Richard Vandermarck Part 23

That was very true: so I let Bettina come. Richard gave her some instructions at the door, and she came in and arranged things for the night, and lay down on a mattress at the foot of my bed.

The sedative which the Doctor sent did not work very well. I had very little sleep, and that full of such hideous, freezing dreams, that every time I woke, I found Bettina standing by my bed, looking at me with alarm. I had been screaming and moaning, she said, The screaming and moaning and sleeping (such as it was), were all over in about two hours, and then I had the rest of the night to endure, with the same strange, light feeling in my head--the restlessness not much, but somewhat abated.

I was very glad that Bettina was in the room, for though she was sleepy, and always a little stupid, she was human, and I was a coward, both in the matter of loneliness and of suffering. I made her sit by me, and take hold of my hand, and I asked her several times if she had ever been with any one that died, or that--I did not quite dare to ask her about going mad.

My questions seemed to trouble her. She crossed herself, and shuddered, and said, No, she had never been with any one that died, and she prayed the good G.o.d never to let her be.

"You'll have to be with one person that dies, Bettina. That's yourself.

You know it's got to come. We've all got to go out at that gate," and I moaned, and turned my face away.

"Let me call Mr. Richard," said Bettina, very much afraid. I would have given all the world to have seen Richard then; but I knew it was impossible, and I said, No, it would soon be morning.

Long before morning, I heard Richard up and walking about the house. We were to leave the house at half-past four. By four, all the trunks, and shawls, and packages, were strapped and ready, and I was sitting dressed, and waiting by the window.

Bettina liked very much better to pack trunks, and put rooms in order, than to sit still and hold a person's hot hands, in the middle of the night, and have dreadful questions asked her; and she had been very active and efficient. Soon Richard called her to come down and take my breakfast up to me. I could not eat it, and it was taken away. Then the carriage came, and the wagon to take the baggage. Finally, Richard came, and told me it was time to start, if I were ready.

Sophie came into the room in a wrapper, looking very dutiful and patient, and said all that was dutiful and civil. But I suppose I was a fiery trial to her, and she wished, no doubt, that she had never seen me, or better, that Richard never had. All this I felt, through her decently framed good-bye, but I did not care at all; to be out of her sight as soon as possible, was all that I requested.

When we went down in the hall, Richard looked anxiously at me, but I did not feel as if I had ever been there before; I really had no feeling. I said good-bye to Bettina, who was the only servant that I saw, and Richard put me into the carriage. When, we drove away, I did not even look back. As we pa.s.sed out of the gate, I said to him, "What day of the month is it to-day?"

"It is the first of September," he returned.

"And when did I come here?" I asked.

"Early in June, was it not?" he said. "You know I was not here."

"Then it is not three months," and I leaned back wearily in the carriage, and was silent.

Before we reached the city, Richard had good reason to think that I was very ill. He made me as comfortable as he could, poor fellow! but I was so restless, I could not keep in one position two minutes at a time.

Several times I turned to him and said, "It is suffocating in this car; cannot the window be put up?" and when it was put up, I would seem to feel no relief, and in a few moments, perhaps, would be shaking with a nervous chill. It must have been a miserable journey, as I remember it.

Once I said to Richard, after some useless trouble I had put him to, "I am very sorry, Richard, I don't know how to help it, I feel so dreadfully."

Richard tried to answer, but his voice was husky, and he bent his head down to arrange the bundle of shawls beneath my feet. I knew that there were tears in his eyes, and that that was the reason that he did not speak. It made me strangely, momentarily grateful.

"How strange that you should be so good," I said dreamily, "when Sophie is so hateful, and Kilian is so trifling. I think your mother must have been a good woman."

I had never talked about Richard's mother before, never even thought whether he had had one or not, in my supreme and light-hearted selfishness. But the mind, at such a point as I was then, makes strange plunges out of its own orbit.

"And she died when you were little?"

"Yes, when I was scarcely twelve years old."

"A woman ought to be very good when it makes so much difference to her children. Richard, did my uncle ever tell you anything about my mother--what sort of a woman she was, and whether I am like her?"

