CHAPTER V.
A MINISTERING ANGEL.
Angela flung off hood and mantle, and looked anxiously round the room.There were some empty phials and ointment boxes, some soiled linen rags andwet sponges, upon a table near the bed, and the chamber reeked with theodour of drugs, hartshorn and elder vinegar, cantharides, and aloes; enoughto show that a doctor had been there, and that there had been some attemptat nursing the patient. But she had heard how in Holland the nurses hadsometimes robbed and abandoned their charges, taking advantage of theconfusions and uncertainties of that period of despair, quick and skilfulto profit by sudden death, and the fears and agonies of relatives andfriends, whose grief made plunder easy. She deemed it likely that one ofthose devilish women had first pretended to succour, and had then abandonedLord Fareham to his fate, after robbing his house. Indeed, the open doorsof a stately inlaid wardrobe between two windows over against the bed, andthe confused appearance of the clothes and linen on the shelves, indicatedthat it had been ransacked by hasty hands; while, doubtless, there had beenmany valuables lying loose about a house where there was every indicationof a careless profusion.
"Alas! poor gentleman, to be left by some mercenary wretch--left to dielike the camel in the desert!"
She bent over him, and laid her hand with gentle firmness upon hisdeath-cold forehead.
"What! are there saints and angels in hell as well as felons and devils?"he cried, clutching her by the wrist, and looking up at her with distendedeyes, in which the natural colour of the eye-ball was tarnished almost toblackness with injected blood.
For long and lonely hours, that seemed an eternity, he had been tossing ina burning fever upon that disordered bed, until he verily believed himselfin a place of everlasting torment. He had that strange, double sensewhich goes with delirium--the consciousness of his real surroundings, thetapestry and furniture of his own chamber, and yet the conviction thatthis was hell, and had always been hell, and that he had descended to thisterrible under-world through infinite abysses of darkness. The glow ofsunset had been to him the fierce light of everlasting flames; the burningof fever was the fire that is never quenched; the pain that racked hislimbs was the worm that dieth not. And now in his torment there came thevision of a seraphic face bending over him in gentle solicitude; a facethat brought comfort with it, even in the midst of his agony. After thatone wild question he sank slowly back upon the pillows, and lay faint andweak, his breathing scarce audible. Angela laid her fingers on his wrist.The pulse was fluttering and intermittent.
She remembered every detail of her aunt's treatment of the plague-patientin the convent infirmary, and how the turning-point of the malady andbeginning of cure had seemed to be brought about by a draught of strongwine which the reverend mother had made her give the poor fainting creatureat a crisis of extreme weakness. She looked about the room for anyflask which might contain wine; but there was nothing there except theapothecary's phials and medicaments.
It was dusk already, and she was alone in a strange house. It would seem noeasy task to find what she wanted, but the case was desperate, and she knewenough of this mysterious disease to know that if the patient could notrally speedily from his prostrate condition the end must be near. Withsteady brain she set herself to face the difficulty--first to administersomething which should sustain the sick man's strength, and then, withoutloss of time, to seek a physician, and bring him to that deserted bed. Winewas the one thing she could trust to in this crisis; for of the doses andlotions on yonder table she knew nothing, nor had her experience made her abeliever in the happy influence of drugs.
Her first search must be for light with which to explore the lower part ofthe house, where in pantry or stillroom, or, if not above ground, in thecellars, she must find what she wanted. Surely somewhere in that spaciousbed-chamber there would be tinder-box and matches. There were a pair ofsilver candlesticks on the dressing-table, with thick wax candles burntnearly to the sockets.
A careful search at last discovered a tinder-box and matches in a darkangle of the fireless hearth, hidden behind the heavy iron dog. She strucka light, kindled her match, and lighted a candle, the sick man's eyesfollowing all her movements, but his lips mute. As she went out of the doorhe called after her--
"Leave me not, thou holy visitant--leave not my soul in hell!"
