Were Death so unlike Sleep,Caught this way? Death's to fear from flame, or steel,Or poison doubtless; but from water--feel!Robert Browning.
I met no one in the hall or on the piazza. The house was silent and deserted: one of the maids was closing the parlor windows. She did not look at me with any surprise, for she had not probably heard that I was ill.
Once in the open air I felt stronger. I took the river-path, and walked quickly, feeling freed from a nightmare: and my mind was filled with one thought. "In a few moments I shall be beside him, I shall make him look at me, he cannot help but touch my hand." I did not think of past or future, only of the greedy, passionate present. My infatuation was at its height. I cannot imagine a passion more absorbing, more unresisted, and more dangerous. I passed quickly through the garden without even noticing the flowers that brushed against my dress.
As I reached the grove I thought for one instant of the morning that he had met me here, just where the paths intersected. At that moment I heard a step; and full of that hope, with a quick thrill, I glanced in the direction of the sound. There, not ten yards from me, coming from the opposite direction, was Richard. I felt a shock of disappointment, then fear, then anger. What right had he to dog me so? He looked at me without surprise, but as if his heart was full of bitterness and sorrow. He approached, and turned as if to walk with me.
"I want to be alone," I said angrily, moving away from him.
"No, Pauline," he answered with a sigh, as he turned from me, "you do not want to be alone."
Full of shame and anger, and jarred with the shock and fear, I went on more slowly. The wood was so silent--the river through the trees lay so still and leaden. If it had not been for the fire burning in my heart, I could have thought the world was dead.
There was not a sound but my own steps; should I soon meet him, would he be sitting in his old seat by the boat-house door, or would he be wandering along the dead, still river-bank? What should I say to him? O! he would speak. If he saw me he would have to speak.
I soon forgot that I had met Richard, that I had been angry; and again I had but this one thought.
The pine cones were slippery under my feet. I held by the old trees as I went down the bank, step by step. I had to turn and pass a clump of trees before I reached the boat-house door.
I was there! With a beating heart I stepped up on the threshold. There were two doors, one that opened on the path, one that opened on the river. The house was empty. I had a little sinking pang of disappointment, but I passed on to the door looking out on the river. By this door was a seat, empty, but on this lay a book and a straw hat. I could feel the hot blushes cover my face, my neck, as I caught sight of these. I stooped down, feeling guilty, and took up the book. It was a book which he had read daily to me in our lesson-hours. It had his name on the blank page, and was full of his pencil-marks. I meant to ask him to give me this book; I would rather have it than anything the world held, when I should be parted from him.When!I sat down on the seat beside the door, with the book lying in my lap, the straw hat on the bench. I longed to take it in my hands--to wreathe it with the clematis that grew about the door, as I had done one foolish, happy afternoon, not three weeks ago. But with a strange inconsistency, I dared not touch it; my face grew hot with blushes as I thought of it.
How should I meet him? Now that the moment I had longed for had arrived, I wondered that I had dared to long for it. I felt that if I heard his step, I should fly and hide myself from him. The recollection of that last interview in the library--which I had lived over and over, nights and days, incessantly, since then, came back with fresh force, fresh vehemence. But no step approached me, all was silent; it began to impress me strangely, and I looked about me. I don't know at what moment it was, my eye fell upon the trace of footsteps on the bank, and then on the mark of the boat dragged along the sand; a little below the boat-house it had been pushed off into the water.
I started to my feet, and ran down to the water's edge (at the boat-house the trees had been in the way of my seeing the river any distance).
I stood still, the water lapping faintly on the sand at my feet; it was hardly a sound. I looked out on the unruffled lead-colored river: there, about quarter of a mile from the bank, the boat was lying: empty --motionless. The oars were floating a few rods from her, drifting slowly, slowly, down the stream.
The sight seemed to turn my warm blood and blushes into ice: even before I had a distinct impression of what I feared, I was benumbed. But it did not take many moments for the truth, or a dread of it, to reach my brain.
I covered my eyes with my hands, then sprang up the bank and called wildly.
My voice was like a madwoman's, and it must have sounded far on that still air. In less than a moment Richard came hurrying with great strides down the path. I sprang to him, and caught his arm and dragged him to the water's edge.
"Look," I whispered--pointing to the hat and book--and then out to the boat. I read his face in terror. It grew slowly, deadly white.
"My God!" he said in a tone of awe. Then shaking me from him, sprang up the bank, and his voice was something fearful as he shouted, as he ran, for help.
