I suppose I did not stand still more than five seconds, yet during that
pause a host of questions had flashed through my brain. Who was this
beautiful creature? Where had she come from? How did it happen that she
was in Tardif's house? and so on. But I recalled myself sharply to my
senses; I was here as her physician, and common-sense and duty demanded
of me to keep my head clear. I advanced to her side, and took the small,
blue-veined hand in mine, and felt her pulse with my fingers. It beat
under them a low but fast measure; too fast by a great deal. I could see
that the general condition of her health was perfect, a great charm in
itself to me; but she had been bearing acute pain for over twenty-eight
hours, and she was becoming exhausted. A shudder ran through me at the
thought of that long spell of suffering.
"You are in very great pain, I fear," I said, lowering my voice.
"Yes," her white lips answered, and she tried to smile a patient though
a dreary smile, as she looked up into my face, "my arm is broken. Are
you a doctor?"
"I am Dr. Martin Dobrée," I said, passing my hand softly down her arm.
The fracture was above the elbow, and was of a kind to make the setting
of it give her considerable pain. I could see she was scarce fit to bear
any further suffering just then; but what was to be done? She was not
likely to get much rest till the bone was set.
"Have you had much sleep since your fall?" I asked, looking at the
weariness visible in her eyes.
"Not any," she replied; "not one moment's sleep."
"Did you have no sleep all night?" I inquired again.
"No." she said, "I could not fall asleep."
There were two things I could do--give her an opiate, and strengthen her
a little with sleep beforehand, or administer chloroform to her before
the operation. I hesitated between the two. A natural sleep would have
done her a world of good, but there was a gleam in her eyes, and a
feverish throb in her pulse, which gave me no hope of that. Perhaps the
chloroform, if she had no objection to it, would be the best.
"Did you ever take chloroform?" I asked.
"No: I never needed it," she answered.
"Should you object to taking it?"
"Any thing." she replied, passively. "I will do any thing you wish."
I went back into the kitchen and opened the portmanteau my father had
put up for me. Splints and bandages were there in abundance, enough to
set half the arms in the island, but neither chloroform nor any thing in
the shape of an opiate could I find. I might almost as well have come to
Sark altogether unprepared for my case.
What could I do? There are no shops in Sark, and drugs of any kind were
out of the question. There was not a chance of getting what I needed to
calm and soothe a highly-nervous and finely-strung temperament like my
patient's. A few minutes ago I had hesitated about using chloroform. Now
I would have given half of every thing I possessed in the world for an
ounce of it.
I said nothing to Tardif, who was watching me with his deep-set eyes, as
closely as if I were meddling with some precious possession of his own.
I laid the bundle of splints and rolls of linen down on the table with a
professional air, while I was inwardly execrating my father's
negligence. I emptied the portmanteau in the hope of finding some small
phial or box. Any opiate would have been welcome to me, that would have
dulled the overwrought nerves of the girl in the room within. But the
practice of using any thing of the kind was not in favor with us
generally in the Channel Islands, and my father had probably concluded
that a Sark woman would not consent to use them. At any rate, there they
were not.
I stood for a few minutes, deep in thought. The daylight was going, and
it was useless to waste time; yet I found myself shrinking oddly from
the duty before me. Tardif could not help but see my chagrin and
hesitation.
"Doctor," he cried, "she is not going to die?"
"No, no," I answered, calling back my wandering thoughts and energies;
"there is not the smallest danger of that. I must go and set her arm at
once, and then she will sleep."
I returned to the room, and raised her as gently and painlessly as I
could, motioning to the old woman to sit beside her on the bed and hold
her steadily. I thought once of calling in Tardif to support her with
his strong frame, but I did not. She moaned, though very softly, when I
moved her, and she tried to smile again as her eyes met mine looking
anxiously at her. That smile made me feel like a child. If she did it
again, I knew my hands would be unsteady, and her pain would be tenfold
greater.
"I would rather you cried out or shouted," I said. "Don't try to control
yourself when I hurt you. You need not be afraid of seeming impatient,
and a loud scream or two would do you good."
But I knew quite well as I spoke that she would never scream aloud.
There was the self-control of culture about her. A woman of the lower
class might shriek and cry, but this girl would try to smile at the
moment when the pain was keenest. The white, round arm under my hands
was cold, and the muscles were soft and unstrung. I felt the ends of the
broken bone grating together as I drew the fragments into their right
places, and the sensation went through and through me. I had set scores
of broken limbs before with no feeling like this, which was so near
unnerving me. But I kept my hands steady, and my attention fixed upon my
work. I felt like two persons--a surgeon who had a simple, scientific
operation to perform, and a mother who feels in her own person every
pang her child has to suffer.
All the time the girl's white face and firmly-set lips lay under my
gaze, with the wide-open, unflinching eyes looking straight at me: a
mournful, silent, appealing face, which betrayed the pain I made her
suffer ten times more than any cries or shrieks could have done. I
thanked God in my heart when it was over, and I could lay her down
again. I smoothed the coarse pillows for her to lie more comfortably
upon them, and I spread my cambric handkerchief in a double fold between
her cheek and the rough linen--too rough for a soft cheek like hers.
