Three millions! or, The way of the world
“Shall we have Dr. Bilks?” asked Eugene of his mother.
“Certainly; he is a very skilful physician,” replied Mrs. Hungerford,
all of whose doubts seemed now to be removed.
“I believe he is a villain.”
“All we want is his medical skill.”
“As you please, mother.”
Dr. Bilks had already been shown to the library; and when Eugene
appeared, he was warmly greeted by the doctor, as though nothing had
occurred to mar the harmony of their relations.
“I called up to see you for a moment, before I go to the office. I have
just returned from New York. I am very sorry not to have met your
friend Mr. Lester,” said the doctor, as volubly as ever.
“I am glad you called, Dr. Bilks,” replied Eugene, rather coldly.
“I merely came up to ask for our friend Mr. Birch. I have done nothing
but think of him ever since I left Poppleton. How is he?”
“He is as well as usual.”
“I suppose he will not even look at me, after what has happened; but I
assure you Mr. Birch is still dear to me as a friend.”
“Julia is very sick. I am glad you have come on her account. My mother
is not satisfied with Dr. White.”
“Miss Hungerford sick! I am sorry for that--very sorry;” and with the
utmost tenderness he asked the particulars of her illness, which Eugene
gave him.
“I am afraid it is too late to break up the fever. I will see her.”
Dr. Bilks went to Julia’s chamber. We must do him the justice to say
that nothing could be more tender, delicate, and judicious, than his
conduct in the sick room. He examined his patient with the nicest care;
but he was compelled to inform Mrs. Hungerford that nothing could
prevent her daughter from having a regular run of typhoid fever. More
than this, he was magnanimous towards Dr. White; for, whether he knew
anything about it or not, he assured her that the medical attendant had
done all that any physician could do. His treatment had been proper
and judicious; but Julia’s health had been impaired by her travel in
Europe, and by the excitement in which she had lived since her return.
Julia was very sick; and while Dr. Bilks promised well, he had some
doubts in regard to the result. If Mrs. Hungerford was not satisfied,
he hoped she would call in other medical advice. Eugene was not
satisfied, and the two doctors from the Mills came, in the afternoon,
to consult with Dr. Bilks. All that had been done was approved, and
the patient’s condition, though dangerous, was not critical.
Pine Hill was filled with anxiety. Gloomy forebodings hung over the
house. Mrs. Hungerford wept over her fair daughter, prostrate before
her, perhaps never again to rise, and mother and brother prayed that
God would avert the threatened blow.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE DEMIGOD OF PINE HILL.
Dr. Bilks spent most of the day and all the night at Pine Hill. His
presence inspired Mrs. Hungerford with courage and fortitude. He was
regarded as a very skilful physician in Poppleton, and the heart
distressed by doubts and fears clings to such a man, when the loved one
lies low on the bed of disease and suffering, with a tenacity which no
other relation can call forth. The physician seems to hold the issues
of life and death in his hands. His mistake or his neglect is fatal.
Mrs. Hungerford was a religious woman; but while she trusted in God,
she leaned also on the human arm of the physician. With God’s blessing,
he might save her daughter from the yawning tomb. Whether by choice or
accident he had come to the sick bed of Julia, he was the mother’s only
earthly hope; he was the greatest among men in those hours of gloom and
despondency; he was the appointed minister of God to ward off the shaft
of death. Everything depended upon him. Ross Kingman, Mary, and Dick
Birch were forgotten in the all-absorbing solicitude with which the
fond mother hung over the sick daughter.
Eugene shared his mother’s feeling. Trifling and insignificant now
appeared the issues which had so deeply moved him. If he could not
entirely forget that Dr. Bilks was tricky and politic,--if he could not
entirely banish from his mind the belief, which a few days before he
had entertained, that the physician was a villain, conspiring against
the reputation and happiness of his best friend,--if he could not
forget these things, he forgave them, and it was painful to think of
them. In the hands of Dr. Bilks was the precious life of Julia, and it
seemed like sacrilege to doubt or suspect him.
Dick Birch went to Pine Hill again. It was like a tomb to him. He loved
Julia; and for her sake he was content to let the shadows hang over
himself. Even he, the wronged one, could forget that the doctor was
a villain. Though he would have preferred that some other physician
should attend the sick one in her perilous condition, he accepted the
fact as he found it, and confided in Dr. Bilks’s skill and devotion, as
others did.
A week wore slowly and painfully away, not in days or hours, but in
moments; for each instant was burdened with its own doubts and fears.
Dr. Bilks went to Pine Hill half a dozen times a day, and spent all
his nights there. He seemed never to tire, never to need the boon of
slumber. He had a room next to Julia’s, and hardly an hour passed
without a visit to her bedside. He watched her as a mother watches her
dying infant. He bent over her, and listened to her labored breathing,
careful to detect the first symptoms of change for better or worse.
In the library and the drawing-room he never spoke of the events
attending the murder; they seemed to be forgotten by all. As he crept
with soft step to the sick room, it would have been difficult to
believe that he was not an angel of mercy to that household; that a
thought of cunning or malice ever crossed his mind. Mrs. Hungerford
spoke kindly, tenderly of him, and even Eugene and Dick could not help
calling to mind that nothing had been absolutely proved against the
doctor.
