Danger; Or, Wounded in the House of a Friend Part 26

CHAPTER XVIII.

WHEN Doctor Hillhouse arrived at his office, it lacked only a quarter of an hour to twelve, the time fixed for the operation on Mrs. Carlton.

He found Doctor Kline and Doctor Angier, who were to a.s.sist him, both awaiting his return.

"I thought twelve o'clock the hour?" said Doctor Kline as he came in hurriedly.

"So it is. But everything has seemed to work adversely this morning.

Mr. Ridley's wife is extremely ill--dying, in fact--and I have had to see her too or three times. Other calls have been imperative, and here I am within a quarter of an hour of the time fixed for a most delicate operation, and my preparations not half completed."

Doctor Kline regarded him for a few moments, and then said:

"This is unfortunate, doctor, and I would advise a postponement until to-morrow. You should have had a morning free from anything but unimportant calls."

"Oh no. I cannot think of a postponement," Doctor Hillhouse replied.

"All the arrangements have been made at Mr. Carlton's, and my patient is ready. To put it off for a single day might cause a reaction in her feelings and produce an unfavorable condition. It will have to be done to-day."

"You must not think of keeping your appointment to the hour," said Doctor Kline, glancing at his watch. "Indeed, that would now be impossible. Doctor Angier had better go and say that we will be there within half an hour. Don't hurry yourself in the slightest degree. Take all the time you need to make yourself ready. I will remain and a.s.sist you as best I can."

A clear-seeing and controlling mind was just what Doctor Hillhouse needed at that moment. He saw the value of Doctor Kline's suggestion, and promptly accepted it. Doctor Angier was despatched to the residence of Mr. Carlton to advise that gentleman of the brief delay and to make needed preparations for the work that was to be done.

The very necessity felt by Doctor Hillhouse for a speedy repression of the excitement from which he was suffering helped to increase the disturbance, and it was only after he had used a stimulant stronger than he wished to take that he found his nerves becoming quiet and the hand on whose steadiness so much depended growing firm.

At half-past twelve Doctor Hillhouse, in company with Doctor Kline, arrived at Mr. Carlton's. The white face and scared look of the female servant who admitted them showed how strongly fear and sympathy were at work in the house. She directed them to the room which had been set apart for their use. In the hall above Mr. Carlton met them, and returned with a trembling hand and silent pressure the salutation of the two physicians, who pa.s.sed into a chamber next to the one occupied by their patient and quickly began the work of making everything ready.

Acting from previous concert, they drew the table which had been provided into the best light afforded by the room, and then arranged instruments, bandages and all things needed for the work to be done.

When all these preparations were completed, notice was given to Mrs.

Carlton, who immediately entered from the adjoining room. She was a beautiful woman, in the very prime of life, and never had she appeared more beautiful than now. Her strong will had mastered fear, strength, courage and resignation looked out from her clear eyes and rested on her firm lips. She smiled, but did not speak. Doctor Hillhouse took her by the hand and led her to the table on which she was to lie during the operation, saying, as he did so, "It will be over in a few minutes, and you will not feel it as much as the scratch of a pin."

She laid herself down without a moment's hesitation, and as she did so Doctor Angier, according to previous arrangement, presented a sponge saturated with ether to her nostrils, and in two minutes complete anaesthesis was produced. On the instant this took place Doctor Hillhouse made an incision and cut down quickly to the tumor. His hand was steady, and he seemed to be in perfect command of himself. The stimulants he had taken as a last resort were still active on brain and nerves. On reaching the tumor he found it, as he had feared, much larger than its surface presentation indicated. It was a hard, fibrous substance, and deeply seated among the veins, arteries and muscles of the neck. The surgeon's hand retained its firmness; there was a concentration of thought and purpose that gave science and skill their best results. It took over twenty minutes to dissect the tumor away from all the delicate organs upon which it had laid its grasp, and nearly half as long a time to stanch the flow of blood from the many small arteries which had been severed during the operation. One of these, larger than the rest, eluded for a time the efforts of Doctor Hillhouse at ligation, and he felt uncertain about it even after he had stopped the effusion of blood. In fact, his hand had become unsteady and his brain slightly confused. The active stimulant taken half an hour before was losing its effect and his nerves beginning to give way.