There were men laboring, two or three fields off. I don't know how long it took them to get to him, nor how long to get a boat out on the water, nor what boat it was. I know they had ropes and poles, and that they were talking in eager, hurried voices, as they passed me.
I sat on the steps that led down the bank, clinging to the low railing with my hands: I had sunk down because my strength had given way all at once, and I felt as if everything were rocking and surging under me. Sometimes everything was black before me, and then again I could see plainly the wide expanse of the river, the wide expanse of the gray sky, and between them--the empty, motionless boat, and the floating oars beyond upon the tide.
The voices of the men, and the splashing of the water, when at last they were launched and pulling away from shore, made a ringing, frightful noise in my head. I watched till I saw them reach the boat--till I saw one of them get over in it. Then while they groped about with ropes and poles, and lashed their boats together, and leaned over and gazed down into the water, I watched in a strange, benumbed state.
But, by-and-by, there were some exclamations--a stir, and effort of strength. I saw them pulling in the ropes with combined movement. I saw them leaning over the side of the boat, nearest the shore, and together trying to lift something heavy over into it. I saw the water dripping as they raised it--and then I think I must have swooned. For I knew nothing further till I heard Richard's voice, and, raising my head, saw him leaping from the boat upon the bank. The other boat was further out, and was approaching slowly. I stood up as he came to me, and held by the railing.
"I want you to go up to the house," he said, gently, "there can be no good in your staying here."
"I will stay," I cried, everything coming back to me. "I will--will see him."
"There is no hope, Pauline," he said, in a quick voice, for the boat was very near the bank, "or very little--and you must not stay. Everything shall be done that can be done. I will do all. But you must not stay."
"I will," I said, frantically, trying to burst past him. He caught my arms and turned me toward the boat-house, and led me through it, out into the path that went up to the grove.
"Go home," he said, in a voice I never shall forget. "You shall not make a spectacle for these men. I have promised you I will do all. Mind you obey me strictly, and go up to your room and wait there till I come."
I don't know how I got there. I believe Bettina found me at the entrance to the garden, and helped me to the house, and put me on my bed.
An hour passed--perhaps more--and such an hour! (for I was not for a moment unconscious, after this, only deadly faint and weak), and then Richard came. The door was a little open, and he pushed it back and came in, and stood beside the bed.
I suppose the sight of me, so broken and spoiled by suffering, overcame him, for he stooped down suddenly, and kissed me, and then did not speak for a moment.
At last he said, in a voice not quite steady, "I didn't mean to be hard on you, Pauline. But you know I had to do it."
"And there isn't any--any--" I gasped for the words, and could hardly speak.
"No, none, Pauline," he said, keeping my hand in his. "The doctors have just gone away. It was all no use."
"Tell me about it," I whispered.
"About what?" he said, looking troubled.
"About how it happened."
"Nobody can tell," he answered, averting his face. "We can only conjecture about some things. Don't try to think about it. Try to rest."
"How does he look?" I whispered, clinging to his hand.
"Just the same as ever; more quiet, perhaps," he answered, looking troubled.
I gave a sort of gasp, but did not cry. I think he was frightened, for he said, uneasily, "Let me call Bettina; she can give you something--she can sit beside you."
I shook my head, and said, faintly, "Don't let her come."
"I have sent for Sophie," he said, soothingly. "She will soon be here, and will know what to do for you."
"Keep her out of this room," I cried, half raising myself, and then falling back from sudden faintness. "Don't let her comenearme," I panted, after a moment, "nor any of them, but, most of all, Sophie; remember--don't let her even look at me;" and with moaning, I turned my face down on the pillow. I had taken in about a thousandth fraction of my great calamity by that time. Every moment was giving to me some additional possession of it.
Some one at that instant called Richard, in that subdued tone that people use about a house in which there is one dead.
"I have got to go," he said, uneasily. I still kept hold of his hand. "But I will come back before very long; and I will tell Bettina to bring a chair and sit outside your door, and not let any one come in."
"That will do," I said, letting go his hand, "only I don't want my door shut tight."
I felt as if the separation were not so entire, so tremendous, while I could hear what was going on below, and know that no door was shut between us--no door! Bettina, in a moment more, had taken up her station in the passage-way outside.
I heard people coming and going quietly through the hall below. I heard doors softly shut and opened.
I knew, by some intuition, thathewas lying in the library. They moved furniture with a smothered sound; and when I heard two or three men sent off on messages by Richard, even the horses' hoofs seemed to be muffled as they struck the ground. This was the effect of the coming in of death into busy, household life. I had never been under the roof with it before.
