WAKING TO CONSCIOUSNESS
The sultry August glided by, and in the warm, still days of late
September Hugh awoke from the sleep which had so long hung over him.
Raising himself upon his elbow, he glanced around the room. There were
the table, the stand, the mirror, the curtains, the vases, and the
flowers, but what--did he see aright, or did his eyes deceive him? and
the perspiration stood thickly about his mouth, as in the bouquet, that
morning arranged, he recognized the gay flowers of autumn, not such as
he had gathered for Alice, delicate summer flowers, but rich and
gorgeous with a later bloom.
"I must have been sick," he whispered, and pressing his hand to his
still throbbing head, he tried to reveal and form into some definite
shape the events which had seemed, and which seemed to him still, like
so many phantoms of the brain.
Was it a dream--his mother's tears upon his face, his mother's voice
calling him her Hughey boy, his mother's sobs beside him? Was it, could
it be all a dream that she, the Golden Haired, had been with him
constantly? No that was not a dream. She did not hate him, else she had
not prayed, and words of thanksgiving were going up to Golden Hair's
God, when a footstep in the hall announced the approach of some one.
Alice, perhaps, and Hugh lay very still, with half-shut eyes, until
Muggins, instead of Alice, appeared.
He was asleep, she said, as, standing on tiptoe, she scanned his face.
He was asleep, and in her own dialect Muggins talked to herself about
him as he lay there so still.
"Nice Mas'r Hugh--pretty Mas'r Hugh!" and Mug's little black hand was
laid caressingly on the face she admired so much. "I mean to ask God
about him, just like I see Miss Alice do," she continued, and stealing
to the opposite side of the room, Muggins kneeled down, and with her
face turned toward Hugh, she said: "If God is hearin' me, will He please
do all dat Miss Alice ax him 'bout curin' Mas'r Hugh."
This was too much for Hugh. The sight of that ignorant negro child,
kneeling by the window unmanned him entirely, and hiding his head
beneath the sheets, he sobbed aloud. With a nervous start, Mug arose
from her knees, and stood for an instant gazing in terror at the
trembling of the bedclothes.
"I'll bet he's in a fit. I mean to screech for Miss Alice," and Muggins
was about darting away, when Hugh's long arm caught and held her fast.
"Oh, de gracious, Mas'r Hugh," she cried, "you skeers me so. Does you
know me, Mas'r Hugh?" and she took a step toward him.
"Yes, I know you, and I want to talk a little. Where am I, Mug? What
room, I mean?"
"Why, Miss Alice's, in course. She 'sisted, and 'sisted, till 'em brung
you in here, 'case she say it cool and nice. Oh, Miss Alice so fine."
"In Miss Johnson's room," and Hugh looked perfectly bewildered. In the
room he had taken so much pains to have in order; it could not be; and
he passed his hand up and down the comfortable mattress, striking it
once with his fist, to see if it would sink in, and then, in a perplexed
whisper, he asked: "This is her room, you say; but, Mug, where are the
two feather beds?"
In a most aggrieved tone, Mug explained how Miss Adah and Aunt Eunice
had spoiled their handiwork, but could not talk long of anything without
bringing in Miss Alice.
"Where does Miss Alice pray for me?" he asked, and Muggins replied:
"Oh here, when she bese alone, and downstairs, and everywhere. You wants
to hear her?"
Yes, Hugh did.
"Mug," he said. "I am going to be crazy as a loon. I have not been
rational a bit, and you must not say I have. You must not say anything.
Do you understand?"
Mug didn't at first, but after a little it came to her that "Mas'r Hugh
was goin' to play 'possum. That Miss Alice and all dem would think him
ravin' and only she would know the truth." It would be rare sport for
Mug, and after giving her promise, she waited anxiously for some one to
come. At last another footstep sounded in the hall.
"That's her'n," Muggins whispered. "Is you crazy, Mas'r Hugh?"
"Hush-sh!" came warningly from Hugh, who, the next moment had turned his
head away from the fading light, and with eyes closed, pretended to be
asleep.
Softly, on tiptoe as it were, Alice approached the bedside, bending so
low to see if he were sleeping that he felt her fragrant breath, and a
most delicious thrill ran through his frame, when a little, soft, warm
hand was laid upon his brow, where the veins were throbbing wildly--so
wildly that the unsuspecting maiden wet the linen napkin used for such a
purpose, and bathed the feverish skin, pushing back, with a
half-caressing motion, the rings of damp, brown hair, and still the
wicked Hugh never moved, nor winked, nor gave the slightest token of the
ecstatic bliss he was enjoying.
