A STRANGE ILLNESS.
For three months General Mathieson remained in the country. His
improvement was very gradual--so gradual, indeed, that from week to week
it was scarce noticeable, and it was only by looking back that it was
perceptible. At the end of that time he could walk unaided, there was
less hesitation in his speech, and his memory was distinctly clearer. He
passed much of his time on a sofa placed in the shade in the garden,
with Hilda and Netta sitting by him, working and talking.
Netta had always been a favorite of his from the time that he first met
her in Hanover; and he had, when she was staying with his niece the year
before, offered her a very handsome salary if she would remain with her
as her companion. The girl, however, was reluctant to give up her
occupation, of which she was very fond, still less would she leave her
aunt; and although the General would willingly have engaged the latter
also as an inmate of the house, to act as a sort of chaperon to Hilda
when she drove out alone shopping, Netta refused in both their names.
"You would not have left the army, General, whatever temptations might
have been held out to you. I am happy in thinking that I am doing good
and useful work, and I don't think that any offer, even one so kind and
liberal as yours, would induce me to relinquish it."
Her presence now was not only an inestimable comfort to Hilda, but of
great advantage to the General himself. Alone Hilda would have found it
next to impossible to keep the invalid interested and amused. He liked
to talk and be talked to, but it was like the work of entertaining a
child. Netta, however, had an inexhaustible fund of good spirits. After
her long intercourse with children who needed entertainment with
instruction, and whose attention it was absolutely necessary to keep
fixed, she had no difficulty in keeping the conversation going, and her
anecdotes, connected with her life in Germany and the children she had
taught, were just suited to the General's mental condition.
Little Walter was of great assistance to her. He had come down with his
nurse as soon as they were fairly settled at Holmwood, and his prattle
and play were a great amusement to his grandfather. Whenever the
conversation flagged Netta offered to tell him a story, which not only
kept him quiet, but was listened to with as much interest by the General
as by the child. Dr. Leeds was often a member of the party, and his
cheery talk always had its effect in soothing the General when, as was
sometimes the case, he was inclined to be petulant and irritable.
They had been a fortnight at Holmwood before the doctor discovered
Netta's infirmity. She happened to be standing at a window with her back
to him when he asked her a question. Receiving no reply, he repeated it
in a louder tone, but he was still unanswered. Somewhat surprised, he
went up to her and touched her; she faced round immediately.
"Were you speaking to me, Dr. Leeds?"
"Yes, I spoke to you twice, Miss Purcell, but you did not hear me."
"I have been perfectly deaf from childhood," she said; "I cannot hear
any sound whatever. I never talk about it; people ask questions and
wonder, and then, forgetting that I do not hear, they persist in
addressing me in loud tones."
"Is it possible that you are deaf?"
"It is a melancholy fact," she said with a smile, and then added more
seriously, "It came on after measles. When I was eight years old my good
aunt, who had taken me to some of the best aurists in London, happened
to hear that a Professor Menzel had opened an establishment in Hanover
for teaching deaf mutes to speak by a new system of watching people's
lips. She took me over there, and, as you see, the result was an
undoubted success, and I now earn my living by acting as one of the
professor's assistants, and by teaching two or three little girls who
board at my aunt's."
"The system must be an admirable one indeed," the doctor said. "I have,
of course, heard of it, but could not have believed that the results
were so excellent. It never entered my mind for a moment that you were
in any way deficient in hearing, still less that you were perfectly
deaf. I have noticed that, more than is common, you always kept your
eyes fixed on my face when I was speaking to you."
"You would have noticed it earlier had we been often alone together,"
she said, "for unless I had kept my eyes always upon you I should not
have known when you were speaking; but when, as here, there are always
several of us together, my eyes are at once directed to your face when
you speak, by seeing the others look at you."
"Is it necessary to be quite close to you when one speaks?"
"Oh, not at all! Of course I must be near enough to be able to see
distinctly the motion of the lips, say at twenty yards. It is a great
amusement to me as I walk about, for I can see what is being said by
people on the other side of the road, or passing by in a vehicle. Of
course one only gets scraps of conversations, but sometimes they are
very funny."