About dusk a servant came to the door, with a tray of tea and something to eat, that Mr. Richard had sent her with.
"No," I said, "don't leave it here."
But, in a few moments, Richard himself brought it back. I can well imagine how anxious and unhappy he felt. He had, perhaps, never before had charge of any one ill or in trouble, and this was a strange experience.
"You must eat something, Pauline," he said. "I want you to. Sit up, and take this tea."
I was not inclined to dispute his will, but raised my head, and drank the tea, and ate a few mouthfuls of the biscuit. But that made me too ill, and I put the plate away from me.
"I am very sorry," I said, meekly, "but I can't eat it. I feel as if it choked me."
He seemed touched with my submissiveness, and, giving Bettina the tray, stood looking down at me as if he did not know how to say something that was in his mind. Suddenly my ear, always quick, now exaggeratedly so, caught sound of carriage-wheels. I started up and cried, "They are coming," and hid my face in my hands.
"Don't be troubled," he said, "you shall not be disturbed."
"Oh, Richard," I exclaimed, as he was going away, after another undecided movement as if to speak, "you know what I want."
"Yes, I know," he said, in a low voice.
"And now they're come, I cannot. They will see him, and I cannot."
"Be patient. I will arrange for you to go. Don't, don't, Pauline."
For I was in a sort of spasm, though no tears came, and my sobs were more like the gasps of a person being suffocated, than like one in grief.
"If you will only be quiet, I will take you down, after a few hours, when they are all gone to their rooms. Pauline, you'll kill me; don't do so--Pauline, they'll hear you. Try not to do so; that's right--lie down and try to quiet yourself, poor child. I can't bear to go away; but there is Sophie on the stairs."
He had scarcely time to reach the hall before Sophie burst upon him with almost a shriek.
"What is this horrible affair, Richard? What a terrible disgrace and scandal! we never shall get over it. Will it get in the papers, do you think? I am so ill--I have been in such a state since the news came. Such a drive home as this has been! Oh, Richard, tell me all about it quickly. Where is Pauline? how does she bear it?" making for my door.
Richard put out his hand and stopped her. I had sprung up from the bed, and stood, trembling violently, at the further extremity of the room. I do not know what I meant to do if she came in, for I was almost beside myself at that moment.
She was persistent, angry, agitated. How well I knew the curiosity that made her so intent to gain admission to me. It was not so much that I dreaded being a spectacle, as the horror and hatred I felt at being approached by her coldness and hypocrisy, while I was so sore and wounded. I was hardly responsible; I don't think I could have borne the touch of her hand.
But Richard saved me, and sent her away angry. I crept back to the bed, and lay down on it again. I heard the others whispering as they passed through the hall. Mary Leighton was crying; Charlotte was silent. I don't think I heard her voice at all.
After a long while I heard them go down, and go into the dining-room. They spoke in very subdued tones, and there was only the slightest movement of china and silver, to indicate that a meal was going on. But this seemed to give me a more frantic sense of change than anything else. I flung myself across the bed, and another of those dreadful, tearless spasms seized me. Everything--all life--was going on just the same; even in this very house they were eating and drinking as they ate and drank before--the very people who had talked with him this day; the very table at which he had sat this morning. Oh! they were so heartless and selfish: every one was; life itself was. I did not know where to turn for comfort. I had a feeling of dreading every one, of shrinking away from every one.
"Oh!" I said to myself, "if Richard is with them at the table, I never want to see him again."
But Richard was not with them. In a moment or two he came to the door, only to ask me if I wanted anything, and to say he would come back by-and-by.
There was a question which I longed so frantically to ask him, but which I dared not; my life seemed to hang on the answer.When were they going to take him away?I had heard something about trains and carriages, and I had a wild dread that it was soon to be.
I went to the door and called Richard back, and made him understand what I wanted to know. He looked troubled, and said in a low tone,
"At four o'clock we go from here to meet the earliest train. I have telegraphed his friends, and have had an answer. I am going down myself, and it is all arranged in the best way, I think. Go and lie down now, Pauline; I will come and take you down soon as the house is quiet."
Richard went away unconscious of the stab his news had given me. I had not counted on anything so sudden as this parting. While he was in the house, while I was again to look upon his face, the end had not come; there was a sort of hope, though only a hope of suffering, something to look forward to, before black monotony began its endless day.
There are blind ways provided, the foredoneHeart-weary player in this pageant worldDrops out by, letting the main masque defileBy the conspicuous portal.R. Browning.What is this world? What asken men to have?Now with his love--now in his cold grave--Alone, withouten any companie!Chaucer.
