Woman and Artist Part 22

Gabrielle was a great help to the doctors, and prompt and reliable in her movements--a nurse of the first order. She watched with a calm, clear vision the work of the bistoury on the little throat, and knew exactly when to hand the implements necessary, as the work proceeded, and earned the compliment of the surgeon thereupon; but it was not merely her nurse's intelligence that was at work, it was her love for the child she ached to save.

The preparation being completed, the surgeon with a hand at once deft and rapid, introduced the tube into the trachea. Eva opened her eyes almost immediately. A flush of living colour returned to her face, and she breathed freely again. The tube was then bandaged into place, and a long silk hankerchief tied firmly round the throat. Soon the child's face lost its aspect of deathly struggle, and put on a smiling look of profound relief and happy peace. Her countenance lit up with a seraphic light; it was as though the child's soul had just been wafted back to its dwelling-place from a visit to paradise.

When all was done, Dora was fetched and shown the success of the operation.

"Then she is saved!" she cried, clasping her hands and lifting to heaven a glance of thanksgiving.

"Not yet," said the doctor; "there remains the morbid action to cure; but there is hope, every hope. Only you must watch the child with extreme attention; she must not be left for a moment. She must not be allowed to move for some time. If the tube got displaced, or if the heart, which is very feeble, should receive the least shock, everything would be over in a moment. But," added he, "I confide your child to this lady's care," indicating Gabrielle; "I have seldom met with a nurse so gifted. Rely in all security upon her; I have given her my instructions, and she knows to the full the importance of them."

The surgeon bowed to Dora, and departed.

Dora returned to the bedside on tiptoe, and, placing her finger on her lips, made signs to Eva that she was to keep perfectly quiet; then, throwing her a kiss and a smile of a guardian angel, she sat down beside the child. Her face betrayed no sign of weakness, expressed neither grief nor despair; it was scarcely sad. She had the look of a man who throws himself into the sea, to try and save some beloved friend in deadly peril of drowning.

Philip did not go to bed. He begged Gabrielle to come two or three times during the night to tell him how the child fared, and he remained in the library. Dora watched all night by Eva's bed. She was valiant, and inspired others with her own brave spirit. She had thrown aside the thought of all that had happened in the drawing-room a few hours before; far, indeed, from her thoughts was the man who had insulted her, and who no longer existed in her thoughts--the distracted mother had swamped the indignant woman. It was with death that she had to fight now, and she fought with a _sang-froid_ and a courage that were the astonishment and admiration of all who surrounded her.

The morning and the afternoon pa.s.sed without new disquieting symptoms arising, and at night the doctor left his patient going on satisfactorily.

The following morning, about seven o'clock, Dora, worn out with excitement, had fallen into a dose.

Gabrielle went to tell Philip that Eva also was sleeping, and that such sleep was a very good sign. Their hopes rose considerably. Philip could not resist the longing he had to go and look upon his wife and child, both sleeping calmly at last, unconscious of pain and anxiety. He crept stealthily upstairs, opened very softly the door of the dear child's room, and with loving eyes looked towards the bed. Unhappily, Eva had just woke up. She saw in the doorway her father whom she loved, and had not seen for several days; she raised herself eagerly and tried to call, "Daddy." The little form fell back heavily upon the pillow.

When Gabrielle came into the room again, Dora was still sleeping. Eva slept too, but it was the sleep from which none waken.

XV

THE SEPARATION

When Dora awoke, Gabrielle was standing at the bedside, motionless, beautiful in her impa.s.sive grace, and looking like one of the angels that painters represent at the bedside of children whose souls they have come to bear to the abode of the seraphim.

Dora looked at Gabrielle, then at the child. With heartrending cry she threw herself on Eva's body. The struggle was over, and she had lost the battle. Her strength forsook her, all her being seemed to be crushed.

She slipped inanimate on the floor. They bore her to her own room, where, for more than a week, she lay benumbed by her grief, unconscious of everything, hovering between life and death. None but Gabrielle and Hobbs were allowed access to her chamber. Philip was excluded by the doctor's command. In her delirium the name of her husband was often on her lips. "Philip," she would cry, "murderer! you have killed my child."

He had been indeed her murderer! involuntarily it is true, but nevertheless he had killed her. If he had resisted his desire to look upon his child, she would probably have recovered, surrounded as she was by the most a.s.siduous care. Her death had been accidental. In moving, and in trying to lift her poor little fragile body into a sitting posture, she had caused the derangement of the tube, and the heart had been suddenly stopped. Choking and syncope instantly did their dreadful work, and all was over.

Neither Dora nor Gabrielle ever knew, however, that Philip had been the involuntary cause of Eva's death. He himself never suspected the terrible truth.

"In spite of my injunctions," said the doctor, "the child has been allowed to move herself. She must have sat up in bed."

The last words that Eva had said to her mother came back constantly to Dora's memory. "How sad it is here! Oh, mama, how I wish we were in our other house; you know, the one where we lived when we were happy." Poor little darling! "When we were happy." A phrase like that in the mouth of a child of five, intended by nature for joy and brightness, had made Dora's heart bleed. The last words of the child were the irrevocable sentence of the father. Tears might have relieved Dora's desolate heart, and her faithful watchers hoped day by day for the crisis which never came. But she lay in numb paralysing grief, and never a tear fell. Her life was not in danger, but her reason was. The delirium continued day and night. Often she did not know her two devoted nurses, Gabrielle and Hobbs. Her utterances were mostly incoherent sentences in which three names occurred constantly--Philip, Eva, Sabaroff. "Is that man gone?"

and she would seek upon her arm for traces of the loathed kisses he had placed there. "Where is Philip? Gone too, no doubt." Then she would resume: "Eva? Yes, I am alone, all alone; everybody is gone." The scene quite unnerved the two dear women who were enforced spectators of it.

