Doctor Vandyke :: :: University of Virginia Library

“My poor child!” she said, at length.
“Doctor, you can scarcely conceive how
dangerously excited she grew while relating
the last and most terrible events
of this horrible night. She became as
white as a corpse, her voice was almost
hollow in its accent; and, O doctor,
doctor! there was something in the expression
of her eyes which I did not
like—I feared—”

“Yes, and justly. Your daughter
has narrowly escaped death from brain-fever:
what I aim at now is to prevent
what is worse than death—insanity.”

Lady Brand sobbed for some moments,
but recovered her self-command
at length, and said, firmly:

“I shall give you the exact substance
of Honoria's statement, doctor—a statement
made in broken words, as I held
her in my arms. She shook with nervous
excitement; but there is something
in being near a mother's heart which
calms a child, I think, and gives assurance
of safety. Honoria seemed to feel
this, and, spite of her frightful agitation,
went through with her narrative up to
the moment when she fainted and fell.”

“In front of the mirror?”

“Yes, doctor.”

Dr. Vandyke knit his brows, and
seemed to be concentrating all the faculties
of his mind upon one single idea.

“Allow me to ask you one or two
questions before you proceed,” he said.

The lady inclined her head and listened.

“Has any change been made in the
position of the furniture?”

“In Honoria's chamber, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“None at all. Every thing remains
in the same position which it formerly
occupied.”

“Good! that simplifies matters. Now,
madam, let us see. Entering the chamber
by the single door—for there is but one
door, I believe?”

“But one,” said Lady Brand, indicating,
by the expression of her countenance,
the surprise which she felt at
this apparently irrelevant question. The
doctor perceived this expression, and
said:

“I will indicate later the object of
these interrogatories. In entering your
daughter's apartment you have, immediately
upon your right, the fireplace; in
front of it the large arm-chair, facing the
fire; against the opposite wall the toilet-table
and mirror; on the left of the
mirror a double window; on the right
the great bed. Is that all, madam?”

“With the exception of the ordinary
number of chairs, stools, the carpet, and
an old linen-chest.”

“A chest? In what part of the
room is this chest?”

“In the corner beyond the fireplace.
But it is not used now; the key has been
lost, and the chest has not been opened,
I think, for twenty years.”

“Hum! I care nothing, however, for
the chest; and I have in my mind now a
picture of the theatre of this strange
drama. A fireplace, with a portrait
above it—a great chair in front—a mirror
against the opposite wall—a window, a
bed, and in this bed Honoria asleep at
half an hour or an hour past midnight.
What then occurred, madam?—something
frightful, I fear, and any scientific propensity
to sneer or jest dies in me at the
thought of Honoria. This child has seen,

or believes she has seen, something terrible—some
object such as the grave
gives up when the cerements of the dead
are torn away—speak, now, and tell me
what this horror was!”

“I shall proceed to do so,” said Lady
Brand, in a low and nervous voice. “I
have scarce recovered from the shock of
the narrative, and recall every particular.”

“Good,” said Dr. Vandyke, fixing his
penetrating eyes on the face of the lady;
“it is precisely these particular details
which I wish to ascertain. I know that
Honoria saw something—was assailed
by something, or that she fancied as
much—and that she shrieked and fainted.
What I wish now to know is the hour
of the night, the position she occupied
at the moment—all—and especially what
seems trifling and unimportant.”

“You shall know all, doctor, and in
as brief terms as possible. Honoria declares
that she retired at a few minutes
past midnight, and lay awake for some
time, the victim of nervous agitation.
The breathing which had so much alarmed
her was no longer heard, and the portrait
was thrown into shadow now; but it
was some time before she could compose
herself sufficiently to sleep. Finally,
however, exhaustion brought on slumber,
or rather a species of half-consciousness,
and she either saw or dreamed that she
saw a gigantic and shadowy arm—in the
hand a dagger—and this arm rose and
fell three times, striking the weapon into
the white garment which Honoria had
placed upon the chair.”

“Well,” said Dr. Vandyke, coolly,
“what next?”

“The occurrence was so real—or the
vision so vivid—that Honoria declares
she must have fainted. When she opened
her eyes—in a few minutes, as she supposes—the
apartment was darker than
before, and the storm which had raged
up to this time was dying away. All
was still, except the far mutter of thunder
and the low hissing of the expiring fire.
It must then have been nearly one in the
morning, and Honoria felt a new access
of terror at the thought that she alone,
in all probability, was awake in the house.
By degrees, however, this terror moderated;
she began to reason with herself upon
the occurrences of the night. Might that
all have been the result of her fancy—
the product of a diseased imagination
starting at the simplest noises? The
breathing might have been the sighing
of the wind in the great oak without—
the arm striking at the garment a mere
effect of light and shadow—the strange
expression of the portrait undoubtedly a
fantasy. Honoria, doctor, is of a very
delicate and sensitive organization, but
then she is a girl of excellent sense too;
and this process of reasoning upon her
fears gradually restored her self-possession
and in some degree quieted her nerves.”