The tall old clock, which stood by the dining-room door, had struck two, and been silent many minutes, before Richard came to me. I had spent those dreadful hours in feverish restlessness: my room seemed suffocating to me. I had walked about, had put away my trinkets, I had changed my dress, and put on a white one which I had worn in the morning, and had tried to braid my hair.
The quieting of the house, it seemed, would never come. It was twelve o'clock before any one came up-stairs. I heard one door after another shut, and then sat waiting and wondering why Richard did not come, till the moments seemed to grow to centuries. At last I heard him at the door, and I went toward it trembling, and followed him into the hall. He carried a light, for up-stairs it was all dark, and when we reached the stairway, he took my hand to lead me. I was trembling very much; the hall below was dimly lit by a large lamp which had been turned low. Our steps on the bare staircase made so much noise, though we tried to move so silently. It was weird and awful. I clung to Richard's hand in silence. He led me across the hall, and stopped before the library-door. He let go my hand, and taking a key from his pocket, put it in the lock, turned it slowly, then opened the door a little way, and motioned me to enter.
Like one in a trance, I obeyed him, and went in alone. He shut the door noiselessly, and left me with the dead.
That was the great, the immense hour of my life. No vicissitude, no calamity of this mortal state, no experience that may be to come, can ever have the force, the magnitude of this. All feelings, but a child's feelings, were comparatively new to me, and here, at one moment, I had put into my hand the plummet that sounded hell; anguish, remorse, fear--a woman's heart in hopeless pain. For I will not believe that any child, that any woman, had ever loved more absolutely, more passionately, than I had loved the man who lay there dead before me. But I cannot talk about what I felt in those moments; all that concerns what I write is the external.
The--coffin was in the middle of the room, where the table ordinarily stood--where my chair had been that night, when he told me his story. Surely if I sinned, in thought, in word,thatnight, I paid its full atonement,this. Candles stood on a small table at the head of where he lay, and many flowers were about the room. The smell of verbena-leaves filled the air: a branch of them was in a vase that some one had put beside his coffin. The fresh, cool night-air came in from the large window, open at the top.
His face was, as Richard said, much as in life, only quieter. I do not know what length of time Richard left me there, but at last, I was recalled to the present, by his hand upon my shoulder, and his voice in a whisper, "Come with me now, Pauline."
I rose to my feet, hardly understanding what he said, but resisted when I did understand him.
"Come with me," he said, gently, "You shall come back again and say good-bye. Only come out into the hall and stay awhile with me; it is not good for you to be here so long."
He took my hand and led me out, shutting the door noiselessly. He took me across the hall, and into the parlor, where there was no light, except what came in from the hall. There was a sofa opposite the door, and to that he led me, standing himself before me, with his perplexed and careworn face. I was very silent for some time: all that awful time in the library, I had never made a sound: but suddenly, some thought came that reached the source of my tears, and I burst into a passion of weeping. I am not sure what it was: I think, perhaps, the sight of the piano, and the recollection of that magnificent voice that would never be heard again, Whatever it was, I bless it, for I think it saved my brain. I threw myself down upon the sofa, and clung to Richard's hand, and sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed.
Poor fellow! my tears seemed to shake him terribly. Once he turned away, and drew his hand across his brow, as if it were a little more than he could bear. But some men, like many women, are born to sacrifice.
He tried to comfort and soothe me with broken words. But what was there to say?
"Oh, Richard," I cried, "What does it all mean? why am I so punished? was it so very wicked to have loved him after I knew all? Was all this allowed to come because I did that? Answer me, tell me; tell me what you think."
"No, Pauline, I don't think that was it. Don't talk about it now. Try to be quiet. You are not fit to think about it now."
"But, Richard, what else can it mean? I know, I know that it is the truth. God wouldn't have sent such a punishment upon me if he hadn't seen my sin."
"It's more likely He sent it to--" and then he paused.
I know now he meant, it was more likely He had sent it to save me from the sins of others; but he had the holy charity not to say it.
"Oh," I cried, passionately, "When all the sin was mine, that he should have had to die: when he never came near me, never looked at me: when he would rather die than break his word to me. That night in the library, after he had told me all, he said, 'I will never look into your eyes again, I will never touch your hand;' and though we were in the same room together after that, and in the same house all this time, and though he knew I loved him so--he never looked at me, he never turned his eyes upon me; and I--I was willing to sin for him--to die for him. I would have followed him to the ends of the earth, not twelve hours ago."
