UNDER HER SPELL.
Among twelve hundred patients in various stages of insanity it was
difficult to notice one above another, but gradually all the physicians
and attendants began to take an uncommon interest in the pretty
dark-eyed, golden-haired young girl who had been brought to the asylum
in November.
They could not help noticing her exquisite beauty, though she had
become pale and slight, like a snowdrop, with the wasting illness that
had followed on her exposure to the storm the night of the tragedy.
She was very quiet, and gave no trouble, save that her low, pathetic
singing sometimes gave the young lady attendants such a turn that they
said it fairly went to their hearts. No one wondered at it, as her
story became known--the story of tragedy one could read so clearly in
the big, sombre, dark eyes, with their wistful appealing.
The attendants said that they had never seen such a docile patient
before. She was not violent or troublesome in any way, only intensely
sad; never a smile on her red lips, that were always drooping in
pathetic sorrow.
“It is the most pathetic case I ever saw. It is scarcely madness, only
a settled melancholy that is breaking down her health, and will end in
death unless she is roused to some new interest in life. It was cruel
in her people to send her to Weston. They should have kept her at home
and soothed and petted her like a child until she took some notice of
things,” said the clever young woman doctor of the asylum, speaking of
the case to her new colleague, Doctor Rupert.
He had only entered on his new duties the day before, and Doctor
Bertrand was showing him through the wards, never noticing how nervous
he became when she pointed out to him the interesting patient.
“Her name is Eva Somerville, and she has lost her reason through one of
the most appalling tragedies that ever occurred in the State. Perhaps
you read of it in the newspapers--the case where Doctor Ludington and
Terry Groves murdered each other in her bedroom on Hallowe’en?”
“Yes, yes; I remember it well. So this is the heroine of the story? A
very childish, innocent creature she looks, though the newspapers made
her out very wicked,” returned Doctor Rupert, fairly devouring the
hapless girl with his eyes, without surprising Doctor Bertrand, who was
accustomed to every one admiring Eva Somerville.
She answered frankly:
“I believe the newspapers lied. There was some doubt as to her guilt,
some mystery about the whole affair. For my part, I believe little Eva
is wronged and innocent.”
“You are the first person I ever heard take her part. God bless you for
a true, good woman, Doctor Bertrand!” exclaimed her hearer, grasping
her hand and pressing it with emotion.
The young lady smiled with pleasure and answered:
“Then you also agree with me, as do many others here at the asylum. It
is indeed hard for any one to look at that lovely, pure-faced girl and
credit her guilty. Eva,” she called softly to the young girl, who sat
motionless at a window, paying no attention to them.
The big dark eyes came back from their contemplation of the dreary
January landscape with a vacant stare.
“Eva, this is a new doctor, dear, who is going to help us cure you, so
that you will laugh and be happy again. Shake hands, dear, with Doctor
Rupert.”
The sombre eyes did not light with intelligence, and the tiny white
hands remained folded on her lap, until Doctor Rupert himself stepped
forward and took one of the chilly little hands in his, pressing it
warmly, while he trembled with emotion.
He had seen her grow up from lovely babyhood, but he had never touched
her little hand before, never met her eyes save with the black, cold
stare they wore now, but once, and that one thrilling moment rushed
over him instantly.
That night, when she believed that he was dying, her pity had conquered
her pride and anger, and she had knelt by his side and pressed her
soft lips to his cold brow.
“Good-by, good-by! If you had lived I would have loved you!” she had
murmured so sweetly that he could never forget.
His heart shook with the memory of her sweet words, and he wondered
if she had meant them--proud little Eva, who had always ignored him,
flashing past when he met her out riding on Firefly with a proudly
poised head and curling lips. She would never even look at him--never.
She hated him so because he was a Ludington.
It was only out of hysterical pity she had spoken such tender words. If
she knew that he was living still, if she could recognize him now, she
would be as cold and scornful as of yore.
He held the small hand as long as he dared, almost crushing it in his
clasp, as he longed to crush the slight form against his heart and
claim the love she had promised him if he lived.
“We must be friends, little Eva,” he said to her huskily, with a
yearning smile in his eyes; but she made no reply, only looked at him
fixedly and wistfully, and broke into her haunting refrain:
“Fair Diantha loved a lover,
Madly, madly, madly----”
“We will go on,” Doctor Bertrand said gently, drawing him away, and
adding kindly: “I see you have fallen under her spell like all the rest
of us.”
“Who could help it, poor girl?” he answered abstractedly, moving on by
her side and continuing:
“Have you tried to rouse her interest in anything? I should fancy
she would like books and flowers, like any young girl. There is a
conservatory here, I believe?”
“Yes, and little Eva shall have some of the sweetest flowers to-morrow.
I am sorry I did not think of that before,” answered the bright young
woman cordially.
“And I will bring her a book. Of course she would like poetry. Every
young girl does, naturally. What a blessing if we could restore her to
reason again!” he cried.
“And yet the pity of it,” she said thoughtfully. “Even if she were
restored to her right mind again, there is no home open to poor little
Eva, unless the old people that sent her here would take her back. It
is the saddest case in the world!”
She was not aware that the superintendent of the asylum, Doctor St.
Clair, was in the ward, until he spoke close to her elbow:
“Do not give your kind heart any uneasiness over that, my dear Doctor
Bertrand. If Miss Somerville ever recovers her reason, we can easily
make her self-supporting by giving her a position here.”
“That will be very kind of you,” the young lady replied quietly, and he
turned affably to the new physician.
“You find little Eva an interesting patient, as we all do. She is
so pretty and childlike, it is hard to believe her the heroine of so
terrible a scandal.”
“It is impossible!” Doctor Rupert answered curtly, with a flash
in the eyes under the long, drooping lashes, so that the astute
superintendent, a middle-aged man himself, thought shrewdly:
“Such a wonderful power has beauty in distress, that this callow young
man believes in her innocence already, although nothing could be
clearer than the evidence of her guilt. Dying men do not lie.”
He shrugged his shoulders and dropped the subject, but walked on
with them through the ward, making himself very cordial, and even
confidential, after his fashion, by recurring to his own personal
grievances, some arbitrary rulings of the board of directors at their
session last week. They had a most reprehensible habit of clipping the
doctor’s soaring wings.