The Remarkable Case of Lady Mary Fane.
It was the kind of day that is called seasonable. If the sun had been
obscured, the air would have been felt to be wintry; but the sunshine
was full and warm, and so the world rejoiced, and declared it was a
perfectly lovely May day,--just as a man who is charmed with the smiles
and beauty of a woman, thinks her complete though she may have a heart
of ice. Lefevre, as he went his hospital round that afternoon, found his
patients revelling in the sunlight like flies. He himself was in
excellent spirits, and he said a cheery or facetious word here and there
as he passed, which gave infinite delight to the thin and bloodless
atomies under his care; for a joke from so serious and awful a being as
the doctor is to a desponding patient better than all the drugs of the
pharmacopoeia: it is as exquisite and sustaining as a divine text of
promise to a religious enthusiast.
Dr Lefevre was thus passing round his female ward, with a train of
attentive students at his heels, when the door was swung open and two
attendants entered, bearing a stretcher between them, and accompanied by
the house-physician and a policeman.
"What is this?" asked Lefevre, with a touch of severity; for it was
irregular to intrude a fresh case into a ward while the physician was
going his round.
"I thought, sir," said the house-physician, "you would like to see her
at once: it seems to me a case similar to that of the man found in the
Brighton train."
"Where was this lady found?" asked Lefevre of the policeman. He used the
word "lady" advisedly, for though the dress was that of a hospital nurse
or probationer, the unconscious face was that of an educated
gentlewoman. "Why, bless my soul!" he cried, upon more particular
scrutiny of her features--"it seems to me I know her! Surely I do! Where
did you say she was found?"
The policeman explained that he was on his beat outside St James's Park,
when a park-keeper called him in and showed him, in one of the shady
walks, the lady set on a bench as if she had fainted. The keeper said he
had taken particular notice of her, because he saw from her dress and
her veil she was a hospital lady. When he first set eyes on her, an old
gentleman was sitting talking to her--a strange, dark, foreign-looking
gentleman, in a soft hat and a big Inverness cape.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed the doctor. "The very man! That's the meaning
of it. And I did not guess!"
His assistant and the policeman gazed at him in surprise; but he
recovered himself and asked, with a serious and determined knitting of
the brows, if the policeman had seen the old gentleman. The policeman
replied he had not; the gentleman was nowhere to be seen when he was
called in. The keeper saw him only once; when he returned that way
again, in about a quarter of an hour, he found the lady alone and
apparently asleep. She had a very handsome umbrella by her side, and
therefore he kept within eye-shot of her on this side and on that, lest
some park-loafer should seize so good a chance of thieving. He thus
passed her two or three times. The last time, he remarked that she had
slipped a little to one side, and that her umbrella had fallen to the
ground. He went to pick it up, and it struck him as he bent that she
looked strangely quiet and pale. He spoke to her; she made no reply. He
touched her--he even in his fear ventured to shake her--but she made no
sign; and he ran to call the policeman. They then brought her straight
to the hospital, because they could see she was a hospital lady of some
sort.
"It must--it must be the same!" said Lefevre.
"I thought, when I first heard of it below," said the house-physician,
"that it must be the same man as was the cause of the other case, in the
Brighton train."
"No doubt it is the same. But I was thinking of it in another--a far
more serious sense!" Then turning to the waiting policeman, he said, "Of
course, you must report this to your inspector?"
"Yes, sir," said the policeman.
"Give him my compliments, then, and say I shall see him presently."
Yet, he thought, how could he speak to the official, with all that he
suspected, all that he feared, in his heart? With his attention on the
_qui vive_ with his experiences and speculations of the night, he was
seized, as we have seen, by the conclusion that the "strange, dark,
foreign-looking gentleman" of the park-keeper's story was the same whose
steps he had followed the evening before, without guessing that the man
was perambulating the pavement and passing among the crowd in search,
doubtless, of a fresh victim for occult experiment or outrage! That
conclusion once determined, shock after shock smote upon his sense. What
if the mysterious person were really proved to be Julius's father? What
if he had entered upon a course of experiment or outrage (he passed in
rapid review the mysteries of the Paris pavement and the Brighton train,
and this of the Park)--outrage yet unnamable because unknown, but which
would amaze and confound society, and bring signal punishment upon the
offender? And what--what if Julius knew all that, and therefore sought
to keep his parentage hidden?
"She is ready, doctor," said the Sister of the ward at his elbow, adding
with a touch of excitement in her manner as he turned to her, "do you
know who she is? Look at this card; we noticed the name first on her
linen."
Dr Lefevre looked at the card and read, "Lady Mary Fane, Carlton
Gardens, S.W."