"Hush, Pauline," said Richard huskily, "you don't know what you're saying--you are a child."
"No, I'm not a child--after to-day, after to-night--I am not a child--and I know too well what I say--too well--too well. Richard, you don't know what has been in my heart. That night, he held me in his arms and kissed me--when he said good-bye. Then I was innocent, for I was dazed by grief and had not come to my senses, after what he told me. But to-day I said--to-day--to have his arms around me once again--to have him kiss me once again as he kissed me then--I would go away from all I ever had been taught of right and duty, and would be satisfied."
"Then, thank God for what has come," said Richard, hoarsely, wiping from his forehead the great drops that had broken out upon it.
"No!" I cried with a fresh burst of weeping. "No, I cannot thank God, for I want him back again.I want him. I had rather die than be separated from him. I cannot thank God for taking him away from me. Oh, Richard, what shall I do? I loved him, loved him so. Don't look so stern; don't turn away from me. You used to love me. Could you thank God for taking me away from you, out of your arms, warm, and strong, and living, and making me cold, and dumb, and stiff, likethat?"
"Yes, Pauline, if it had been to save us both from sin."
"You don't know what love is, if you say that."
"I know what sin is, better than you do, maybe. Listen, Pauline. I've loved you ever since I saw you; men don't often love better than I have loved you; but I'd rather drag you, to-night, to that black river there, and hold you down with my own hands till the breath left your body, than see you turn into a sinful woman, and lead the life of shame you tell me you had it in your heart to lead, to-day."
"Is it so very awful?" I whispered with a shiver, my own emotion stilled before his. "I only loved him!"
"Forget you ever did," he said, rising, and pacing up and down the room.
I put my hands before my face, and felt as if I were alone in the world with sin. If this unspoken, passionate, sweet thought, that I had harbored, were so full of danger as to force God to blast me with such punishment, as to drive this tender, generous, loving man to wish me dead, what must be the blackness of the sin from which I had been saved, if I were saved? If there were, indeed, anything but shocks of woe and punishment, and deadly despair and darkness, in this strange world in which I found myself. There was a silence. I rose to my feet. I don't know what I meant to do or where to go; my only impulse was to hide myself from the eyes of my companion, and to go away from him, as I had hidden myself from all others, since I was smitten with this chastisement.
"Forgive me, Pauline," he said, coming to my side. "It is the second time I have been harsh with you this dreadful day. This is what comes of selfishness. I hope you will forget what I have said."
I still turned to go away, feeling afraid of him and ashamed before him. He put out his hand to stop me.
"Pauline, remember, I have been sorely tried. I would do anything to comfort you. I haven't another wish in my heart but to be of use to you."
"Oh, Richard," I cried, bursting into tears afresh, and hiding my eyes, "if you give me up and drive me away from you, I am all alone. There isn't another human being that I love or that cares for me. Dear Richard, do be good to me; do be sorry for me."
"I am sorry for you, Pauline; you know that."
"And you will take care of me?" I cried, stretching out my arms toward him, with a sudden overwhelming sense of my loneliness and destitution.
"Yes, Pauline, to the end of my life or of yours; as if you were my sister or almost my child."
"Dear Richard," I whispered, as I buried my face on his arm, "if it were not for you I should not live through this dreadful time. I hope I shall die soon; as soon as I am better. But till I do die, I hope you will be good to me, and love me." And I pressed his hand against my cheek and lips, like the poor, frantic, grief-bewildered child that I was.
At this moment there came a sound of movement in the stables: I heard one of the heavy doors thrown open, and a man leading a horse across the stable-floor. (The windows were open and the night was very still.) Richard started, and looked uneasily at his watch, stepping to the door to get the light.
"How late is it?" I faltered.
"Half-past three," he said, turning his eyes away, as if he could not bear the sight of my face. I do not like to remember the dreadful moments that followed this: the misery that I put upon Richard by my passionate, ungoverned grief. I threw myself upon the floor, I clung to his knees, I prayed him to delay the hour of going--another hour, another day. I said all the wild and frantic things that were in my heart, as he closed the library-door and led me to my room.
"Try to say your prayers, Pauline," was all he could answer me.
I did try to say them, as I knelt by the window, and saw in the dull, gray dawn, those two carriages drive slowly from the door.
Richard went away alone. Kilian indeed came down-stairs just as he was starting.
Sophie had awakened, and called him into her room for a few moments.
Then he came down, and I saw him get into the carriage alone, and motion the man to drive on, after that other--which stood waiting a few rods farther on.
