 | CHAPTER XLIII.
GEORGETOWN HOSPITAL. The Cameron pride, or, Purified by suffering |  |
43. CHAPTER XLIII.
GEORGETOWN HOSPITAL.
Your husband cannot live long. Come immediately.
So read the telegram received by Katy one winter morning,
and which stunned her for a few minutes so that she
could neither feel nor think. But the reaction came soon
enough, bringing with it only the remembrance of Wilford's
love. All the wrong, the harshness, was forgotten,
and only the desire remained to fly at once to Wilford.
Bravely she kept up until New York was reached, when
the tension of her nerves gave way, and she fainted, as
we have seen.
At Father Cameron's a telegram had been received,
telling of Wilford's danger. But the mother could not
go to him. A lung difficulty, to which she was subject,
had confined her to the house for many days, and so it
was the father and Bell who made their hasty preparations
for the hurried journey to Georgetown. They
heard of Katy's arrival, and Bell came at once to see
her.
“She will not be able to join us to-morrow,” was the
report Bell carried home, for she saw more than mere exhaustion
in the white face lying so motionless on Helen's
of the muscles about the mouth.
“It is very hard, but God knows best,” poor Katy
moaned, when the next day her father and Bell went
without her.
“Yes, darling, God knows best,” Helen answered,
smoothing the bright hair, and thinking sadly of the
young officer sitting by his camp-fire, and waiting so
eagerly for the bride who could not go to him now.
“God knows what is best, and does all for the best.”
Katy said it many times that long, long week, during
which she staid with Helen, living from day to day upon
the letters sent by Bell, who gave but little hope that
Wilford would recover. Not a word did she say of Marian,
and only twice did she mention Morris, who was
one of the physicians in that hospital, so that when at
last Katy was strong enough to venture on the journey,
she had but little idea of what had transpired in Wilford's
sick room.
Those were sad, weary days which Wilford first passed
upon his hospital cot, and as he was not sick but crippled,
he had ample time for reviewing the past, which
came up before his mind as vividly as if he had been living
again the scenes of bygone days. Of Katy he
thought continually, repenting of his rashness, and wishing
so much that the past could be undone. Disgusted
with soldier life, he had wished himself at home a thousand
times, but never by a word had he admitted such a
wish to any living being, and when, on the dark, rainy
afternoon which first saw him in the hospital, he turned
his face to the wall and wept, he replied to one who
said to him soothingly,
“Don't feel badly, my young friend. We will take as
good care of you here as if you were at home.”
“It's the pain which brings the tears. I'd as soon be
here as at home.”
Gradually, however, there came a change, and Wilford
grew softer in his feelings, half resolving to send
for Katy, who had offered to come, and to whom he had
replied, “It is not necessary.” But as often as he resolved,
his evil genius whispered, “She does not care to
longing for home faces brought on a nervous fever,
which made him so irritable that his attendants turned
from him in disgust, thinking him the most unreasonable
man they ever met with. Once he dreamed Genevra
was there—that her fingers threaded his hair as they
used to do in the happy days at Brighton—that her
hand was on his brow, her breath upon his face, and
with a start he awoke just as the rustle of female garments
died away in the hall.
“The nurse in the second ward has been in here,” a
comrade said. “She seemed specially interested in you,
and if she had not been a stranger, I should have said
she was crying over you.”
With a quick, sudden movement, Wilford put his hand
to his cheek, where there was a tear, either his own or that
of the “nurse,” who had recently bent over him. Retaining
the same proud reserve which had characterized his
whole life, he asked no questions, but listened to what
his companions were saying of the beauty and tenderness
of the “young girl,” as they called her, who had glided
for a few moments into their presence, winning their
hearts in that short space of time, and making them
wish she would come back again. Wilford wished so
too, conjuring up all sorts of conjectures about the unknown
nurse, and once going so far as to fancy it was
Katy herself. But Katy would hardly venture there as
nurse, and if she did she would not keep aloof from
him. It was not Katy, and if not, who was it that twice
when he was sleeping came and looked at him, his comrades
said, rallying him upon the conquest he had made,
and so exciting his imagination that the fever began to
increase, and the blood throbbed hotly through his
veins, while his brows were knit together with thoughts
of the mysterious stranger. Then, with a great shock it
occurred to him that Katy had affirmed, “Genevra is
alive.”
