A JOURNEY.
He, full of modesty and truth,
Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought.
_Tasso_.
Fresh grief can occupy itself
With 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. I _won't_ have 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 the _lingerie_ far 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 ask
_you_, 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?"
"In _His_ name, 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.