"He never said a great deal to me about it," Richard answered, not looking at me as he talked. "He thinks you are like her, very strikingly, I believe."

"Think! I haven't even a sc.r.a.p of a picture of her, and no one has ever talked to me about her. All I have are some old yellow letters to my father, written before I was born. I think she loved my father very much. The noise of these cars makes me feel so strangely. Can't we go into the one behind? I am sure it cannot be so bad."

"This is the best car on the train, Pauline. I know the noise is very bad, but try to bear it for a little while. We shall soon be there." And so on, through the weary journey.

At one station Richard got out, and I saw him speaking to several men. I believe he was hoping to find a doctor, for he was thoroughly frightened.

Before we reached the city I was past being frightened for myself, for I was suffering too much to think of what might be the result of my condition. When we left the cars, and Richard put me in a carriage, the motion of the carriage and its jarring over the stones were almost unendurable. Richard was too anxious now to say much to me. The expression of relief on his face as we reached Varick-street was unspeakable. He hurried up the steps and rang the bell, then came back for me, and half carried me up the steps.

The door was opened by Ann Coddle, who was thrown into a helpless state of amazement by seeing me, not knowing why in this condition I did come, or why I came at all. She shrieked, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, and backed almost down the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs. Richard sternly told her she was acting like a fool, and ordered her to show him where Miss Pauline's room was, that he might take her to it.

"But her room isn't ready," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ann, coming to herself, which was a wretched thing to come to, as poor Richard found.

"Not ready? well, make it ready, then. Go before me and open the windows, and I will put her on the sofa till you have the bed ready for her."

"The sofa--oh, Mr. Richard, it's all full of her dear clothes that have come up from the wash."

"Well, then, take them off--idiot--and do as you are told."

"Oh, Miss Pauline--oh, my poor, dear lamb. Oh, I'm all in a flutter; I don't know what to do. I'd better call the cook."

"Well, call the cook, then," said Richard, groaning, "only tell her to be quick."

All this time Richard was supporting me up the stairs. As we reached the top, Richard called out, "Tell Peter I want him at once, to take a message for me."

Ann was watching our progress up the stairs, with groans and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, forgetting that she was to call the cook. At the mention of Peter she exclaimed,

"He's laid up with the rheumatism, Mr. Richard. Oh, whatever shall we do!"

When we reached the middle of the second pair of stairs, I was almost helpless; Richard took me in his arms, and carried me.

"Is it this door, Pauline dear?" he said, opening the first he came to.

I should think the room had not been opened since I went away, it was so warm and close.

Richard carried me to the sofa, and scattered the _lingerie_ far and wide as he laid me down upon it, and went to open the windows. Then he went to the bell and pulled it violently. In a few moments the cook came up (accompanied by Ann). She was a huge, unwieldy woman, but she had some intelligence, and knew better than to whimper.

"Miss Pauline is ill," he said, "and I want you to stay by her, and not leave her for a moment, till I come back. Make that woman get the room in order instantly, and keep everything as quiet as you can." To me: "I am going to bring a doctor, and I shall be back in a few moments. Do not worry, they will take good care of you."

When I heard Richard shut the carriage-door and drive away rapidly, I felt as if I were abandoned, and by the time he returned with the Doctor, I was in a state that warranted them in supposing me unconscious, tossing and moaning, and uttering inarticulate words.

The Doctor stood beside me, and talked about me to Richard with as much freedom as if I had been a corpse.

"I may as well be frank with you," he said, after a few moments of examination. "I apprehend great trouble from the brain. How long has she been in this condition?"

"She has been unlike herself since yesterday; as soon as I saw her, at seven o'clock last night, I noticed she was looking badly. She answered me in an abstracted, odd way, and was unlike herself, as I have said.

But she had been under much excitement for some time."

"Tell me, if you please, all about it; and how long she has been under this excitement."

"She has been often agitated, and quite overstrained in feeling for some time. Three weeks ago I thought her looking badly. Two days ago she had a frightful shock--a suicide--which she was the first to discover. Since then I do not think that she has slept."

"Ah! poor young lady. She has had a terrible experience, and is paying for it. Now for what we can do for her. In the first place, who takes care of her?" with a look about the room.