"I will return!" she cried. "Have no fear, sir; I go to fetch some wine."
Her errand was not done quickly. Amidst all the magnificence she had notedon her journey through the long suite of reception-rooms--the litteredtreasures of amber and gold, and ivory and porcelain and silver--she hadseen only an empty wine-flask; so with quick footfall she ran down thewide, shallow stairs to the lower floor, and here she found herself in alabyrinth of passages opening into small rooms and servants' offices. Herethere were darkness and gloom rather than splendour; though in many ofthose smaller rooms there was a sober and substantial luxury which becamethe inferior apartments of a palace. She came at last to a room which shetook to be the butler's office, where there were dressers with a greatarray of costly Venetian glass, and a great many pieces of silver--cups,tankards, salvers, and other ornamental plate--in presses behind glazeddoors. One of the glass panels had been broken, and the shelves in thatpress were empty.
Wine there was none to be found in any part of the room; but a small armyof empty bottles in a corner of the floor, and a confusion of greasyplates, knives, chicken bones, and other scraps, indicated that there hadbeen carousing here at no remote time.
The cellars were doubtless below these offices; but the wine-cellars wouldassuredly be locked, and she had to search for the keys. She opened drawerafter drawer in the lower part of the presses, and at last, in an inner andsecret drawer, found a multitude of keys, some of which were provided withparchment labels, and among these happily were two labelled "Ye great winecellar, S." and "Ye smaller wine cellar, W."
This was a point gained; but the search had occupied a considerable time.She had yet enough candle to last for about half an hour, and her nextbusiness was to find one of those cellars which those keys opened. She wasintensely anxious to return to her patient, having heard how in some casesunhappy wretches had leapt from the bed of death and rushed out-of-doors,delirious, half naked, to anticipate their end by a fatal chill.
On her way to the butler's office she had seen a stone archway at the headof a flight of stairs leading down into darkness. By this staircase shehoped to find the wine-cellars, and presently descended, her candlestick inone hand, and the two great keys in the other. As she went down into thestone basement, which was built with the solidity of a dungeon, she heardthe plash of the tide, and felt that she was now on a level with the river.Here she found herself again in a labyrinth of passages, with many doorsstanding ajar. At the end of one passage she came to a locked door, and ontrying her keys, found one of them to fit the lock; it was "Ye great winecellar, S.," and she understood by the initial "S." that the cellar lookedsouth and faced the river.
She turned the heavy key with an effort that strained the slender fingerswhich held it; but she was unconscious of the pain, and wondered afterwardsto see her hand dented and bruised where the iron had wrung it. The clumsydoor revolved on massive hinges, and she entered a cellar so large that thelight of her candle did not reach the furthermost corners and recesses.
This cellar was built in a series of arches, fitted with stone bins, and inthe upper part of one southward-fronting arch there was a narrow grating,through which came the cool breath of evening air and the sound of waterlapping against stone. A patch of faint light showed pale against the ironbars, and as Angela looked that way, a great grey rat leapt through thegrating, and ran along the topmost bin, making the bottles shiver as hescuttled across them. Then came a thud on the sawdust-covered stones, andshe knew that the loathsome thing was on the floor upon which she wasstanding. She lowered her light shudderingly, and, for the first timesince she entered that house of dread, the young brave heart sank with thesickness of fear.
The cellar might swarm with such creatures; the darkness of the fast-comingnight might be alive with them! And if yonder dungeon-like door wereto swing to and shut with a spring lock, she might perish there in thedarkness. She might die the most hideous of deaths, and her fate remain forever unknown.
In a sudden panic she rushed back to the door, and pushed it wider--pushedit to its extremest opening. It seemed too heavy to be likely to swing backupon its hinges; yet the mere idea of such a contingency appalled her.Remembering her labour in unlocking the door from the outside, she doubtedif she could open it from within were it once to close upon that awfulvault. And all this time the lapping of the tide against the stone soundedlouder, and she saw little spirts of spray flashing against the bars in thelessening light.
