From day to day, as Alfred became stronger and less unfit for prolonged
conversation, his kind parent had detailed to him all the interesting
particulars attendant on the illness and recovery of our heroine.
Her deep swoon had not, either at the first or second time of seizure,
been a mere common faint; but had, on both occasions, more especially
the last, partaken of the nature of those trances in which persons have
been known to present for days so completely the appearance of death, as
to have been carried by grieving relations to the grave; yet to have
subsequently recovered, and lived for many years. Whether a more skilful
doctor might, in Caroline's case, have detected the difference, we
cannot pretend to say.
Soon after Alfred had been led away from what he then believed to be the
chamber of death, the doctor had also taken his departure. When,
however, he returned at an early hour in the morning, to give some
necessary orders preparatory to the funeral, he was, to his great
surprise, met on the steps by a messenger, who was just coming out to
inform him that the patient had exhibited signs of returning life.
He entered the sick chamber, administered restoratives, &c., &c., and in
a short time had the satisfaction of seeing Caroline open her eyes
while, instead of closing them again almost instantly, as on former
occasions, she now, though too feeble to move her head on the pillow,
looked all round the apartment with evident anxiety, then fixed her gaze
on the door, as if watching for some expected sight or sound.
It was to announce the pleasing intelligence of the revival of his
patient, that the doctor entered Alfred's apartment at the critical
juncture described.
His communications ultimately led to Lady Arden giving to Caroline every
moment and every thought she could spare from Alfred. While the kind
attentions of such a friend, with the explanations which of course
followed, supplied at once the soothings of considerate regard and the
motive to live; and thus, with the assistance of some rational medical
adviser, called in by Lady Arden, wrought a recovery which, to those
unacquainted with the particulars, seemed almost miraculous.
But though Caroline, from the time of the first seisure caused by the
communication of the fatal intelligence, up to that of the second,
occasioned by the unexpected apparition of Alfred, had lain in a state
supposed to border on insensibility; her actual state, during the period
alluded to, had been rather that passive of despair, characteristic of a
being so gentle by nature, so friendless by circumstances, that her
mind, overwhelmed and unsupported, was incapable of an effort, and had
sought a sort of refuge from the agony of carrying its burden of
wretchedness through the ordinary round of life in this total inaction,
this entire quiessence, this living death, while awaiting that actual
dissolution, which, though she had not the wilfulness nor the wickedness
to accelerate, she hoped would soon arrive. She spoke not, wept not, and
the light of day being oppressive to her broken spirit, opened not her
eyes, except when some sudden or startling sound caused the instinctive
movement. At such times they met no object to awaken kindly
associations, or call the affections back to life; the faces they beheld
around were those of strangers, the very nurses and servants in
attendance having been hired for this occasion, Lady Palliser having
taken with her those she had brought from England. Poor Caroline's eyes,
therefore, languidly closed again without noticing any object.
The general impression on the minds of the persons by whom Caroline was
surrounded was, that the shock her mind had received was occasioned by
the intelligence that the gentleman to whom she was engaged to be
married had been murdered. The subsequent accounts, therefore, of the
escape of the murderer, it never accrued to them that it could be any
consolation to her to be informed of. On the contrary, they would have
judged it highly imprudent to have forced any circumstances connected
with the fatal subject on her consideration. Had there been an
affectionate or intimate friend in attendance they might have better
understood the feelings of the sufferer. But none such was near. Poor
Caroline, therefore, up to the moment that the suddenly-elevated voice
of Alfred caused her to open her eyes, and beheld him standing beside
her couch, remained under the frightful impression (though in her own
heart confident of his innocence), that he had suffered an ignominious
death for the murder of his brother.
From total want of energy she sometimes waved from her, and, at other
times took no notice of, any food presented to her; but being too meekly
submissive in her nature, for the wilful resolve of committing suicide
by abstinence, she did not offer any resistance to the efforts of the
nurses to preserve life by administering, from time to time, a spoonful
of liquid-jelly, whey, or gruel.
Between mental suffering, therefore, and want of proper sustenance, her
physical strength was thus, from day to day, gradually giving way. As
for our friend the doctor, he was in too great request to run in and run
out again; had making discoveries, therefore, been his fort, which it
was not, he could not have spared the time: so that poor Caroline, but
for Alfred's visit to Geneva, might have faded away from apparent into
real death, ere any chance had conveyed to her the escape, and finally
the acquittal of our hero.