Julia’s fever reached its crisis. She was liable to pass away at any
moment, the doctor said. Those in the house hardly dared to breathe,
hardly dared to move, lest a rude current or a grating sound should
sever from the body the spirit that seemed only to be hesitating in
its flight. Dr. Bilks sat by the bedside. The all-absorbing solicitude
of the family was fully shared by him. He gave the medicines and
restoratives with his own hand. Other patients, farther removed from
the waiting tomb, were forgotten and neglected. All his thought and
all his time, all his study and all his anxiety, were devoted to the
fair patient whose loving soul seemed to be floating between heaven
and earth, and knowing not whether to flee away to the mansions of the
blessed, or linger yet longer with the loved ones below.
Mrs. Hungerford occasionally glanced at the doctor, to catch any
expression of despondency or hope that might gather on his face. Though
her frame was worn out with watching and care, she could not leave the
room. Though the doctor had counselled her, as much for the sick one’s
sake as for her own, to take the rest she needed, it was impossible
for her to be absent even for an hour. Eugene was in the library,
thinking only of Julia. Vain and unsatisfying were all worldly hopes;
his treasures were only dross. Dick came to Pine Hill often, for he,
too, was struggling with emotions he could not conceal. He came not as
a comforter; he needed comfort himself; but it was a solace to both to
think of her and to speak of her.
While Julia lay in this critical condition, Mary Kingman, forgetting
her own wrongs and her own woes, visited the silent mansion. The sick
one had been her friend, as no other of her sex had been. She begged
the privilege of doing what she might at the bed of Julia. She was
permitted to enter the chamber, for the sufferer had often spoken of
her in her lucid moments, and expressed much anxiety for her future
welfare. A smile on the pale face of the sick girl assured Mrs.
Hungerford that her visitor’s presence was agreeable to her; and from
that time Mary became a necessity in the sick room.
On one of these days, when a breath would have wafted the spirit of
Julia from its earthly tabernacle, was appointed the examination of
Richard Birch as accessory, after the fact, to the murder of Buckstone;
but there was influence enough to postpone it, and hardly a thought was
bestowed upon the matter.
A few more days dragged heavily away, and Dr. Bilks began to speak
hesitatingly, and with many qualifications, words of meagre hope;
then more decidedly, but still doubtfully. Hardly sleeping an hour
at a time, he continued his untiring vigil at the couch of the fair
patient. Still mother and brother, friends and servants, watched his
countenance, burdened with anxiety, for tidings of weal or woe. Sunday
came, and Julia had lain a fortnight upon her bed, which had for many
days seemed like the triumphal car upon which the Christian conqueror
was to be borne to the courts above to receive her crown immortal. On
this day passed away the shadow which had enveloped Pine Hill. Dr.
Bilks, no longer doubtful and hesitating, declared that the crisis had
been safely passed. Julia was out of danger, and there was nothing
to dread but the possible relapse incident to the malady. The pale
and haggard ones, who day and night had crept like spectres through
the lofty rooms of the Pine Hill mansion, smiled upon each other;
and from those hearts which now began to beat again went up a pæan
of thanksgiving and praise to Him who had mercifully rolled away the
shadow.
Mrs. Hungerford slept now, and Mary Kingman kept vigil at the bedside
of the sufferer. The human sympathy which the sad condition of poor
Mary had kindled in the heart of the invalid was even more than “twice
blessed,” for the kindness and devotion of the nurse were too real to
be undervalued. No selfish thought, no calculating policy, entered into
the mind of Mary. Julia had come to her when all others forsook her;
this was her reflection; and she would gladly wear out her feeble frame
in the service of such a friend. She did not see Eugene at all, except
as she met him occasionally in the halls while in the discharge of her
duties; and then she lingered only long enough to speak a word of Julia.
The invalid continued to improve. She needed nothing now but patient,
skilful nursing. Dr. Bilks still devoted his most earnest attention
to the patient, though he spent less time in her presence. He not
only prescribed costly wines, rare grapes, and other delicacies,
but he procured them himself. The sweetest flowers that grew in the
greenhouses near the great cities were every day placed in her chamber
by his hand. There was nothing which ingenious thought could devise
that was not done by him to promote her convalescence. And all this
time Dick Birch could not even enter the room of the invalid. As she
grew better his visits at Pine Hill became less frequent, and when she
was able to leave her room they ceased altogether.
The days of the sunny summer had come. Dr. Bilks directed that his
patient should ride out, and he went with her every day. He still spoke
of the dreaded relapse, and watched the effect of the gentle exercise
he ordered. But no relapse came; and that it did not come was ascribed
to the skill and watchful care of the devoted physician. There was none
in the house who did not believe that Dr. Bilks was the savior of Julia
Hungerford; that if he had been less skilful or less devoted, she could
not then have been numbered among the living. Dr. Bilks therefore was
not only an honored guest at Pine Hill, but he was regarded with a kind
of reverence akin to worship.
Julia herself shared the common feeling. What was outside of her own
knowledge and experience was faithfully and enthusiastically delineated