"I suspected as much," said he. "Lord Rivercourt's daughter. It's a bad
business. She has been learning at St Thomas's the duties of nurse and
dresser, which accounts for her being in that uniform."
He went to the bed on which his new patient had been laid, and very soon
satisfied himself that her case was similar to that of the young
officer, though graver much than it. He wrote a telegram to Lord
Rivercourt, sent the house-physician for his electrical apparatus, and
returned to the bedside. He looked at his patient. He had not remarked
her hitherto more than other women of his acquaintance, though he had
sometimes sat at her father's table; but now he was moved by a beauty
which was enhanced by helplessness--a beauty stamped with a calm
disregard of itself--the manifest expression of a noble and loving soul,
which had lived above the plane of doubt and fear and gusty passion. Her
wealth of lustrous black hair lay abroad upon her pillow, and made an
admirable setting for her finely-modelled head and neck. As he looked at
this excellent presentment, and thought of the intelligence and activity
which had been wont to animate it, resentment rose in him against the
man who, for whatever end, had subdued the noble woman to that
condition, and a deep impatience penetrated him that he had not
discovered--had even scarcely guessed--the purpose or the method of the
subjugation!
It was, however, not speculation but action that was needed then. The
apparatus described in the case of the young officer was ready, and the
house-physician was waiting to give his assistance. The stimulation of
Will and Electricity was applied to resuscitate the patient--but with
the smallest success: there was only a faint flutter, a passing slight
rigidity of the muscles, and all seemed again as it had been. The
exhausting nature of the operation or experiment forbade its immediate
repetition. Disappointment pervaded the doctor's being, though it did
not appear in the doctor's manner.
"We'll try again in half an hour," said he to his assistant, and turned
away to complete his round of the ward.
At the end of the half-hour, Lefevre and the house-physician were again
by Lady Mary's bedside. Again, with fine but firm touch, Lefevre stroked
nerves and muscles to stimulate them into normal action; again he and
his assistant put out their electrical force through the electrode; and
again the result was nothing but a passing galvanic quiver. The doctor,
though he maintained his professional calm, was smitten with alarm,--as
a man is who, walking through darkness and danger to the rescue of a
friend, finds himself stopped by an unscalable wall. While he sought
fresh means of help, his patient might pass beyond his reach. He did not
think she would--he hoped she would not; but her condition, so
obstinately resistant to his restoratives, was so peculiar, that he
could not in the least determine the issue. Imagination and speculation
were excited, and he asked himself whether, after all, the explanation
of his failure might not be of the simplest--a difference of sex! The
secrets of nature, so far as he had discovered, were of such amazing
simplicity, that it would not surprise him now to find that the
electrical force of a man varied vitally from that of a woman. He
explained this suspicion to his assistant.
"I think," said he, "we must make another attempt, for her condition may
become the more serious the longer it is left. We'll set the Sister and
the nurse to try this time, and we'll turn her bed north and south, in
the line of the earth's magnetism." But just then the lady's father, the
old Lord Rivercourt, appeared in response to the doctor's telegram, and
the experiment with the women had to wait. The old lord was naturally
filled with wonder and anxiety when he saw his apparently lifeless
daughter. He was amazed that she should have been overcome by such
influence as, he understood, the old gentleman must wield. She had
always, he said, enjoyed the finest health, and was as little inclined
to hysteria as woman well could be. Lefevre told the father that this
was something other than hystero-hypnotism, which, while it reassured
him as to his daughter's former health, made him the more anxious
regarding her present condition.
"It is very extraordinary," said the old lord; "but whatever it is,--and
you say it is like the young man's case that we have all read
about,--whatever it is,"--and he laid his hand emphatically on the
doctor's arm,--"she could not be in more capable hands than yours."
That assurance, though soothing to the doctor's self-esteem, added
gravely to his sense of responsibility.
While they were yet speaking, Lefevre was further troubled by the
announcement that a detective-inspector desired to speak with him!
Should he tell the inspector all that he had seen the night before, and
all that he suspected now, or should he hold his peace? His duty as a
citizen, as a doctor, and as, in a sense, the protector of his patient,
seemed to demand the one course, while his consideration for Julius and
for his own family suggested the other. Surely, never was a simple,
upright doctor involved in a more bewildering _imbroglio_!
The detective-inspector entered, and opened an interview which proved
less embarrassing than Lefevre had anticipated. The detective had
already made up his mind about the case and his course regarding it. He
put no curious questions; he merely inquired concerning the identity and
the condition of the lady. When he heard who she was, and when he caught
the import of an aside from Lord Rivercourt that it would be worth any
one's while to discover the mysterious offender, professional zeal
sparkled in his eye.
