Lovers and Husbands CHAPTER 12.
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After the lapse of ten years, we will again introduce our characters. It rarely takes even so long as that comparatively brief period of time, to prove the quality of any marriage — to take off all deceiving externals, and show the partners whether their union is for happiness or misery. Alas! that it should so often bring a sad consciousness that there is between the man and wife, no truly uniting principle.
Doctor Arlington we find in the city of New York. He lives in a handsomely-furnished house, situated in Park Place. Some years after his marriage he moved with his wife to the city, where he entered upon the practice of his profession. For a time he had hard struggles; then he began to feel something like solid ground under his feet. A few important cases in families of influence, skillfully managed, attracted attention. Practice began to increase. Four years afterward his standing with the profession was so high, that he was elected to fill a vacancy that occurred in the medical department of the New York University. One year following this, time we again bring him before the reader.
It is an evening late in the fall of the year. A bright fire is glowing in the well-filled grate, that diffuses the genial warmth of summer through a beautiful parlor. Before this a sofa has been drawn; on the sofa we find Flora and her estimable husband. He seems more changed than his wife. His face does not look so uninteresting as it did; its thoughtful air accords more with the years and standing of the medical profession of thirty-five, than it did with the country doctor of scarcely twenty-five. And more than this, the bringing out into active usefulness the principles he was then storing up, has given to his countenance an elevation that has in it the beauty of wisdom. Still, there are to be seen the defects of early education, which are never wholly eradicated. "Just as the twig is bent — the tree is inclined," is as true of external accomplishments as of the moral tendencies for good or for evil that are stamped upon the mind in youth. Both may be changed in a degree — but the bias of the will remains forever.
The movements of the doctor had never been, and were not now, easy and graceful. He had not entirely overcome his bashful modesty, and was too much inclined to be reserved and silent in company; but none of these defects were now apparent to his wife. The high sense of honor, founded in truth and justice, that governed every action — histenderness towards her, which was ever the same, or which increased rather than diminished — the richness of his intellectual endowments, and the clearness of his mind — these were all seen and loved — these concealed from her, his merely external defects. She had, too, a wife's pride in her husband's reputation. In his honor, she was honored.
"I have been thinking all the afternoon about my old friend Emily Whitney," Flora remarked, as she sat with her husband, on the evening just mentioned. "It is now more than ten years since I parted from her. During this time we have not met, nor passed even a letter. I wonder if she is still alive. I believe she went south with her husband after the death of his father, which took place before we left Rose Hill — but I am not certain. If she were still residing in the city, I think I would have heard of it in some way. Her own father became a bankrupt, and died years ago."
"I have not met with Mr. Whitney since our residence here, and think it more than probable that he has left New York, as you suppose. His father left him only a small portion of his property, alleging in his will, it is said, that twenty thousand dollars were enough for him to squander, if he continued his habits — or enough capital enough for a young man to build a fortune upon, if he chose to give proper attention, as every young man should, to some business, whereby the whole community as well as himself might be benefitted. I am afraid the foolish young man confirmed his father's fears by soon squandering his little fortune."
"Poor Emily! If such is the case, she has sadly realized, I fear, the truth of what I tried in vain to impress upon her mind. She did not seem to think it of any consequence whatprinciples governed her husband, just so that he loved her. She judged of a man by his exterior. Into his motives and ends of action, she never thought of inquiring."
"Such being the case, she has, you may well fear, long before this discovered her mistake."
Just at this moment, a messenger came in haste, requiring Doctor Arlington's immediate attendance on a lady represented to have been taken suddenly ill. His carriage was ordered and the summons at once obeyed. The house at which he had been directed to call was a large and elegant residence in Broadway. On entering, he was met by the owner, whose face showed much concern, and asked to go up immediately to his wife's chamber, who was laboring under a sudden attack of illness, the nature of which he did not attempt to define.
"This is the fourth attack that she has had, doctor," he remarked, "in each of which I have called in a different physician, hoping to find someone with skill enough to remove the cause as well as the disease. Your high reputation has led me to place her in your hands now. Let me beg of you to give to her case your most skillful attentions. Her disease is a sudden prostration, without an apparently adequate cause, of both physical and mental powers, from which her recovery has, heretofore, been very slow. The thousand questions and suggestions of visitors and friends as to the real cause have become painfully annoying to both of us. Occasionally a scandalous rumor accounting for the illness will faintly reach our ears, and make my poor wife unhappy for days at a time. The affliction is nervous altogether, and ought, I think, to be reached by some medications or course of treatment known to your profession."
After saying this, the husband conducted Doctor Arlington up to the chamber of his patient. He found a small, delicately-formed woman, with a face as white as marble, lying in a state of perfect unconsciousness upon a bed. A female servant was in the room. He took her thin, almost transparent hand, in his. It was cold and clammy. There was no perceptible motion of the artery in her wrist, upon which he laid his fingers, nor could he discover that her heart beat at all, by pressure over the region where it lay. If there was any respiration, it was not apparent to the unassisted senses. A small mirror, held before her face, however, soon became dimmed with condensing moisture, showing that she still breathed, and was, of course, alive. As soon as he had ascertained this fact, the doctor turned to her husband, and said,
"Will you now be kind enough to tell me, as far as you can conjecture, the cause of the present condition of your wife?"
