When evening came Jeanne was somewhat better. She was able to get up,
and, in order to remove her mother’s fears, persisted in dragging
herself into the dining-room, where she took her seat before her empty
plate.
“I shall be all right,” she said, trying to smile. “You know very well
that the least thing upsets me. Get on with your dinner, mamma; I want
you to eat.”
And in the end she pretended an appetite she did not feel, for she
observed that her mother sat watching her paling and trembling, without
being able to swallow a morsel. She promised to take some jam, and
Hélène then hurried through her dinner, while the child, with a
never-fading smile and her head nodding tremblingly, watched her with
worshipping looks. On the appearance of the dessert she made an effort
to carry out her promise, but tears welled into her eyes.
“You see I can’t get it down my throat,” she murmured. “You mustn’t be
angry with me.”
The weariness that overwhelmed her was terrible. Her legs seemed
lifeless, her shoulders pained her as though gripped by a hand of iron.
But she was very brave through it all, and choked at their source the
moans which the shooting pains in her neck awakened. At one moment,
however, she forgot herself, her head felt too heavy, and she was bent
double by pain. Her mother, as she gazed on her, so faint and feeble,
was wholly unable to finish the pear which she was trying to force down
her throat. Her sobs choked her, and throwing down her napkin, she
clasped Jeanne in her arms.
“My child! my child!” she wailed, her heart bursting with sorrow, as
her eyes ranged round the dining-room where her darling, when in good
health, had so often enlivened her by her fondness for tid-bits.
At last Jeanne woke to life again, and strove to smile as of old.
“Don’t worry, mamma,” said she; “I shall be all right soon. Now that
you have done you must put me to bed. I only wanted to see you have
your dinner. Oh! I know you; you wouldn’t have eaten as much as a
morsel of bread.”
Hélène bore her away in her arms. She had brought the little crib close
to her own bed in the blue room. When Jeanne had stretched out her
limbs, and the bedclothes were tucked up under her chin, she declared
she felt much better. There were no more complaints about dull pains at
the back of her head; but she melted into tenderness, and her
passionate love seemed to grow more pronounced. Hélène was forced to
caress her, to avow intense affection for her, and to promise that she
would again kiss her when she came to bed.
“Never mind if I’m sleeping,” said Jeanne. “I shall know you’re there
all the same.”
She closed her eyes and fell into a doze. Hélène remained near her,
watching over her slumber. When Rosalie entered on tip-toe to ask
permission to go to bed, she answered “Yes” with a nod. At last eleven
o’clock struck, and Hélène was still watching there, when she imagined
she heard a gentle tapping at the outer door. Bewildered with
astonishment, she took up the lamp and left the room to make sure.
“Who is there?”
“’Tis I; open the door,” replied a voice in stifled tones.
It was Henri’s voice. She quickly opened the door, thinking his coming
only natural. No doubt he had but now been informed of Jeanne’s
illness, and had hastened to her, although she had not summoned him to
her assistance, feeling a certain shame at the thought of allowing him
to share in attending on her daughter.
However, he gave her no opportunity to speak. He followed her into the
dining-room, trembling, with inflamed visage.
“I beseech you, pardon me,” he faltered, as he caught hold of her hand.
“I haven’t seen you for three days past, and I cannot resist the
craving to see you.”
Hélène withdrew her hand. He stepped back, but, with his gaze still
fixed on her, continued: “Don’t be afraid; I love you. I would have
waited at the door had you not opened it. Oh! I know very well it is
simple madness, but I love you, I love you all the same!”
Her face was grave as she listened, eloquent with a dumb reproach which
tortured him, and impelled him to pour forth his passionate love.
But Hélène still remained standing, wholly unmoved. At last she spoke.
“You know nothing, then?” asked she.
He had taken her hand, and was raising it to his lips, when she started
back with a gesture of impatience.
“Oh! leave me!” she exclaimed. “You see that I am not even listening to
you. I have something far different to think about!”
Then becoming more composed, she put her question to him a second time.
“You know nothing? Well, my daughter is ill. I am pleased to see you;
you will dispel my fears.”