She collected herself with an effort, and began her search for the wine.Sack was the wine she had given to the sick nun, and it was that wine forwhich she looked. Of Burgundy, and claret, labelled "Clary Wine," she foundseveral full bins, and more that were nearly empty. Tokay and other rarerwines were denoted by the parchment labels which hung above each bin; butit was some minutes before she came to a bin labelled "Sherris," which sheknew was another name for sack. The bottles had evidently been undisturbedfor a long time, for the bin was full of cobweb, and the thick coating ofdust upon the glass betokened a respectable age in the wine. She carriedoff two bottles, one under each arm, and then, with even quicker steps thanhad brought her to that darksome place, she hastened back to the upperfloor, leaving the key in the cellar door, and the door unlocked. Therewould be time enough to look after Lord Fareham's wine when she had caredfor Lord Fareham himself.
His eyes were fixed upon the doorway as she entered. They shone upon her inthe dusk with an awful glassiness, as if life's last look had become fixedin death. He did not speak as she drew near the bed, and set the winebottles down upon the table among the drugs and cataplasms.
She had found a silver-handled corkscrew in the butler's room among therelics of the feast, and with this she opened one of the bottles, Farehamwatching her all the time.
"Is that some new alexipharmic?" he asked with a sudden rational air, whichwas almost as startling as if a dead man had spoken. "I will have no moreof their loathsome drugs. They have made an apothecary's shop of my body. Iwould rather they let me rot by the plague than that they should poison mewith their antidotes, or dissolve me to death with their sudorifics."
"This is not a medicine, Lord Fareham, but your own wine; and I want you todrink a long draught of it, and then, who knows but you may sleep off yourmalady?"
"Ay, sleep in the grave, sweet friend! I have seen the tokens on my breastthat mean death. There is but one inevitable end for all who are so marked.'Tis like the forester's notch upon the tree. It means doom. He was king ofthe forest once, perhaps; but no matter. His time has come. Oh, Lord, thouhast tormented me with hot burning coals!" he cried, in a sudden access ofpain; and in the next minute he was raving.
Angela filled a beaker with the bright golden wine, and offered it to thesick man's lips. It was not without infinite pains and coaxing that sheinduced him to drink; but, when once his parched lips had tasted the coldliquor, he drank eagerly, as if that strong wine had been a draught ofwater. He gave a deep sigh of solace when the beaker was empty, for he hadbeen enduring an agony of thirst through all the glare and heat of theafternoon, and there was unspeakable comfort in that first long drink. Hewould have drunk foul water with almost as keen a relish.
He talked fast and furiously, in the disjointed sentences of delirium, forsome little time; and then, little by little, he grew more tranquil; andAngela, sitting beside the bed, with her fingers laid gently on his wrist,marked the quieter beat of the pulse, which no longer fluttered like thewing of a frightened bird. Then with deep thankfulness she saw the eyelidsdroop over the bloodshot eyeballs, while the breathing grew slower andheavier as sleep clouded the wearied brain. The spaniels crept nearer him,and nestled close to his pillow, so that the man's dark locks were mixedwith the silken curls of the dogs.
Would he die in that sleep? she wondered.
It was only now for the first time since she entered this unpeopled housethat she had leisure to speculate on the circumstances which had broughtabout such loneliness and neglect, here where rank and state, and wealthalmost without limit should have secured the patient every care and comfortthat devoted service could lavish upon a sufferer. How was it that shefound her sister's husband abandoned to the care of hirelings, left to thechances of paid service?