"I think I know my man," said he; and the doctor looked the lively
interest he felt. "I am right, I believe, Dr Lefevre, in setting this
down to the author of that other case you had,--that from the Brighton
train?" Lefevre thought he was right in that. "'M. Dolaro:' that was the
name. I had charge of the case, and was baffled. I shan't miss him this
time. I shall get on his tracks at once; he can't have left the Park in
broad daylight, a singular man like him, without being noticed."
"It rather puzzles me," said the doctor, "what crime you will charge him
with."
"It is an outrage," said Lord Rivercourt; "and if it is not criminal, it
seems about time it were made so."
"Oh, we'll class it, my lord," said the detective; "never fear."
The detective departed; but Lord Rivercourt seemed not inclined to stir.
"You will excuse me," said Lefevre; "but I must perform a very delicate
operation."
"To be sure," said the old lord; "and you want me to go. How stupid of
me! I kept waiting for my daughter to wake up; but I see that, of
course, you have to rouse her. It did not occur to me what that machine
meant. Something magneto-electric--eh? Forgive one question, Lefevre. I
can see you look anxious: is Mary's condition very serious?--most
serious? I can bear to be told the complete truth."
The doctor was touched by the old gentleman's emotion. He took his hand.
"It is serious," said he--"most serious, for this reason, that I cannot
account for her obstinate lethargy; but I think there is no immediate
danger. If necessity arises, I shall send for you again."
"To the House," said Lord Rivercourt. "I shall be sitting out a debate
on our eternal Irish question."
Lefevre was left seriously discomposed, but at once he sent for the
house-physician, summoned the Sister and the nurse, and set about his
third attempt to revive his patient. He got the bed turned north and
south. He carefully explained to the two women what was demanded of
them, and applied them to their task; but, whatever the cause, the
failure was completer than before: there was not even a tremor of muscle
in the unconscious lady, and the doctor was suffused with alarm and
humiliation. Failure!--failure!--failure! Such a concatenation had never
happened to him before!
But failure only nerves the brave and capable man to a supreme effort
for success. Still self-contained, and apparently unmoved, the doctor
gave directions for some liquid nourishment to be artificially
administered to his patient, said he would return after dinner, and went
his way. The society of friends or acquaintances was distasteful to him
then; the thought even of seeing his own familiar dining-room and his
familiar man in black, whose silent obsequiousness he felt would be a
reproach, was disagreeable. All his thought, all his attention, all his
faculties were drawn tight to this acute point--he must succeed; he must
accomplish the task he had set himself: life at that hour was worth
living only for that purpose. But how was success to be compelled?
He walked for a while about the streets, and then he went into a
restaurant and ordered a modest dinner. He broke and crumbled his bread
with both hands, his mind still intent on that one engrossing, acute
point. While thus he sat he heard a voice, as in a dream, say, "The very
doctor you read about. That's the second curious case he's got in a
month or so.... Oh yes--very clever; he treats them, I understand, in
the same sort of way as the famous Dr Charbon of Paris would.... I
should say so; quite as good, if not better than Charbon. I'd rather
have an English doctor any day than a French.... His name's in the
paper--_Lefevre_." Then the doctor woke to the fact that he was being
talked about. He perceived his admirers were sitting at a table a little
behind him, and he judged from what had been said that his fresh case
was already being made "copy" of in the evening papers. The flattering
comparison of himself with Dr Charbon had an oddly stimulating effect
upon him, notwithstanding that it had been uttered by he knew not
whom,--a mere _vox et præterea nihil_. He disclaimed to himself the
truth of the comparison, but all the same he was encouraged to bend his
attention with his utmost force to the solution of his difficult
problem--what to do to rouse his patient?
He sat thus, amid the bustle and buzz of the restaurant, the coming and
going of waiters, completely abstracted, assailing his difficulty with
questions on this side and on that,--when suddenly out of the mists that
obscured it there rose upon his mental vision an idea, which appealed to
him as a solution of the whole, and, more than that, as a secret that
would revolutionise all the treatment of nervous weakness and
derangement. How came the idea? How do ideas ever come? As inspirations,
we say, or as revelations; and truly they come upon us with such amazing
and inspiriting freshness, that they may well be called either the one
or the other. But no great idea had ever yet an epiphany but from the
ferment of more familiar small ideas,--just as the glorious Aphrodite
was born of the ferment and pother of the waves of the sea. Lefevre's
new idea clothed itself in the form of a comparative question--_Why
should there not be Transfusion of Nervous Force, Ether, or Electricity,
just as there is Transfusion of Blood?_
He pushed his dinner away (he could scarcely have told what he had been
eating and drinking), called for his bill, and returned with all speed
to the hospital. He entered his female ward just as evening prayers were
finished, before the lights were turned out and night began for the
patients. He summoned his trusted assistant, the house-physician, again.
