The Deceased Wife's Sister, and My Beautiful Neighbour, v. 3Russell, William Clark
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The Deceased Wife's Sister, and My Beautiful Neighbour, v. 3
Russell, William Clark
English fiction -- 19th century
I closed the window and accompanied her to our bedroom. She moaned like
one under the influence of a narcotic. Her face was almost deformed by
the harshness of its expression. Her fingers worked incessantly, like
those of an infant in a sick slumber.
"Were you walking in your sleep Geraldine?" I asked.
She answered with extraordinary quickness, "Yes, I have been walking in
my sleep."
"I heard a cry; did you utter it?"
She laughed quietly, but without the least change of expression.
"Who else?--who else?" she replied.
"But did you hurt yourself, that you cried out?"
A shrewd light shone in her eyes as she answered:
"I stumbled; the fall awoke me, and in my fear I cried out."
She began to play with her hair, suddenly desisted, and asked
querulously,
"What makes this room red?"
"It is not red, dearest."
"I say it is!" she exclaimed, irritably. "The flame of the candle is
red--the walls are red--your face is red!"
"Your nerves are excited. The shock of awakening has been too great.
Lie down, dearest; you will rise refreshed in the morning."
She seated herself on the edge of the bed, looking at her fingers and
turning them about. Presently she began to cry, but very quietly. I
went to her and kissed her, clasping her in my arms for she trembled
as though she were cold. And indeed she was; her hands and cheeks
were like ice; but her forehead burned. After a little I succeeded in
coaxing her into bed, where she lay sighing as though her heart would
break. I watched by her for half an hour, when the regular respiration
told me she was asleep.
When she rose next morning she looked very very ill. I was greatly
distressed by her appearance and entreated her to remain in bed. But
she declared she must get up; what could she do in bed? She had some
work in the garden, and must go to it. I could not help taking notice
of her constrained manner, as though she addressed me under compulsion.
She appeared to have difficulty in articulating her words; and her
eyes, which the sickness of her body seemed to make more brilliant,
were restless, startled, and impatient. Before leaving the room she
said:
"I do not like your friend, Arthur; when will he go?"
"He is going to-day, love."
"Why did he come?"
Bound to be consistent, I repeated my story of his being a friend whom
I had asked to spend a week at Elmore Court, but who now found he
would have to return to London that day.
"What time will he leave?"
"In the early part of the afternoon, I think."
"I do not mean to see him. I'll go into the garden and hide myself. Do
you know, when he looks at me his eyes give me a pain in the head?"
"I am sure he does not wish to pain you."
"But he does, or he would not look at me like that. And he asks me
questions which trouble me to reply to. I won't meet him."
"Very well," I answered, recollecting Dr. F----'s advice that she
should be humoured.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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