"You must be quite a dangerous person, Miss Purcell."
"I am," she laughed; "and you must be careful not to say things that you
don't want to be overheard when you are within reach of my eyes.
Yesterday, for instance, you said to Hilda that my aunt seemed a
wonderfully kind and intelligent old lady; and you were good enough to
add some complimentary remarks about myself."
Dr. Leeds flushed.
"Well, I should not have said them in your hearing, Miss Purcell; but,
as they were complimentary, no harm was done. I think I said that you
were invaluable here, which is certainly the case, for I really do not
know how we should be able to amuse our patient if it were not for your
assistance."
"Hilda and I had a laugh about it," Netta said; "and she said, too, that
it was not fair your being kept in the dark as to our accomplishment."
"'Our accomplishment!'" he repeated in surprise. "Do you mean to say
that Miss Covington is deaf also? But no, that is impossible; for I
called to her yesterday, when her back was turned, and the General
wanted her, and she answered immediately."
"My tongue has run too fast," the girl said, "but I don't suppose she
would mind your knowing what she never speaks of herself. She was, as
you know, living with us in Hanover for more than four years. She
temporarily lost her hearing after an attack of scarlet fever, and the
doctors who were consulted here feared that it might be permanent. Her
father and mother, hearing of Dr. Hartwig as having the reputation of
being the first aurist in Europe, took her out to him. He held out hopes
that she could be cured, and recommended that she should be placed in
Professor Menzel's institution as soon as she could understand German,
so that, in case a cure was not effected, she might be able to hear with
her eyes. By great good fortune he recommended that she should live with
my aunt, partly because she spoke English, and partly because, as I was
already able to talk, I could act as her companion and instructor both
in the system and in German.
"In three years she could get on as well as I could, but the need for it
happily passed away, as her hearing was gradually restored. Still, she
continued to live with us while her education went on at the best school
in the town, but of course she always talked with me as I talked with
her, and so she kept up the accomplishment and has done so ever since.
But her mother advised her very strongly to keep the knowledge of her
ability to read people's words from their lips a profound secret, as it
might tend to her disadvantage; for people might be afraid of a girl
possessed of the faculty of overhearing their conversation at a
distance."
"That explains what rather puzzled me the other day," the doctor said.
"When I came out into the garden you were sitting together and were
laughing and talking. You did not notice me, and it struck me as strange
that, while I heard the laughing, I did not hear the sound of your
voices until I was within a few paces of you. When Miss Covington
noticed me I at once heard your voices."
"Yes, you gave us both quite a start, and Hilda said we must either give
up talking silently or let you into our secret; so I don't think that
she will be vexed when I tell her that I have let it out."
"I am glad to have the matter explained," he said, "for really I asked
myself whether I must not have been temporarily deaf, and should have
thought it was so had I not heard the laughing as distinctly as usual. I
came to the conclusion that you must, for some reason or other, have
dropped your voices to a whisper, and that one or the other was telling
some important secret that you did not wish even the winds to hear."
"I think that this is the only secret that we have," Netta laughed.
"Seriously, this is most interesting to me as a doctor, and it is a
thousand pities that a system that acts so admirably should not be
introduced into this country. You should set up a similar institution
here, Miss Purcell."
"I have been thinking of doing so some day. Hilda is always urging me to
it, but I feel that I am too young yet to take the head of an
establishment, but in another four or five years' time I shall think
seriously about it."
"I can introduce you to all the aurists in London, Miss Purcell, and I
am sure that you will soon get as many inmates as you may choose to
take. In cases where their own skill fails altogether, they would be
delighted to comfort parents by telling them how their children may
learn to dispense altogether with the sense of hearing."
"Not quite altogether," she said. "It has happened very often, as it did
just now, that I have been addressed by someone at whom I did not
happen to be looking, and then I have to explain my apparent rudeness by
owning myself to be entirely deaf. Unfortunately, I have not always been
able to make people believe it, and I have several times been soundly
rated by strangers for endeavoring to excuse my rudeness by a palpable
falsehood."
