Doctor Vandyke :: :: University of Virginia Library

Three days nearly, hour for hour,
passed. During this time, Dr. Vandyke
scarcely left for an instant the bedside
of Honoria, scarcely tasted food, and
concentrated every faculty of his powerful
brain upon the wellnigh hopeless
task of snatching the sick girl from the
hand of Death stretched forth to clutch
her. There was something sublime in
this gigantic struggle of the eccentric
dwarf, in his outré costume, with the supreme
enemy of humanity. The conflict
was breast to breast; science and the
spirit of death wrestled over the wasted
body; and at last the decisive moment
came.

It was an hour or two past midnight.
The three days fixed by Dr. Vandyke, as
the term of the struggle when the crisis
would arrive, were about to expire.

Honoria, wasted away to a phantom
nearly, lay, or rather tossed to and fro,
burnt up by the fearful fever which was
preying upon all the sources of her life.

In the group near the fireplace stood
Colonel Brand, still, and overawed by the
terrible spectacle; Lady Brand, pale, but
with red rings around her eyes; her
elder daughter, faint and sobbing; and
Dr. Bond, who had lingered with unprofessional
persistence, preserving still his
air of offended dignity, but sullenly bending
before the imperious will of Dr. Vandyke,
who, standing at the head of the
bed, watched the girl with an intensity
which indicated the profound anxiety
concealed beneath his collected expression.

All felt that this man, in the long
overcoat, with the elfin gray locks, was
the master, and left all to him. The only
sound which disturbed the silence from
moment to moment was the brief, vibrating
voice, demanding “Ice!” “More
ice!” The burning temples seeming to
melt it as soon as it was applied. The

sick girl, with head thrown back, eyes
closed or wandering, lips full of physical
agony, and cruelly wasted already in face
and form, was wrestling with the enemy
of Life—Death, the pitiless, the inexorable.

All at once the mutterings of agony
gave place to words:

“The breathing! the breathing! there
in the bed!” exclaimed Honoria.

As she uttered the words, she threw
herself violently to the opposite side of
the bed, and said in a scream almost:

“The dagger!—the weight upon my
shoulders!—that horror!—”

Dr. Vandyke went quickly to Lady
Brand, and uttered a few words.

His communication must have been a
request that all but the girl's mother and
himself should leave the apartment, as
Lady Brand spoke in a low tone to her
husband, and all but herself and the physician
went out of the chamber.

“There is something terrible under
all this,” said Dr. Vandyke, in a low
tone, to the lady; “the case is mental—
physical remedies are of little avail.”

“O doctor, can nothing be done?”

“Something — physical æsthesia is
practicable; but—”

“Help! help!” cried the girl, raising
her hands as though to repulse some fearful
object.

Dr. Vandyke pressed the bandage containing
ice to her forehead, and with the
other hand forced her to receive between
her lips some drops of an anodyne.

“In ten minutes all will be decided,”
he muttered.

As he spoke, the girl fell back uttering
a low moan, and then lay motionless.
Her labored breathing only indicated
life.

Dr. Vandyke stood holding her pulse,
and watching her with the eyes of a
hawk. Some minutes passed thus; then
the flery flush on the patient's face faded
almost imperceptibly into a less crimson
tint, the least observable moisture ap
peared upon the forehead at the roots of
the hair; and through the iron frame of
the physician a tremor passed.

“The pulse is moderating!” he said,
in a low voice; “wait!”

And drawing from its fob a large
watch, he counted, fixing his eyes upon
the dial.

A minute passed in dead silence.

“Ninety!” rang out sonorous, from
the lips of the physician; and, turning to
Lady Brand, he added:

“Your daughter is saved!”

An hour afterward there was no longer
the least doubt of the patient's condition.
She was sleeping almost sweetly—
her brow bathed in perspiration, which
Lady Brand, scarce able to suppress her
sobs of joy, from time to time wiped
away with a handkerchief.

Dr. Vandyke was down-stairs eating
voraciously, and oblivious apparently of
the stately colonel and the dignified Dr.
Bond, who were seated at the same table,
drinking wine.

“May I—ahem—have the pleasure,
sir—”

And Dr. Bond, from whose oracular
lips issued these words, filled his glass,
and pushed the bottle to Dr. Vandyke.

“I never drink wine,” came in a species
of snap from that personage.

Dr. Bond drew back with hauteur.