What if it were so, and this nurse were Genevra?
The very idea fired Wilford's brain, and when next
his physician came he looked with alarm upon the great
change for the worse exhibited by his patient.
“Shall I send for your friends?” he asked, and Wilford
answered, savagely,
“I have no friends—none at least, but what will be
glad to know I'm dead.”
And that was the last, except the wild words of a
maniac, which came from Wilford's lips for many a day
and night. When they said he was unconscious, Marian
Hazelton obtained permission to attend him, and again
the eyes of the other occupants of the room were turned
wonderingly towards her as she bent over the sick man,
parting his matted hair, smoothing his pillow, and holding
the cooling draught to the parched lips which muttered
strange things of Brighton, of Alnwick and Rome
—of the heather on the Scottish moors, and the daisies
on Genevra's grave, where Katy once sat down.
“She did not know Genevra was there,” he said; “but
I knew, and I felt as if the dead were wronged by that
act of Katy's. Do you know Katy?” and his black eyes
fastened upon Marian, who, soothed him into quiet, while
she talked to him of Katy, telling of her graceful beauty,
her loving heart, and the sorrow she would feel when she
heard how sick he was.
“Shall I send for her?” she asked, but Wilford answered,
“No, I am satisfied with you.”
This was her first day with him, but there were other
days when all her strength, and that of Morris, who, at
at her earnest solicitation, came to her aid, was required
to keep him on his bed. He was going home, he said,
going to Katy; and like a giant he writhed under a
force superior to his own, and which held him down and
controlled him, while his loud outcries filled the building,
and send a shudder to the hearts of those who heard
them. As the two men, who at first had occupied the
room with him, were well enough to leave for home, Marian
and Morris both begged that, unless absolutely necessary,
no other one should be sent to that small
apartment, where all the air was needed for the patient
in their charge. And thus the room was left alone for
Wilford, who grew worse so fast that Marian telegraphed
to Katy, bidding her come at once.
Slowly the wintry night was passing, the fifth since
Marian's message was sent to Katy, and Morris sat by
Wilford's cot, when suddenly he met Wilford's eyes fixed
upon him with a look of recognition he could not mistake.
“Do you know me?” he asked so kindly, and with so
much of genuine sympathy in his voice, that the heavy
eyelids quivered for an instant, as Wilford nodded his
head, and whispered,
“Dr. Grant.”
There had been a momentary flash of resentment when
he saw the watcher beside him, but Wilford was too
weak, too helpless to cherish that feeling long, and besides
there were floating through his still bewildered
mind visions of some friendly hand, which had ministered
to him daily—of a voice and form, distinct from the one
he thought an angel's, and which was not there now with
him. That voice, that form, he felt sure belonged to
Morris Grant, and remembering his past harshness
toward him, a chord of gratitude was touched, and
when Morris took his hand he did not at once withdraw
it, but let his long, white fingers cling around the warm,
vigorous ones, which seemed to impart new life and
strength.
“You have been very sick,” Morris said, anticipating
the question Wilford would ask. “You are very sick
still, and at the request of your nurse I came to attend
you.”
A pressure of the hand was Wilford's reply, and then
there was silence between them, while Wilford mastered
all his pride, and with quivering lips whispered,
“Katy!”
“We have sent for her. We expect her every train,”
Morris replied, and Wilford asked,
“Who has been with me—the nurse, I mean? Who is
she?”
Morris hesitated a moment, and then said,
“Marian Hazelton.”
“I know—yes,” Wilford replied, having no suspicion
as to who was standing outside his door, and listening,
with a throbbing heart, to his rational questions.