He was no longer master of the situation, and the last and, as it proved, the most vital thing in the whole operation was done imperfectly.

At the end of thirty-five minutes the patient, still under the influence of ether was carried back to her chamber and laid back upon her bed, quiet as a sleeping infant.

"It is all over," said Doctor Hillhouse as the eyes of Mrs. Carlton unclosed a little while afterward and she looked up into his face. He was no longer the impa.s.sive surgeon, but the tender and sympathizing friend. His voice was flooded with feeling and moisture dimmed his eyes.

What a look of sweet thankfulness came into the face of Mrs. Carlton as she whispered, "And I knew nothing of it!" Then, shutting her eyes and speaking to herself, she said, "It is wonderful. Thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d!"

It was almost impossible to, restrain Mr. Carlton, so excessive was his delight when the long agony of suspense was over. Doctor Hillhouse had to grasp his arm tightly and hold him back as he stooped down over his wife. In the blindness of his great joy he would have lifted her in his arms.

"Perfect quiet," said the doctor. "There must be nothing to give her heart a quicker pulsation. Doctor Angier will remain for half an hour to see that all goes well."

The two surgeons then retired, Doctor Kline accompanying Doctor Hillhouse to his office. The latter was silent all the way. The strain over and the alcoholic stimulation gone, mind and body had alike lost their abnormal tension.

"I must congratulate you, doctor," said the friendly surgeon who had a.s.sisted in the operation. "It was even more difficult than I had imagined. I never saw a case in which the sheathings of the internal jugular vein and carotid artery were so completely involved. The tumor had made its ugly adhesion all around them. I almost held my breath when the blood from a severed artery spurted over your scalpel and hid from sight the keen edge that was cutting around the internal jugular.

A false movement of the hand at that instant might have been fatal."

"Yes; and but for the clearness of that inner sight which, in great exigencies, so often supplements the failing natural vision, all might have been lost," replied Doctor Hillhouse, betraying in his unsteady voice the great reaction from which he was suffering. "If I had known,"

he added, "that the tumor was so large and its adhesion so extensive, I would not have operated to-day. In fact, I was in no condition for the performance of any operation. I committed a great indiscretion in going to Mr. Birtwell's last night. Late suppers and wine do not leave one's nerves in the best condition, as you and I know very well, doctor; and as a preparation for work such as we have had on hand to-day nothing could be worse."

"Didn't I hear something about the disappearance of a young man who left Mr. Birtwell's at a late hour?" asked Doctor Kline.

"Nothing has been heard of the son of Wilmer Voss since he went away from Mr. Birtwell's about one o'clock," replied Doctor Hillhouse, "and his family are in great distress about him. Mrs. Voss, who is one of my patients, is in very delicate health and when I saw her at eleven o'clock to-day was lying in a critical condition."

"There is something singular about that party at Mr. and Mrs.

Birtwell's, added Doctor Hillhouse, after a pause. I hardly know what to make of it."

"Singular in what respect?" asked the other.

The face of Doctor Hillhouse grew more serious:

"You know Mr. Ridley, the lawyer? He was in Congress a few years ago."

"Yes."

"He was very intemperate at one time, and fell so low that even his party rejected him. He then reformed and came to this city, where he entered upon the practice of his profession, and has been for a year or two advancing rapidly. I attended his wife a few days ago, and saw her yesterday afternoon, when she was continuing to do well. There were some indications of excitement about her, though whether from mental or physical causes I could not tell, but nothing to awaken concern. This morning I found her in a most critical condition. Puerperal fever had set in, with evident extensive peritoneal involvement. The case was malignant, all the abdominal viscera being more or less affected. I learned from the nurse that Mr. Ridley was away all night, and that Mrs. Ridley, who was restless and feverish through the evening, became agitated and slightly delirious after twelve o'clock, talking about and calling for her husband, whom she imagined dying in the storm, that now raged with dreadful violence. No help could be had all night; and when we saw her this morning, it was too late for medicine to control the fatal disease which was running its course with almost unprecedented rapidity. She was dying when I saw her at half-past eleven this morning. This case and that of Mrs. Voss were the ones that drew so largely on my time this morning, and helped to disturb me so much, and both were in consequence of Mr. Birtwell's party."

