Volume One—Chapter Fifteen.
A Wife’s Appeal.
Two months of the life of John Scales passed away, during which he had three opportunities of gaining good additions to his practice, but in each case he set himself so thoroughly in apposition to the medical men with whom he was to be associated, that they one and all combined against him; and the heterodox professor of strange ideas of his own had the satisfaction of learning that his services would be dispensed with.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said to himself. “I’m a deal happier as I am. Strange I haven’t heard from James Scarlett, by the way. I’ll give him a look in at his chambers. That Rosery is a paradise of a place! I wonder how the Diana is that I met—Lady Martlett. If I were an artist, I should go mad to paint her. As I’m a doctor,” he added reflectively, “I should like her as a patient.”
“I shall be ready to believe in being influenced, if this sort of thing goes on,” said the doctor, a couple of hours later, as he read a letter from Lady Scarlett, giving him a long and painful account of his friend’s state of health.
“Had four different doctors down,” read Scales. “Hum—ha, of course—would have asked me to come too, but they refused to meet me. Ha! I’m getting a nice character, somehow. Say they can do no more. Humph! Wonder at that. Growing moral, I suppose. Might have made a twelvemonth’s job of it. Humph! Cousin, Mr Arthur Prayle, been so kind. Given up everything to attend to dear James’s affairs. I shouldn’t like him to have anything to do with mine. Will I come down at once? James wishes it. Well, I suppose I must, poor old chap. They’ve been dosing him to death. Poor old boy! the shock of that drowning could hardly have kept up till now.” The upshot of it was that the doctor ran down that afternoon.
Next morning, on entering the study, he found Lady Scarlett and Prayle seated at the table, the latter leaning towards his cousin’s wife, and apparently pointing to something, in a small clasped book, with the very sharply pointed pencil that he held in his hand.
Prayle started, and shifted his position quickly. Lady Scarlett did not move, beyond looking up at the doctor anxiously, as his stern face was turned towards her.
“I beg your pardon,” he said; “I did not know that you were engaged.”
“Mr Prayle was explaining some business matters to me,” said Lady Scarlett. “Don’t go away. You said you should like to talk to me this morning.”
“Yes,” replied the doctor coldly; “but the business will keep.”
“Oh no; I beg you will not go,” said Lady Scarlett anxiously.
“Perhaps I shall be de trop,” said Prayle smoothly, and his voice and looks forbade the idea that they were in the slightest degree malicious.
“Well, as my remarks are for Lady Scarlett alone, Mr Prayle, perhaps you would kindly give me half an hour.”
“Certainly,” cried Prayle, with a great assumption of frankness.—“Lady Scarlett will tell me, perhaps, when she would like to go on with these accounts?”
“Oh, at any time, Arthur,” said Lady Scarlett anxiously. “Pray, do not think I am slighting them: but this seems of so much more importance now.”
“When and where you please,” said Prayle softly. “Don’t study me. I have only my cousin’s interest at heart.” He rose, smiling, and left the room; but the smile passed off Prayle’s countenance as the door closed; and he went out angry-looking and biting his lip, to walk up and down the garden, turning from time to time to the book he held in his hand.
The doctor was very quiet and grave, as he took the chair pointed to by Lady Scarlett; and as he gazed at her rather fixedly, his face seemed to harden.
“I am very glad you have come,” she said. “James seems to be more restful and confident now you are here. He always thought so much of you.”
“We were such old companions: perhaps that is it.”
“Well, you have seen him again this morning. You said I was to give you time. Now, tell me what you think. You find him better?”
“I must be frank with you, Lady Scarlett,” said the doctor. “No; I do not.”
“And I was so hopeful!” said the poor woman piteously.
“It would be folly for me not to speak plainly—I think cruelty. I find him worse.”
Lady Scarlett let her head go down upon her hands, covering her face, and the doctor thought that she was weeping; but at the end of a minute she raised her head again, and looked at her visitor, dry-eyed and pale. “Go on,” she said in a voice full of suppressed pain.
“I cannot, help telling you plainly what I think.”
“No; of course not. Pray, hide nothing from me.”
