Richard Vandermarck Part 14

"How can he get up two pairs of stairs," said Charlotte Benson, "when he cannot move an inch without such suffering?"

"That's very true," the Doctor said. "I doubt if he could bear it. You have no room below?"

"Put a bed in the library," said Charlotte Benson, and in ten minutes it was done; the servants no longer sleepy when they had any definite order to fulfill.

"In the meantime," said Richard to his sister, "send those two to bed,"

pointing out Henrietta and me.

"I've told them to go, but they won't," said Sophie, somewhat sharply.

Henrietta walked off, rather injured, but I would not go.

Mr. Langenau had another faint attack, and I was quite certain he would die. Charlotte was making him breathe _sal volatile_ and Sophie ran to rub his hands. The Doctor was busy at the light about something.

"The room is all ready," said the servant.

"Very well; now Mr. Richard, if you please," the Doctor said.

"Pauline," said Richard, coming to me as I stood at the foot of the bal.u.s.ters, "You can't do any good. You'd better go up-stairs."

"Oh, Richard," I cried, "I think you're very cruel; I think you might let me stay."

I suppose my wretchedness, and youthfulness, and folly softened him again, and he said, very gently, "I don't mean to be unkind, but it is best for you to go. You need not be so frightened: there isn't any danger."

I moved slowly to obey him, but turned back and caught his hand and whispered, "You won't let them hurt him, Richard?" and then ran up the stairs. No doubt Richard thought I went to my own room; but I spent the next hour on the landing-place, looking down into the hall.

It was rather a serious matter, getting Mr. Langenau even into the library, and it was well they had not attempted his own room. Patrick was called, and with his a.s.sistance and Richard's, he began to move across the hall. But half-way to the library-door, he fainted dead away, and Richard carried him and laid him on the bed, Patrick being worse than useless, having lost his head, and the Doctor being a small man, and only strong in science.

Pretty soon the library-door closed, and Sophie and Charlotte were excluded. They walked about the hall, talking in low tones, and looking anxious. Later, there came groaning from within the closed door, and Charlotte Benson wrung her hands and listened. The groans continued for a long while: the misery of hearing them! After a while they ceased: then Richard opened the door, hastily, it seemed, and called "Sophie."

Sophie ran forward, and the door closed again. There was a long silence, time enough for those who were outside to imagine all manner of horrid possibilities. Then the Doctor and Richard came out.

"How is he, Doctor?" said Charlotte Benson, bravely, going to meet them, while I hung trembling over the landing-place.

"Oh better, better, very comfortable," said the Doctor, in his calm professional tone.

I could not help thinking those groans had not denoted a very high state of comfort; but maybe the Doctor knew best how people with dislocated shoulders and broken ribs are apt to express their sentiments of satisfaction.

I listened with more than interest to their plans for the night: the Doctor was going away at once; two of the servants and Patrick were to relieve each other in sitting by him, while Richard was to throw himself on the sofa in the hall, to be at hand if anything were needed.

"Which means, that you are to be awake all night," said Charlotte Benson. "You have more need of rest than we. Let Sophie and me take your place."

Richard looked gratefully and kindly at her, but refused. The Doctor a.s.sured them again that there was no reason for anxiety; that Richard would probably be undisturbed all night; that he himself would come early in the morning. Then Richard came toward the stairs, and I escaped to my own room.

CHAPTER XII.

PRAEMONITUS, PRAEMUNITUS.

The fiend whose lantern lights the mead, Were better mate than I!

_Scott_.

Fools, when they cannot see their way, At once grow desperate, Have no resource--have nothing to propose-- But fix a dull eye of dismay Upon the final close.

Success to the stout heart, say I, That sees its fate, and can defy!

_Faust_.

Two weeks later, and things had not stood still; they rarely do, when there is so much at hand, and ripe for mischief; seventeen does not take up the practice of wisdom voluntarily. I do not think I was very different from other girls of seventeen, and I cannot blame myself very much that I spent all these days in a dream of bliss and folly; how could it have been otherwise, situated exactly as we were? This is the way our days were pa.s.sed. Mr. Langenau was better, but still not able to leave his room. He was the hero, as a matter of course, and little besides his sufferings, his condition, and his prospects, was talked of at the table; which had the effect of making Kilian stay away two nights out of three, and of alienating Richard altogether. Richard went to town on Monday morning after the accident occurred, and it was now Friday of the following week, and he had not come back.