He, full of modesty and truth,Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought.Tasso.Fresh grief can occupy itselfWith its own recent smart;It feeds itself on outward things,And not on its own heart.Faber
A thing which surprises me very much in looking over those days of suffering, is, that during that day a frightful irritability is the emotion that I most remember--an irritability of feeling, not of expression: for I lay quite still upon the bed all day, and only answered, briefly and simply, the questions of Sophie and the maid.
I could not sleep: it was many hours since I had slept: but nothing seemed further from possibility than sleeping. The lightest sound enraged my nerves: the approach of any one made me frantic. I lay with my hands crushed together, and my teeth against each other, whenever Sophie entered the room.
She tried to be sympathetic and kind: but she was not much encouraged. Toward afternoon, she left me a good deal alone. "I wonder how people feel when they are going mad," I said, getting up and putting cold water on my head. I was so engaged with the strange sensations that pursued me, that I did not dwell upon my trouble.
"Is this the way you feel when you are going to die? or what happens if you never go to sleep?" My body was so young and healthy, that it was making a good fight.
Just at dusk, Richard returned. In a little while, about half an hour, Sophie came and told me Richard would like to see me in her little dressing-room.
The day of panic and horror was over, and proprieties must begin their sway. I felt I hated Sophie for making me go out of my own room, but I pulled a shawl over my shoulders and followed her across the hall into her little room. There Richard was waiting for me. He gave me a chair, and then said, "You needn't wait, Sophie," and sat down beside me.
Sophie went away half angry, and Richard looked at me uneasily.
"I thought you'd want to see me," he said.
"Yes," I answered; "I wish you'd tell me everything," but in so commonplace a voice, I know that he was startled.
"You do not feel well, do you? Maybe we'd better not talk about it now."
"Oh, yes. You might as well tell me all to-night."
"Well, everything is done. The two persons to whom I telegraphed met me at the station. There was very little delay. I went with them to the cemetery."
"I am very glad of that. I thought perhaps you wouldn't go. Was there a clergyman, or don't they have a clergyman when--when--"
"There was a clergyman," said Richard, briefly.
"I hope you'll take me there some time," I said dreamily. "Should you know where to go--exactly?"
"Exactly," he answered. "But, Pauline, I am afraid you havn't rested at all to-day. Have you slept?"
"No; and I wish I could; my head feels so strangely--light, you know--and as if I couldn't think."
"Haven't you seen the Doctor?"
"No--and that's what I want to say. Iwon'thave the Doctor here; and I want you to take me home to-morrow morning, early, I have put a good many of my clothes into my trunk, and Bettina will help me with the rest to-night. Isn't there any train before the five o'clock?"
"No," said Richard, uneasily. "Pauline, I think you'd better not arrange to go away to-morrow."
"If you don't take me out of this house I shall go mad. I have been thinking about it all day, and I know I shall."
Richard was silent for a moment, then, with the wise instinct of affection, wonderful in man, and in a man who had had no experience in dealing with diseased or suffering minds, he acquiesced in my plan to go; told me that we would take the earliest train, and interested me in thoughts about my packing. About nine o'clock he came to my room-door, and I heard some one with him. It was the Doctor.
I turned upon Richard a fierce look, and said, very quietly, he might go away, for I would not see the Doctor. After that, they tried me with Sophie, but with less success; and, finally, Richard came back alone, with a glass in his hand.
"Take this, Pauline, it will make you sleep."
I wanted to sleep very much, so I took it.
Bettina had finished my packing, and had laid my travelling dress and hat upon a chair.
"Shall Bettina come and sleep on the floor, by your bed?" asked Richard, anxiously.
"No, I would not have her for the world."
"Maybe you might not wake in time," said Richard, warily.
That was very true: so I let Bettina come. Richard gave her some instructions at the door, and she came in and arranged things for the night, and lay down on a mattress at the foot of my bed.
The sedative which the Doctor sent did not work very well. I had very little sleep, and that full of such hideous, freezing dreams, that every time I woke, I found Bettina standing by my bed, looking at me with alarm. I had been screaming and moaning, she said, The screaming and moaning and sleeping (such as it was), were all over in about two hours, and then I had the rest of the night to endure, with the same strange, light feeling in my head--the restlessness not much, but somewhat abated.
I was very glad that Bettina was in the room, for though she was sleepy, and always a little stupid, she was human, and I was a coward, both in the matter of loneliness and of suffering. I made her sit by me, and take hold of my hand, and I asked her several times if she had ever been with any one that died, or that--I did not quite dare to ask her about going mad.