“Well, it seems to me,” he continued, “that in bringing him back as it were to life, I left part of my work undone.”
“O no!” cried Lady Scarlett.
“Yes: I brought back his body to life and activity, but I seem to have left behind much of his brain. That seems half dead. He is no longer the man he was.”
“No,” sighed Lady Scarlett. “What you say is true; but surely,” she cried, “you can cure him now.”
The doctor remained silent and thoughtful for a few minutes. “I think when I was down here—at the time of the accident—I told you at the table about a patient I was attending—a gentleman suffering from a peculiar nervous ailment.”
“O yes, yes!” cried Lady Scarlett. “I remember. It seems to be burned into my brain, and I’ve lain awake night after night, thinking it was almost prophetic.”
“I’ve thought so too,” said the doctor drily, “though I never fancied that I was going to join the prophets.”
“But you cured your patient?” cried Lady Scarlett anxiously.
“No; I am sorry to say that my efforts, have been vain. It is one of my failures; and I think it would be a pity for me to take up poor Scarlett’s case.”
“But he wishes it—I wish it.”
“You have quite ceased going to Sir Morton Laurent?”
“O yes. He did my husband no good; and the excitement of going up to town—the train—the carriage—and the cab—and then seeing the doctor, always upset him dreadfully. I am sure the visits did him a great deal of harm.”
“Perhaps so, in his nervous state. Maybe, under the circumstances, you were wise to give them up.”
“I am sure I was,” responded Lady Scarlett.
“And the local doctors?”
“He will not see them; he says they aggravate him with their stupid questions. And yet he must have medical advice.”
“How would it be if you took him abroad—say to some one or other of the baths? There you would get change of air, scene, the tonic waters for him to drink, and medical attendance on the spot.”
“No, no; no, no; it is impossible! You shall judge for yourself,” cried Lady Scarlett. “He would never bear the change. You will find that he is only satisfied when he is here at home—safe, he calls it, within the garden fence. He will not stir outside, and trembles even here at the slightest sound.”
“But surely we could hit upon some clever medical man who would be able to manage his case with skill, and in whom my poor friend would feel confidence.”
“Whom could I find? How could I find one?” exclaimed Lady Scarlett. “There is no one but you to whom I can appeal.”
“Is this truth, or acting?” thought Scales. “Why does she want me here?”
“I have thought it all out so carefully,” continued Lady Scarlett. “You see he is alarmed at the very idea of a doctor coming near him.”
“And yet you bring me here.”
“Yes; you are his old schoolfellow, and he will welcome you as a friend. The fact of your being a doctor will not trouble him.”
“I see,” said Scales.
“Then, while being constantly in his company, you can watch every change.”
“Nice treacherous plan, eh, Lady Scarlett!” said the doctor, laughing.
“Don’t call it that,” she said pitifully. “It is for his good.”
“Yes, yes; of course—of course. It’s only giving him his powder in jam after all. But, tell me, if I agree to take his case in hand—”
“Which you will?” interrupted Lady Scarlett.
“I don’t know yet,” he replied drily. “But supposing I do: how often would you want me to come down here?”
“How often?” echoed the lady, with her eyes dilating. “I meant for you to come and live here until he is well.”
“Phee-ew!” whistled the doctor, and he sat back in his chair thinking and biting his nails. “What does she mean?” he thought. “Am I too hard upon her? Is my dislike prejudice, or am I justified in thinking her a woman as deceitful as she is bad? If I am right, I am wanted down here to help some one or other of her plans. I won’t stop. I’m sorry for poor Scarlett, and I might do him good, but—”
“You have considered the matter, and you will stay, doctor, will you not?” said Lady Scarlett sweetly.
“No, madam; I do not think it would be fair to any of the parties concerned.”
“Doctor!” she cried appealingly, “oh, pray, don’t say that. Forgive me if I speak plainly. Is it a question of money? If it is, pray, speak. I’d give up half of what we have for my husband to be restored.”
“No, madam,” said the doctor bluntly; “it is not a question of money. Several things combine to make me decline this offer; principally, I find a want of confidence in undertaking so grave a responsibility.”