To the cloister-reared maiden the idea of wifely duty was elevated almostto a religion. To father or to husband she would have given a boundlessdevotion, in sickness most of all devoted. To leave husband or father ina plague-stricken city would have seemed to her a crime as abominable asTullia's, a treachery base as Goneril's or Regan's. Could it be that hersister, that bright and lovely creature, whose face she remembered as asunbeam incarnate, could she have been swept away by the pestilence whichspared neither youth nor beauty, neither the strong man nor the weaklingchild? Her heart grew heavy as lead at the thought that this stranger, bywhose pillow she was watching, might be the sole survivor in that forsakenpalace, and that in a few more hours he, too, would be numbered with thedead, in that dreadful city where Death reigned omnipotent, and where theliving seemed but a vanishing minority, pale shadows of living creaturespassing silently along one inevitable pathway to the pest-house or pit.
That calm sleep of the plague-stricken might mean recovery, or it mightmean death. Angela examined the potions and unguents on the table near thebed, and read the instructions on jars and phials. One was an alexipharmicdraught, to be taken the last thing at night, another a sudorific, to beadministered once in every hour.
"I would not wake him to give him the finest medicine that ever physicianprescribed," Angela said to herself. "I remember what a happy change onehour of quiet slumber made in Sister Monica, when she was all but dead of aquartan fever. Sleep is God's physic."
She knelt upon a Prie-Dieu chair remote from the bed, knowing thatcontagion lurked amid those voluminous hangings, beneath that statelycanopy with its lustrous satin lining, on which the light of the waxcandles was reflected in shining patches as upon a lake of golden water.She had no fear of the pestilence; but an instinctive prudence made herhold herself aloof, now that there was nothing more to be done for thesufferer.
She remained long in prayer, repeating one of those litanies which she hadlearnt in her infancy, and which of late had seemed to her to have somewhattoo set and mechanical a rhythm. The earnestness and fervour seemed to havegone out of them in somewise since she had come to womanhood. The names ofthe saints her lips invoked were dull and cold, and evolved no imageof human or superhuman love and power. What need of intercessors whosepersonality was vague and dim, whose earthly histories were made up oftruth so interwoven with fable that she scarce dared believe even thatwhich might be true? In the One Crucified was help for all sinners, gospeland creed, the rule of life here, the promise of immortality hereafter.
The litanies to Virgin and Saints were said as a duty--a part of implicitobedience which was the groundwork of her religion; and then all theaspirations of her heart, her prayers for the sick man yonder, her fearsfor her absent sister, for her father in his foreign wanderings, went up inone stream of invocation to Christ the Redeemer. To Him, and Him alone, thestrong flame of faith and love rose, like the incense upon an altar--thealtar of a girl's trusting heart.
She was so lost in meditation that she was unconscious of an approachingfootstep in the stillness of the deserted house, till it drew near to thethreshold of the sick-room. The night was close and sultry, so she had leftthe door open, and that slow tread had crossed the threshold by the timeshe rose from her knees. Her heart beat fast, startled by the first humanpresence which she had known in that melancholy place, save the presence ofthe pest-stricken sufferer.
She found herself face to face with a middle-aged gentleman of
mediumstature, clad in the sober colouring that suggested one of the learnedprofessions. He appeared even more startled than Angela at the unexpectedvision which met his gaze, faintly seen in the dim light.
There was silence for a few moments, and then the stranger saluted the ladywith a formal reverence, as he laid down his gold-handled cane.
"Surely, madam, this mansion of my Lord Fareham's must be enchanted," hesaid. "I left a crowd of attendants, and the stir of life below and abovestairs, only this forenoon last past. I find silence and vacancy. That isscarce strange in this dejected and unhappy time; for it is but too commona trick of hireling nurses to abandon their patients, and for servants toplunder and then desert a sick house. But to find an angel where I lefta hag! That is the miracle! And an angel who has brought healing, if Imistake not," he added, in a lower voice, bending over the speaker.
"I am no angel, sir, but a weak, erring mortal," answered the girl,gravely. "For pity's sake, kind doctor--since I doubt not you are my lord'sphysician--tell me where are my dearest sister, Lady Fareham, and herchildren. Tell me the worst, I entreat you!"