My questions seemed to trouble her. She crossed herself, and shuddered, and said, No, she had never been with any one that died, and she prayed the good God never to let her be.
"You'll have to be with one person that dies, Bettina. That's yourself. You know it's got to come. We've all got to go out at that gate," and I moaned, and turned my face away.
"Let me call Mr. Richard," said Bettina, very much afraid. I would have given all the world to have seen Richard then; but I knew it was impossible, and I said, No, it would soon be morning.
Long before morning, I heard Richard up and walking about the house. We were to leave the house at half-past four. By four, all the trunks, and shawls, and packages, were strapped and ready, and I was sitting dressed, and waiting by the window.
Bettina liked very much better to pack trunks, and put rooms in order, than to sit still and hold a person's hot hands, in the middle of the night, and have dreadful questions asked her; and she had been very active and efficient. Soon Richard called her to come down and take my breakfast up to me. I could not eat it, and it was taken away. Then the carriage came, and the wagon to take the baggage. Finally, Richard came, and told me it was time to start, if I were ready.
Sophie came into the room in a wrapper, looking very dutiful and patient, and said all that was dutiful and civil. But I suppose I was a fiery trial to her, and she wished, no doubt, that she had never seen me, or better, that Richard never had. All this I felt, through her decently framed good-bye, but I did not care at all; to be out of her sight as soon as possible, was all that I requested.
When we went down in the hall, Richard looked anxiously at me, but I did not feel as if I had ever been there before; I really had no feeling. I said good-bye to Bettina, who was the only servant that I saw, and Richard put me into the carriage. When, we drove away, I did not even look back. As we passed out of the gate, I said to him, "What day of the month is it to-day?"
"It is the first of September," he returned.
"And when did I come here?" I asked.
"Early in June, was it not?" he said. "You know I was not here."
"Then it is not three months," and I leaned back wearily in the carriage, and was silent.
Before we reached the city, Richard had good reason to think that I was very ill. He made me as comfortable as he could, poor fellow! but I was so restless, I could not keep in one position two minutes at a time. Several times I turned to him and said, "It is suffocating in this car; cannot the window be put up?" and when it was put up, I would seem to feel no relief, and in a few moments, perhaps, would be shaking with a nervous chill. It must have been a miserable journey, as I remember it. Once I said to Richard, after some useless trouble I had put him to, "I am very sorry, Richard, I don't know how to help it, I feel so dreadfully."
Richard tried to answer, but his voice was husky, and he bent his head down to arrange the bundle of shawls beneath my feet. I knew that there were tears in his eyes, and that that was the reason that he did not speak. It made me strangely, momentarily grateful.
"How strange that you should be so good," I said dreamily, "when Sophie is so hateful, and Kilian is so trifling. I think your mother must have been a good woman."
I had never talked about Richard's mother before, never even thought whether he had had one or not, in my supreme and light-hearted selfishness. But the mind, at such a point as I was then, makes strange plunges out of its own orbit.
"And she died when you were little?"
"Yes, when I was scarcely twelve years old."
"A woman ought to be very good when it makes so much difference to her children. Richard, did my uncle ever tell you anything about my mother--what sort of a woman she was, and whether I am like her?"
"He never said a great deal to me about it," Richard answered, not looking at me as he talked. "He thinks you are like her, very strikingly, I believe."
"Think! I haven't even a scrap of a picture of her, and no one has ever talked to me about her. All I have are some old yellow letters to my father, written before I was born. I think she loved my father very much. The noise of these cars makes me feel so strangely. Can't we go into the one behind? I am sure it cannot be so bad."
"This is the best car on the train, Pauline. I know the noise is very bad, but try to bear it for a little while. We shall soon be there." And so on, through the weary journey.
At one station Richard got out, and I saw him speaking to several men. I believe he was hoping to find a doctor, for he was thoroughly frightened.
Before we reached the city I was past being frightened for myself, for I was suffering too much to think of what might be the result of my condition. When we left the cars, and Richard put me in a carriage, the motion of the carriage and its jarring over the stones were almost unendurable. Richard was too anxious now to say much to me. The expression of relief on his face as we reached Varick-street was unspeakable. He hurried up the steps and rang the bell, then came back for me, and half carried me up the steps.
The door was opened by Ann Coddle, who was thrown into a helpless state of amazement by seeing me, not knowing why in this condition I did come, or why I came at all. She shrieked, and ejaculated, and backed almost down the basement stairs. Richard sternly told her she was acting like a fool, and ordered her to show him where Miss Pauline's room was, that he might take her to it.
