Chapter XXVIII: Alexander Strikes a Light

“A death-bed’s a detector of the heart.”

So is a sick bed. A man may have passed through the greatest college in the world and carried off its highest honors; may have traveled over every foot of land and sea; may have learned all else that this earth has to teach him—_yet_ if he has never had a good, dangerous, rallying spell of illness, his education has been neglected.

Alexander Lyon had been a strong, arrogant, despotic man, and not from any _in_ternal force of the spirit, but by the _ex_ternal support of great physical strength, sound health and large wealth. Of the reverses of these he had no experience in his own person, and not enough of sympathy with others to realize them to his own imagination. Poverty, sickness, death, were to him abstract ideas. He had no personal knowledge of them.

True, he had lost both his parents by death; but they were very aged; and his father had died in an instant, like a man called away on a hasty journey; and his mother had followed, after a short illness; and their decease had left upon his mind the impression of absence rather than of death.

Certainly, within a few hours before his duel he had been forced to think of his own possible death, but it was as of a sudden and violent catastrophe, which in his great excitement he was desperate enough to brave and meet.

But he never imagined being wounded and mutilated, and laid helpless and languishing on a bed of weakness and pain.

Yet here he was.

On the third day after that upon which he had been wounded, an irritative fever set in, and from having been stupid and quiet he became delirious and violent.

General Lyon had left him, as we have seen.

And Francis Tredegar had also, soon after, gone to London on imperative business.

And Alexander was now in the hands of the skilful surgeon whom the magnanimity of Prince Ernest had placed in attendance upon him. And the surgeon was assisted by the valet Simms and by the servants of the hotel.

For eight terrible days the wounded man burned with fever and raved with frenzy. For eight days, within his broken and agonized frame, an almost equal struggle between the forces of life and death went on. But, by the aid of his strong constitution and of his skilful surgeon, life at length prevailed over death.

It was about the dawn of the critical ninth day, that the fever finally left him.

The surgeon, who, on that particular night, had watched by his bed, was the first to perceive the signs of reviving life, in the moisture of the sleeper’s hands and the moderated pulsations at his wrists.

“The imminent danger is over now. He will live and recover,—unless he should have a relapse, which we must try to prevent,” said Doctor Dietz to Simms, the valet, who had shared his watch.

Simms, who, for the last nine days, had never once been in bed, but had snatched his sleep when, where, and how he could,—sitting, standing, and even walking—yawned frightfully, and said he was glad to hear it, and asked if he might now lie down.

The surgeon told him that he might not; that yet, for a few hours, he must watch beside his master; afterwards, when his master should awake, he (the man) should be relieved.

And, so saying, the surgeon went away, to get some sleep for himself.

And Simms lay back in the best easy-chair, just vacated by Doctor Dietz, and stretched his feet out on the best footstool, and closed his eyes in slumber.

And the only watcher beside the wounded man was the All-seeing Eye.

But all the danger was over,—the fever was cooled, the frenzy calmed, and the patient slept on,—all the more quietly, perhaps, because his attendant slept also and the room was so still.

It was, I said, just at the dawn of day and about four o’clock, when Doctor Dietz pronounced the crisis favorably passed, and then left him.

At eight o’clock the surgeon returned to the sick-room, where he found both master and man still asleep.

Without waking Simms, he went around to the other side of the bed, and examined the state of Alexander. His former opinion was now confirmed. The patient was sleeping calmly and breathing softly. His pulse was regular and quiet, and his skin cool and moist.

“It is a decided convalescence,” said the surgeon to himself.

And then, fearing to wake up the attendant lest he should disturb the patient, the doctor himself went about on tiptoes, putting out the night taper, opening the windows, and setting the room somewhat in order.

Then he went down-stairs to get his own breakfast and to order some proper nourishment to be prepared for the wounded man to take as soon as he should awake.

When he again returned to the room he found Simme awake and sitting upright in the chair.

The doctor raised his finger to warn the valet not to speak or make a noise, lest he should disturb the sleeper and then signed him to leave the room.

And the valet gladly took himself away.

Doctor Dietz seated himself beside his patient to watch for his awakening. As it is neither useful nor entertaining to sit and stare a sleeper in the face, the surgeon took out a newspaper from his pocket and began to read, lifting his eyes occasionally to look at his charge. But at length he got upon several columns of highly interesting editorial treating upon the politics of Prussia, and he became so absorbed in the subject that he read on, forgetting to glance at his patient for fifteen or twenty minutes. He might have gone on for thirty or forty minutes more without lifting his eyes from the paper had he not heard his name whispered.