She took up the lamp and walked on before him, but as they were passing
through the doorway, she turned, and looking at him, said firmly:
“I forbid you beginning again here. Oh! you must not!”
He entered behind her, scarcely understanding what had been enjoined on
him. His temples throbbed convulsively, as he leaned over the child’s
little crib.
“She is asleep; look at her,” said Hélène in a whisper.
He did not hear her; his passion would not be silenced. She was hanging
over the bed in front of him, and he could see her rosy neck, with its
wavy hair. He shut his eyes that he might escape the temptation of
kissing her, as she said to him:
“Doctor, look at her, she is so feverish. Oh, tell me whether it is
serious!”
Then, yielding to professional habit, despite the tempest raging in his
brain, he mechanically felt Jeanne’s pulse. Nevertheless, so fierce was
the struggle that he remained for a time motionless, seemingly unaware
that he held this wasted little hand in his own.
“Is it a violent fever?” asked Hélène.
“A violent fever! Do you think so?” he repeated.
The little hand was scorching his own. There came another silence; the
physician was awakening within him, and passion was dying from his
eyes. His face slowly grew paler; he bent down uneasily, and examined
Jeanne.
“You are right; this is a very severe attack,” he exclaimed. “My God!
the poor child!”
His passion was now dead; he was solely consumed by a desire to be of
service to her. His coolness at once returned; he sat down, and was
questioning the mother respecting the child’s condition previous to
this attack of illness, when Jeanne awoke, moaning loudly. She again
complained of a terrible pain in the head. The pangs which were darting
through her neck and shoulders had attained such intensity that her
every movement wrung a sob from her. Hélène knelt on the other side of
the bed, encouraging her, and smiling on her, though her heart almost
broke at the sight of such agony.
“There’s some one there, isn’t there, mamma?” Jeanne asked, as she
turned round and caught sight of the doctor.
“It is a friend, whom you know.”
The child looked at him for a time with thoughtful eyes, as if in
doubt; but soon a wave of affection passed over her face. “Yes, yes, I
know him; I love him very much.” And with her coaxing air she added:
“You will have to cure me, won’t you, sir, to make mamma happy? Oh,
I’ll be good; I’ll drink everything you give me.”
The doctor again felt her pulse, while Hélène grasped her other hand;
and, as she lay there between them, her eyes travelled attentively from
one to the other, as though no such advantageous opportunity of seeing
and comparing them had ever occurred before. Then her head shook with a
nervous trembling; she grew agitated; and her tiny hands caught hold of
her mother and the doctor with a convulsive grip.
“Do not go away; I’m so afraid. Take care of me; don’t let all the
others come near me. I only want you, only you two, near me. Come
closer up to me, together!” she stammered.
Drawing them nearer, with a violent effort she brought them close to
her, still uttering the same entreaty: “Come close, together,
together!”
Several times did she behave in the same delirious fashion. Then came
intervals of quiet, when a heavy sleep fell on her, but it left her
breathless and almost dead. When she started out of these short dozes
she heard nothing, saw nothing—a white vapor shrouded her eyes. The
doctor remained watching over her for a part of the night, which proved
a very bad one. He only absented himself for a moment to procure some
medicine. Towards morning, when he was about to leave, Hélène, with
terrible anxiety in her face accompanied him into the ante-room.
“Well?” asked she.
“Her condition is very serious,” he answered; “but you must not fear;
rely on me; I will give you every assistance. I shall come back at ten
o’clock.”
When Hélène returned to the bedroom she found Jeanne sitting up in bed,
gazing round her with bewildered looks.
“You left me! you left me!” she wailed. “Oh! I’m afraid; I don’t want
to be left all alone.”
To console her, her mother kissed her, but she still gazed round the
room:
“Where is he?” she faltered. “Oh! tell him not to go away; I want him
to be here, I want him—”
“He will come back, my darling!” interrupted Hélène, whose tears were
mingling with Jeanne’s own. “He will not leave us, I promise you. He
loves us too well. Now, be good and lie down. I’ll stay here till he
comes back.”