"Lie quite still," I said. "Do not stir, but go to sleep as fast as you
can."
She was not smiling now, and she did not speak; but the gleam in her
eyes was growing wilder, and she looked at me with a wandering
expression. If sleep did not come very soon, there would be mischief. I
drew the curtains across the window to shut out the twilight, and
motioned to the old woman to sit quietly by the side of our patient.
Then I went out to Tardif.
He had not stirred from the place and position in which I had left him.
I am sure no sound could have reached him from the inner room, for we
had been so still that during the whole time I could hear the beat of
the sea dashing up between the high cliffs of the Havre Gosselin. Up and
down went Tardif's shaggy mustache, the surest indication of emotion
with him, and he fetched his breath almost with a sob.
"Well, Dr. Martin?" was all he said.
"The arm is set," I answered, "and now she must get some sleep. There is
not the least danger, Tardif; only we will keep the house as quiet as
possible."
"I must go and bring in the boat," he replied, bestirring himself as if
some spell was at an end. "There will be a storm to-night, and I should
sleep the sounder if she was safe ashore."
"I'll come with you," I said, glad to get away from the seaweed fire.
It was not quite dark, and the cliffs stood out against the sky in odder
and more grotesque shapes than by daylight. A host of seamews were
fluttering about and uttering the most unearthly hootings, but the sea
was as yet quite calm, save where it broke in wavering, serpentine lines
over the submerged reefs which encircle the island. The tidal current
was pouring rapidly through the very narrow channel between Sark and the
little isle of Breckhou, and its eddies stretching to us made it rather
an arduous task to get Tardif's boat on shore safely. But the work was
pleasant just then. It kept our minds away from useless anxieties about
the girl. An hour passed quickly, and up the ravine, in the deep gloom
of the overhanging rocks, we made our way homeward.
"You will not quit the island to-morrow," said Tardif, standing at his
door, and scanning the sky with his keen, weather-wise eyes.
"I must," I answered; "I must indeed, old fellow. You are no
land-lubber, and you will run me over in the morning."
"No boat will leave Sark to-morrow," said Tardif, shaking his head.
We went in, and he threw off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves,
preparatory to frying some fish for supper. I was beginning to feel
ravenously hungry, for I had eaten nothing since dinner, and as far as I
knew Tardif had had nothing since his early breakfast, but as a
fisherman he was used to long spells of fasting. While he was busy
cooking I stole quietly into the inner room to look after my patient.
The feeble light entering by the door, which I left open, showed me the
old woman comfortably asleep in her chair, but not so the girl. I had
told her when I laid her down that she must lie quite still, and she was
obeying me implicitly. Her cheek still rested upon my handkerchief, and
the broken arm remained undisturbed upon the pillow which I had placed
under it. But her eyes were wide open and shining in the dimness, and I
fancied I could see her lips moving incessantly, though soundlessly. I
laid my hand across her eyes, and felt the long lashes brush against the
palm, but the eyelids did not remain closed.
"You must go to sleep," I said, speaking distinctly and authoritatively;
wondering at the time how much power my will would have over her. Did I
possess any of that magnetic, tranquillizing influence about which Jack
Senior and I had so often laughed incredulously at Guy's? Her lips
moved fast; for now my eyes had grown used to the dim light I could see
her face plainly, but I could not catch a syllable of what she was
whispering so busily to herself.
Never had I felt so helpless and disconcerted in the presence of a
patient. I could positively do nothing for her. The case was not beyond
my skill, but all medicinal resources were beyond my reach. Sleep she
must have, yet how was I to administer it to her?
I returned, troubled and irritable, to search once more my empty
portmanteau. Empty it was, except of the current number of _Punch_,
which my father had considerately packed among the splints for my
Sunday-evening reading. I flung it and the bag across the kitchen, with
an ejaculation not at all flattering to Dr. Dobrée, nor in accordance
with the fifth commandment.
"What is the matter, doctor?" inquired Tardif.
I told him in a few sharp words what I wanted to soothe my patient. In
an instant he left his cooking and thrust his arms into his blue jacket
again.
"You can finish it yourself, Dr. Martin," he said, hurriedly; "I'll run
over to old Mother Renouf; she'll have some herbs or something to send
mam'zelle to sleep."
"Bring her back with you," I shouted after him as he sped across the
yard. Mother Renouf was no stranger to me. While I was a boy she had
charmed my warts away, and healed the bruises which were the inevitable
consequences of cliff-climbing. I scarcely liked her coming in to fill
up my deficiencies, and I knew our application to her for help would be
inexpressibly gratifying. But I had no other resource than to call her
in as a fellow-practitioner, and I knew she would make a first-rate
nurse, for which Suzanne Tardif was unfitted by her deafness.