"Sweet lady, there is no ill news to tell. Her ladyship and the little onesare safe at my lord's house in Oxfordshire, and it is only his lordshipyonder who has fallen a victim to the contagion. Lady Fareham and her girland boy have not been in London since the plague began to rage. My lordhad business in the city, and came hither alone. He and the young LordRochester, who is the most audacious infidel this town can show, have beenbidding defiance to the pestilence, deeming their nobility safe from asickness which has for the most part chosen its victims among the vulgar."
"His lordship is very ill, I fear, sir?" said Angela interrogatively.
"I left him at eleven o'clock this morning with but scanty hope offinding him alive after sundown. The woman I left to nurse him was hishouse-steward's wife, and far above the common kind of plague-nurse. I didnot think she would turn traitor."
"Her husband has proved a false steward. The house has been robbed of plateand valuables, as I believe, from signs I saw below stairs; and I supposehusband and wife went off together."
"Alack! madam, this pestilence has brought into play some of the worstattributes of human nature. The tokens and loathly boils which break outupon the flesh of the plague-stricken are less revolting to humanity thanthe cruelty of those who minister to the sick, and whose only desire is toprofit by the miseries that surround them; wretches so vile that they havebeen known wilfully to convey the seeds of death from house to house, inorder to infect the sound, and so enlarge their area of gains. It was anartful device of those plunderers to paint the red cross on the door, andthus scare away any visitor who might have discovered their depredations.But you, madam, a being so young and fragile, have you no fear of thecontagion?"
"Nay, sir, I know that I am in God's hand. Yonder poor gentleman is not thefirst plague-patient I have nursed. There was a nun came from Holland toour convent at Louvain last year, and had scarce been one night in thehouse before tokens of the pestilence were discovered upon her. I helpedthe infirmarian to nurse her, and with God's help we brought her round. Myaunt, the reverend mother, bade me give her the best wine there was in thehouse--strong Spanish wine that a rich merchant had given to the conventfor the use of the sick--and it was as though that good wine drove thepoison from her blood. She recovered by the grace of God after only afew days' careful nursing. Finding his lordship stricken with such greatweakness, I ventured to give him a draught of the best sack I could find inhis cellar."
"Dear lady, thou art a miracle of good sense and compassionate bounty. Idoubt thou hast saved thy sister from widow's weeds," said Dr. Hodgkin,seated by the bed, with his fingers on the patient's wrist, and his massivegold watch in the other hand. "This sound sleep promises well, and thepulse beats somewhat slower and steadier than it did this morning. Thenthe case seemed hopeless, and I feared to give wine--though a free use ofgenerous wine is my particular treatment--lest it should fly to his brain,and disturb his intellectuals at a time when he should need all his sensesfor the final disposition of his affairs. Great estates sometimes hang uponthe breath of a dying man."
"Oh, sir, but your patient! To save his life, that would sure be your firstand chiefest thought?"
"Ay, ay, my pretty miss; but I had other measures. Apollo twangs not everon the same bowstring. Did my sudorific work well, think you?"
"He was bathed in perspiration when first I found him; but the sweat-dropsseemed cold and deadly, as if life itself were being dissolved out of him."
"Ay, there are cases in which that copious sweat is the forerunner ofdissolution; but in others it augurs cure. The pent-up poison which iscorrupting the patient's blood finds a sudden vent, its virulence isdiluted, and if the end prove fatal, it is that the patient lacks power torally after the ravages of the disease, rather than that the poison kills.Was it instantly after that profuse sweat you gave him the wine, I wonder?"
"It was as speedily as I could procure it from the cellar below."
"And that strong wine, given in the nick of time, reassembled Nature'sscattered forces, and rekindled the flame of life. Upon my soul, sweetyoung lady, I believe thou hast saved him! All the drugs in Bucklersburycould do no more. And now tell me what symptoms you have noted since youhave watched by his bed; and tell me further if you have strength tocontinue his nurse, with such precautions as I shall dictate, and such helpas I can send you in the shape of a stout, honest, serving-wench of mine,and a man to guard the lower part of your house, and fetch and carry foryou?"