The doctor nodded.

“I know the class to which she belongs,”
he said, “the nervous-sanguine-lymphatic.
Proceed, madam.”

“Honoria reached at last, doctor,
a degree of composure which induced
her to resolve upon discovering whether
there were any grounds for what appeared
to her to be an absurd fancy, if
not a dream—to ascertain, in a word,
whether the garment or the chair were
not injured. If the weapon in the hand
of the shadow had been a real weapon
and had pierced the garment, there must
be some hole or rent to show where the
point had entered; if there were none,
then it was a dream. This resolution she
proceeded to carry out. She rose from
bed, stole in her bare feet to the spot
where the garment hung, raised it in the
glimmering half-light from the dying fire,
and was about to examine it, when there
suddenly fell to the floor, with a ringing
clash, an antique poniard—!”

Dr. Vandyke shook his head.

“The case is worse than I had supposed,”
he muttered.

Lady Brand continued, with white
cheeks now, and a tremor in her voice:

“The worst of all, the most terrifying
event of all was yet to come!” she said,
almost in a whisper.

The doctor bent forward—this time
with a fixed and piercing look which
indicated that even his ever-firm nerves
began to be affected by the strange recital.

“That is not all, then—but I had forgotten!—the
`horror'—the `weight upon
the shoulders'—!”

“You recall the delirious raving of
my child, I see!” said Lady Brand,
trembling. “A few words more will
tell you all. When the weapon fell, or
when Honoria thought it fell, she recoiled
from the chair, turning her head from it,
and covering her face, when suddenly,
she declares, some horrible thing or
being leaped or fell upon her shoulders—
clutched her, and, crouching like a cat,
gibbered and tore at her with its teeth!”

Dr. Vandyke had grown a little pale,
and shook his head ominously.

“What next?” he said, in a low voice.

“It was then that Honoria uttered
the piercing shriek which attracted her
companions to her chamber, and fell
fainting upon the floor. After this she
remembers nothing.”

“One word before you finish, madam,”
and Dr. Vandyke knit his brows. “You
say that Honoria recoiled from the
chair, turning away her head?”

“Yes.”

“Then her back was to the large
chair?”

“Yes.”

“Her face to the mirror?”

“Yes.”

“Did she look into the mirror—if so,
what did she see, or fancy she saw?”

“I was about to tell you,” said Lady
Brand, in the same awe-struck whisper.
“The apartment was nearly in total
darkness, but Honoria's quick glance
toward the mirror showed her a shadowy,
crouching thing upon her back—a name
less something of no defined shape—then,
paralyzed by this final terror, she lost
consciousness and fell heavily to the
floor.”

Dr. Vandyke remained for some moments
buried in gloomy meditation. He
then raised his head, and uttered a deep
sigh.

“Nothing, of course, was found when
the young ladies went to the chamber?”
he said.

“Nothing.”

“The garment was on the chair still?”

“Yes.”

“There were no rents in it?”

“None.”

“No dagger on the floor?”

“None.”

“And Honoria was alone—the chamber
had no other occupant?”

“I know that there was no one else
in the apartment; I reached it almost
as soon as the girls, and, thinking that a
dog or something else beneath the bed—
there is no other place of concealment—
had frightened Honoria, instituted an immediate
search.”

“And there was nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“The room has no closet?”

“None, doctor.”

Dr. Vandyke reflected again, preserving
the same melancholy silence.

“And this is all, madam?”

“All, doctor.”

“You have omitted nothing?”

“Nothing whatever that I can recall.”

The doctor uttered something like a
groan.

“God help us!” he muttered.

“O doctor, what do you mean?”

Dr. Vandyke looked at the lady with
eyes full of pity.

“I mean, madam,” he said, solemnly,
“that the inscrutable Power which rules
this world and all the worlds has seen
fit to visit you with a great misfortune.”

“O doctor, doctor! speak! — tell
me—!”

“You are strong, and should know.
Honoria has—dormant in her mental organization,
and in process of development
at this moment—insanity.”

Lady Brand sobbed hopelessly, covering
her pale face with her hands.

“And is there no cure?” she said, in
a broken voice.

“Perhaps,” said Dr. Vandyke. “The
case is a strange one, madam—you see I
waste no time in commonplace consolation,
in soothing expressions. Your
lady friends will furnish that—I am the
physician, and this time the physician
not only of the body but the mind. I
have cured the body nearly—the mind
remains; and to cure that will be more
difficult. I shall nevertheless do all in
my power, leaving the rest to that all-wise
and all-merciful Being disregarded
or not believed in by fools and savants,
but in whom I believe; to whom I look,
as the first great cause, the arbiter of
all.”

Dr. Vandyke rose as he spoke.

“To-morrow, madam,” he said, “I
shall make my diagnosis fully, and commence
my treatment.”