In all their vigils held together no sign had ever passed
from Dr. Grant to Marian that he knew her, but he had
must not be shocked, as a sight of Marian would shock him.
He knew she was outside the door, and as Wilford turned
his head upon the pillow, he went to her, and leading her
to a safe distance, said softly,
“His reason has returned.”
“And my services are ended,” Marian rejoined, looking
him steadily in the face, but not in the least prepared for
his affirmative question.
“You are Genevra Lambert?”
There was a low, gasping sound of surprise, and Marian
staggered forward a step or too, then steadying herself,
she said.
“And if I am, it surely is not best for him to see me.
You would not advise it?”
She looked wistfully at Morris, the great desire to be
recognized, to be spoken to kindly by the man who once
had been her husband overmastering for a moment all
her prudence.
“It would not be best, both for his sake and Katy's,”
Morris said, and with a moan like the dying out of her
last hope, Marian turned away, her eyes dim with tears
and her heart heavy with a sense of something lost, as in
the grey dawn of the morning she went back to her
former patients, who hailed her coming with childish joy,
one fair young boy from the Granite hills kissing the
hand which bandaged his poor crushed arm so tenderly,
and thanking her that she had returned to him again.
“Mr. J. Cameron, Miss Bell Cameron,” were the names
on the cards sent to Dr. Grant late that afternoon, and in
a few moments he was with the father and sister who asked
so anxiously for Wilford and explained why Katy was
not with them.
Wilford was sleeping when they entered his room, his
face looking so worn and thin, and his hands folded so
helplessly upon his breast, that with a gush of tears Bell
knelt beside him, and laying her warm cheek against his
bony one, woke him with her sobs. For a moment he
seemed bewildered, then recognizing her, he raised his
feeble arm and winding it about her neck, kissed her
more tenderly than he had ever done before. He had not
Bell was his favorite, and he held her close to him while
his eyes moved past his father, whom he did not see, on
to the door as if in quest of some one. It was Katy, and
guessing his thoughts, Bell said,
“She is not here. She could not come now. She is
sick in New York, but will join us in a few days.”
There was a look of intense disappointment in Wilford's
face, which even his father's warm greeting could not
dissipate, and Morris saw the great tears as they dropped
upon the pillow, the proud man trying hard to repress
them, and asking no questions concerning any one at
home. He was too weak to talk, but he held Bell's hand
in his as if afraid that she would leave him, while his eyes
rested alternately upon her face and that of his father,
who, wholly unmanned at the fearful change in his son,
laid his head upon the bed and cried aloud.
Next morning Bell was very white and her voice
trembled as she came from a conference with Dr. Morris,
who had told her that her brother would die.
“He may live a week, and he may not,” he said, adding
solemnly, “As his sister you will tell him of his danger,
while there is time to seek the refuge without which
death is terrible.”
“Oh, if I could only pray with and for him!” Bell
thought, as she went to her brother, mourning her misspent
days, and feeling her courage giving way when at
last she stood in his presence and met his kindly smile.
“I dreamed that you were not here after all,” he said,
“I am so glad to find it real. How long before I can go
home, do you suppose?”
He had stumbled upon the very thing Bell was there
to talk about, his question indicating that he had no suspicion
of the truth. Nor had he; and it came like a
thunderbolt when Bell, forgetting all her prudence, said
impetuously,
“Oh, Wilford, maybe you'll never go home. Maybe
you'll—”
“Not die,” Wilford exclaimed, clasping his hands with
sudden emotion. “Not die—you don't mean that? Who
told you so?”
“Dr. Grant,” was Billy's reply, which brought a fierce
of his heart.
“Dr. Grant,” he repeated. “He would like me removed
from his path; but it shall not be. I will not
die. Tell him that. I will not die,” and Wilford's voice
was hoarse with passion as he raised his clenched fists in
the air.
