her haughty head and pressed her fevered lips on the cold white hand that lay outside the cover, murmuring passionate words:
“Oh, Everard, it is Pauline! Do you not know it is Pauline? Oh, do not die without one word to me, one word of love and pity—you who used to love me so! Is all the old love dead? Oh, you wronged me bitterly, Everard, but I can not hate you any longer. The old love rises in me like an ice-bound stream released by the sunlight, and drowns me in its overflow. Oh, Everard, my loved and lost!”