Honor Edgeworth; Or, Ottawa's Present Tense Part 23

The days were stretching into weeks, and still the poor suffering victim, raved and tossed in mad fever on his narrow bed. Dr. Belford was looking serious as he left the sickroom one afternoon, after watching his patient attentively for nearly an hour: he cautioned Mrs. Pratt, in an earnest voice to attend carefully to the invalid, impressing on her how serious a crisis was approaching.

He left the house a little troubled, telling Mrs. Pratt to leave her door unlocked, for he intended to return as often as possible through the night, to the bed-side of the patient.

Noiselessly, almost breathlessly, the good woman stole around her little house in stocking feet, as she journeyed with fresh or re-made delicacies and medicines from the little kitchen below to the close sick-room above.

She was faithful in moistening the parched lips, and in administering the remedies, with an edifying punctuality, and in fact, all the major and minor duties of a nurse were admirably attended to, by the whole-souled creature, who had taken this heavy responsibility upon herself.

It was close on ten o'clock of the night of this critical day on which Dr. Belford had left Mrs. Pratt's house with such a troubled look, and this charitable matron having completed all her arrangements for the night, deposited a small lamp with a heavy green shade of paper, on the bureau in the sick-room, and drawing a tall straight wooden rocker close to the window, settled herself, stocking and needles in hand to "knit out" the hours of her lonesome vigil.

On the heavily carved door of a square house on one of the most stylish avenues of New York City, was a silver plate, bearing the familiar name of "Dr. Belford." There was magnificence on all sides of this, his splendid home, and yet this good man spent all his days, and most of his nights in the squalid and repulsive quarters of the great city. He was a man of untold wealth and cared but little, whether his profession yielded him additional wealth or not, he had understood the great misfortunes of life, and had toiled with an iron will, to benefit those to whom an unfortunate fate had taught the bitter lessons of poverty and dest.i.tution.

The mansion which bore his name on its elegant door, was now a blaze of gas-light; the heavy curtains, shaded the grandeur of the s.p.a.cious drawing-room, but the apartment opposite had its tall windows thrown open to the evening breeze. This was Dr. Belford's office, splendidly furnished, and comfortably situated, countless rows of ponderous volumes lined the walls, and over the rest of the s.p.a.cious room were scattered heavy pieces of office furniture, that lay around in solemn imposing neatness.

Standing before a succession of bound volumes was a young man, with his hands folded behind his back and his head raised enquiringly to the books above him, he was pa.s.sing over their t.i.tles in a quick review, and had just laid his hand in evident gratification on one of them, when a long shrill, silvery tinkle, made him start: "No use, I suppose," he muttered to himself, "I must be on the 'go.'"

A tall, thin man, like an icicle in livery, appeared in the doorway at this moment, and delivered a note into his expectant hand. The young fellow tore it open and read.

MY DEAR BOY,-- The case I have been summoned to attend here is a matter of life or death, I cannot possibly leave the house before morning. Will you, therefore, attend to the "typhoid fever" case, I spoke to you of, in Chapel Alley, for to-night, and oblige,

J. D. BELFORD.

"Humph!" said he, as he finished the last words, "I need to smarten up a little, it is now after ten: something serious must be up," he soliloquized, "or Doctor would never neglect that 'fever' patient, he is so interested in."

Slipping his feet, clad in their red silk hose, from the daintiest of velvet slippers, the young doctor drew on his fine walking-shoes, turned down the gas a little, closed the office window, and taking his hat from the rack behind the door, hurried out.

In a moment, the carriage was around, and stepping in he ordered Barnes to drive him quickly to Mrs. Pratt's humble abode in Chapel Alley.

The dark, close by-ways and lanes impressed the young doctor forcibly, after leaving the broad, paved thoroughfares flooded with electric light, and used, though he was, to those sights, the repet.i.tion caused him invariably to shrink within himself and close his eyes upon their repulsiveness.

At length they drew in towards the solitary house; from whose small upper window came the faint glimmer, cast through the slits in the shutter, by the dim light of the lonely watcher.

As the young doctor stood at the door, he could hear the loud talk and wild cries of the invalid above, he laid his hand on the shabby handle, when yielding to his touch, the door opened with a little creaking noise--Mrs. Pratt, leaning over the rickety bal.u.s.trade above, whispered:

"Come straight up, doctor, he's awful bad!"

The lively young doctor took all of Mrs. Prate's stairway in two moderate leaps and was at her side instantly. A moment of explanation consoled the troubled looking woman for the appearance of a stranger in Dr. Belford's stead, and then on tip toe they turned into the sick room.

"He's been a fright altogether doctor," said Mrs. Pratt, raising her withered hands in an att.i.tude of wonder "sich ravin' an' shoutin' and kerryings on I never see before--and I thought you'd ha' never come."

When the door of the sick-room was opened an expression of extreme pity crossed the young man's face: that anyone should burn with a merciless fever in the close confines of this narrow little s.p.a.ce, touched him deeply. He turned and looked at the restless invalid, but the light of the small hand lamp was dim and he could not see very distinctly.

"Hold the lamp nearer, my good woman," he said in the most earnest professional manner, and as obedient Mrs. Pratt raised it high above her frilled cap, the doctor turned his eager glance on the prostrate figure before him.

The light now fell upon the flushed features of the sick man. His agitation had all ceased, and there lingered but a little expression of peevishness and anxiety, but his whole condition bespoke sickness and suffering.