"Really, I am hardly surprised," Dr. Leeds said, "for I should myself
have found it difficult to believe that one altogether deaf could have
been taught to join in conversation as you do. Well, I must be very
careful what I say in future while in the society of two young ladies
possessed of such dangerous and exceptional powers."
"You need not be afraid, doctor; I feel sure that there is no one here
to whom you would venture to give us a bad character."
"I think," he went on more seriously, "that Miss Covington's mother was
very wise in warning her against her letting anyone know that she could
read conversations at a distance. People would certainly be afraid of
her, for gossipmongers would be convinced that she was overhearing, if I
may use the word, what was said, if she happened to look at them only
casually."
* * * * *
At the end of three months the General became restless, and was
constantly expressing a wish to be brought back to London.
"What do you think yourself, Dr. Leeds?" Dr. Pearson said, when he paid
one of his usual visits.
"He is, of course, a great deal better than he was when he first came
down," the former replied, "but there is still that curious hesitation
in his speech, as if he was suffering from partial paralysis. I am not
surprised at his wanting to get up to town again. As he improves in
health he naturally feels more and more the loss of his usual course of
life. I should certainly have advised his remaining here until he had
made a good deal further advancement, but as he has set his mind upon
it, I believe that more harm would be done by refusing than by his
going. In fact, I think that he has, if anything, gone back in the last
fortnight, and above all things it is necessary to avoid any course that
might cause irritation, and so set up fresh brain disturbances."
"I am quite of your opinion, Leeds. I have noticed myself that he
hesitates more than he did a short time since, and sometimes, instead of
joining in the conversation, he sits moody and silent; and he is
beginning to resent being looked after and checked."
"Yes; he said to me the other day quite angrily, 'I don't want to be
treated as a child or a helpless invalid, doctor. I took a mile walk
yesterday. I am beginning to feel quite myself again; it will do me a
world of good to be back in London, and to drive down to the club and to
have a chat with my old friends again.'"
"Well, I think it best that he should not be thwarted. You have looked
at the scars from time to time, I suppose?"
"Yes; there has been no change in them, they are very red, but he tells
me--and what is more to the point, his man tells me--that they have
always been so."
"What do you think, Leeds? Will he ever be himself again? Watching the
case from day to day as you have done, your opinion is worth a good deal
more than mine."
"I have not the slightest hope of it," the young doctor replied quietly.
"I have seen as complete wrecks as he is gradually pull themselves round
again, but they have been cases where they have been the victims of
drink or of some malady from which they had been restored by a
successful operation. In his case we have failed altogether to determine
the cause of his attack, or the nature of it. We have been feeling in
the dark, and hitherto have failed to discover a clew that we could
follow up. So far there has been no recurrence of his first seizure,
but, with returning strength and returning brain work, it is in my
opinion more than likely that we shall have another recurrence of it.
The shock has been a tremendous one to the system. Were he a younger man
he might have rallied from it, but I doubt whether at his age he will
ever get over it. Actually he is, I believe, under seventy; physically
and mentally, he is ninety."
"That is so, and between ourselves I cannot but think that a long
continuance of his life is not to be desired. I believe with you that he
will be a confirmed invalid, requiring nursing and humoring like a
child, and for the sake of Miss Covington and all around him one cannot
wish that his life should be prolonged."
"I trust that, when the end comes, Dr. Pearson, it will be gradual and
painless, and that there will be no recurrence of that dreadful
seizure."
"I hope so indeed. I have seen many men in bad fits, but I never saw
anything to equal that. I can assure you that several of the men who
were present--men who had gone through a dozen battles--were completely
prostrated by it. At least half a dozen of them, men whom I had never
attended before, knowing that I had been present, called upon me within
the next two or three days for advice, and were so evidently completely
unstrung that I ordered them an entire change of scene at once, and
recommended them to go to Homburg, take the waters, and play at the
tables; to do anything, in fact, that would distract their minds from
dwelling upon the painful scene that they had witnessed. Had it not been
for that, one would have had no hesitation in assigning his illness to
some obscure form of paralysis; as it is, it is unaccountable. Except,"
he added, with a smile, "by your theory of poison."
