Part 67 (1/2)

'I think it is a very bad case. He is wasted to a shadow, and has a worn, haggard look that I don't like. And then he has those painful hallucinations--that idea of falling down a precipice, for instance, which are oftenest seen in fatal cases.'

Ida told him of the scene in the church yesterday--she confided in him fully--telling him all that Dr. Mallison had said of the case.

'What can I do?' she asked, piteously.

'I don't think you can do more than you are doing. That man who waits upon your husband is a nurse, I suppose?'

'Yes. Dr. Mallison sent him.'

'And care is taken that the patient gets no stimulants supplied to him?'

'Every care--and yet--'

'And yet what?'

'I have a suspicion--and I think Towler suspects too--that Brian does get brandy--somehow.'

'But how can that be, if your servants are honest, and this attendant is to be depended upon?'

'I can't tell you. I believe the servants are incapable of deceiving me.

Towler, the attendant, comes to us with the highest character.'

'Well, I will be on the alert while I am with you,' said Mr. Jardine; and Ida felt as if he were a tower of strength. 'I have seen these sad cases, and had to do with them, only too often. On some occasions I have been happy enough to be the means of saving a man from his own folly.'

'Pray stop as long as you can with us, and do all you can,' entreated Ida. 'I wish I had asked you to come sooner, only I was so ashamed for him, poor creature. I thought it would be a wrong to him to let anyone know how low he had fallen.'

'It is part of my office to know how low humanity can fall and yet be raised up again,' said Mr. Jardine.

'You won't tell Bessie--she would be so grieved for her cousin.'

'I will tell her nothing more than she can find out for herself. But you know she is very quick-witted.'

There was a change for the worse in Towler's charge next morning, when Ida, who still occupied the room adjoining her husband's bedchamber, went in at eight o'clock to inquire how he had pa.s.sed the night. Brian was up, half dressed, pacing up and down the room, and talking incoherently. He had been up ever since five o'clock, Towler said; but it was impossible to get him to dress himself, or suffer himself to be dressed. A frightful restlessness had taken possession of him, more intense than any previous restlessness, and it was impossible to do anything for him. His hallucinations since daybreak had taken a frightful form; he had seen poisonous snakes gliding in and out of the folds of the bedclothes; he had fancied every kind of hideous monster--the winged reptiles of the jura formation--the armour-plated fish of the old red sandstone--everything that is grotesque, revolting, terrible--skeletons, poison-spitting toads, vampires, were-wolves, flying cats--they had all lurked amidst the draperies of bed or windows, or grinned at him through the panes of gla.s.s.

'Look!' he shrieked, as Ida approached him, soothing, pleading in gentlest accents; 'look! don't you see them?' he cried, pointing to the shapes that seemed to people the room, and trying to push them aside with a restless motion of his hands; 'don't you see them, the lares and lemures? Look, there is Cleopatra with the asp at her breast! That bosom was once beautiful, and see now what a loathsome spectacle death has made it--the very worms recoil from that corruption. See, there is Canidia, the sorceress, who buried the boy alive! Look at her hair flying loose about her head! hair, no, those locks are living vipers! and Sagana, with hair erect, like the bristles of a wild boar! See, Ida, how she rushes about, sprinkling the room with water from the rivers of h.e.l.l! And Veia, whose cruel heart never felt remorse! Yes, he knew them well, Horace.

These furies were the women he had loved and wooed!'

Fancies, memories flitted across his disordered brain, swift as lightning flashes. In a moment Canidia was forgotten, and he was Pentheus, struggling with Agave and her demented crew. They were tearing him to pieces, their fingers were at his throat. Then he was in the East, a defenceless traveller in the tropical desert, surrounded by Thugs. He pointed to one particular spot where he saw his insidious foe--he described the dusky supple figure, the sinuous limbs, gliding serpent-like towards him, the oiled body, the dagger in the uplifted hand. An ill.u.s.tration in Sir Charles Bell's cla.s.sic treatise had flashed into his brain. So, from memory to memory, with a frightful fertility of fancy, his unresting brain hurried on; while his wife could only watch and listen, tortured by an agony greater than his own. To look on, and to be powerless to afford the slightest help was dreadful. Up and down, and round about the room he wandered, talking perpetually, perpetually waving aside the horrid images which pursued and appalled him, his eyeb.a.l.l.s in constant motion, the pupils dilated, his hollow cheeks deadly pale, his face bathed in perspiration.

'Send for Mr. Fosbroke,' said Ida, speaking on the threshold of the adjoining room, to the maid who brought her letters; and, in the midst of his distraction, Brian's quick ear caught the name.

'Fosbroke me no Fosbrokes!' he said. 'I will have no village apothecaries diagnosing my disease, no ignorant quack telling me how to treat myself.'

'I will telegraph for Dr. Mallison, if you like, Brian,' Ida answered, gently; 'but I know Mr. Fosbroke is a clever man, and he perfectly understands--'

'Yes, he will have the audacity to tell you he knows what is the matter with me. He will say this is _delirium tremens_--a lie, and you must know it is a lie!'

To her infinite relief, Mr. Jardine appeared at this moment He questioned Towler as to the possibility of tranquillising his patient; and he found that the sedatives prescribed by Dr. Mallison had ceased to exercise any beneficial effect. Nights of insomnia and restlessness had been the rule with the patient ever since Towler had been in attendance upon him.