"They might have an indirect connection with the party," returned Doctor Kline, "but can hardly be called legitimate consequences."

"They are legitimate consequences of the free wine and brandy dispensed at Mr. Birtwell's," said Doctor Hillhouse. "Tempted by its sparkle and flavor, Archie Voss, as pure and promising a young man as you will find in the city, was lured on until he had taken more than his brain would bear. In this state he went out at midnight alone in a blinding storm and lost his way--how or where is not yet known. He may have been set upon and robbed and murdered in his helpless condition, or he may have fallen into a pit where he lies buried beneath the snow, or he may have wandered in his blind bewilderment to the river and gone down under its chilling waters.

"Mr. Ridley, with his old appet.i.te not dead, but only half asleep and lying in wait for an opportunity, goes also to Mr. Birtwell's, and the sparkle and flavor of wine and the invitations that are pressed upon him from all sides prove too much for his good resolutions. He tastes and falls. He goes in his right mind, and comes away so much intoxicated that he cannot find his way home. How he reached there at last I do not know--he must have been in some station-house until daylight; but when I saw him, his pitiable suffering and alarmed face made my heart ache. He had killed his wife! He, or the wine he found at Mr. Birtwell's? Which?"

Doctor Hillhouse was nervous and excited, using stronger language than was his wont.

"And I," he added, before Doctor Kline could respond--"I went to the party also, and the sparkle and flavor of wine and spirit of conviviality that pervaded the company lured me also--not weak like Archie, nor with a shattered self-control like Mr. Ridley--to drink far beyond the bounds of prudence, as my nervous condition to-day too surely indicates. A kind of fatality seems to have attended this party."

The doctor gave a little s.h.i.+ver, which was observed by Doctor Kline.

"Not a nervous chill?" said the latter, manifesting concern.

"No; a moral chill, if I may use such a term," replied Doctor Hillhouse--"a shudder at the thought of what might have been as one of the consequences of Mr. Birtwell's liberal dispensation of wine."

"The strain of the morning's work has been too much for you, doctor, and given your mind an unhealthy activity," said his companion. "You want rest and time for recuperation."

"It would have been nothing except for the baleful effects of that party," answered the doctor, whose thought could not dissever itself from the unhappy consequences which had followed the carousal (is the word too strong?) at Mr. Birtwell's. "If I had not been betrayed into drinking wine enough to disturb seriously my nervous system and leave it weak and uncertain to-day, if Mr. Ridley had not been tempted to his fall, if poor Archie Voss had been at home last night instead of in the private drinking-saloon of one of our most respected citizens, do you think that hand," holding up his right hand as he spoke, "would have lost for a moment its cunning to-day and put in jeopardy a precious life?"

The doctor rose from his chair in much excitement and walked nervously about the room.

"It did not lose its cunning," said Doctor Kline, in a calm but emphatic voice. "I watched you from the moment of the first incision until the last artery was tied, and a truer hand I never saw."

"Thank G.o.d that the stimulus which I had to subst.i.tute for nervous power held out as long as it did. If it had failed a few moments sooner, I might have--"

Doctor Hillhouse checked himself and gave another little shudder.

"Do you know, doctor," he said, after a pause speaking in a low, half-confidential tone and with great seriousness of manner, "when I severed that small artery as I was cutting close to the internal jugular vein and the jet of blood hid both the knife-points and the surrounding tissues, that for an instant I was in mental darkness and that I did not know whether I should cut to the right or to the left?

If in that moment of darkness I had cut to the right, my instrument would have penetrated the jugular vein."

It was several moments before either of the surgeons spoke again. There was a look something like fear in both their faces.