Reading books romantic stories you will plunge into the world of feelings and love. Most of the time the story ends happily. Very interesting and informative to read books historical romance novels to feel the atmosphere of that time.Twilight by Julia Frankau (i can read with my eyes shut .TXT) đź“–
- Author: Julia Frankau
- Performer: -
Book online «Twilight by Julia Frankau (i can read with my eyes shut .TXT) 📖». Author Julia Frankau
“No breakfast, and lunch not up yet; I never did see such goin’s-on.”
She had the sense, however, in the midst of her grumbling to send for the doctor, and before the pain was at its height he was in the room. The bitter-sweet smell of the amyl told him what had been already done. What little more he could do brought her no relief. He took out the case he always carried, hesitated, and chose a small bottle.
“Get me some hot water,” he said, to Stevens.
“Morphia?” she gasped.
“Yes.”
“Put it away.”
“Because it failed once is no reason it should fail again.”
“I’m in… I’m in… agony.”
“I know.”
“And there’s no hope.”
“Oh, yes, you’ll get through this.”
“I don’t want to… only not to suffer. Remember, you promised.” He pretended not to hear, busying himself about her.
“He has gone. I’ve stopped the cheque. Peter…” The pain rose, her voice with it, then collapsed; it was dreadful to see her.
“Help me… give me the hyoscine,” she said faintly. His hand shook, his face was ashen. “I can’t bear this… you promised.” The agony broke over her again. He poured down brandy, but it might have been water. His heart was wrung, and drops of perspiration formed upon his forehead. She pleaded to him in that faint voice, then was past pleading, and could only suffer, then began again:
“Pity me. Do something… let me go; help me…”
One has to recollect that he loved her, that he knew her heart was diseased, that there would be other such attacks. Also that Gabriel Stanton, as he feared, had proved inflexible. There would be no wedding and inevitable publicity. Then she cried to him again. And Stevens took up the burden of her cry.
“For the Lord’s sake give her something, give her what she’s asking for. Human nature can’t bear no more… look at her.” Stevens was moved, as any woman would be, or man, either, by such suffering.
“Your promise!” were words that were wrung through her dry lips. Her tortured eyes raked and racked him.
“I…I can’t,” was all the answer.
“If you care, if you ever cared. Your miserable weakness. Oh, if I only had a man about me!” She turned away from him for ease and he could hardly hear her. In the next paroxysm he lifted her gently on to the floor, placed a pillow under her head. He whispered to her, but she repelled him, entreated her, but she would not listen. All the time the pain went on. ” You promised,” were not words, but a moan.
Desperately he took the cachet from the wrong bottle, melted it, filled his needle. When he bade Stevens roll up her sleeve, she smiled on him, actually smiled.
“Dear Peter! How right I was to trust you!… “Her voice trailed. The change in her face was almost miraculous, the writhing body relaxed. She sighed. Almost it seemed as if the colour came back to her lips, to her tortured face. “Dear, good Peter,” were her last words, a message he stooped to hear.
“Thank the Lord,” said Stevens piously, “she’s getting easier.” She was still lying on the floor, a pillow under her head, and they watched her silently.
“Shall I lift her back?”
“No, leave her a few minutes.” He had the sense to add, “The morphia doesn’t usually act so quickly.” Stevens had seen him give her morphia before in the same way, with the same preliminaries. He had saved her, he must save himself. He was conscious now of nothing but gladness. He had feared his strength, but his strength had been equal to her need. She was out of pain. Nothing else mattered. She was out of pain, he had promised her and been equal to his promise. He was no Gabriel Stanton to argue and deny, deny and argue. He wiped his needle carefully, put it away. Then a cry from Stevens roused him, brought him quickly to her side.
“She’s gone. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! She’s gone!” He lifted her up, laid her on the sofa, the smile was still on her face, she looked asleep. But Stevens was there and he had to dissimulate.
“She is unconscious. Get on to the telephone. Ask Dr. Lansdowne to come over.”
Then he made a feint of trying remedies. Strychnine, more amyl, more brandy, artificial respiration. He was glad, glad, glad, exulting as the moments went on. He thanked God that she was at rest. “He giveth His beloved sleep” He called her beloved, whispered it in her ear when Stevens was summoning that useless help. He had sealed her to him, she was his woman now, and for ever. No selfrighteous iceberg could hold and deny her.
“Sleep well, beloved,” he whispered. “Sleep well. Smile on me, smile your thanks.”
He recovered himself with an immense, an incredible effort. He wanted to laugh, to exult, to call on the world to see his work, what he had done for her, how peaceful she was, and happy. He was as near madness as a sane man could be, but by the time his partner came he composed his face and spoke with professional gravity:
“I am afraid you are too late.”
Dr. Lansdowne, hurrying in, wore his habitual grin.