"I am about to attempt," said he, "an altogether new operation: the
patient has remained just as I left her, I suppose?"
"Just the same."
"Nervous Force, whether it be Electricity or not, is manifestly a fluid
of some sort: why should it not be transfused as the other vital fluid
is?"
"Indeed, sir, when you put it so," said the house-physician, suddenly
steeled and brightened into interest, "I should say, 'why not?' The only
reason against it is what can be assigned against all new things--it has
not, so far as I know, been done."
"Exactly. I am going to try. I think, in case we need a current, so to
say, to draw it along, that we shall use the apparatus too; we shall
therefore need the women."
"You mean, of course," said the young man, "you will cut a main nerve."
"I shall use this nerve," said Lefevre, indicating the main nerve in the
wrist,--upon which the young man, in his ready enthusiasm, began to bare
his arm.
"My dear fellow," said Lefevre, "do you consider what you are so
promptly offering? Do you know that my experiment, if successful, might
leave you a paralytic, or an imbecile, or even--a corpse?"
"I'll take the risk, sir," said the young man.
"I can't permit it, my boy," said Lefevre, laying his hand on his arm,
and giving him a look of kindness. "Nobody must run this risk but me. I
don't mean, however, to cut the nerve."
"What then, sir?"
"Well," said Lefevre, "this Nervous Force, or Nervous Ether, is clearly
a very volatile, and at the same time a very searching fluid. It can
easily pass through the skin from a nerve in one person to a nerve in
another. There is no difficulty about that; the difficulty is to set up
a rapid enough vibration to whirl the current through!" He said that in
meditative fashion: he was clearly at the moment repeating the working
out of the problem.
"I see," said the young man, looking thoughtful.
"Now, you are a musician, are you not?"
"I play a little," said the young man, with a bewildered look.
"You play the violin?"
"Yes."
"And, of course, you have it in your rooms. Would you be so good as
to bring me the bow of your violin, and borrow for me anywhere a
tuning-fork of as high a note as possible?"
The young man looked at Dr Lefevre in puzzled inquiry; but the doctor
was considering the electrical apparatus before him, and the young man
set off on his errands. When he returned with the fiddle-bow and the
tuning-fork, he saw Lefevre had placed the machine ready, with fresh
chemicals in the vessels.
"Do you perceive my purpose?" asked Lefevre. He placed one handle of the
apparatus in the unconscious patient's right hand, while he himself took
hold of her left arm with his right hand, so that the inner side of his
wrist was in contact with the inner side of hers; and then, to complete
the circle of connection, he took in his left hand the other handle of
the apparatus. "You don't understand?"
"I do not," answered the young man.
"We want a very rapid vibration--much more rapid than usual," said the
doctor. "I can apply no more rapid vibration at present than that which
the note of that tuning-fork will produce. I want you to sound the
tuning-fork with the fiddle-bow, and then apply the fork to this wire."
"Oh," said the young man, "I understand!"
"Now," said Lefevre, "you'd better call the Sister to set the
electricity going."
The Sister came and took her place as before described--with her hands,
that is, on the cylinder of the electrode, her fingers dipping over into
the vessels of chemicals. She opened her eyes and smiled at sight of the
fiddle-bow and tuning-fork.
"I am trying a new thing, Sister," said Lefevre, with a touch of
severity. "I do not need you, I do not wish you, to exert yourself this
time; I only wish you to keep that position, and to be calm. Maintain
your composure, and attend.... Now!" said he, addressing the young man.
The fiddle-bow was drawn across the tuning-fork, and the fork applied
with its thrilling note to the conducting wire which Lefevre held. The
wire hummed its vibration, and electricity tingled wildly through
Lefevre's nerves... There was an anxious, breathless pause for some
seconds, and fear of failure began to contract the doctor's heart.
"Take your hands away, Sister," said he. Then, turning to his assistant,
"Apply that to the other wire," said he; and dropping his own wire, he
put his hand over the cylinder, with his fingers dipping into the vessel
from which the other wire sprang. When the wire hummed under the
tuning-fork and the vibration thrilled again, instantly he felt as if an
inert obstruction had been removed. The vibratory influence whirled
wildly through him, there was a pause of a second or two (which seemed
to him many minutes in duration), and then suddenly a kind of rigor
passed upon the form and features of his patient, as if each individual
nerve and muscle were being threaded with quick wire, a sharp rush of
breath filled her chest, and she opened her eyes and closed them again.
"That will do," said Lefevre in a whisper, and, releasing his hands, he
sank back in a chair. "It's a success," said he, turning his eyes with a
thin smile on the house-physician, and then closing them in a deadly
exhaustion.