The younger doctor did not smile in return. "It is the only cause that I
can assign for it," he said gravely. "The more I study the case, the
more I investigate the writings of medical men in India and on the East
and West Coast of Africa, the more it seems to me that the attack was
the work of a drug altogether unknown to European science, but known to
Obi women, fetich men, and others of that class in Africa. In some of
the accounts of people accused of crime by fetich men, and given liquor
to drink, which they are told will not affect them if innocent, but will
kill them if guilty, I find reports of their being seized with instant
and violent convulsions similar to those that you witnessed. These
convulsions often end in death; sometimes, where, I suppose, the dose
was larger than usual, the man drops dead in his tracks while drinking
it. Sometimes he dies in convulsions; at other times he recovers
partially and lingers on, a mere wreck, for some months. In other cases,
where, I suppose, the dose was a light one, and the man's relatives were
ready to pay the fetich man handsomely, the recovery was speedy and
complete; that is to say, if, as is usually the case, the man was not
put to death at once upon the supposed proof of his guilt. By what
possible means such poison could have found its way to England, for
there is no instance of its nature being divulged to Europeans, I know
not, nor how it could have been administered; but I own that it is still
the only theory by which I can account for the General's state. I need
not say that I should never think of giving the slightest hint to anyone
but yourself as to my opinion in the matter, and trust most sincerely
that I am mistaken; but although I have tried my utmost I cannot
overcome the conviction that the theory is a correct one, and I think,
Dr. Pearson, that if you were to look into the accounts of the various
ways in which the poisons are sold by old negro women to those anxious
to get rid of enemies or persons whose existence is inconvenient to
them, and by the fetich men in these ordeals, you will admit at least
that had you been practicing on the West Coast, and any white man there
had such an attack as that through which the General has passed, you
would without hesitation have put it down to poison by some negro who
had a grudge against him."
"No doubt, no doubt," the other doctor admitted; "but, you see, we are
not on the West Coast. These poisons are, as you admit, absolutely
unobtainable by white men from the men and women who prepare them. If
obtainable, when would they have been brought here, and by whom? And
lastly, by whom administered, and from what motive? I admit all that you
say about the African poisons. I lately had a long talk about them with
a medical man who had been on the coast for four or five years, but
until these other questions can be answered I must refuse to believe
that this similarity is more than accidental, and in any possible way
due to the same cause."
"That is what I have told myself scores of times, and it would be a
relief to me indeed could I find some other explanation of the matter.
Then, you think that he had better come up to London?"
"I leave the matter in your hands, Dr. Leeds. I would give him a few
days longer and try the effect of a slight sedative; possibly his desire
to get up to town may die out. If so, he is without doubt better here.
If, however, you see that his irritation increases, and he becomes more
and more set upon it, by all means take him up. How would you do so? By
rail or road?"
"Certainly by rail. I have been trying to make him feel that he is a
free agent, and encouraged him in the belief that he is stronger and
better. If then I say to him, 'My dear General, you are, of course, free
to do as you like, and it may be that the change will be beneficial to
you; if the ladies can be ready to-morrow, let us start without further
delay,' I consider it quite possible that this ready and cheerful
acquiescence may result in his no longer desiring it. One knows that in
this respect sick people are very like fractious children. They set
their minds on some special article of food, as a child does on a toy,
and when it comes they will refuse to touch it, as the child will throw
the coveted toy down."
It turned out so in this case. The moment the General found that the
doctor was willing that he should go up to town, and the ladies quite
ready to accompany him at once, he himself began to raise objections.
"Perhaps it would be as well that we should wait another month," he
replied. A little pretended opposition strengthened this view, and the
return was postponed. At the end of the month he had made so much
progress that, when the longing for London was again expressed, Dr.
Leeds offered no opposition, and two days later the whole party went
up.