"As I have before said, doctor," was the reply, "I am utterly ignorant of the cause. This morning she was, to all appearance, as well and happy as ever she was in her life. When I left her after dinner, she seemed, I thought, to droop a little; but I did not think anything of it until I was suddenly recalled from my office an hour since, where business detained me later than usual, by the painful news that she had been again attacked with a paralysis of both mind and body."
"And you are ignorant of the cause?" As the doctor asked this question, he looked the man steadily in the face.
"As ignorant as yourself," was the unhesitating reply.
This positive declaration did not satisfy the mind of the physician. The husband was too ignorant, apparently, of the cause of this illness. The fact of there being no one with her but a servant, created a suspicion in his mind that all was not right. The concern evinced seemed more to regard appearance, than to arise from a real anxiety about the suffering wife; but his duty was to administer to the patient in accordance with the best information in regard to her condition that he could devise, and he proceeded to do so. Three hours were spent in efforts to restore animation — but no success followed. Doctor Arlington then went away, stating, as he did so, that he would visit her again by daylight on the next morning.
At daylight he was there. Little or no change had taken place since the night before, except that her features looked more shrunken, and had a ghastliness about them, which made him fearful about the result. Three children were in the parlor when he entered, sporting in mirthful unconsciousness of their mother's real condition. The sight touched his heart. Much to his surprise, there was yet no one with the sick woman but the servant first seen in attendance. This strengthened his fears that all was not as it should be between her and her husband.
In the course of three hours he called in again, and continued to do so through the day, at like intervals of time. Not until near night did he perceive any signs of returning animation. Then the rising and falling of her chest in respiration could be distinctly seen, and the motion of her heart felt. About nine o'clock she roused up, and lifting her head, looked anxiously about the room. But two countenances bent over her, that of her husband and that of the physician. She fixed her eyes first upon one and then upon the other for a moment or two; then, sighing deeply, she closed them, and lay with a shadow of most touching sadness resting upon her pale, thin face.
After leaving prescriptions, and giving directions in what manner to have them given, Doctor Arlington retired, promising to call in early on the following morning. It was after ten when he reached home. Flora was alone in the parlor, reading. She put down the book, and looked smilingly into her husband's face as he came in.
"You are late tonight," she said, as he sat down by her side.
"Yes, rather later than usual; but the detention has relieved my mind a good deal, for it has enabled me to see a change for the better in a painfully interesting case. For the last two or three days I have been attending a lady most singularly affected, and under, it seems to me, rather singular circumstances. I was called in by her husband, who is a lawyerstanding high at the bar here, and found her in a kind of senselessness, for the occurrence of which he could not give me any reason. This, he said, was her third attack. That he knows the real cause, I am well satisfied. That his conduct towards her, in some respect or other, is in fact the true cause, I have little doubt. In nothing that I observed, in his actions or words, could I see any concern for his wife's condition, above the fear that it would excite strange rumors in regard to the family. Ah, Flora! no one even faintly dreams of the heart-corroding misery that is shrouded from every eye by the secrecy of the marriage-chamber. The physician, in his daily rounds, catches, at times, a glimpse of what a neglected, suffering wife is struggling to conceal. But the tenth part is never known even by him."
"The lady you speak of is better?" Flora said, in a concerned manner.
"Yes; after lying for more than twenty-four hours perfectly insensible, and almost lifeless, she revived and became apparently conscious; but it did not seem to be a gladconsciousness. Like one awakened from a pleasing dream to some sad reality, she closed her eyes and seemed anxious to sleep again."
"Who is she?"
"The wife of an eminent lawyer here, named Garnett."
Mrs. Arlington startled as if a current of electricity had suddenly passed through her nerves, while her face turned pale.
"It is not Mr. Garnett's wife, surely?" she said, laying her hand upon that of her husband.
"Yes, Flora, it is; but did you know her?"
"Know Arabella Lyon? Oh, yes. Mirthful little Arabella was once a favorite friend. A heart full of innocence and trusting confidence was hers. I wonder not that it has been broken."
"Did you know her husband likewise?"
At this question, Flora closed the hand she had laid upon her husband's tightly, and looked into his face with moistened — but tender and confiding eyes.
"Yes, dear, I knew him also. He was a man of winning exterior, and once interested me deeply — but I discovered, before it was too late, that he was void of true principles — and when he offered himself, I declined the proposal without a moment's hesitation. He then addressed and married Arabella Lyon, against the wish of her uncle, who had raised her from a child. A kind Providence then sent you to me, with words of affection — my kind, good husband! For that blessing how can I ever be sufficiently grateful?"
The dim eyes of Mrs. Arlington overflowed, and laying her head upon the bosom of her husband, she wept tears of thankful gladness.
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