They would take her hands and kiss them--Gabrielle with affectionate warmth, and Hobbs with the most touching respect.

The days dragged on, but the doctor did not despair. Dora's const.i.tution was so strong, her will so powerful, her courage so lofty always, that there might be a crisis at any moment, and a favourable change might well ensue. He counted upon help in the carrying out of anything he might plan for the patient's good. He was well aware of all that had been pa.s.sing latterly in the house. He was the friend and confidant of both husband and wife. Nothing had been hidden from him, not even the scene between Sabaroff and Dora. He advised Philip to leave the house.

"You must do it," said he; "only time can cure your wife. Have patience.

Go away for a few days. She is dazed; an explanation would but irritate her more--she is not in a state to listen. I quite expect to see her recover her mental faculties as suddenly as she lost them. The strength of her character is prodigious, and that strength will probably show itself in some sudden decision. Do not cross her in anything," added he to Gabrielle, who had come to receive his directions. "Whatever decision she may take when the crisis is over, be very careful to fall in with it. I do not despair of anything, neither for her nor for you, my dear fellow," said he, shaking hands with Philip, in whose eyes tears were glistening.

Philip consented to obey. He left his house, went to Paris for two days, and on his return to London remained a week at the Alexandra Hotel, a few yards from his house, which he visited twice or thrice a day for news of Dora. We shall see later how he employed his time during these few days of banishment.

Eva had been dead ten days. One morning, when Dora awoke from an excellent night of ten hours' sleep, Gabrielle and Hobbs were astonished to see their patient calm, and not only in full possession of her faculties, but apparently strong and courageous. The evening before she had wept for the first time, but the crisis had ended there.

Dora asked for breakfast. When Gabrielle reminded her that she had some medicine to take first, Dora reiterated her demand in an imperative fashion. "I tell you I am hungry," said she, and she not only asked for her breakfast, but she chose her own food. Her orders were obeyed. She ate a small boiled sole, an egg, and two slices of toast, and drank a cup of tea. Gabrielle and Hobbs were fairly amazed. They looked at Dora, they looked at each other, they could not believe their eyes. It was a resurrection.

"I am going to get up," said Dora, when the tray had been removed.

"You cannot think of such a thing," said Gabrielle.

"I tell you, I am going to get up," repeated Dora; "I am better, much better."

Her eyes shot lightning glances. Her two nurses were dumfounded, and knew not what to do. The doctor had not yet arrived on his morning round.

"Do have patience, ma'am. Wait at least until the doctor comes," said Hobbs, thoroughly alarmed. And she insisted upon it that her mistress must not get up until Dr. Templeton came.

"I shall not wait for anything," said Dora. "I tell you that I am going to get up."

She left her bed, swayed for a moment on her feet; but presently, standing bravely up without support of any kind, she said, with a laugh--

"You see quite well that I am better. I am cured. I shall dress and go out."

"But you are crazy," said Gabrielle.

"You are joking, ma'am," added Hobbs.

It is true that the doctor had told them to do nothing which might cross her, but the two good women said to themselves: "Yet, if she wanted to throw herself out of the window, we should certainly not let her do it.

And to go out in her present state is probably about as dangerous." They did not know what to do. The doctor did not come. Still less did they know what to think. Was Dora completely mad, or was this some marvellous and mysterious metamorphosis? No, she was not mad. Dora possessed something which has saved thousands of much-tried human beings from spiritual and moral shipwreck, and has reattached them to life again.

She possessed that internal G.o.d whom the Greeks called _enthusiasm_, that divine transport which, lifting the soul above itself, excites to great resolutions and lofty actions.

Eva was no more. Philip was gone, and little she cared to know where.

She was free, mistress of her actions. She had no longer husband or child. Well! there was still left to her a third motive for living, Art.

The mother and the wife had ceased to exist, but the artist was still alive.

Gabrielle tried once more to dissuade Dora from going out, but without success; no argument could influence her. She consented, however, that Gabrielle should accompany her. She dressed herself without help. The mourning raiment which had been ordered she had not yet been able to have fitted, but she found in her wardrobe a black dress which served. A hat which Hobbs in a few minutes trimmed with c.r.a.pe completed her toilette. She did not appear to be in the least excited. She was calm, deliberate, sure of each of her words, sure of each of her movements.

Gabrielle, who was under the influence of this powerful will, obeyed her sister's most trivial wishes, and appeared to be completely rea.s.sured about her. She begged her, however, for her own satisfaction, to let her feel her pulse and take her temperature. The pulse was normal, and the temperature did not indicate the least trace of fever. The case appeared to her to be a most exceptional one, almost phenomenal in fact, but she was rea.s.sured and much comforted. She no longer felt any anxiety, especially as the morning promised to be fine, and the open air could certainly do Dora nothing but good.

"Well! where are we going?" said Gabrielle, whose curiosity was keenly aroused.

"To St. John's Wood," replied Dora.

"To St. John's Wood?"

"Yes, I am going to take a studio there. I have something left to me still. I can paint, and paint I will!"

Gabrielle was amazed. She gazed with affectionate eyes at Dora, and kissed her. It was happiness to see her reviving interest in life.

"Send for a cab, darling," said Dora.