that which breaks the silence--of the stagnant hours of the night with
its sudden suggestions and luminous counsels. When Euthymia awoke in the
morning, her course of action was as clear before her as if it bad been
dictated by her guardian angel. She went straight over to the home of
Lurida, who was just dressed for breakfast.
She was naturally a little surprised at this early visit. She was
struck with the excited look of Euthymia, being herself quite calm, and
contemplating her project with entire complacency.
Euthymia began, in tones that expressed deep anxiety.
“I have read your letter, my dear, and admired its spirit and force.
It is a fine letter, and does you great credit as an expression of the
truest human feeling. But it must not be sent to Mr. Kirkwood. If you
were sixty years old, perhaps if you were fifty, it might be admissible
to send it. But if you were forty, I should question its propriety; if
you were thirty, I should veto it, and you are but a little more than
twenty. How do you know that this stranger will not show your letter to
anybody or everybody? How do you know that he will not send it to one of
the gossiping journals like the 'Household Inquisitor'? But supposing he
keeps it to himself, which is more than you have a right to expect, what
opinion is he likely to form of a young lady who invades his privacy
with such freedom? Ten to one he will think curiosity is at the bottom
of it,--and,--come, don't be angry at me for suggesting it,--may there
not be a little of that same motive mingled with the others? No, don't
interrupt me quite yet; you do want to know whether your hypothesis is
correct. You are full of the best and kindest feelings in the world, but
your desire for knowledge is the ferment under them just now, perhaps
more than you know.”
Lurida's pale cheeks flushed and whitened more than once while her
friend was speaking. She loved her too sincerely and respected her
intelligence too much to take offence at her advice, but she could not
give up her humane and sisterly intentions merely from the fear of some
awkward consequences to herself. She had persuaded herself that she was
playing the part of a Protestant sister of charity, and that the fact
of her not wearing the costume of these ministering angels made no
difference in her relations to those who needed her aid.
“I cannot see your objections in the light in which they appear to
you,” she said gravely. “It seems to me that I give up everything when I
hesitate to help a fellow-creature because I am a woman. I am not afraid
to send this letter and take all the consequences.”
“Will you go with me to the doctor's, and let him read it in our
presence? And will you agree to abide by his opinion, if it coincides
with mine?”
Lurida winced a little at this proposal. “I don't quite like,” she said,
“showing this letter to--to” she hesitated, but it had to come out--“to
a man, that is, to another man than the one for whom it was intended.”
The neuter gender business had got a pretty damaging side-hit.
“Well, never mind about letting him read the letter. Will you go over to
his house with me at noon, when he comes back after his morning
visits, and have a talk over the whole matter with him? You know I have
sometimes had to say must to you, Lurida, and now I say you must go to
the doctor's with me and carry that letter.”
There was no resisting the potent monosyllable as the sweet but firm
voice delivered it. At noon the two maidens rang at the doctor's door.
The servant said he had been at the house after his morning visits, but
found a hasty summons to Mr. Kirkwood, who had been taken suddenly
ill and wished to see him at once. Was the illness dangerous? The
servant-maid did n't know, but thought it was pretty bad, for Mr. Paul
came in as white as a sheet, and talked all sorts of languages which she
couldn't understand, and took on as if he thought Mr. Kirkwood was going
to die right off.
And so the hazardous question about sending the letter was disposed of,
at least for the present.
XVII. Dr. BUTTS'S PATIENT.
The physician found Maurice just regaining his heat after a chill of
a somewhat severe character. He knew too well what this meant, and the
probable series of symptoms of which it was the prelude. His patient was
not the only one in the neighborhood who was attacked in this way. The
autumnal fevers to which our country towns are subject, in the place of
those “agues,” or intermittents, so largely prevalent in the South and
West, were already beginning, and Maurice, who had exposed himself in
the early and late hours of the dangerous season, must be expected to go
through the regular stages of this always serious and not rarely fatal
disease.