"But her room isn't ready," ejaculated Ann, coming to herself, which was a wretched thing to come to, as poor Richard found.
"Not ready? well, make it ready, then. Go before me and open the windows, and I will put her on the sofa till you have the bed ready for her."
"The sofa--oh, Mr. Richard, it's all full of her dear clothes that have come up from the wash."
"Well, then, take them off--idiot--and do as you are told."
"Oh, Miss Pauline--oh, my poor, dear lamb. Oh, I'm all in a flutter; I don't know what to do. I'd better call the cook."
"Well, call the cook, then," said Richard, groaning, "only tell her to be quick."
All this time Richard was supporting me up the stairs. As we reached the top, Richard called out, "Tell Peter I want him at once, to take a message for me."
Ann was watching our progress up the stairs, with groans and ejaculations, forgetting that she was to call the cook. At the mention of Peter she exclaimed,
"He's laid up with the rheumatism, Mr. Richard. Oh, whatever shall we do!"
When we reached the middle of the second pair of stairs, I was almost helpless; Richard took me in his arms, and carried me.
"Is it this door, Pauline dear?" he said, opening the first he came to.
I should think the room had not been opened since I went away, it was so warm and close.
Richard carried me to the sofa, and scattered thelingeriefar and wide as he laid me down upon it, and went to open the windows. Then he went to the bell and pulled it violently. In a few moments the cook came up (accompanied by Ann). She was a huge, unwieldy woman, but she had some intelligence, and knew better than to whimper.
"Miss Pauline is ill," he said, "and I want you to stay by her, and not leave her for a moment, till I come back. Make that woman get the room in order instantly, and keep everything as quiet as you can." To me: "I am going to bring a doctor, and I shall be back in a few moments. Do not worry, they will take good care of you."
When I heard Richard shut the carriage-door and drive away rapidly, I felt as if I were abandoned, and by the time he returned with the Doctor, I was in a state that warranted them in supposing me unconscious, tossing and moaning, and uttering inarticulate words.
The Doctor stood beside me, and talked about me to Richard with as much freedom as if I had been a corpse.
"I may as well be frank with you," he said, after a few moments of examination. "I apprehend great trouble from the brain. How long has she been in this condition?"
"She has been unlike herself since yesterday; as soon as I saw her, at seven o'clock last night, I noticed she was looking badly. She answered me in an abstracted, odd way, and was unlike herself, as I have said. But she had been under much excitement for some time."
"Tell me, if you please, all about it; and how long she has been under this excitement."
"She has been often agitated, and quite overstrained in feeling for some time. Three weeks ago I thought her looking badly. Two days ago she had a frightful shock--a suicide--which she was the first to discover. Since then I do not think that she has slept."
"Ah! poor young lady. She has had a terrible experience, and is paying for it. Now for what we can do for her. In the first place, who takes care of her?" with a look about the room.
"You may well ask. I have just brought her home, and find here, the man-servant ill, one woman too old and inactive to perform much service, and another to whom I would not trust her for a moment. I must askyou, who shall I get to take care of her?"
"You have no friend, no one to whom you could send in such a case? One of life and death,--I hope you understand?"
"None," answered Richard, with a groan. "There is not a person in the city to whom I could send for help. All my family--all our friends, are away. Is there no one that can be got for money--any money? no nurse that you could recommend?"
"I have a list of twenty. Yesterday I sent to every one, for a dangerous case of hemorrhage, and could not find one disengaged. It may be to-morrow night before you get on the track of one that is at liberty, if you hunt the city over. And this girl is in need of instant care; her life hangs on it, you must see."
"In God's name, then," said Richard, with a groan, pacing up and down the room, "what am I to do?"
"InHisname, if you come, to that," said the Doctor, who was a good sort of man, notwithstanding his professional cool ways, "there is a sisterhood, that I am told offer to do things like this. I never sent to them, for I only heard of it a short time ago; but if you have no objection to crosses, and caps, and ritualistic nonsense in its highest flower, I have no doubt, that they will let you have a sister, and that she'll do good service here."
"The direction," said Richard, too eager to be civil. "How am I to get there?"
The Doctor pulled over a pocket-case of loose papers, and at last found one, which he handed his companion.
"I give you three quarters of an hour to get back," he said. "I will stay here till then, at all events. Do not waste any time--nor spare any eloquence," he added to himself, as Richard hurried from the room.