Dr. Rumsey's Patient Part 16

Rumsey quickly looked up the case. He laid his finger on the open page in which he had entered all particulars, ran his eyes rapidly over the notes he had made at the time, and then turned to Mrs. Awdrey.

"I find, as I expected, that I have forgotten nothing," he said. "I was right in my conjectures, was I not? Your husband's symptoms were due to nervous distress?"

"I wish I could say so," replied Margaret.

Dr. Rumsey slightly raised his brows.

"Are there fresh symptoms?" he asked.

"He is not well. I must tell you exactly how he is affected."

The doctor bent forward to listen. Margaret began her story.

"Since the date of our marriage there has been a very gradual, but also a marked deterioration in my husband's character," she said. "But until lately he has been in possession of excellent physical health, his appet.i.te has been good, he has been inclined for exercise, and has slept well. In short, his bodily health has been without a flaw. Accompanying this state of physical well-being there has been a very remarkable mental torpor."

"Are you not fanciful on that point?" asked Dr. Rumsey.

"I am not. Please remember that I have known him since he was a boy. As a boy he was particularly ambitious, full of all sorts of schemes for the future--many of these schemes were really daring and original. He did well at school, and better than well at Balliol. When we became engaged his strong sense of ambition was quite one of the most remarkable traits of his character. He always spoke of doing much with his life. The idea was that as soon as possible he was to enter the House, and he earnestly hoped that when that happy event took place he would make his mark there. One by one all these thoughts, all these hopes and aims, have dropped away from his mind; each year has robbed him of something, until at last he has come to that pa.s.s when even books fail to arouse any interest in him. He sits for many hours absolutely doing nothing, not even sleeping, but gazing straight before him into vacancy. Our little son is almost the only person who has any power to rouse him. He is devoted to the child, but his love even for little Arthur is tempered by that remarkable torpor--he never plays with the boy, who is a particularly strong-willed, spirited child, but likes to sit with him on his knee, the child's arms clasped round his neck. He has trained the little fellow to sit perfectly still. The child is devoted to his father, and would do anything for him. As the years have gone on, my husband has become more and more a man of few words--I now believe him to be a man of few thoughts--of late he has been subject to moods of deep depression, and although he is my husband, I often feel, truly as I love him, that he is more like a log than a man."

Tears dimmed Margaret's eyes; she hastily wiped them away.

"I would not trouble you about all this," she continued, "but for a change which has taken place within the last few months. That change directly affects my husband's physical health, and as such is the case I feel it right to consult you about it."

"Yes, speak--take your own time--I am much interested," said the doctor.

"The change in my husband's health of body has also begun gradually,"

continued Mrs. Awdrey. "You know, of course, that he is now the owner of Grandcourt. He has taken a great dislike to the place--in my opinion, an unaccountable dislike. He absolutely refuses to live there. Now I am fond of Grandcourt, and our little boy always seems in better health and spirits there than anywhere else. I take my child down to the old family place whenever I can spare a week from my husband. Last autumn I persuaded Mr. Awdrey with great difficulty to accompany me to Grandcourt for a week. I have never ceased to regret that visit."

"Indeed, what occurred?" asked the doctor.

"Apparently nothing, and yet evidently a great deal. When we got into the country Robert's apathy seemed to change; he roused himself and became talkative and even excitable. He took long walks, and was particularly fond of visiting Salisbury Plain, that part which lies to the left of the Court. He invariably took these rambles alone, and often went out quite late in the evening, not returning until midnight.

"On the last of these occasions I asked him why he was so fond of walking by himself. He said with a forced laugh, and a very queer look in his eyes, that he was engaged trying to find a favorite walking-stick which he had lost years ago. He laid such stress upon what appeared such a trivial subject that I could scarcely refrain from smiling. When I did so he swore a terrific oath, and said, with blazing eyes, that life or death depended upon the matter which I thought so trivial. Immediately after his brief blaze of pa.s.sion he became moody, dull, and more inert than ever. The next day we left the Court. It was immediately after that visit that his physical health began to give way. He lost his appet.i.te, and for the last few months he has been the victim of a very peculiar form of sleeplessness."

"Ah, insomnia would be bad in a case like his," said Dr. Rumsey.

"It has had a very irritating effect upon him. His sleeplessness, like all other symptoms, came on gradually. At the same time he became intensely sensitive to the slightest noise. Against my will he tried taking small doses of chloral, but they had the reverse of a beneficial effect upon him. During the last month he has, toward morning, dropped off into uneasy slumber, from which he awakens bathed in perspiration and in a most curious state of terror. Night after night the same sort of thing occurs. He seizes my hand and asks me in a voice choking with emotion if I see anything in the room. 'Nothing,' I answer.

"'Am I awake or asleep?' he asks next.