“Really? really?” murmured the child, as she slowly fell back into deep
slumber.
Terrible days now began, three weeks full of awful agony. The fever did
not quit its victim for an hour. Jeanne only seemed tranquil when the
doctor was present; she put one of her little hands in his, while her
mother held the other. She seemed to find safety in their presence; she
gave each of them an equal share of her tyrannical worship, as though
she well knew beneath what passionate kindness she was sheltering
herself. Her nervous temperament, so exquisite in its sensibility, the
keener since her illness, inspired her, no doubt, with the thought that
only a miraculous effort of their love could save her. As the hours
slipped away she would gaze on them with grave and searching looks as
they sat on each side of her crib. Her glances remained instinct with
human passion, and though she spoke not she told them all she desired
by the warm pressure of her hands, with which she besought them not to
leave her, giving them to understand what peace was hers when they were
present. Whenever the doctor entered after having been away her joy
became supreme, and her eyes, which never quitted the door, flashed
with light; and then she would fall quietly asleep, all her fears
fleeing as she heard her mother and him moving around her and speaking
in whispers.
On the day after the attack Doctor Bodin called. But Jeanne suddenly
turned away her head and refused to allow him to examine her.
“I don’t want him, mamma,” she murmured, “I don’t want him! I beg of
you.”
As he made his appearance on the following day, Hélène was forced to
inform him of the child’s dislike, and thus it came about that the
venerable doctor made no further effort to enter the sick-room. Still,
he climbed the stairs every other day to inquire how Jeanne was getting
on, and sometimes chatted with his brother professional, Doctor
Deberle, who paid him all the deference due to an elder.
Moreover, it was useless to try to deceive Jeanne. Her senses had
become wondrously acute. The Abbé and Monsieur Rambaud paid a visit
every night; they sat down and spent an hour in sad silence. One
evening, as the doctor was going away, Hélène signed to Monsieur
Rambaud to take his place and clasp the little one’s hand, so that she
might not notice the departure of her beloved friend. But two or three
minutes had scarcely passed ere Jeanne opened her eyes and quickly drew
her hand away. With tears flowing she declared that they were behaving
ill to her.
“Don’t you love me any longer? won’t you have me beside you?” asked
poor Monsieur Rambaud, with tears in his eyes.
She looked at him, deigning no reply; it seemed as if her heart was set
on knowing him no more. The worthy man, grievously pained, returned to
his corner. He always ended by thus gliding into a window-recess,
where, half hidden behind a curtain, he would remain during the
evening, in a stupor of grief, his eyes the while never quitting the
sufferer. The Abbé was there as well, with his large head and pallid
face showing above his scraggy shoulders. He concealed his tears by
blowing his nose loudly from time to time. The danger in which he saw
his little friend lying wrought such havoc within him that his poor
were for the time wholly forgotten.
But it was useless for the two brothers to retire to the other end of
the room; Jeanne was still conscious of their presence. They were a
source of vexation to her, and she would turn round with a harassed
look, even though drowsy with fever. Her mother bent over her to catch
the words trembling on her lips.
“Oh! mamma, I feel so ill. All this is choking me; send everybody
away—quick, quick!”
Hélène with the utmost gentleness then explained to the two brothers
the child’s wish to fall asleep; they understood her meaning, and
quitted the room with drooping heads. And no sooner had they gone than
Jeanne breathed with greater freedom, cast a glance round the chamber,
and once more fixed a look of infinite tenderness on her mother and the
doctor.
“Good-night,” she whispered; “I feel well again; stay beside me.”
For three weeks she thus kept them by her side. Henri had at first paid
two visits each day, but soon he spent the whole night with them,
giving every hour he could spare to the child. At the outset he had
feared it was a case of typhoid fever; but so contradictory were the
symptoms that he soon felt himself involved in perplexity. There was no
doubt he was confronted by a disease of the chlorosis type, presenting
the greatest difficulty in treatment, with the possibility of very
dangerous complications, as the child was almost on the threshold of
womanhood. He dreaded first a lesion of the heart and then the setting
in of consumption. Jeanne’s nervous excitement, wholly beyond his
control, was a special source of uneasiness; to such heights of
delirium did the fever rise, that the strongest medicines were of no
avail. He brought all his fortitude and knowledge to bear on the case,
inspired with the one thought that his own happiness and life were at
stake. On his mind there had now fallen a great stillness; not once
during those three anxious weeks did his passion break its bonds.