“I always knew it would end like this. Didn’t I tell you so? An aneurism. I diagnosed it a long time ago.” He had even forgotten his diagnosis. “I suppose you’ve tried… so and so?” He recapitulated the remedies. Stevens, stunned by the calamity, but not so far as to make her forget to pull down the blinds, listened and realised Dr. Kennedy had left nothing undone.
“I suppose there will have to be an inquest?”
“An inquest! My dear fellow. An inquest! What for? I have seen her and diagnosed, prognosed. You have attended her for weeks under my direction. Unless her family wish it, it is quite unnecessary. I shall be most pleased to give a death certificate. You have informed the relatives, of course?”
“Not yet.”
Stevens emitted one dry sob which represented her entire emotional capacity, and hastened to ring up Queen Anne’s Gate. Dr. Lansdowne began to talk directly she left them alone. He told his silent colleague of an eructation that troubled him after meals, and of a faint tendency to gout. Then cast a perfunctory glance at the sofa.
“Pretty woman!” he said. “All that money, too!”
Peter, suddenly, inexplicably unable to stand, sank on his knees by the sofa, hid his face in her dress. Dr. Lansdowne said. “God bless my soul!” Peter broke into tears like a girl.
“Come, come, this will never do. Pull yourself together, or I shall think… I shan’t know what to think…”
Peter recovered himself as quickly as he had collapsed, rose to his feet.
“It was so sudden,” he said apologetically. “I was unprepared…”
“I could have told you exactly what would happen. The case could hardly have ended any other way.”
He said a few kind words about himself and his skill as a diagnostician. Peter listened meekly, and was rewarded by the offer of a lift home. “You can come up again later, when the family has arrived, they will be sure to want to know about her last moments… Or I might come myself, tell them I foresaw it..”
I WOKE up suddenly. A minute ago I had seen Peter Kennedy kneeling by the sofa, his head against Margaret’s dress. He had looked young, little more than a boy. Now he was by my side, bending over me. There was grey in his hair, lines about his face.
“You’ve grown grey,” was the first thing I said, feebly enough I’ve no doubt, and he did not seem to hear me. “My arm aches. How could you do it?”
“Do what?”
“She was so young, so impetuous, everything might have come right…”
“She is wandering,” he said. I hardly knew to whom he spoke, but felt the necessity of protest.
“I’m not wandering. Is Ella there?”
“Of course I am. Is there anything you want?” She came over to me.
“I needn’t write any more, need I? I’m so tired.” Ella looked at him as if for instructions, or guidance, and he answered soothingly, as one speaks to a child or an invalid:
“No, no, certainly not. You need not write until you feel inclined. She has been dreaming,” he explained.
It did not seem worth while to contradict him again. I was not wideawake yet, but swayed on the borderland between dreams and reality. Three people were in the dusk of the well-known room. They disentangled themselves gradually; Nurse Benham, Dr. Kennedy, Ella in the easychair, Margaret’s easychair. It was evening and I heard Dr. Kennedy say that I was better, stronger, that he did not think it necessary to give me a morphia injection.
“Or hyoscine.”
I am sure I said that, although no one answered me, and it was as if the words had dissolved in the twilight of the room. Incidentally I may say I never had an injection of morphia since that evening. I knew how easy it was to make a mistake with drugs. So many vials look alike in that small valise doctors carry. I was either cunning or clever that night in rejecting it. Afterwards it was only necessary to be courageous.
I found it difficult in those first few twilight days of recovering consciousness to separate this Dr. Kennedy who came in and out of my bedroom from that other Dr. Kennedy, little more than a boy, who had wept by the woman he released, the authoress whose story I had just written. And my feelings towards him fluctuated considerably. My convalescence was very slow and difficult, and I often thought of the solution Margaret Capel had found, sometimes enviously, at others with a shuddering fear. At these times I could not bear that Dr. Kennedy should touch me, his hand on my pulse gave me an inward shiver. At others I looked upon him with the deepest interest, wondering if he would do as much for me as he had done for her, if his kindness had this meaning. For he was kind to me, very kind, and at the beck and call of my household by night and day. Ella sent for him if my temperature registered half a point higher or lower than she anticipated, any symptom or change of symptom was sufficient to send him a peremptory message, that he never disregarded. Ella, I could tell, still suspected us of being in love with each other, and she dressed me up for his visits. Lacy underwear, soft chiffony teagowns, silken hose and satin or velvet shoes diverted my weakness into happier channel and kept her in her right milieu.
Then, not all at once, but gradually and almost incredibly the whole circumstances changed. Dr. Kennedy came one day full of excitement to tell us that a new treatment had been found for my illness. Five hundred cases had been treated, of which over four hundred had been cured, the rest ameliorated. Of course we were sceptical. Other consultants were called
Comments (0)