"'Wide awake,' I say to him.

"'Then it is as I fear,' he replies. 'I see it, I see it distinctly.

Can't you? Look, you must see it too. It is just over there, in the direction of the window. Don't you see that sphere of perfect light?

Don't you see the picture in the middle?' He shivers; the drops of perspiration fall from his forehead.

"'Margaret,' he says, 'for G.o.d's sake look. Tell me that you see it too.'

"'I see nothing,' I answer him.

"'Then the vision is for me alone. It haunts me. What have I done to deserve it? Margaret, there is a circle of light over there--in the centre a picture--it is the picture of a murder. Two men are in it--yes, I know now--I am looking at the Plain near the Court--the moon is hidden behind the clouds--there are two men--they fight. G.o.d in heaven, one man falls--the other bends over him. I see the face of the fallen man, but I cannot see the face of the other. I should rest content if I could only see his face. Who is he, Margaret, who is he?'

"He falls back on his pillow half-fainting.

"This sort of thing goes on night after night, Dr. Rumsey. Toward morning the vision which tortures my unhappy husband begins to fade, he sinks into heavy slumber, and awakens late in the morning with no memory whatever of the horrible thing which has haunted him during the hours of darkness.

"The days which follow are more full than ever of that terrible inertia, and now he begins to look what he really is, a man stricken with an awful doom.

"The symptoms you speak of are certainly alarming," said Dr. Rumsey, after a pause. "They point to a highly unsatisfactory state of the nerve centres. These symptoms, joined to what you have already told me of the peculiar malady which Awdrey inherits, make his case a grave one. Of course, I by no means give up hope, but the recurrence of this vision nightly is a singular symptom. Does Awdrey invariably speak of not being able to see the face of the man who committed the murder?"

"Yes, he always makes a remark to that effect. He seems every night to see the murdered man lying on the ground with his face upward, but the man who commits the murder has his back to him. Last night he shrieked out in absolute terror on the subject:

"'Who is the man? That man on the ground is Horace Frere--he has been hewn down in the first strength of his youth--he is a dead man. There stands the murderer, with his back to me, but who is he? Oh, my G.o.d!' he cried out with great pa.s.sion, 'who is the one who has done this deed?

Who has murdered Horace Frere? I would give all I possess, all that this wide world contains, only to catch one glimpse of his face.'

"He sprang out of bed as he spoke, and went a step or two in the direction where he saw the peculiar vision, clasping his hands, and staring straight before him like a person distraught, and almost out of his mind. I followed him and tried to take his hand.

"'Robert!' I said, 'you know, don't you, quite well, who murdered Horace Frere? Poor fellow, it was not murder in the ordinary sense. Frank Everett is the name of the man whose face you cannot see. But it is an old story now, and you have nothing to do with it, nothing whatever--don't let it dwell any longer on your mind.'

"'Ha, but he carries my stick,' he shrieked out, and then he fell back in a state of unconsciousness against the bed."

"And do you mean to tell me that he remembered nothing of this agony in the morning?" queried Dr. Rumsey.

"Nothing whatever. At breakfast he complained of a slight headache and was particularly dull and moody. When I came off to you he had just started for a walk in the Park with our little boy."

"I should like to see your husband, and to talk to him," said Dr.

Rumsey, rising abruptly. "Can you manage to bring him here?"

"I fear I cannot, for he does not consider himself ill."

"Shall you be at home this evening?"

"Yes, we are not going out to-night."

"Then I'll drop in between eight and nine on a friendly visit. You must not be alarmed if I try to lead up to the subject of these nightly visions, for I would infinitely rather your husband remembered them than that they should quite slip from his memory."

"Thank you," answered Margaret. "I will leave you alone with him when you call to-night."

"It may be best for me to see him without anyone else being present."

Margaret Awdrey soon afterward took her leave.

That night, true to his appointment, Dr. Rumsey made his appearance at the Awdreys' house in Seymour Street. He was shown at once into the drawing-room, where Awdrey was lying back in a deep chair on one side of the hearth, and Margaret was softly playing a sonata of Beethoven's in the distance. She played with great feeling and power, and did not use any notes. The part of the room where she sat was almost in shadow, but the part round the fire where Awdrey had placed himself was full of bright light.

Margaret's dark eyes looked full of painful thought when the great doctor was ushered into the room. She did not see him at first, then she noticed him and faltered in her playing. She took her fingers from the piano, and rose to meet him.

"Pray go on, Margaret. What are you stopping for?" cried her husband.

"Nothing soothes me like your music. Go on, go on. I see the moonlight on the trees, I feel the infinite peace, the waves are beating on the sh.o.r.e, there is rest." He broke off abruptly, starting to his feet. "I beg your pardon, Dr. Rumsey, I a.s.sure you I did not see you until this moment."