My grace all-sufficient shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee, I only design,
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.
Paraphrase from Scripture.
The mansion-house at White Cliffs was all but deserted. The very house servants, pretty mulatto girls, more afraid of destroying their good looks than losing their lives, had retreated to their own dens, feigning illness as an excuse to keep out of the reach of contagion. Catherine was introduced at once into the sick room. That sick room! What mind can conceive, or what pen should describe it. Only those who have nursed a patient through that worst form of the most loathsome pestilence, can realize its revolting horrors. To see any human being looking as the once beautiful Carolyn now looked. Her very features almost obliterated, while——fill up the pause, you who have seen the horrors of that pest. It was worse than any form of illness—it was worse than death and decay. Disgust almost overmastered pity, and Catherine turned away, shuddering with sickness of body and soul. Old Mr. Clifton cast one agonized look upon the ruin, and unable to bear the sight, rushed from the room. Catherine turned to her duty. The wretched patient was tossing about in high fever, and tearing her arms and bosom under the intolerable irritation. That work of destruction must be stopped first Catherine knew. Catherine caught her right hand, and it took all her strength to hold that hand, whose flesh seemed as if it would drop off, under the pressure, while she secured it to the bedstead. Then she captured the other dashing, tossing hand, and confined it in the same manner. And then she looked at the state of her own palms. Oh, offensive duty! No wonder, she thought, that the beautiful Georgia had fled to Richmond, and the two pretty house-maids were extremely ill in their attic! Had she a wish to follow their example? No—for now all selfish fears were lost in deep compassion for the poor, forsaken wreck of beauty, that lay there at her mercy. She returned to her duty. She administered to her patient an opiate, to soothe her restlessness. Took a sponge and tepid water, and thoroughly cleansed the surface of the skin, and anointed face, bosom and arms with a fragrant emollient, to allay the intolerable itching. She then released her hands, and laid them easily upon the counterpane. Lastly, she ventilated and darkened the chamber, and took her seat by the bedside, to fan her patient while she slept. And deep was her satisfaction in watching that quiet, refreshing sleep. It is not my intention to lead my reader through the dismal days that followed in that sick room, until the “secondary fever,” the crisis of the disease, came and passed. Catherine nursed her patient tenderly, faithfully, night and day. Carolyn’s life was spared, but her peerless beauty was gone forever. Her luxuriant, fair hair was all lost, and her head was as bald and discolored as her face—and that!
In that darkened chamber, and in the midst of physical suffering and weakness, Carolyn had had no opportunity of ascertaining the extent of the ravages the disease had made in her beauty—if indeed she knew the nature of the former, or thought about the latter. But as she convalesced, and became able to sit up in bed and converse, she felt an invalid’s childish curiosity to look in the glass, and frequently requested her gentle nurse to hand her one. But Catherine, dreading the effect of the shock, steadily refused to comply with her wishes in that respect, and perseveringly kept the room darkened. And the sick girl, too weak to persist long in any controversy, yielded the point.
But one day, while Catherine was at her breakfast, and old Darkey supplying her place by the bedside of the patient, Carolyn said in a tone that admitted of no denial, or even delay—
“Darkey, hand me that hand-glass from my dressing-table.”
And the old woman impulsively, thoughtlessly obeyed her, and brought it. Carolyn was propped up in bed. She took the mirror, gave one interested look into it—plucked off her little cap—gave another hurried glance—and uttering a long, low cry of despair, sunk back insensible upon her pillow.
Old Darkey flew from the chair to the patient, and from the patient to the bell, in great trepidation—ringing peals that brought all the household hurrying in alarm to the room. Old Mr. Clifton, being nearest at hand, arrived first. And when he saw and understood what had happened, he seized the hand-glass, and threw it out of the window, and laid hold of the heavy toilet mirror, and sent it flying after. Then he drove old Darkey from the room, forbidding her, for a stupid and dangerous maniac, ever to show her face there again. And all this time, Catherine, who had entered so quietly that no one saw or heard her, was silently trying to restore the swooning girl. As Carolyn, with a deep sigh, opened her eyes, Kate motioned for every one to leave the chamber. And all noiselessly withdrew. Carolyn shivered and shuddered several times, as she raised her eyes appealingly, despairingly to Catherine, who was bending tenderly over her. Catherine thought it best to answer that silent appeal by speaking at once to the point.