With a slight start he turned and looked at his charge.

Alexander Lyon was lying awake and calmly contemplating his physician.

Doctor Dietz dropped his paper and bent over his charge.

“You are better?” he said, quietly.

Alexander nodded.

“How do you feel?”

“Weak.”

“How long have you been awake?”

“Two—or three—hours—I think. I don’t know,” whispered Alick, feebly and with pain and difficulty.

“Oh no!” said the surgeon, taking out his watch and consulting it—“not near so long as that, though it may seem so to you; not more than fifteen or twenty minutes at the most.”

And Doctor Dietz put up his watch and took hold of the wrist of his charge.

“I’ve—been ill—long—long,” whispered Alick, looking up from his dark, hollow, cavernous eyes.

“No; there again you are mistaken. You have been down little more than a week. But it is always so when there has been a period of semi-consciousness. The patient loses all calculation of time, and on recovery either fancies that no time at all, or else a very long period, has elapsed during his illness. But now listen to me. You are very much better, and you are on the high road to a speedy recovery. But you must not, as yet, exert yourself at all. You must not even speak, except when to do so is absolutely necessary, and then you must only whisper. Whenever you can answer by a nod, or a shake of the head, or whenever you can make your wishes known by signs, do so, instead of speaking. You must spare your lungs as much as possible. If you follow my direction in this it will be the best for you. Will you do it? Mind, _nod_, if you mean yes.”

Alexander nodded.

“That’s right. And now—do you feel hungry or thirsty?—Stop! don’t answer that question, because I didn’t ask it right, and you can’t answer it without speaking. I will put it in another form. Do you feel hungry?”

Alexander nodded.

“And thirsty?”

Alick hesitated a moment and then nodded.

“Ah! I understand. You are quite sure you are hungry; but you are not so very sure that you are thirsty. And upon the whole you feel as if you would like something to eat and to drink as well. Just as we all feel about breakfast time, eh?”

Alexander nodded and smiled.

“Quite right,” said the surgeon.

And then he rang the bell.

“Would you like black tea, cream toast, and poached eggs?” inquired the surgeon.

He was answered by the regulation nod.

The waiter came, and received the surgeon’s orders to prepare the required refreshments and to send the valet to the room.

And when Simms entered, and while waiting for the breakfast to be prepared, the surgeon, assisted by the valet, changed the dressings of the patient’s wounds, and made him clean and fresh and comfortable, so that he might be able to enjoy the delicate repast that had been ordered for him.

After his change of clothes, and his nourishing breakfast, he was laid down again upon fresh pillows, and his bed was tidied and his room darkened, and he himself was enjoined to rest.

And rest was of vital importance to him; for though his wounds were now doing well, yet the effort to speak, or to move, was still not only difficult and painful, but very injurious and even dangerous to his lacerated chest. So he was enjoined to rest.

Rest?

His bed was fresh and fragrant, and on it there might be rest for the pain-racked, wearied body. But what rest could there be for the newly awakened mind and startled conscience?

Lying there in forced inactivity, in his half-darkened chamber, unable to read, forbidden to talk, with nothing to engage his attention without, his thoughts were driven inward to self-examination. He struck a light and explored the gloomy caverns of his own soul. What he found there, appalled him. There were devilish furies, ferocious beasts, poisonous reptiles, gibbering maniacs—these were the forms of the passions that had possessed him, that still possessed him; but they were lethargic or sleeping now. Should he—could he cast them entirely out while they were so quiescent?

And there were their victims and his own—the bleeding forms of wounded love; the fallen image of dethroned honor; the ghastly skeletons of murdered happiness.

What a city of desolation, what a valley of Gehenna, was this sin-darkened soul!

He groaned so deeply that the surgeon came to his side.

“Where is your pain?”

Alexander shook his head; he could not tell.

The surgeon examined the wounds, but found them doing very well; and he changed their dressings, but this did not seem to do much good.

The doctor wondered that his patient still suffered so much. He could not understand any better than Macbeth’s physician, how to minister to “a mind diseased.”

The convalescence of the wounded man was not nearly so rapid or assured as his surgeon had hoped and expected. How could it be, when he was so haunted by memory and tortured conscience? In these long still days and nights on the sick-bed in the dark chambers, he was forced to look back upon his own life, to judge his own deeds. What had they been? What were they now? False and cruel he pronounced the one and the others—false and cruel his deeds, darkened and ruined his life.