A change, sudden and wonderful, flashed over the stern features of the doctor, he staggered just a step, and then bent lower over the face of the invalid--there--within the close narrow limits of a poor sick-room, in a squalid locality, one stricken down by a loathsome disease, the other there to alleviate his pain, did two fellow students meet for the first time since the long years ago when they had crossed the threshold of their school-room as boyish "chums" each to take his road in the great thoroughfare of life--yes--there was no mistaking it--those were the well remembered features of Nicholas Bencroft and no other. The doctor was lost in reflections when Mrs. Pratt impatiently interrupted him with--

"Well doctor--he ain't much worse, I hope?"

"He is no better," the doctor answered seriously, "he is at the crisis of his disease now. I will wait and watch with you to-night," he added, "go down like a good woman and tell my driver he can leave, I will watch until morning."

Mrs. Pratt was a very scrupulous woman, for a widow, and thought it quite hazardous enough to watch a sick man all alone, besides enc.u.mbering her mind with one that was very alive and well--and so she took upon herself to insinuate something of her alarm to the young doctor. But a little persuasion went a long way with susceptible Mrs.

Pratt, and when the doctor had told her that he recognized an old friend in her sick lodger, she begged a thousand pardons and became very submissive.

While they watched by the bed-side of the unfortunate man, Mrs. Pratt grew communicative, and told the doctor how this sad young man came to her one hot Sat.u.r.day evening and asked her for lodgings--how she had thought him "sort o' nice" and "took to him" and had had him now for near a twelve-month--that he had paid "reglar" and gave no trouble until the night the fever "struck him down"--his name was Bencroft, she knew, and his linen was well marked with a N. an' a B. in "real good writin"--and finally, how she hoped he'd soon get better, for his own sake and other peoples, "so she did."

When they looked at the sleeper again, he was peaceful and unoppressed, his breathing was feebler and less labored, and while they stood whispering at the foot of his bed, he gave a great sigh and opened his heavy lids languidly.

The doctor hastened to his side: the wild delirium had pa.s.sed away, leaving the worried face of the sufferer calmer and quieter, he opened up his large l.u.s.trous eyes and said in a plaintive tone.--

"Thirsty--so thirsty!"

Mrs. Pratt raised the gla.s.s to his parched lips, and clutching her hands in his own feverish grasp, he pressed the goblet to his mouth and drank a devouring draught.

It was true that his wanderings and delirium had ceased. Mrs. Pratt looked meaningly at the doctor and whispered hopefully: "he is better?"

but, professional-like, the doctor remained silent, and only looked very seriously on. The invalid dropped back again among his pillows, and fell into a deep sleep.

The night was now well nigh spent: outside in the leaden dawn, an odd, faint, sleepy twitter disturbed the silence, and an odd pedestrian's footsteps echoed, through the still street.

When this natural sleep stole over the weak and wornout invalid, the doctor bade Mrs. Pratt a "good morning" for a while, telling her she might expect him back in four or five hour's time.

"If your patient should wake," he added, "question him a little to ascertain whether he is entirely free from the illusions of his delirium or not--" and then with a puzzled wondering look upon his handsome face, the young doctor pa.s.sed out of Mrs. Pratt's close, shabby house into the deserted street.

Thoughts and memories of the past, he had stowed so resignedly away, flooded his mind as he strode onward, he had dreamed until last night that the ghost of his by-gone days would haunt him no more, and when he had learned to live without his memories on the a.s.sociations of the frequent past, he was brought forward again to meet, face to face, a forcible reminder of his yesterdays. "Poor Nicholas!" he soliloquized, "what can have befallen him, that this should be his end? I thought there was nothing left in life that could surprise me, and yet here is something that really does."

The days and scenes of his college life pa.s.sed in a sorrowful panorama before the misty eyes of the young man as he strode along the silent street in the gray of the early morning, and as the beginning and the close of this happy period were reviewed before him, they pa.s.sed into another phase of his life and clouded the frank young, face with a shadow of regret and pain--"at least"--he muttered to himself--"I might have spared myself this, after I had taught myself that it was madness to remember and wisdom to forget."

A trio of midnight revelers, deserting their haunt of debauchery on a dilapidated street corner, here interrupted the strain of his meditation, and as he raised his eyes to look upon the ragged figures, and bloated, forbidden countenances of these men, there pa.s.sed over his pensive features, a look of contentment and resignation which said--"At least, if my life has been a bitter and an unfortunate one, I have been spared these rags and this degradation. And yet," he continued, as he walked rapidly along the by-ways and thoroughfares of the great city, "it is a wonder that I escaped it, for in my time we were just as degraded, only we disguised our hideousness under the garb of respectability." Then a look of bitter, almost hopeless disappointment came over his face, as he told himself secretly, "And I struggled against all these propensities, fought with and overcame all these follies for the sake of _her_, who has cast me so easily, so willingly out of her life." He was turning the broad paved corner that led to Dr Belford's house, and quickening his step he reached the door just as the old doctor himself was pa.s.sing out into the hall.

"Hallo!" said the old gentleman in genuine surprise, "where have you been carousing until such an hour?"

There was evidently a familiarity between these two that spoke of strong regard on the part of the younger, and of a fatherly fondness and interest in that of the elder doctor. An explanation followed which gratified Dr. Belford immensely.

"Since the danger looks less, my boy," he said, "and that you wish to attend him, I see no reason why you shouldn't. I've trusted you with as serious cases already."

With this they parted, each tired and weary with his midnight vigils, repaired to rest until the full stir of the morning that was just breaking.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"I have a bitter thought--a snake That used to string my life to pain; I strove to cast it far away, But every night and every day It crawled back to my heart again."

"You are unusually early this morning," said a pale, handsome woman crossing the threshold of the elegant dining-room, where the silver and crystal and tempting viands stood in inviting array on the ma.s.sive table.

The lady wore a loose dark wrapper, girdled at the waist, and her thick hair, prematurely grey, was drawn back from her large, intelligent brow, and secured in graceful coils at the back of her shapely neck.