§ 24
An event to which Sylvia looked forward with considerable interest was a meeting with Mrs. Beauregard Dabney, who was coming to New York for a visit. Harriet, as her letters showed, was not unappreciative of the glory which had descended upon her friend, and would enjoy having some of it reflected upon herself. Thus Sylvia might be shown what emotions she ought to be feeling; possibly she might even be made to feel some of them. At any rate, she knew that Harriet would help to keep her courage screwed up.
But Sylvia’s pleasure in the visit was marred by a peculiar circumstance, which she had failed to prepare for, in spite of warnings duly given. “You must not be surprised when you see me,” Harriet wrote. “I have been ill, and I’m terribly changed.” Her reason for coming North, it appeared, was to consult specialists about a mysterious ailment which had baffled the doctors at home.
Sylvia was quite horrified when she saw her friend. Never could she have imagined such a change in anyone in six months’ time. Harriet lifted her veil, and there was an old woman with wrinkled, yellow skin. “Why, Harriet!” gasped Sylvia, unable to control herself.
“I know, Sunny,” said the other. “Isn’t it dreadful?”
“But for heaven’s sake, what is the matter?”
“That’s what I’ve come to find out. Nobody knows.”
“Why, I never heard of such a thing!” Sylvia exclaimed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m having all sorts of things done. The doctors give me medicine, but nothing seems to do any good. I’m really in despair about myself.”
“How did it begin, Harriet?”
“I don’t really know. There were so many things, and I didn’t put them together. I began having headaches a great deal; and then pains that the doctors called neuralgia. I had a bad sore throat over in Europe; I thought the climate disagreed with me, but I’ve had it again at home. And now eruptions break out; the doctors treat them with things, and they go away, but then they come back. All my hair is falling out, and I’ve got to wear a wig.”
“Why, how perfectly horrible!” cried Sylvia.
She started to embrace her friend, but was repelled. “I mustn’t kiss anyone,” said Harriet. “You see, it might be contagious—one can’t be sure.”
“But what are you going to do, Harriet?”
“I’ve almost given up hoping. I haven’t really cared so much, since the doctors told me I can never have another baby. You know, Sunny, it’s curious—I never cared about children, I thought they were nuisances. But when mine came, I cared—oh, so horribly! I wanted to have a real one.”
“A real one?” echoed Sylvia.
“Yes. I didn’t write you about it, and perhaps I oughtn’t to tell you just at this time. But you know, Sunny, he didn’t seem like a human being at all; he was a little gray mummy.”
“Harriet!”
“Just like that—a regular skeleton, his skin all loose, so that you could lift it up in folds. He was a kind of earthy color, and had no hair, and no finger nails——”
Sylvia broke out with a cry of horror, and her friend stopped. “I haven’t talked to anyone about it,” she said—“I guess I oughtn’t to, even to you.”
“How long did he live?”
“About six weeks. Nobody knew what he died of—he just seemed to fade away. You can’t imagine it, perhaps—but, Sunny, I wanted him to stay—even him! He was all I could ever have, and it seemed so cruel!” Suddenly the girl hid her face in her hands and began to sob—the first time that Sylvia had ever seen her do it in all her life.
So it was not the cheering visit that Sylvia had anticipated. It left her with much to think about, and to talk about with other people. Later on, speaking to Aunt Varina, she happened to mention something that van Tuiver had said about the matter; whereupon her aunt exclaimed, “You didn’t talk about it with Mr. van Tuiver!”
“But why not, Auntie?”
“You mustn’t do that, dear! You can’t tell.”
“Can’t tell what?”
“I mean, dear, that Harriet might have some disease that you oughtn’t to talk to Mr. van Tuiver about.” Aunt Varina hesitated, then added, in a whisper, “Some ‘bad disease’.”
Whereat Sylvia started in sudden dismay. So that was it! A “bad disease”!
You must understand how it happened that Sylvia had ideas on this subject. There was a foreign writer of plays, whose name she had heard. She had never seen his books, and would not have opened one, upon peril of her soul; but once, in a magazine picked up in a train, she had read a casual reference to an Ibsen play, which dealt with a nameless and dreadful malady. From the context it was made clear that this malady was a price men paid for evil living—and a price which was often collected from their innocent wives and children. Now and then the women of Sylvia’s family spoke in awe-stricken whispers of this mysterious taint, using the phrase “a bad disease.” Now, apparently, she was beholding the horror before her eyes!