Hélène’s breath no longer woke tremors within him, and when their eyes
met they were only eloquent of the sympathetic sadness of two souls
threatened by a common misfortune.
Nevertheless every moment brought their hearts nearer. They now lived
only with the one idea. No sooner had he entered the bed-chamber than
by a glance he gathered how Jeanne had spent the night; and there was
no need for him to speak for Hélène to learn what he thought of the
child’s condition. Besides, with all the innate bravery of a mother,
she had forced from him a declaration that he would not deceive her,
but allow her to know his fears. Always on her feet, not having had
three hours’ uninterrupted sleep for three weeks past, she displayed
superhuman endurance and composure, and quelled her despair without a
tear in order that she might concentrate her whole soul upon the
struggle with the dread enemy. Within and without her heart there was
nothing but emptiness; the world around her, the usual thoughts of each
hour, the consciousness of life itself, had all faded into darkness.
Existence held nothing for her. Nothing now bound her to life but her
suffering darling and this man who promised her a miracle. It was he,
and he only, to whom she looked, to whom she listened, whose most
trivial words were to her of the first importance, and into whose
breast she would fain have transfused her own soul in order to increase
his energy. Insensibly, and without break, this idea wrought out its
own accomplishment. Almost every evening, when the fever was raging at
its worst and Jeanne lay in imminent peril, they were there beside her
in silence; and as though eager to remind themselves that they stood
shoulder to shoulder struggling against death, their hands met on the
edge of the bed in a caressing clasp, while they trembled with
solicitude and pity till a faint smile breaking over the child’s face,
and the sound of quiet and regular breathing, told them that the danger
was past. Then each encouraged the other by an inclination of the head.
Once again had their love triumphed; and every time the mute caress
grew more demonstrative their hearts drew closer together.
One night Hélène divined that Henri was concealing something from her.
For ten minutes, without a word crossing his lips, he had been
examining Jeanne. The little one complained of intolerable thirst; she
seemed choking, and there was an incessant wheezing in her parched
throat. Then a purple flush came over her face, and she lapsed into a
stupor which prevented her even from raising her eyelids. She lay
motionless; it might have been imagined she was dead but for the sound
coming from her throat.
“You consider her very ill, do you not?” gasped Hélène.
He answered in the negative; there was no change. But his face was
ashy-white, and he remained seated, overwhelmed by his powerlessness.
Thereupon she also, despite the tension of her whole being, sank upon a
chair on the other side of the bed.
“Tell me everything. You promised to tell me all. Is she beyond hope?”
He still sat silent, and she spoke again more vehemently:
“You know how brave I am. Have I wept? have I despaired? Speak: I want
to know the truth.”
Henri fixed his eyes on her. The words came slowly from his lips.
“Well,” said he, “if in an hour hence she hasn’t awakened from this
stupor, it will be all over.”
Not a sob broke from Hélène; but icy horror possessed her and raised
her hair on end. Her eyes turned on Jeanne; she fell on her knees and
clasped her in her arms with a superb gesture eloquent of ownership, as
though she could preserve her from ill, nestling thus against her
shoulder. For more than a minute she kept her face close to the
child’s, gazing at her intently, eager to give her breath from her own
nostrils, ay, and her very life too. The labored breathing of the
little sufferer grew shorter and shorter.
“Can nothing be done?” she exclaimed, as she lifted her head. “Why do
you remain there? Do something!” But he made a disheartened gesture.
“Do something!” she repeated. “There must be something to be done. You
are not going to let her die oh, surely not!”
“I will do everything possible,” the doctor simply said.
