Part 49 (1/2)
The bishop and father both regretted that she had been denied the requested interview. They were now, they said, convinced, that if that had been granted, and she had been left to Mrs. Beaumont's friendly care, a happy issue might have been hoped for: But now, said the bishop--Then sighed, and was silent.
I despatched Saunders, early the next morning, to Bologna, to procure convenient lodgings for me, and Mr. Lowther.
In the afternoon we set out for that city. The Count of Belvedere found an opportunity to let me know his unabated pa.s.sion for Clementina, and that he had lately made overtures to marry her, notwithstanding her malady; having been advised, he said, by proper persons, that as it was not an hereditary, but an accidental disorder, it might be, in time, curable. He accompanied us about half way in our journey; and, at parting, Remember, chevalier, whispered he, that Clementina is the soul of my hope: I cannot forego that hope. No other woman will I ever call mine.
I heard him in silence: I admired him for his attachment: I pitied him.
He said, he would tell me more of his mind at Bologna.
We reached Bologna on the 15th, N.S. Saunders had engaged for me the lodgings I had before.
Our conversation on the road turned chiefly on the case of Signor Jeronymo. The bishop and father were highly pleased with the skill, founded on practice, which evidently appeared in all that Mr. Lowther said on the subject: and the bishop once intimated, that, be the event what it would, his journey to Italy should be made the most beneficial affair to him he had ever engaged in. Mr. Lowther replied, that as he was neither a necessitous nor a mean-spirited man, and had reason to be entirely satisfied with the terms I had already secured to him; he should take it unkindly, if any other reward were offered him.
Think, my dear Dr. Bartlett, what emotions I must have on entering, once more, the gates of the Porretta palace, though Clementina was not there.
I hastened up to my Jeronymo, who had been apprized of my arrival. The moment he saw me, Do I once more, said he, behold my friend, my Grandison? Let me embrace the dearest of men. Now, now, have I lived long enough. He bowed his head upon his pillow, and meditated me; his countenance s.h.i.+ning with pleasure in defiance of pain.
The bishop entered: he could not be present at our first interview.
My lord, said Jeronymo, make it your care that my dear friend be treated, by every soul of our family, with the grat.i.tude and respect which are due to his goodness. Methinks I am easier and happier, this moment, than I have been for the tedious s.p.a.ce of time since I last saw him. He named that s.p.a.ce of time to the day, and to the very hour of the day.
The marquis and marchioness signifying their pleasure to see me, the bishop led me to them. My reception from the marquis was kind; from his lady it was as that of a mother to a long-absent son. I had ever been, she was pleased to say, a fourth son in her eye; and now, that she had been informed that I had brought over with me a surgeon of experience, and the advice in writing of eminent physicians of my country, the obligations I had laid on their whole family, whatever were the success, were unreturnable.
I asked leave to introduce Mr. Lowther to them. They received him with great politeness, and recommended their Jeronymo to his best skill. Mr.
Lowther's honest heart was engaged, by a reception so kind. He never, he told me afterwards, beheld so much pleasure and pain struggling in the same countenance, as in that of the lady; so fixed a melancholy, as in that of the marquis.
Mr. Lowther is a man of spirit, though a modest man. He is, as on every proper occasion I found, a man of piety; and has a heart tender as manly.
Such a man, heart and hand, is qualified for a profession which is the most useful and certain in the art of healing. He is a man of sense and learning out of his profession, and happy in his address.
The two surgeons who now attend Signor Jeronymo, are both of this country. They were sent for. With the approbation, and at the request, of the family, I presented Mr. Lowther to them; but first gave them his character, as a modest man, as a man of skill, and experience; and told them, that he had quitted business, and wanted not either fame or fortune.
They acquainted him with the case, and their methods of proceeding. Mr.
Lowther a.s.sisted in the dressings that very evening. Jeronymo would have me to be present. Mr. Lowther suggested an alteration in their method, but in so easy and gentle a manner, as if he doubted not, but such was their intention when the state of the wounds would admit of that method of treatment, that the gentlemen came readily into it. A great deal of matter had been collected, by means of the wrong methods pursued; and he proposed, if the patient's strength would bear it, to make an aperture below the princ.i.p.al wound, in order to discharge the matter downward; and he suggested the dressing with hollow tents and bandage, and to dismiss the large tents, with which they had been accustomed to distend the wound, to the extreme anguish of the patient, on pretence of keeping it open, to a.s.sist the discharge.
Let me now give you, my dear friend, a brief history of my Jeronymo's case, and of the circ.u.mstances which have attended it; by which you will be able to account for the difficulties of it, and how it has happened, that, in such a s.p.a.ce of time, either the cure was not effected, or that the patient yielded not to the common destiny.
In lingering cases, patients or their friends are sometimes too apt to blame their physicians, and to listen to new recommendations. The surgeons attending this unhappy case, had been more than once changed.
Signor Jeronymo, it seems, was unskilfully treated by the young surgeon of Cremona, who was first engaged: he neglected the most dangerous wound; and, when he attended to it, managed it wrong, for want of experience.
He is, therefore, very properly dismissed.
The unhappy man had at first three wounds: one in his breast, which had been for some time healed; one in his shoulder, which, through his own impatience, having been too suddenly healed up, was obliged to be laid open again: the other, which is the most dangerous, in the hip-joint.
A surgeon of this place, and another of Padua, were next employed. The cure not advancing, a surgeon of eminence, from Paris, was sent for.
Mr. Lowther tells me, that this man's method was by far the most eligible; but that he undertook too much; since, from the first, there could not be any hope, from the nature of the wound in the hip-joint, that the patient could ever walk, without sticks or crutches: and of this opinion were the other two surgeons: but the French gentleman was so very pragmatical, that he would neither draw with them, nor give reasons for what he did; regarding them only as his a.s.sistants. They could not long bear this usage, and gave up to him in disgust.
How cruel is punctilio, among men of this science, in cases of difficulty and danger!
The present operators, when the two others had given up, were not, but by leave of the French gentleman, called in. He valuing himself on his practice in the Royal Hospital of Invalids at Paris, looked upon them as theorists only; and treated them with as little ceremony as he had shewn the others: so that at last, from their frequent differences, it became necessary to part with either him, or them. His pride, when he knew that this question was a subject of debate, would not allow him to leave the family an option. He made his demand: it was complied with; and he returned to Paris.