"I will do everything you bid me, with all my heart, and with such skill asI can command."
"Those delicate fingers were formed to minister to the sick. And you willnot shrink from loathsome offices--from the application of cataplasms, fromcleansing foul sores? Those blains and boils upon that poor body will needcare for many days to come."
"I will shrink from nothing that may be needful for his benefit. I shouldlove to go on nursing him, were it only for my sister's sake. How sorry shewould feel to be so far from him, could she but know of his sickness!"
"Yes, I believe Lady Fareham would be sorry," answered the physician,with a dry little laugh; "though there are not many married ladies aboutRowley's court of whom I would diagnose as much. Not Lady Denham, forinstance, that handsome, unprincipled houri, married to a septuagenarianpoet, who would rather lock her up in a garret than see her shine atWhitehall; or Lady Castlemaine, whose husband has been uncivil enough toshow discontent at a peerage that was not of his own earning; or a dozenothers I could name, were not such scandals as these Hebrew to thineinnocent ear."
"Nay, sir, my sister has written of Court scandals in many of her letters,and it has grieved me to think her lot should be cast among people ofwhose reckless doings she tells me with a lively wit that makes sin seemsomething less than sin."
"There is no such word as 'sin' in Charles Stuart's Court, my dear younglady. It is harder to achieve bad repute nowadays than it was once to bethought a saint. Existence in this town is a succession of bagatelles.Men's lives and women's reputations drift down to the bottomless pit upona rivulet of epigrams and chansons. You have heard of that Dance of Death,which was one of the nervous diseases of the fifteenth century--a maladywhich, after beginning with one lively caperer, would infect a wholetownspeople, and send an entire population curvetting and prancing,until death stopped them. I sometimes think, when I watch the follies atWhitehall, that those graceful dancers, sliding upon pointed toe through acoranto, amid a blaze of candles and star-shine of diamonds, are caperingalong the same fatal road by which St. Vitus lured his votaries to thegrave. And then I look at Rowley's licentious eye and cynical lip, andthink to myself, 'This man's father perished on the scaffold; this man'slovely ancestress paid the penalty of her manifold treacheries aftersixteen years' imprisonment; this man has passed through the jaws of death,has left his country a fugitive and a pauper, has returned as if by amiracle, carried back to a throne upon the hearts o
f his people; and beholdhim now--saunterer, sybarite, sensualist--strolling through life withoutone noble aim or one virtuous instinct; a King who traffics in the prideand honour of his country, and would sell her most precious possessions,level her strongest defences, if his cousin and patron t'other side theChannel would but bid high enough.' But a plague on my tongue, dear lady,that it must always be wagging. Not one word more, save for instructions."
Dr. Hodgkin loved talking even better than he loved a fee, and he allowedhimself a physician's licence to be prosy; but he now proceeded to giveminute directions for the treatment of the patient--the poultices andstoups and lotions which were to reduce the external indications of thecontagion, the medicines which were to be given at intervals during thenight. Medicine in those days left very little to Nature, and if patientsperished it was seldom for want of drugs and medicaments.
"The servant I send you will bring meat and all needful herbs for making astrong broth, with which you will feed the patient once an hour. There aremany who hold with the boiling of gold in such a broth, but I will notenter upon the merits of aurum potabile as a fortifiant. I take it that inthis case you will find beef and mutton serve your turn. I shall send youfrom my own larder as much beef as will suffice for to-night's use; andto-morrow your servant must go to the place where the country people selltheir goods, butchers' meat, poultry, and garden-stuff; for the butchers'shops of London are nearly all closed, and people scent contagion in anyintercourse with their fellow-citizens. You will have, therefore, to lookto the country people for your supplies; but of all this my own man willgive you information. So now, good night, sweet young lady. It is on thestroke of nine. Before eleven you shall have those who will help andprotect you. Meanwhile you had best go downstairs with me, and lock andbolt the great door leading into the garden, which I found ajar."
