The Heir Presumptive and the Heir Apparent

by Mrs. Oliphant

Duke had gone away before this time—his leave had come to an end, and he had been allowed to come in and say good-bye to his cousin. “I thought you would have been up and about before I went,” said Duke, blustering a little to keep himself from crying. “You are a lazy beggar, to be lying there with nothing the matter. I don’t think there’s anything the matter with you. You just like to lie there and keep us all slaving attendance. You know you were always a lazy beggar.”

Mar did nothing but smile, as he had always done at Duke’s jokes which were not great jokes. He said, “Is your leave over?” with his faint voice. “But you could have a day or two again if I sent for you, Duke?”

“Oh, yes,” said Duke, “you must send for me the first time you are allowed to get out, to help you downstairs. I’ll come, never fear.” But after a little more of this tearful smiling talk, the young man beckoned softly to the nursing sister to come with him to the door. “What do you think he means about sending for me?” he said, with a face almost as pale as Mar’s.

The nurse looked at him and shook her head. She too had grown to like the patient boy. She put up her hand to her eyes to dash away the rising tears. “He must not see that I have been crying,” she said.

“Is that what he means? Do you think that’s what he means? And do you think so too?” cried Duke. “Oh, don’t say so, nurse, don’t say so; it would break my heart.”

“I won’t say so,” she replied. “I think with such a young thing as that there is always hope.”

“And you know a lot,” said Duke, “as much as the doctor. God bless you for saying so! But you think that is what he means? And he lies there—and smiles—and thinks—of that,” said the young man, with his face full of awe. He set out in all the vigor of his young life in the brightness of the summer day to his light work and boundless amusement with all the world before him—and Mar lying there, smiling, thinking of that. Duke felt as if his own lightly beating heart stood still in the poignancy of the contrast. Oh, why could not he give some of his life to help out that flickering existence? He went away feeling that there was a pall over the sunshine, and that nothing would ever be truly bright again. But to be sure that was a mood that could not last.

Mrs. Parke had given orders at first that the girls were not to go near the sick room, but she had not thought then how long it would go on, an endless dreadful ordeal. And when they stole in, now Letty, now Tiny, their mother either did not find it out or made no remark. Letitia during all this time of suspense was of a very strange aspect—her husband and her children did not know what to make of her. She talked very little to them; did not interfere with their pursuits as she usually did. She seemed to care for nothing. Naturally there were no guests or entertainments of any kind, and her interest in her household affairs, which was usually so minute and unending, seemed to have faded altogether. She wrote no letters, made no calls, her social life seemed to come to an end. She did not even go to church, which was a habit she had always kept up rigorously. Three or four times a day she went to the sick room for news of the patient, and it was there alone that she seemed to wake up completely. She put the nurses through a catechism of questions. She attended upon the doctor when he came, and listened to everything he said and that was said to him with a hungry curiosity. Her countenance did not vary or betray it. It was known that she was “over-anxious,” that she had always taken a despairing view. When he was pronounced to be a little better there was a little quiver of her head, like an unspoken contradiction; and when he was a little worse a sort of assenting gleam came into her eyes. The nurses did not like her, and answered her questions as briefly as possible. Her determination that everything must go badly irritated the women, who had a natural confidence in themselves and in what their nursing could do, and they both believed that she was more satisfied when the news was bad than when it was good. “She’s not like his mother,” they said between themselves, “and she’s fixed in her mind from the first that this is how it’s to be—as some people would rather see their mother die than be proved wrong in their opinion.” They thought no worse of her than this. As a matter of fact Letitia was very unhappy during this long suspense. She had never anticipated anything of the kind. What she had expected was an illness which would last perhaps a week, and this long lingering malady confounded and exasperated her. She was angry with poor Mar for being so long about deciding what to do, and with the doctor who would not say anything definite, and the nurses whose opinions wavered from hour to hour. “How is a person to tell when you are never in the same mind from one hour to another?” she said with the resentment of highly excited nerves. She was strung to the very highest pitch, thinking of nothing else, longing for a crisis, that she might know what she had to look for. She was never at rest for a moment whatever she was doing, but kept always listening, always intent. Every step that approached she thought was some one come to call her, to tell her there was a change. She dropped her work upon her knee, or let her pen fall, to listen for every sound that arose. On the critical day of each week when a crisis might be expected she was so restless that she could not keep still. “My wife is so anxious,” John said, trying to persuade himself that her anxiety was the natural anxiety, the desire that the patient should get well. That anxiety is terrible enough as most know; but the other anxiety, the horrible watch which is for the patient getting worse, the longing for “a change” in the worst sense—a change that meant death, how horrible is that, beyond all description! When she talked at all she talked of his symptoms and of what the night nurse said, and what the other said. The nurses took different sides as was natural. One of them was pessimist, the other took the doctor’s view. It was the night nurse that was the gloomy one—and with her Mrs. Parke was in the habit of having a long consultation very early when she was relieved in the morning—a consultation from which she derived a little satisfaction, and which calmed her nervous excitement. But the day nurse with the cheerful look, who always insisted that the patient was a little better, or looked a little brighter, or had a little more strength, or at all events was “no worse,” brought back the nervous excitement which was like a fire in her veins.

The fifth week had begun, and the fight of life and death on the boy’s wasted frame was becoming every hour more intense. Would his strength hold out? “He has no strength,” said the night nurse. “I feel every hour as if from minute to minute the collapse must come.” “I don’t say he isn’t very weak,” said the more cheerful sister, “but you never can tell with a delicate boy like that how strong the constitution may be. Sometimes it’s like iron and steel, and yet no appearance.” The doctor stood and looked at the worn young countenance upon the pillow. Mar had scarcely strength to open his eyes, to respond to the doctor’s inquiries and acknowledge the stir of his morning visit. There was a faint smile upon his face, and sometimes a wistful look round upon the group about his bed, moving slowly from one to another. His mind had never been affected. Sometimes he lay as if in a dream, but when recalled was “always himself” the nurse said, “and that is surely a good sign.” Dr. Barker did not deny that it was a good sign, but he looked graver than ever. Letitia devoured him with eager eyes when they stood face to face outside the sick room.

“What do you think, doctor?” she said.