“Doctor!” cried Lady Scarlett, rising and standing before him, with one hand resting upon the table, “you are trying to deceive me.”
“Indeed, madam—”
“You never liked me, doctor, from the hour I was engaged; you have never liked me since.”
“My dear Lady Scarlett!—”
“Listen to me, doctor. A woman is never deceived upon such points as this; she as readily notes the fact when a man dislikes as when he admires her. It is one of the gifts of her sex.”
“I was not aware of it,” said the doctor coldly, “but I will take it that it is so.”
“I have never injured you, doctor.”
“Never, madam.”
“I have, for my dear husband’s sake, always longed to be your friend; but—be frank with me, doctor, as I am with you—you never gave me a place in your esteem.”
The doctor was silent.
“I don’t know why,” continued Lady Scarlett, with tears in her eyes, “for I have always tried to win you to my side; but you have repelled me. You have been friendly and spoken kindly; but there was always a something behind. Doctor, why is all this—No; stop! Don’t speak to me—don’t say a word. What are my poor troubles, or your likes and dislikes, in the face of this terrible calamity? You dislike me, Doctor Scales. I do not dislike you; for I believe you to be an honourable man. Let us sink all our differences. No, I beg—I pray of you to stop here—to give up everything else to the study of my poor husband’s case. My only hope is in you.”
As she made this appeal with an intensity of earnestness that was almost dramatic in its tone and action, the doctor imitated her movement and rose to his feet.
“Lady Scarlett,” he said coldly, “you are excited now, and you have said several things that perhaps would have been as well left unsaid. I will not reply to them; for I agree with you that the question of Sir James Scarlett’s health and restoration is one that should sweep away all petty differences. I trust that I have always treated my poor friend’s wife with the greatest respect and deference, and that I always shall.”
“Yes, yes,” replied Lady Scarlett sadly; “deference and respect;” and as she gazed at him, there was a pained and wistful look in her suffused eyes that seemed to make him hesitate for the moment; but as she added, rather bitterly—“that is all,” the way to his heart, that was beginning to open a little, reclosed, and he said sternly:
“No; I feel certain that it would be far better that I should not monopolise the treatment of my friend’s case, and that—”
“Hush!” exclaimed Lady Scarlett quickly, for the door opened, and the object of their conversation, looking thin, pale, and with a scared and anxious expression on his countenance, came quickly into the room.
“Ah, Jack, here you are, then!” he exclaimed. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Here, come and sit and talk to me.”
“All right,” said the doctor, in his blunt way. “What do you say to having out the ponies and giving me a drive?”
“Drive?—a drive?” repeated Scarlett uneasily. “No, no. It is not fine enough.”
“Lovely, my dear fellow, as soon as you get outside.”
“No; not to-day, Jack. Don’t ask me,” said Scarlett excitedly, as his wife sat down and took up a piece of work. “The ponies are too fresh. They’ve done nothing lately, and one of them has developed a frightfully vicious temper. I shall have to sell them.”
“Let’s go on the water, then; a row would do you good.”
Lady Scarlett darted an imploring look at the doctor; but if intended to stay his speech it came too late.
“Row? No!” said Scarlett with a shudder. “I never go on the water now. My left wrist is so weak, I am afraid I have somehow sprained one of the tendons. Don’t ask me to row.”
Lady Scarlett darted a second imploring look at the doctor, and he read it, as it seemed to him, to say: “Pray, don’t allude to the water;” but it was part of his endeavour to probe his friend’s mental wound to the quick, and he went on: “Laziness, you sybaritish old humbug! Very well, then; I’ll give up the rowing, and we’ll have the punt, and go and fish.”
“Impossible; the water is too thick, and I don’t think there are any baits ready.”
“How tiresome!” said the doctor. “I had made up my mind for a try at the barbel before I went back.”
“Before you went back?” cried Scarlett excitedly; and he caught his friend by the arm—“before you went back! What do you mean?”
“Mean, old fellow? Why, before I went back to London.”
“Why, you’re not thinking of going back—of leaving me here alone—of leaving me—me—er—” He trailed off, leaving his sentence unfinished, and stood looking appealingly at his friend.