He rose up, and then a supreme struggle began. All the coolness and
nerve of the practitioner had returned to him. Till now he had not
ventured to try any violent remedies, for he dreaded to enfeeble the
little frame already almost destitute of life. But he no longer
remained undecided, and straightway dispatched Rosalie for a dozen
leeches. And he did not attempt to conceal from the mother that this
was a desperate remedy which might save or kill her child. When the
leeches were brought in, her heart failed her for a moment.
“Gracious God! gracious God!” she murmured. “Oh, if you should kill
her!”
He was forced to wring consent from her.
“Well, put them on,” said she; “but may Heaven guide your hand!”
She had not ceased holding Jeanne, and refused to alter her position,
as she still desired to keep the child’s little head nestling against
her shoulder. With calm features he meantime busied himself with the
last resource, not allowing a word to fall from his lips. The first
application of the leeches proved unsuccessful. The minutes slipped
away. The only sound breaking the stillness of the shadowy chamber was
the merciless, incessant tick-tack of the timepiece. Hope departed with
every second. In the bright disc of light cast by the lamp, Jeanne lay
stretched among the disordered bedclothes, with limbs of waxen pallor.
Hélène, with tearless eyes, but choking with emotion, gazed on the
little body already in the clutches of death, and to see a drop of her
daughter’s blood appear, would willingly have yielded up all her own.
And at last a ruddy drop trickled down—the leeches had made fast their
hold; one by one they commenced sucking. The child’s life was in the
balance. These were terrible moments, pregnant with anguish. Was that
sigh the exhalation of Jeanne’s last breath, or did it mark her return
to life? For a time Hélène’s heart was frozen within her; she believed
that the little one was dead; and there came to her a violent impulse
to pluck away the creatures which were sucking so greedily; but some
supernatural power restrained her, and she remained there with open
mouth and her blood chilled within her. The pendulum still swung to and
fro; the room itself seemed to wait the issue in anxious expectation.
At last the child stirred. Her heavy eyelids rose, but dropped again,
as though wonder and weariness had overcome her. A slight quiver passed
over her face; it seemed as if she were breathing. Finally there was a
trembling of the lips; and Hélène, in an agony of suspense, bent over
her, fiercely awaiting the result.
“Mamma! mamma!” murmured Jeanne.
Henri heard, and walking to the head of the bed, whispered in the
mother’s ear: “She is saved.”
“She is saved! she is saved!” echoed Hélène in stammering tones, her
bosom filled with such joy that she fell on the floor close to the bed,
gazing now at her daughter and now at the doctor with distracted looks.
But she rose and giving way to a mighty impulse, threw herself on
Henri’s neck.
“I love you!” she exclaimed.
This was her avowal—the avowal imprisoned so long, but at last poured
forth in the crisis of emotion which had come upon her. Mother and
lover were merged in one; she proffered him her love in a fiery rush of
gratitude.
Through her sobs she spoke to him in endearing words. Her tears, dried
at their source for three weeks, were now rolling down her cheeks. But
at last she fell upon her knees, and took Jeanne in her arms to lull
her to deeper slumber against her shoulder; and at intervals whilst her
child thus rested she raised to Henri’s eyes glistening with passionate
tears.
Stretched in her cot, the bedclothes tucked under her chin, and her
head, with its dark brown tresses, resting in the centre of the pillow,
Jeanne lay, relieved, but prostrate. Her eyelids were closed, but she
did not sleep. The lamp, placed on the table, which had been rolled
close to the fireplace, lit but one end of the room, and the shade
encompassed Hélène and Henri, seated in their customary places on each
side of the bed. But the child did not part them; on the contrary, she
served as a closer bond between them, and her innocence was
intermingled with their love on this first night of its avowal. At
times Hélène rose on tiptoe to fetch the medicine, to turn up the lamp,
or give some order to Rosalie; while the doctor, whose eyes never
quitted her, would sign to her to walk gently. And when she had sat
down again they smiled at one another. Not a word was spoken; all their
interest was concentrated on Jeanne, who was to them as their love
itself. Sometimes when the coverlet was being pulled up, or the child’s
head was being raised, their hands met and rested together in sweet
forgetfulness. This undesigned, stealthy caress was the only one in
which they indulged.
