A Knight of the Nineteenth Century Part 51

CHAPTER L

"O DREADED DEATH!"

Haldane found time in the enforced pauses of his journey to write a long and affectionate letter to his mother, explaining all, and asking her forgiveness again, as he often had before. He also wrote to Mrs. Arnot a cheerful note, in which he tried to put his course in the most ordinary and matter-of-fact light possible, saying that as a medical student it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do.

As he approached the infected city he had the train chiefly to himself, and he saw that the outgoing trains were full, and when at last he walked its streets it reminded him of a household of which some member is very ill, or dead, and the few who were moving about walked as if under a sad constraint and gloom. On most faces were seen evidences of anxiety and trouble, while a few were reckless.

Having obtained a carriage, he was driven to Mr. Poland's residence in a suburb. He dismissed the carriage at the gate, preferring to quietly announce himself. The sultry day was drawing to a close as he walked up the gravelled drive that led to the house. Not even the faintest zephyr stirred the luxuriant tropical foliage that here and there shadowed his path, and yet the stillness and quiet of nature did not suggest peace and repose so much as it did death. The motionless air, heavily laden with a certain dead sweetness of flowers from the neighboring garden, might well bring to mind the breathless silence and the heavy atmosphere of the chamber in which the lifeless form and the fading funeral wreath are peris.h.i.+ng together.

So oppressed was Haldane he found himself walking softly and mounting the steps of the piazza with a silent tread, as if he were in truth approaching the majesty of death. Before he could ring the bell there came from the parlor a low, sad prelude, played on a small reed organ that had been built in the room, and then a contralto voice of peculiar sweetness sang the following words with such depth of feeling that one felt that they revealed the innermost emotion of the heart:

O priceless life! warm, throbbing life, With thought and love and pa.s.sion rife, I cling to thee. Thou art an isle in the ocean wide; Thou art a barque above the tide; How vague and void is all beside! I cling to thee.

O dreaded death! cold, pallid death, Despair is in thy icy breath; I shrink from thee. What victims wilt thou next enroll? Thou hast a terror for my soul Which will nor reason can control; I shrink from thee.

Then followed a sound that was like a low sob. This surely was Amy, Laura's cousin-friend, and already she had won the whole sympathy of his heart.

After ringing the bell he heard her step, and then she paused, as he rightly surmised, to wipe away the thickly falling tears. He was almost startled when she appeared before him, for the maiden had inherited the peculiar and striking beauty of her mother. Sorrow and watching had brought unusual pallor to her cheeks; but her eyes were so large, so dark and intense, that they suggested spirit rather than flesh and blood.

"I think that this is Miss Poland," commenced Haldane in a manner that was marked by both sympathy and respect, and he was about to hand her his card of introduction, when she stepped eagerly forward and took his hand, saying: "You are Mr. Haldane. I know it at a glance."

"Yes, and wholly at your service."

Still retaining his hand, she looked for a second into his face, as if she would read his soul and gauge the compa.s.s of his nature; so intent and penetrating was her gaze, that Haldane felt that if there had been any wavering or weakness on his part she would have known it as truly as himself.

Her face suddenly lighted up with grat.i.tude and friendliness, and she said, earnestly:

"I _do_ thank you for coming. I had purposed asking you not to take so great a risk for us, but to return; for, to be frank with you, our physician has told me that your risk is terribly great; but I see that you are one that would not turn back."

"You are right, Miss Poland." Then he added, with a frank smile, "There is nothing terrible to me in the risk you speak of. I honestly feel it a privilege to come to your aid, and I have but one request to make: that you will let me serve you in any way and every way possible. By any hesitancy and undue delicacy in this respect you will greatly pain me."

"Oh!" she exclaimed in a low and almost pa.s.sionate tone, "I am so glad you have come, for I was almost desperate."

"Your father?" asked Haldane very gravely.

"He is more quiet, and I try to think he is better, but doctor won't say that he is. Ah, there he is coming now."

A carriage drove rapidly to the door, and the physician sprang up the steps as if the hours were short for the increasing pressure of his work.

"Miss Amy, why are you here yet? I hoped that you and your little sister were on your way to the mountains," he said, taking her hand.

"Please do not speak of it again," she replied. "I cannot leave father and mother, and Bertha, you know, is too young and nervous a child to be forced to go away alone. We must all remain together, and hope the best from your skill."

"G.o.d knows I'm doing all in my power to save my dear old friend Poland,"

said the physician huskily, and then he shook his head as if he had little hope. "How is he now?"

"Better, I think. Dr. Orton, this is the friend of whom I spoke, Mr.

Haldane."

"You have always lived at the North?" asked the physician, looking the young man over with a quick glance.

"Yes, sir."

"Do you realize the probable consequences of this exposure to one not acclimated?"

"Dr. Orton, I am a medical student, and I have come to do my duty, which here will be to carry out strictly your directions. I have only one deep cause for anxiety, and that is that I may be taken with the disease before I can be of much use. So please give me work at once."

"Give me your hand, old fellow. You do our profession credit, if not fully fledged. You are right, we must all do what we can while we can, for the Lord only knows how many hours are left to any of us. But, Amy, my dear, it makes me feel like praying and swearing in the same breath to find you still in this infernal city. A friend promised to call this morning and take you and your sister away."

"We cannot go."

"Well, well, as long as the old doctor is above ground he will try to take care of you; and this young gentleman can be invaluable if he can hold on for a while before following too general a fas.h.i.+on. Come, sir, I will install you as nurse at once."

"Doctor, Doctor Orton, what have you brought for me?" cried a childish voice and a little girl, fair and blue-eyed, came fluttering down the stairs, intercepting them on the way to Mr. Poland's room.

"Ah! there's my good little fairy," said the kind-hearted man, taking her in his arms and kissing her. "Look in my pockets, little one, and see what you can find."

With delightful unconsciousness of the shadows around her the child fumbled in his pockets and soon pulled out a picture-book.

"No candy yet?" she exclaimed in disappointment.

"No candy at all, Bertha, nothing but good plain food till next winter.

You make sure of this, I suppose," he said significantly to the elder sister.

"Yes, as far as possible. I will wait for you here."

They ascended to a large airy room on the second floor. Even to Haldane, Mr. Poland appeared far down in the dark valley; but he was in that quiet and conscious state which follows the first stage of the fever, which in his case, owing to his vigorous frame, had been unusually prolonged.

Without a word the doctor felt the sick man's pulse, who bent upon him his questioning eyes. From the further side of the bed, Mrs. Poland, sitting feebly in her chair, also fixed upon the physician the same intense searching gaze that Haldane had sustained from the daughter. Dr.

Orton looked for a moment into her pale, thin face, which might have been taken as a model for agonized anxiety, and then looked away again, for he could not endure its expression.

"Orton, tell me the truth; no wincing now," said Mr. Poland in low, thick utterance.

"My dear old friend, it cuts me to the heart to say it, but if you have anything special that you would like to say to your family I think you had better say it now."

"Then I am going to die," said the man and both his tone and face were full of awe; while poor Mrs. Poland looked as if _in extremis_ herself.

"This return and rapid rise of fever at this late day looks very bad,"

said the physician, gloomily, "and you insisted on knowing the truth."

"You ever were an honest friend, Orton; I know you have done your best for me, and, although worked to death, have come to see me often. I leave my family in your charge. G.o.d grant I may be the only one to suffer. May I see the children?"

"Yes, a few moments; but I do not wish them to be in this room long."