Paolo, his faithful servant, would fain have taken the sole charge of
his master during his illness. But the doctor insisted that he must
have a nurse to help him in his task, which was likely to be long and
exhausting.
At the mention of the word “nurse” Paolo turned white, and exclaimed in
an agitated and thoroughly frightened way,
“No! no nuss! no woman! She kill him! I stay by him day and night, but
don' let no woman come near him,--if you do, he die!”
The doctor explained that he intended to send a man who was used to
taking care of sick people, and with no little effort at last succeeded
in convincing Paolo that, as he could not be awake day and night for a
fortnight or three weeks, it was absolutely necessary to call in some
assistance from without. And so Mr. Maurice Kirkwood was to play the
leading part in that drama of nature's composing called a typhoid
fever, with its regular bedchamber scenery, its properties of phials and
pill-boxes, its little company of stock actors, its gradual evolution of
a very simple plot, its familiar incidents, its emotional alternations,
and its denouement, sometimes tragic, oftener happy.
It is needless to say that the sympathies of all the good people of the
village, residents and strangers, were actively awakened for the young
man about whom they knew so little and conjectured so much. Tokens of
their kindness came to him daily: flowers from the woods and from the
gardens; choice fruit grown in the open air or under glass, for there
were some fine houses surrounded by well-kept grounds, and greenhouses
and graperies were not unknown in the small but favored settlement.
On all these luxuries Maurice looked with dull and languid eyes. A faint
smile of gratitude sometimes struggled through the stillness of his
features, or a murmured word of thanks found its way through his parched
lips, and he would relapse into the partial stupor or the fitful sleep
in which, with intervals of slight wandering, the slow hours dragged
along the sluggish days one after another. With no violent symptoms, but
with steady persistency, the disease moved on in its accustomed course.
It was at no time immediately threatening, but the experienced physician
knew its uncertainties only too well. He had known fever patients
suddenly seized with violent internal inflammation, and carried off with
frightful rapidity. He remembered the case of a convalescent, a young
woman who had been attacked while in apparently vigorous general health,
who, on being lifted too suddenly to a sitting position, while still
confined to her bed, fainted, and in a few moments ceased to breathe. It
may well be supposed that he took every possible precaution to avert
the accidents which tend to throw from its track a disease the regular
course of which is arranged by nature as carefully as the route of a
railroad from one city to another. The most natural interpretation which
the common observer would put upon the manifestations of one of these
autumnal maladies would be that some noxious combustible element had
found its way into the system which must be burned to ashes before the
heat which pervades the whole body can subside. Sometimes the fire may
smoulder and seem as if it were going out, or were quite extinguished,
and again it will find some new material to seize upon, and flame up as
fiercely as ever. Its coming on most frequently at the season when the
brush fires which are consuming the dead branches, and withered
leaves, and all the refuse of vegetation are sending up their smoke is
suggestive. Sometimes it seems as if the body, relieved of its effete
materials, renewed its youth after one of these quiet, expurgating,
internal fractional cremations. Lean, pallid students have found
themselves plump and blooming, and it has happened that one whose hair
was straight as that of an Indian has been startled to behold himself
in his mirror with a fringe of hyacinthine curls about his rejuvenated
countenance.
There was nothing of what medical men call malignity in the case of
Maurice Kirkwood. The most alarming symptom was a profound prostration,
which at last reached such a point that he lay utterly helpless, as
unable to move without aid as the feeblest of paralytics. In this state
he lay for many days, not suffering pain, but with the sense of great
weariness, and the feeling that he should never rise from his bed again.
For the most part his intellect was unclouded when his attention was
aroused. He spoke only in whispers, a few words at a time. The doctor
felt sure, by the expression which passed over his features from time to
time, that something was worrying and oppressing him; something which
he wished to communicate, and had not the force, or the tenacity of
purpose, to make perfectly clear. His eyes often wandered to a certain
desk, and once he had found strength to lift his emaciated arm and
point to it. The doctor went towards it as if to fetch it to him, but he
slowly shook his head. He had not the power to say at that time what he
wished. The next day he felt a little less prostrated; and succeeded
in explaining to the doctor what he wanted. His words, so far as the
physician could make them out, were these which follow. Dr. Butts looked
upon them as possibly expressing wishes which would be his last, and
noted them down carefully immediately after leaving his chamber.