“I am not sleeping,” murmured Jeanne. “I know very well you are there.”
On hearing her speak they were overjoyed. Their hands parted; beyond
this they had no desires. The improvement in the child’s condition was
to them satisfaction and peace.
“Are you feeling better, my darling?” asked Hélène, when she saw her
stirring.
Jeanne made no immediate reply, and when she spoke it was dreamingly.
“Oh, yes! I don’t feel anything now. But I can hear you, and that
pleases me.”
After the lapse of a moment, she opened her eyes with an effort and
looked at them. Then an angelic smile crossed her face, and her eyelids
dropped once more.
On the morrow, when the Abbé and Monsieur Rambaud made their
appearance, Hélène gave way to a shrug of impatience. They were now a
disturbing element in her happy nest. As they went on questioning her,
shaking with fear lest they might receive bad tidings, she had the
cruelty to reply that Jeanne was no better. She spoke without
consideration, driven to this strait by the selfish desire of
treasuring for herself and Henri the bliss of having rescued Jeanne
from death, and of alone knowing this to be so. What was their reason
for seeking a share in her happiness? It belonged to Henri and herself,
and had it been known to another would have seemed to her impaired in
value. To her imagination it would have been as though a stranger were
participating in her love.
The priest, however, approached the bed.
“Jeanne, ’tis we, your old friends. Don’t you know us?”
She nodded gravely to them in recognition, but she was unwilling to
speak to them; she was in a thoughtful mood, and she cast a look full
of meaning on her mother. The two poor men went away more heartbroken
than on any previous evening.
Three days later Henri allowed his patient her first boiled egg. It was
a matter of the highest importance. Jeanne’s mind was made up to eat it
with none present but her mother and the doctor, and the door must be
closed. As it happened, Monsieur Rambaud was present at the moment; and
when Hélène began to spread a napkin, by way of tablecloth, on the bed,
the child whispered in her ear: “Wait a moment—when he has gone.”
And as soon as he had left them she burst out: “Now, quick! quick! It’s
far nicer when there’s nobody but ourselves.”
Hélène lifted her to a sitting posture, while Henri placed two pillows
behind her to prop her up; and then, with the napkin spread before her
and a plate on her knees, Jeanne waited, smiling.
“Shall I break the shell for you?” asked her mother.
“Yes, do, mamma.”
“And I will cut you three little bits of bread,” added the doctor.
“Oh! four; you’ll see if I don’t eat four.”
It was now the doctor’s turn to be addressed endearingly. When he gave
her the first slice, she gripped his hand, and as she still clasped her
mother’s, she rained kisses on both with the same passionate
tenderness.
“Come, come; you will have to be good,” entreated Hélène, who observed
that she was ready to burst into tears; “you must please us by eating
your egg.”
At this Jeanne ventured to begin; but her frame was so enfeebled that
with the second sippet of bread she declared herself wearied. As she
swallowed each mouthful, she would say, with a smile, that her teeth
were tender. Henri encouraged her, while Hélène’s eyes were brimful of
tears. Heaven! she saw her child eating! She watched the bread
disappear, and the gradual consumption of this first egg thrilled her
to the heart. To picture Jeanne stretched dead beneath the sheets was a
vision of mortal terror; but now she was eating, and eating so
prettily, with all an invalid’s characteristic dawdling and hesitancy!
“You won’t be angry, mamma? I’m doing my best. Why, I’m at my third bit
of bread! Are you pleased?”
“Yes, my darling, quite pleased. Oh! you don’t know all the joy the
sight gives me!”
And then, in the happiness with which she overflowed, Hélène
forgetfully leaned against Henri’s shoulder. Both laughed gleefully at
the child, but over her face there suddenly crept a sullen flush; she
gazed at them stealthily, and drooped her head, and refused to eat any
more, her features glooming the while with distrust and anger. At last
they had to lay her back in bed again.