“Unfits a physician for his business,”
said Dr. Vandyke, “and I don't want it.
When I am hungry I eat.”

“Obviously, sir,” was the remotely
satirical reply of Dr. Bond.

“Rode all day and all night to arrive,”
said Dr. Vandyke, with his mouth
full.

“And—ahem—you think that Miss
Brand—”

“I never think!”

Dr. Vandyke uttered the words with
extreme curtness, and went on eating.

“At least, sir,” responded Dr. Bond,
with lofty politeness, “you have formed

some theory — ahem — of Miss Brand's
case?”

“Theory?”

“Theory I said, sir.”

“No, I have formed no theory. I
can see with my eyes. Miss Brand has
brain-fever.”

“I was also aware of that fact, sir,”
said Dr. Bond, with immense politeness;
“brain-fever, attributable to loss of rest,
dissipation, and exposure.”

“No.”

“Do I—ahem—understand you, sir,
to say—”

“I don't know what you understand.
Miss Brand has brain-fever produced by
other causes.”

“What causes?”

“I decline to discuss the subject.”

Dr. Bond rose with dignity.

“If I am to be insulted in this house,
Colonel Brand, I will no longer intrude.
It seems that I am not only not to be
consulted, but my natural inquiries—
questions obviously drawn forth by the
case, sir—are to be treated with indignity!”

“I never answer questions, and I understand
this case,” said Dr. Vandyke,
pushing back his plate. “I am sent for
by Lady Brand, and I treat the case.”

A servant came at this moment to
summon Dr. Vandyke to the sick-room,
and he went thither at once, leaving Dr.
Bond in such extreme wrath that he
soon afterward left Rivanna in disgust.

Honoria was still sleeping, and the
healthful moisture still bathed her brow.

“I am so anxious, doctor,” said the
poor mother, in a whisper, “that I wish
you to remain with me. I disturbed you
in—”

“No, I had finished; was undergoing
a stupid interrogation from my brother
Bond, who is an ass.”

He felt the pulse of the girl, and
said:

“All is going on well, and the force
of the fever is spent. In three days the
body will begin to resume its normal
functions; the mind remains.”

“The mind, doctor?”

“The mind; that will be the real
struggle. Listen to me a moment.”

And the physician drew Lady Brand
toward the window.

“I am perfectly familiar with this
type,” he said; “it is simple—the patient
gets well or dies quickly—all that
is touch-and-go. What follows it is more
terrible. I will not bewilder you with
scientific terms. In brief words, Honoria's
attack will be followed by permanent
melancholy, hysteria, and worse,
unless a peculiar course is pursued in her
case. I will write to-day, delegating my
business in the capital to an associate,
and remain here—”

“Oh, thanks—thanks!”

Dr. Vandyke looked at Lady Brand
with a peculiar expression. When he
spoke his voice was no longer cold and
vibrating.

“I want no thanks,” he said. “People
call me eccentric. Well, one of my
eccentricities is to regard the daughter
of the woman I once loved as my own.
You were my only—well, what people
call their romance! I should have been
happy had you married me, and you less
happy—but enough of this. Let me finish.
In five days from this time Honoria
will have recovered in a great degree from
her fever, and then we must combat the
mental malady which will surely supervene.
I will instruct you when and how
to make your inquiries. This will be of
importance. That very dignified dunderhead
down-stairs thinks the attack produced
by loss of rest, which is pure nonsense.
It is the result of terror—of a
breathing heard in that bed on the night
of her seizure — of something which
sprung or fell upon her shoulders—of, I
know not what, and yet I will know!”

“Is it possible, doctor!”

“Of that and that alone. Let us, for

the present, however, combat the physical
malady—the mental must wait.”

The doctor went and sat down, as he
spoke, in the great, high-backed arm-chair,
upon which Honoria had placed
the garment dipped in the mystic water.
As he did so, he glanced quickly toward
the mirror beyond, as though impressed
by some sudden idea connected with the
relative positions of the two objects. His
present aim, however, seemed to be to
snatch a little sleep.

“I have not closed my eyes for forty-eight
hours, and am a little fatigued,”
he said. “This is an excellent bed—if
you will permit, madam—I never snore!”

And, closing his eyes, the doctor fell
asleep almost instantly — his fantastic
legs, ending in huge feet and buckled
shoes, stretched out straight before him;
his arms folded across his broad chest,
and his face nearly concealed by the
long, gray locks of his hair.