He was terribly excited, and in her fright Bell ran for
Dr. Grant. But Wilford motioned him back, hurling
after him words which kept him from the room the entire
day, while the sick man rolled, and tossed, and raved in
the delirium, which had returned, and which wore him
out so fast. No one had the least influence over him,
except Marian Hazelton, who, without a glance at Mr.
Cameron or Bell, glided to his side, and with her presence
and gentle words soothed him into comparative quiet, so
that the bitter denunciations against the saint, who
wanted him to die, ceased, and he fell into a troubled
sleep.
With a strange feeling of interest Mr. Cameron and
Bell watched her, wondering if she were indeed Genevra,
as Katy had affirmed. They would not ask her; and
both breathed more freely when, with a bow in acknowledgment
of Mr. Cameron's compliment to her skill in
quieting his son, she left the room.
That night they watched with Wilford, who slept off
his delirium, and lay with his face turned from them, so
that they could not guess by its expression what was
passing in his mind.
All the next day he maintained the most frigid silence,
answering only in monosyllables, while Bell kept wiping
away the great drops of sweat constantly oozing out upon
his forehead and about the pallid lips.
Just at nightfall he startled Bell by asking that Dr.
Grant be sent for.
“Please leave me alone with him,” he said, when Dr.
Morris came; then turning to Morris, as the door closed
upon his father and his sister, he said abruptly,
“Pray for me, if you can pray for one who yesterday
hated you so for saying he must die.”
Earnestly, fervently, Morris prayed, as for a dear
brother; and when he finished, Wilford's faint “Amen”
sounded through the room.
“I am not right yet,” the pale lips whispered, as Morris
sat down beside him. “Not right with God, I mean.
I've sometimes said there was no God; but I did not believe
it; and now I know there is. He has been moving
upon me all the day, driving out my bitterness toward
you, and causing me to send for you at last. Do you
think there is hope for me? I have much to be forgiven.”
“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white
as snow,” Morris replied; and then he tried to point that
erring man to the Lamb of God, who taketh away the
sins of the world, convincing him that there was hope
even for him, and leaving him with the conviction that
God would surely finish the good work begun, nor suffer
this soul to be lost which had turned to Him at the
eleventh hour.
Wilford knew his days were numbered, and he talked
freely of it to his father and sister the next morning when
they came to him. He did not say that he was ready or
willing to die, only that he must, and he asked them to
forget, when he was gone, all that had ever been amiss
in him as a son and brother.
“I was too proud, too selfish, to make others happy,”
he said “I thought it all over yesterday, and the past
came back again so vividly, especially the part connected
with Katy. Oh, Katy, I did abuse her!” and a bitter sob
attested the genuineness of Wilford's grief for his treatment
of Katy. “I despised her family, I treated them
with contempt. I broke Katy's heart, and now I must
die without telling her I am sorry. But you'll tell her,
Bell, how I tried to pray, but could not for thoughts of
my sin to her. She will not be glad that I am dead. I
know her better than to think that; and I believe she
loves me. But, after I am gone, and the duties of the
world have closed up the gap I shall leave, I see, a
brighter future for her than her past has been; and you
may tell her I am—” He could not say “I am willing.”
Few husbands could have done so then, and he was not
an exception.
Wholly exhausted, he lay quiet for a moment, and
when he spoke again, it was of Genevra. Even here he
did not try to screen himself. He was the one to blame,
too late.
“Would you like to see her, if she was living?” came
to Bell's lips; but the fear that it would be too great a
shock, prevented their utterance.
He had no suspicion of her presence; and it was best
he should not. Katy was the one uppermost in his mind;
and in the letter Bell sent to her next day, he tried to
write, “Good-bye, my darling;” but the words were
scarcely legible, and his nerveless hand fell helpless at
his side as he said,
“She will never know the effort it cost me, nor hear
me say that I hope I am forgiven. It came to me last
night; and now the way is not so dark, but Katy will not
know.”
| CHAPTER XLIII.
GEORGETOWN HOSPITAL. The Cameron pride, or, Purified by suffering | |