It was a little dull for Mary Leighton and for Henrietta, perhaps; possibly for Charlotte Benson, but she did not seem to mind it much; and I had never found R---- so enchanting as that fortnight. Charlotte Benson liked to be Florence Nightingale in little, it was very plain; and naturally nothing made me so happy as to be permitted to minister to the wants of the (it must be confessed) frequently unreasonable sufferer. For the first few days, while he was confined to his bed, of course Charlotte and I were obliged to content ourselves with the sending of messages, the arranging of bouquets, the concocting of soups and jellies, and all the other coddling processes at our command. But when Mr. Langenau was able to sit up, Sophie (at the instance of Charlotte Benson, for she seemed to have renounced diplomacy herself,) arranged that the bed should be taken away during the daytime, and brought back again at night, and that Mr. Langenau should lie on the sofa through the day. This made it possible for us to be in the room, even without Sophie, though we began to think her presence necessary.

That scruple was soon done away with, for it laid too great a tax on her, and restricted our attentions very much. The result was, we pa.s.sed nearly the whole day beside him; Mary Leighton and Henrietta very often of the party, and Sophie occasionally looking in upon us. Sometimes when Charlotte Benson, as ranking officer, decreed that the patient needed rest, we took our books and work and went to the piazza, outside the window of his room.

He would have been very tired of us, if he had not been very much in love with one of us. As it was, it must have been a kind of fool's paradise in which he lived, five pretty women fluttering about him, offering the prettiest homage, and one of them the woman for whom, wisely or foolishly, rightly or wrongly, he had conceived so violent a pa.s.sion.

As soon as he was out of pain and began to recover the tone of his nerves at all, I saw that he wanted me beside him more than ever, and that Charlotte Benson, with all her skill and cleverness, was as nothing to him in comparison. No doubt he dissembled this with care; and was very graceful and very grateful and infinitely interesting. His moods were very varying, however; sometimes he seemed struggling with the most unconquerable depression, then we were all so sorry for him; sometimes he was excited and brilliant; then we were all thrilled with admiration.

And not unfrequently he was irritable and quite morose and sullen. And then we pitied, and admired, and feared him _a la fois_. I am sure no man more fitted to command the love and admiration of women ever lived.

Charlotte Benson with great self-devotion had insisted upon teaching the children for two hours every day, so that Mr. Langenau might not be annoyed at the thought that they were losing time, and that Sophie might not be inconvenienced. It was the least that she could do, she reasoned, after the many lessons that Mr. Langenau had given us, with so much kindness, and without accepting a return. Henrietta volunteered for the service, also, and from eleven to one every day the boys were caught and caged, and made to drink at the fountain of learning; or rather to approach that fountain, of which forty Charlottes and Henriettas could not have made them drink.

At that time Charlotte always decreed that Mr. Langenau should lie on the sofa and go to sleep. The windows were darkened, and the room was cleared of visitors. On this Friday morning, nearly two weeks after the accident, as I was following Sophie from the room (Charlotte having gone with Henrietta to capture the children), Mr. Langenau called after me rather imperiously, "Miss d'Estree--Miss Pauline--"

It had been a stormy session, and I turned back with misgivings. Sophie shrugged her shoulders and went away toward the dining-room.

"What are you going away for, may I ask?" he said, as I appeared before him humbly.

"Why, you know you ought to lie down and to rest," I tried to say with discretion, but it was all one what I said: it would have irritated him just the same.

"I am rather tired of this surveillance," he exclaimed. "It is almost time I should be permitted to express a wish about the disposition of myself. As I do not happen to want to go to sleep, I beg I may be allowed the pleasure of your society for a little while."

"I don't think it would give you much pleasure, and you know you don't feel as well to-day."

"Again, may I be permitted to judge how I feel myself?"

"Oh, yes, of course, but--"

"But what, Miss d'Estree?--No doubt you want to go yourself--I am sorry I thought of detaining you (with a gesture of dismissal). I beg you to excuse me, A sick man is apt to be unreasonable."

"Oh, as to that, you know entirely well I do not want to go. You are unreasonable, indeed, when you talk as you do now. I only went away for your benefit."

"_Qui s'excuse, s'accuse_."

"But I am not excusing myself; and if you put it so I will go away at once."

"_Si vous voulez_--"