“I commit the secret of my life to your charge. My whole story is told
in a paper locked in that desk. The key is--put your hand under
my pillow. If I die, let the story be known. It will show that I
was--human--and save my memory from reproach.”
He was silent for a little time. A single tear stole down his hollow
cheek. The doctor turned his head away, for his own eyes were full. But
he said to himself, “It is a good sign; I begin to feel strong hopes
that he will recover.”
Maurice spoke once more. “Doctor, I put full trust in you. You are wise
and kind. Do what you will with this paper, but open it at once and
read. I want you to know the story of my life before it is finished--if
the end is at hand. Take it with you and read it before you sleep.”
He was exhausted and presently his eyes closed, but the doctor saw a
tranquil look on his features which added encouragement to his hopes.
XVIII. MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE.
I am an American by birth, but a large part of my life has been passed
in foreign lands. My father was a man of education, possessed of an
ample fortune; my mother was considered, a very accomplished and amiable
woman. I was their first and only child. She died while I was yet an
infant. If I remember her at all it is as a vision, more like a glimpse
of a pre-natal existence than as a part of my earthly life. At the death
of my mother I was left in the charge of the old nurse who had enjoyed
her perfect confidence. She was devoted to me, and I became absolutely
dependent on her, who had for me all the love and all the care of a
mother. I was naturally the object of the attentions and caresses of
the family relatives. I have been told that I was a pleasant, smiling
infant, with nothing to indicate any peculiar nervous susceptibility;
not afraid of strangers, but on the contrary ready to make their
acquaintance. My father was devoted to me and did all in his power to
promote my health and comfort.
I was still a babe, often carried in arms, when the event happened
which changed my whole future and destined me to a strange and lonely
existence. I cannot relate it even now without a sense of terror. I
must force myself to recall the circumstances as told me and vaguely
remembered, for I am not willing that my doomed and wholly exceptional
life should pass away unrecorded, unexplained, unvindicated. My nature
is, I feel sure, a kind and social one, but I have lived apart, as if my
heart were filled with hatred of my fellow-creatures. If there are any
readers who look without pity, without sympathy, upon those who shun the
fellowship of their fellow men and women, who show by their downcast or
averted eyes that they dread companionship and long for solitude, I pray
them, if this paper ever reaches them, to stop at this point. Follow
me no further, for you will not believe my story, nor enter into the
feelings which I am about to reveal. But if there are any to whom all
that is human is of interest, who have felt in their own consciousness
some stirrings of invincible attraction to one individual and equally
invincible repugnance to another, who know by their own experience that
elective affinities have as their necessary counterpart, and, as it
were, their polar opposites, currents not less strong of elective
repulsions, let them read with unquestioning faith the story of a
blighted life I am about to relate, much of it, of course, received from
the lips of others.
My cousin Laura, a girl of seventeen, lately returned from Europe, was
considered eminently beautiful. It was in my second summer that she
visited my father's house, where he was living with his servants and my
old nurse, my mother having but recently left him a widower. Laura
was full of vivacity, impulsive, quick in her movements, thoughtless
occasionally, as it is not strange that a young girl of her age should
be. It was a beautiful summer day when she saw me for the first time. My
nurse had me in her arms, walking back and forward on a balcony with
a low railing, upon which opened the windows of the second story of
my father's house. While the nurse was thus carrying me, Laura came
suddenly upon the balcony. She no sooner saw me than with all the
delighted eagerness of her youthful nature she rushed toward me, and,
catching me from the nurse's arms, began tossing me after the fashion of
young girls who have been so lately playing with dolls that they feel
as if babies were very much of the same nature. The abrupt seizure
frightened me; I sprang from her arms in my terror, and fell over the
railing of the balcony. I should probably enough have been killed on
the spot but for the fact that a low thorn-bush grew just beneath
the balcony, into which I fell and thus had the violence of the shock
broken. But the thorns tore my tender flesh, and I bear to this day
marks of the deep wounds they inflicted.