"What a consummate hypocrite I am, to lie here and let her do what
money could not tempt her to do, if she knew that I was conscious, but
hanged if I don't like it," was Hugh's mental comment, while Alice's
was: "Poor Hugh, the doctor said he would probably be better when he
waked from this sleep, better or worse. Oh, what if he should die, and
leave no sign of repentance," and by the rustling movement, Hugh knew
that Alice Johnson was kneeling at his side, and with his hot hands in
hers was praying for him, that he might not die.
"Spare him for his mother, he is her only boy," he heard her say, and on
the pillow, where his face was lying, the great tear drops fell, as he
thought how unworthy he was that she should pray for him.
He knew the pillow was wet, and shuddered when Alice attempted to fix
his head, turning it more to the light. She saw the tear stains, and
murmured to herself: "I did not think it was so warm." Then, sitting
down beside him, she fanned him gently, occasionally feeling for his
pulse to see if it were as rapid as ever. Once, as she touched his
wrist, his fingers closed involuntarily around her little hand and held
it a prisoner. He could not help it; the temptation was too strong to be
resisted, and then he reflected that a crazy man was not responsible for
his actions! As rational Hugh, he could never hope to touch that little
soft hand trembling in his like a frightened bird, so he would as crazy
Hugh improve his opportunity; and he did, holding fast the hand, and
when she attempted to draw it away, pressing it tighter and muttering:
"No, no; mother, no."
"He thinks I am you," Alice whispered, as Mrs. Worthington came in, and
Hugh's heart gave one great throb of filial love when his mother stooped
over him, and 'mid a shower of tears kissed his forehead and lips,
murmuring:
"Darling boy, he'll never know how much his poor mother loved him, or
how her heart will break with missing him if he dies."
It was with the utmost difficulty that Hugh could restrain himself then,
from assuring his mother that the crisis was passed and he was out of
danger.
"I've gone too far now, the hypocrite that I am," he thought. "Alice
Johnson never would forgive me. I can't retract now, not yet; I'm in a
pretty fix."
As the twilight gathered in the room he lay, listening while his mother
and Alice talked together, some times of him, sometimes of Colonel
Tiffton, whose embarrassments were now generally known, and again of
'Lina, who, he heard, had chosen to remain at Saratoga, where she was
enjoying herself so much with dear Mrs. Richards.
It was Alice who sat up that night, and Hugh, as he lay watching her
with half-closed eyes, as in her loose plain wrapper, with her luxuriant
curls, coiled in a large square knot at the back of her head, she moved
noiselessly around the room, felt a pang of remorse at his own
duplicity, one moment resolving to give up the part he was playing and
bid her leave him alone, and seek the rest she needed. But the
temptation to keep her there was strong. He would be very quiet, he said
to himself, and he kept his word, remaining so still and apparently
sleeping so soundly, that Alice lay down upon the lounge on the opposite
side of the room, where she had lain many a night, but never as now,
with Hugh's eyes upon her, watching her so eagerly as she fell away to
sleep, her soft, regular, childlike breathing awaking a thrill in Hugh's
heart, and sending the blood in little, tingling throbs through every
vein.
The drops and powders on the table remained undisturbed that night, for
the patient was too quiet, and the watcher was so tired, that the latter
never woke until the daylight was breaking, and Adah came to relieve
her. With a frightened start she arose, astonished to find it was
morning.
"I wonder if he had suffered from my neglect?" she said, stealing up to
Hugh, who had schooled himself to meet her gaze with wide, open eyes,
which certainly had in them no delirium, and which puzzled Alice
somewhat, making her blush and turn away.
The old doctor, too, was puzzled, when, later in the morning, he came
in, feeling his patient's pulse, examining his tongue, and pronouncing
him decidedly out of danger. The fever had left him, he said--the crisis
was past--Hugh was a heap better, and for his part he could not
understand why the mind should not also come clear, or what it was which
made his hitherto talkative subject so silent. He never had such a
case--he didn't believe his books had one on record; and the befogged
old man hurried home to see if, in all his musty volumes, unopened for
many a year, there was a parallel case to Hugh Worthington's.