“Why, my dear boy, what nonsense you are talking,” replied Scales. “Leave you—alone? Why, man, you’ve your aunt and your relatives. There’s your cousin out there now.”
“Yes, yes—of course—I know. But don’t go, Jack. I’m—I’m ill. I—I want you to set.—to set me right. Don’t—don’t go and leave me, Jack.”
“Now, there’s a wicked old impostor for you, Lady Scarlett!” cried the doctor, going close up to his friend, catching him by both shoulders, giving him a bit of a shake, and then patting him on the chest and back. “Not so stout as he was, but sound as a roach. Lungs without a weak spot. Heart pumping like a steam-engine—eyes clear—skin as fresh as a daisy—and tongue as clean. Get out, you sham Abram! pretending a pain to get me to stay!”
“Yes, of course I’m quite well—quite well, Jack; but a trifle—just a trifle low. I thought you’d stop with me, and take—take care of me a bit and put me right. I’m—I’m so lonely down here now.”
Lady Scarlett did not speak; but there was a quiver of the lip, and a look in her eyes as she turned them upon the doctor, that disarmed him.
“She does care for him,” he said to himself. “She must care for him.”
“I tell you what it is,” he said aloud; “you’ve been overdoing it in those confounded greenhouses of yours. Too much hot air, moist carbonic acid gas, and that sort of thing.—Lady Scarlett, he has been thinking a deal more of his melons than of his health.”
“Yes; he does devote a very, very great deal of attention to them,” assented Lady Scarlett eagerly.
“To be sure, and it is not good for him.—You must go up to town more and attend to business.”
“Yes, of course; I mean to—soon,” said Scarlett, with his eyes wandering from one to the other.
“Here, you must beg off with Lady Scarlett, and come up with me.”
“With you? What! to town?”
“To be sure; and we’ll have a regular round of dissipation: Monday pops; the opera; and Saturday concerts at the Crystal Palace. What do you say?”
“No!” said Scarlett, in a sharp, harsh, peremptory way. “I am not going to town again—at present.”
“Nonsense, man I—Tell him he may come, Lady Scarlett.”
“Oh yes, yes; I should be glad for him to go!” cried Lady Scarlett eagerly; and then she shrank and coloured as she saw the doctor’s searching look.
“There, you hear.”
“Yes, I hear; but I cannot go. The glass-houses could not be left now.”
“What, not to our old friend Monnick?”
“No; certainly not; no,” cried Scarlett hastily. “Come out now—in the garden, Jack. I’ll show you.—Are you very busy in town—much practice?”
“Practice?” cried Scales, laughing, and thoroughly off his guard as to himself. “Not a bit, my dear boy. I’m a regular outcast from professional circles. No practice for me.”
“Then there is nothing to take you back,” cried Scarlett quickly, “and you must stay.—Kate, do you hear? I say he must stay!”
There was an intense irritation in his manner as he said these words, and his wife looked up in a frightened way.
“Yes, yes, dear. Of course Doctor Scales will stay.”
“Then why don’t you ask him?” he continued in the same irritable manner. “A man won’t stop if the mistress of the house slights him.”
“But, my dear James,” cried Lady Scarlett, with the tears in her eyes, “I have not slighted Doctor Scales. On the contrary, I was begging that he would stay when you came in.”
“Why?—why?” exclaimed Scarlett, with increasing excitement. “You must have had some reason. Do you hear? Why did you ask him to stay?”
“Because I knew you wished it,” said Lady Scarlett meekly; “and I thought it would do you good to have him with you for a time, dear.”
“Do me good! Such sickly nonsense! Just as if I were ill. You put me out of patience, Kate; you do indeed. How can you be so childish!—Come into the garden, Jack. I’ll be back directly I’ve got my cigar-case.”
“Shall I fetch it, dear?” asked Lady Scarlett eagerly.
“No; of course not. Any one would think I was an invalid;” and he left the room.
“Lady Scarlett,” said the doctor, as soon as they were alone, “I will stay.”
“God bless you!” she cried, with a burst of sobbing; and she hurried away.