That dreadful experience is burned deep into my memory. The sudden
apparition of the girl; the sense of being torn away from the
protecting arms around me; the frantic effort to escape; the shriek that
accompanied my fall through what must have seemed unmeasurable space;
the cruel lacerations of the piercing and rending thorns,--all these
fearful impressions blended in one paralyzing terror.
When I was taken up I was thought to be dead. I was perfectly white, and
the physician who first saw me said that no pulse was perceptible. But
after a time consciousness returned; the wounds, though painful, were
none of them dangerous, and the most alarming effects of the accident
passed away. My old nurse cared for me tenderly day and night, and my
father, who had been almost distracted in the first hours which followed
the injury, hoped and believed that no permanent evil results would be
found to result from it. My cousin Laura was of course deeply distressed
to feel that her thoughtlessness had been the cause of so grave an
accident. As soon as I had somewhat recovered she came to see me, very
penitent, very anxious to make me forget the alarm she had caused me,
with all its consequences. I was in the nursery sitting up in my bed,
bandaged, but not in any pain, as it seemed, for I was quiet and to all
appearance in a perfectly natural state of feeling. As Laura came near
me I shrieked and instantly changed color. I put my hand upon my heart
as if I had been stabbed, and fell over, unconscious. It was very much
the same state as that in which I was found immediately after my fall.
The cause of this violent and appalling seizure was but too obvious. The
approach of the young girl and the dread that she was about to lay her
hand upon me had called up the same train of effects which the moment
of terror and pain had already occasioned. The old nurse saw this in a
moment. “Go! go!” she cried to Laura, “go, or the child will die!”
Her command did not have to be repeated. After Laura had gone I lay
senseless, white and cold as marble, for some time. The doctor soon
came, and by the use of smart rubbing and stimulants the color came
back slowly to my cheeks and the arrested circulation was again set in
motion.
It was hard to believe that this was anything more than a temporary
effect of the accident. There could be little doubt, it was thought by
the doctor and by my father, that after a few days I should recover from
this morbid sensibility and receive my cousin as other infants receive
pleasant-looking young persons. The old nurse shook her head. “The girl
will be the death of the child,” she said, “if she touches him or comes
near him. His heart stopped beating just as when the girl snatched him
out of my arms, and he fell over the balcony railing.” Once more the
experiment was tried, cautiously, almost insidiously. The same alarming
consequences followed. It was too evident that a chain of nervous
disturbances had been set up in my system which repeated itself whenever
the original impression gave the first impulse. I never saw my cousin
Laura after this last trial. Its result had so distressed her that she
never ventured again to show herself to me.
If the effect of the nervous shock had stopped there, it would have been
a misfortune for my cousin and myself, but hardly a calamity. The world
is wide, and a cousin or two more or less can hardly be considered an
essential of existence. I often heard Laura's name mentioned, but never
by any one who was acquainted with all the circumstances, for it was
noticed that I changed color and caught at my breast as if I wanted to
grasp my heart in my hand whenever that fatal name was mentioned.
Alas! this was not all. While I was suffering from the effects of
my fall among the thorns I was attended by my old nurse, assisted by
another old woman, by a physician, and my father, who would take his
share in caring for me. It was thought best to keep me perfectly quiet,
and strangers and friends were alike excluded from my nursery, with one
exception, that my old grandmother came in now and then. With her it
seems that I was somewhat timid and shy, following her with rather
anxious eyes, as if not quite certain whether or not she was dangerous.