"There is the door facing the river, too, by which I entered."
"Ay, that should be barred also. Keep a good heart, madam. Before elevenyou shall have a sturdy watchman on the premises."
Angela took a lighted candle and followed the physician through the greatempty rooms, and down the echoing staircase; under the ceiling where Jove,with upraised goblet, drank to his queen, while all the galaxy of the Greekpantheon circled his imperial throne. Upon how many a festal processionhad those Olympians looked down since that famous house-warming, whenthe colours were fresh from the painter's brush, and when the thirdLord Fareham's friend and gossip, King James, deigned to witness therepresentation of Jonson's "Time Vindicated," enacted by ladies andgentlemen of quality, in the great saloon, a performance which--with thebanquet and confectionery brought from Paris, and "the sweet waters whichcame down the room like a shower from heaven," as one wrote who waspresent at that splendid entertainment, and the _feux d'artifice_ on theriver--cost his lordship a year's income, but stamped him at once a finegentleman. Had he been a trifle handsomer, and somewhat softer of speech,that masque and banquet might have placed Richard Revel, Baron Fareham,in the front rank of royal favourites; but the Revels were always ablack-visaged race, with more force than comeliness in their countenances,and more gall than honey upon their tongues.
It was past eleven before the expected succour arrived, and in the intervalLord Fareham had awakened once, and had swallowed a composing draught,having apparently but little consciousness of the hand that administeredit. At twenty minutes past eleven Angela heard the bell ring, and ranblithely down the now familiar staircase to open the garden door, outsidewhich she found a middle-aged woman and a tall, sturdy young man, eachcarrying a bundle. These were the nurse and the watchman sent by Dr.Hodgkin. The woman gave Angela a slip of paper from the doctor, by way ofintroduction.
"You will find Bridget Basset a worthy woman, and able to turn her hand toanything; and Thomas Stokes is an honest, serviceable youth, whom you maytrust upon the premises, till some of his lordship's servants can be sentfrom Chilton Abbey, where I take it there is a large staff."
It was with an unspeakable relief that Angela welcomed these humblefriends. The silence of the great empty house had been weighing upon herspirits, until the sense of solitude and helplessness had grown almostunbearable. Again and again she had watched Lord Fareham turn his feverishhead upon his pillow, while the parched lips moved in inarticulatemutterings; and she had thought of what she should do if a strongerdelirium were to possess him, and he were to try and do himself somemischief. If he were to start up from his bed and rush through the emptyrooms, or burst open one of yonder lofty casements and fling himselfheadlong to the terrace below! She had been told of the terrible thingsthat plague-patients had done to themselves in their agony; how they hadrun naked into the streets to perish on the stones of the highway; howthey had gashed themselves with knives; or set fire to their bed-clothes,seeking any escape from the torments of that foul disease. She knew thatthose burning plague-spots, which her hands had dressed, must cause acontinual anguish that might wear out the patience of a saint; and as thedark face turned on the tumbled pillow, she saw by the clenched teeth andwrithing lips, and the convulsive frown of the strongly marked brows,that even in delirium the sufferer was struggling to restrain all unmanlyexpressions of his agony. But now, at least, there would be this strong,capable woman to share in the long night watch; and if the patient grewdesperate there would be three pair of hands to protect him from his ownfury.
She made her arrangements promptly and decisively. Mrs. Basset was to stayall night with her in the patient's chamber, with such needful intervals ofrest as each might take without leaving the sick-room; and Stokes wasfirst to see to the fastening of the various basement doors, and to assurehimself that there was no one hidden either in the cellars or on the groundfloor; also to examine all upper chambers, and lock all doors; and wasthen to make himself a bed in a dressing closet adjoining Lord Fareham'schamber, and was to lie there in his clothes, ready to help at any hour ofthe night, should help be wanted.
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