THE WYKEFORD DOCTOR.
A few days had passed and a great change had come. Charles Fairfield,
the master of the Grange, lay in his bed, and the Wykeford doctor
admitted to Alice that he could not say what might happen. It was a
very grave case--fever--and the patient could not have been worse
handled in those early days of the attack, on which sometimes so much
depends.
People went to and fro on tiptoe, and talked in whispers, and the
patient moaned, and prattled, unconscious generally of all that was
passing. Awful hours and days of suspense! The Doctor said, and
perhaps he was right, to kind Lady Wyndale, who came over to see
Alice, and learned with consternation the state of things, that, under
the special circumstances, her nerves having been so violently acted
upon by terror, this diversion of pain and thought into quite another
channel might be the best thing, on the whole, that could have
happened to her.
It was now the sixth day of this undetermined ordeal.
Alice watched the Doctor’s countenance with her very soul in her eyes,
as he made his inspection, standing at the bedside, and now and then
putting a question to Dulcibella or to Alice, or to the nurse whom he
had sent to do duty in the sick-room from Wykeford.
“Well?” whispered poor Alice, who had accompanied him downstairs, and
pale as death, drew him into the sitting-room, and asked her question.
“Well, Doctor, what do you think to-day?”
“Not much to report. Very little change. We must have patience, you
know, for a day or two; and you need not to be told, my dear ma’am,
that good nursing is half the battle, and in better hands he need not
be; I’m only afraid that you are undertaking too much yourself. That
woman, Marks, you may rely upon, implicitly; a most respectable and
intelligent person; I never knew her to make a mistake yet, and she
has been more than ten years at this work.”
“Yes, I’m sure she is. I like her very much. And don’t you think him a
little better?” she pleaded.
“Well, you know, as long as he holds his own and don’t lose ground, he
_is_ better; that’s all we can say; not to be worse, as time elapses,
is in effect, to be better; that you _may_ say.”
She was looking earnestly into the clear blue eyes of the old man, who
turned them kindly upon her, from under his shaggy white eyebrows.
“Oh! thank God, then you do think him better?”
“In that sense, yes,” he answered cautiously, “but, of course, we must
have patience, and we shall soon know more, a great deal more, and I
do sincerely hope it may all turn out quite right; but the brain has
been a good deal overpowered; there’s a tendency to a sort of state we
call comatose; it indicates too much pressure there, d’ye see. I’d
rather have him talking more nonsense, with less of that sleep, as you
suppose it, but it isn’t sleep--a very different sort of thing. I’ve
been trying to salivate him, but he’s plaguy obstinate. We’ll try
to-night what dividing the pills into four each, and shortening the
intervals a little will do; it sometimes does wonders--we’ll see--and
a great deal depends on our succeeding in salivating. If we succeeded
in effecting that, I think all the rest would proceed satisfactorily,
that’s one of our difficulties just at this moment. If you send over
your little messenger, the sooner the better, she shall have the
pills, and let him take one the moment they come--pretty flower that
is,” he interpolated, touching the petal of one that stood neglected,
in its pot, on a little table at the window. “That’s not a geranium:
it’s a pelargonium. I did not know there were such things down
here--and you’ll continue, I told her everything else, and go on just
as before.”
“And you think he’s better--I mean just a little?” she pleaded again.
“Well, well, you know, I said all I could, and we must hope--we must
hope, you know, that everything may go on satisfactorily, and I’ll go
further. I’ll say I don’t see at all why we should despair of such a
result. Keep up your spirits, ma’am, and be cheery. We’ll do our duty
all, and leave the rest in the hands of God.”
“And I suppose, Dr. Willett, we shall see you to-morrow at the usual
hour?”
“Certainly, ma’am, and I don’t think there will be any change to speak
of till, probably, Thursday.”
And her heart sank down with one dreadful dive at mention of that day
of trial that might so easily be a day of doom.
And she answered his farewell, and smiled faintly, and followed his
steps through the passage, freezing with that fear, it seemed, that
she did not breathe, and that her heart ceased beating, and that she
glided like a spirit. She stopped, and he passed into the yard to his
horse, turning his shrewd, pale face, with a smile and a nod, as he
stepped across the door-stone, and he said--
“Good-bye, ma’am, and look out for me to-morrow as usual, and be
cheery, mind. Look at the bright side, you know; there’s no reason you
shouldn’t.”
She answered his smile as best she could, but her heart was full; an
immense sorrow was there. She was frightened. She hurried into the
homely sitting-room, and wept in an agony unspeakable.
The doctor, she saw, pitied and wished to cheer her; but how dreadful
was his guarded language. She thought that he would speak to others in
a different vein, and so, in fact, he did. His opinion was clear
against Charles Fairfield’s chance of ever being on his feet again.
“It was a great pity--a young fellow.” The doctor thought every one
young whose years were ten less than his own. “A tall, handsome fellow
like that, and Squire of Wyvern in a year or two, and a good-natured
sort of fellow he heard. It was a pity, and that poor little wife of
his--and likely to be a mother soon--God help her.”