But one day, when I was far advanced towards recovery, my father brought
in a young lady, a relative of his, who had expressed a great desire to
see me. She was, as I have been told, a very handsome girl, of about the
same age as my cousin Laura, but bearing no personal resemblance to her
in form, features, or complexion. She had no sooner entered the room
than the same sudden changes which had followed my cousin's visit began
to show themselves, and before she had reached my bedside I was in a
state of deadly collapse, as on the occasions already mentioned.
Some time passed before any recurrence of these terrifying seizures.
A little girl of five or six years old was allowed to come into the
nursery one day and bring me some flowers. I took them from her hand,
but turned away and shut my eyes. There was no seizure, but there was a
certain dread and aversion, nothing more than a feeling which it might
be hoped that time would overcome. Those around me were gradually
finding out the circumstances which brought on the deadly attack to
which I was subject.
The daughter of one of our near neighbors was considered the prettiest
girl of the village where we were passing the summer. She was very
anxious to see me, and as I was now nearly well it was determined that
she should be permitted to pay me a short visit. I had always delighted
in seeing her and being caressed by her. I was sleeping when she entered
the nursery and came and took a seat at my side in perfect silence.
Presently I became restless, and a moment later I opened my eyes and saw
her stooping over me. My hand went to my left breast,--the color faded
from my cheeks,--I was again the cold marble image so like death that it
had well-nigh been mistaken for it.
Could it be possible that the fright which had chilled my blood had left
me with an unconquerable fear of woman at the period when she is most
attractive not only to adolescents, but to children of tender age, who
feel the fascination of her flowing locks, her bright eyes, her blooming
cheeks, and that mysterious magnetism of sex which draws all life into
its warm and potently vitalized atmosphere? So it did indeed seem. The
dangerous experiment could not be repeated indefinitely. It was not
intentionally tried again, but accident brought about more than
one renewal of it during the following years, until it became fully
recognized that I was the unhappy subject of a mortal dread of
woman,--not absolutely of the human female, for I had no fear of my
old nurse or of my grandmother, or of any old wrinkled face, and I had
become accustomed to the occasional meeting of a little girl or two,
whom I nevertheless regarded with a certain ill-defined feeling that
there was danger in their presence. I was sent to a boys' school very
early, and during the first ten or twelve years of my life I had rarely
any occasion to be reminded of my strange idiosyncrasy.
As I grew out of boyhood into youth, a change came over the feelings
which had so long held complete possession of me. This was what my
father and his advisers had always anticipated, and was the ground of
their confident hope in my return to natural conditions before I should
have grown to mature manhood.
How shall I describe the conflicts of those dreamy, bewildering,
dreadful years? Visions of loveliness haunted me sleeping and waking.
Sometimes a graceful girlish figure would so draw my eyes towards it
that I lost sight of all else, and was ready to forget all my fears
and find myself at her side, like other youths by the side of young
maidens,--happy in their cheerful companionship, while I,--I, under
the curse of one blighting moment, looked on, hopeless. Sometimes the
glimpse of a fair face or the tone of a sweet voice stirred within
me all the instincts that make the morning of life beautiful to
adolescence. I reasoned with myself:
Why should I not have outgrown that idle apprehension which had been the
nightmare of my earlier years? Why should not the rising tide of life
have drowned out the feeble growths that infested the shallows of
childhood? How many children there are who tremble at being left alone
in the dark, but who, a few years later, will smile at their foolish
terrors and brave all the ghosts of a haunted chamber! Why should I any
longer be the slave of a foolish fancy that has grown into a half insane
habit of mind? I was familiarly acquainted with all the stories of the
strange antipathies and invincible repugnances to which others, some of
them famous men, had been subject. I said to myself, Why should not I
overcome this dread of woman as Peter the Great fought down his dread of
wheels rolling over a bridge? Was I, alone of all mankind, to be doomed
to perpetual exclusion from the society which, as it seemed to me, was
all that rendered existence worth the trouble and fatigue of slavery to
the vulgar need of supplying the waste of the system and working at the
task of respiration like the daughters of Danaus,--toiling day and night
as the worn-out sailor labors at the pump of his sinking vessel?