But out of all the gloom and horror shone brightly one form—holy as a saint, lovely as an angel—the form of his injured wife. Oh, with what an intense and vehement longing he longed for her presence!—longed for it, yet feared it—feared it, though in the image that he saw in “his mind’s eye” the whole face and form glowed and vibrated with compassion and benediction. Blessing brightened the clear brow; pity softened the dark eyes; love, love unutterable curved the lines of the crimson lips.

Was it strange that he should have seen her only in this light?

Remember, he who had loved her and made her happy, and had wronged her and made her wretched—he had seen her beautiful face beaming with heavenly happiness, or quivering with anxiety, or darkened by despair; but he had never—never once seen it distorted by passion.

Oh, how he longed for the beautiful vision to be realized to him—longed and feared!

What would he not have given to have had her then by his bedside? He felt how soft and cool her fingers would fall upon his fevered forehead; he saw how lovingly her eyes would look on him; he heard how sweetly her tones would soothe him.

Yet it was not for all this he wanted her at his side.

It was that he might make what atonement was yet in his power for the wrongs he had done her; that he might lay his proud manhood low at the feet of this meek girl, and ask her pardon; that he might take her to his heart again, and devote his life to make hers happy.

Oh, that he might do her some great service, and so win her back!

He wished now that she had been poor, so that he might have enriched her; or sick, so that he might have taken her all over the world for her health; or that she had had an enemy, so that he might have killed or crippled that enemy and dragged him to her feet. And here one of those crouching furies stirred again in his heart, and a feverish excitement made him irrational.

Oh, that she were poor, or ill, or abused, that he might enrich her, or serve her, or defend her, and so win the right to ask her forgiveness!

But she was none of these. She was as independent of him as any queen could be. She was immensely wealthy, perfectly healthy, and highly esteemed; and, finally, no one had ever abused her but himself; and on himself only could he take vengeance. He was an utter bankrupt, without the power of bringing any offering to her feet in exchange for her mercy.

When tortured by these thoughts, he would so toss and groan as to raise his fever and inflame his wounds. And all this very much protracted his recovery.

And through all this gloom and horror still he saw the heavenly vision, like Dante’s angel at the gates of Hell, and still he longed to have it realized; longed, yet feared; and ever he prayed:

“Oh! that I could do her some great service! Oh, that the Lord would take pity on me and give me the power!”

Alexander, among his other thoughts, of course thought of the duel that had laid him upon this bed of penance.

In the natural reaction—the calmness that succeeded to the excitement of his passions, when reason had opportunity to act—he saw that he had no just cause for the jealousy that had driven him to one of the maddest acts of his life.

That Prince Ernest should have admired Drusilla was not only natural but inevitable, since every one who was brought into her company did the same; that he should have testified this admiration with continental enthusiasm seemed almost excusable; but that his sentiments went further, or that Drusilla would have tolerated any attentions unworthy to be received by her, Alexander in his sober senses could not believe.

Now that like the prodigal of Holy Writ he had come to himself, he perceived that his jealousy, like every other passion of his soul, had been insane in its excess and frantic in its exhibition.

Now how fervently he thanked Heaven that the duel into which his temporary madness had driven him had not resulted in death to his adversary and blood-guiltiness to himself.

But—and this was a very serious question—how had the mad duel affected Drusilla.

It was always, he knew, most injurious, even to the most innocent women, to have her name mixed up in any such matter.

He himself had been very cautious in this respect; but had others concerned been equally so? And, above all, had the duel got into the newspapers, and, if so, with how much exposure of the circumstances?

Of course he could not tell. He longed to know; yet he shrank from asking questions. He would have examined the papers, but they were kept out of his way, and he was forbidden to read.

Thus in bitter self-communings, in remorse, in suspense and anxiety, the first days of his convalescence slowly wore away.

Francis Tredegar had not returned and he had remained in the hands of the surgeon and the valet.

And although he was debarred from reading the newspapers, and forbidden to converse, and so was left in ignorance of the most important matters that concerned him, yet he had learned something of what had transpired near him since the mad duel.

He had partly surmised and partly overheard enough to inform him that Prince Ernest, a frequent invalid himself, had at some self-sacrifice dispensed with the invaluable services of his own medical attendant, that he, Alexander, might have the advantage of that surgeon’s constant presence at his bedside. And this circumstance led Alexander to a true appreciation and respect for the Austrian, who was as noble by nature as he was by descent.

And there was something else he had to learn.