SICK-BED FANCIES.
We mounted the staircase, a broad, old-fashioned flight of steps,
surmounted with heavy balustrades of black oak. There was a thick carpet
running up them; but, lightly as we trod, the keen ear of the invalid
detected a strange presence, and I heard his voice, muffled and rough
with fever, calling out, "Yes, yes, I knew, I knew, I knew that she
would come!" Then he broke into the notes of some opera-song.
There was a cool, artificial twilight in the chamber when we entered it;
but through the bars of the outer blinds a gleam of sunshine shot across
the room, and broke against the wall opposite the great, high-posted bed
on which young Bosworth was lying. The chamber was large, and but for
the closed blinds would have been cheerful. As it was, a great
easy-chair, draped with white dimity, loomed up like a snow-drift near
the bed; which being clothed in like spotless fashion, gave a ghastly
appearance to everything around.
Young Bosworth lay upon the bed with his arms feebly uplifted, and his
great, wild eyes wandering almost fiercely after the sunbeams which came
and went like golden arrows, as the branches of an elm-tree near the
window changed their position.
I went up to the bed, and touched the young man's wrist. The pulse that
leaped against my fingers was like the blows of a tiny hammer; his eyes
turned on my face, and he clutched my hand, laughing pleasantly.
"How cool your hand is!" he said, with a child-like murmur. "You have
been among the clover-blossoms; their breath is all around me."
"Yes," I said, dropping into his own monotone without an effort, "I came
through the meadows, and brought some of the flowers with me. See how
fresh and sweet they are."
He took the flowers eagerly, grasping them with both hands.
"Did she send them?" he whispered, mysteriously. "Did she?"
I smiled, but would not answer. The delusion seemed pleasant, and it
would be cruelty to disturb it. He held the blossoms caressingly in his
hand; a smile wandered over his lips, and he whispered over soft
fragments of some melody that I remembered as one of Jessie's favorites.
Directly the flowers dropped from his grasp, and he began to search
after the sunbeam again, clutching at it feverishly, and looking in his
hands with vague wonder when he found them empty.
I do not think the young man recognized me at all; but my presence
certainly aroused new associations.
He looked wistfully into my face with that vacant stare of delirium
which is so painful, and then his eyes wandered away, as if in search of
some object they could not find.
"Jessie," he murmured; "Jessie Lee, are you there? Won't you speak to me
once more, Jessie?"
The expression of his countenance changed so entirely--a look of such
tender, earnest entreaty settled about his handsome, sensitive
mouth--that I felt the tears come into my eyes. When I looked up, I saw
the stately old grandmother gazing directly upon me; while little Mrs.
Bosworth, in her very efforts to be at the same time perfectly quiet and
extremely useful, fluttered about in a feeble way that would have
annoyed me beyond endurance had I been the sick person.
But the young man, apparently susceptible neither to outer sights nor
sounds, saw nothing and heard nothing but the fanciful shapes and
mocking whispers of his fever-visions.
"Put these flowers in your hair, Jessie," he said, somewhat brokenly,
"they are wild flowers such as you love, and I love them for your
sake--for your sake."
He put out his hands, moving them to and fro over the counterpane, to
gather up the blossoms he had scattered there; but his fingers wandered
so uncertainly, that even when he succeeded in collecting a few, they
would drop from his grasp. I saw he began to grow impatient, and I knew
that the least thing would excite his fever and thereby increase the
delirium, so I put the flowers softly into his palm. He smiled in a
satisfied way.
"Here they are," he said; "take them, Jessie; see what a pretty wreath
they make."
Then the smile changed to a look of pain. He let the flowers fall to the
counterpane with a low moan.
"She has a wreath on now!" he exclaimed. "Jessie Lee, who gave you that?
White flowers! Bridal flowers!"
He started up in the bed with such violence, that his mother hurried
forward with a cry of dismay, and, getting into mischief, as people in a
flurry are sure to do, she upset a bottle of cologne and a goblet, but
fortunately the old lady caught them before they reached the floor.
"Oh my!" sobbed little Mrs. Bosworth, in nervous fright, "what have I
done? Oh! dear, dear!"
"Sit down, my dear," said her mother-in-law, with a good deal of
steadiness; "you only disturb him."
"But he looks so wild. Hadn't I better send for the doctor?"
"No, no. He will be here before long. Leave my grandson to Miss Hyde;
she will quiet him."
The old lady looked at me, with confidence in my powers, and the mother
joined her in a helpless, despairing manner, mixed with a little
maternal jealousy, at seeing me in the place that was hers by right. I
felt quite nervous and disturbed by this joint appeal; however, I was
not foolish enough to give way to any weakness or nonsense when
composure was required, so I drew close to the bed, and laid my hand on
Bosworth's arm. He was muttering wildly, and I could catch the words,--
"Are they bridal flowers, Jessie Lee?"
"She has taken off the wreath," I whispered.
"No, no; it is there on her forehead. Who gave it to her?"
"She has thrown it aside," I protested; "she would not wear it a moment
after she knew it pained you. It is gone now."
He looked earnestly at the place where he thought Jessie stood, and fell
back on his pillows with a sigh of satisfaction.
"Kind Jessie," he said, "kind Jessie!"
But that quiet only lasted for a few moments. He grew more restless than
before; and I saw old Mrs. Bosworth looking at me still, as if she had
fully made up her mind that I could compose him, and nothing less than
that desirable effect would satisfy her. Really, with those old-world
eyes fastened upon me, I could not avoid exerting all my powers,
although in my heart I fairly wished the fidgety little mother safe in
her own room.