An Act in a Backwater

by E. F. Benson

This cutting irony on the part of Phœbe closed the discussion for the time being; but Clara bore the thing in mind, and eventually decided on a silver bootjack and an ode of congratulation in the Wroxton Chronicle. Phœbe had not negatived this proposition when she had advanced it before, but of late she had been very sharp with her sister, and for weeks past she had not looked well; habitually she had a high colour, but of late she had become sallow and gray in skin. More than once Clara had asked whether she would not see a doctor, but Phœbe had always met the suggestion with a disdainful refusal. She had played hardly at all on her mandolin lately, and when the household work was over she would sit in a chair in her corner, with her hands on her lap, doing nothing. If Clara came in when she was sitting like this, she would jump up and pretend to occupy herself with something, for she did not wish her sister to see her tears. But when alone she would seldom do anything, and day by day a curious gnawing pain below her right collar-bone grew worse and worse. The pain, whatever it was, was not continuous. If she slept well at night it was usually bad the next day, or had been bad the day before; but if her night had been disturbed by it, in these early days, she usually passed a comfortable day. A little lump had appeared there below the skin, and Phœbe, before her bed-room glass, looked at it with some anxiety, and called it a rheumatic swelling. As such she rubbed it with embrocation, which did not seem to make it any better.

Both Clara and Phœbe were accustomed, even when alone, to dress for dinner. In the winter, when the evenings were cold, this usually only meant the donning of Sunday clothes; but when the milder days of spring succeeded, they faced each other in low dresses. By the beginning of April Clara had already worn her low dress more than once, but Phœbe never. It was still chilly, she said, and if Clara did not take care she would catch cold.

Phœbe had a horror of doctors. To call in a doctor implied that you thought that you were ill. Turkey rhubarb, quinine, and embrocation, according to her, were a trinity of greater potency than the whole college of surgeons, and she was not naturally nervous. She even doubted whether the epidemic of typhoid which had visited Wroxton in the autumn might not have been made too much of, and a plentiful exhibition of the staple drugs, she thought, should have been tried first. For this swelling underneath her collar-bone she tried all these in succession, but smarting, deafness, and general upset seemed only to have added to her discomfort. The pain, which at first had been only a dull ache, grew intenser. At times it stabbed and pierced her, and now, after a day of pain, a sleepless, tossing night succeeded.

She was still firmly determined not to see a doctor; but when one afternoon, Clara being out, she had met Jeannie in the street, and had been persuaded to go to Bolton Street to have tea with her, Jeannie saying it would be a kindness, since she was alone, she confessed, in answer to a question of hers, that she was not well.

“I have pain,” she said, “oh, such pain! And it is all I can do to prevent Clara seeing it. I cannot sleep for it. Oh, Miss Avesham, do tell me that it is nothing.”

Jeannie had felt anxious when she saw her that day, but she tried to be consoling.

“Very likely it is nothing,” she said. “But one cannot tell. Do see a doctor at once. The thing worries you and makes you ill. If there is anything wrong, it ought to be attended to; but if you are assured it is nothing, that will be a relief, will it not?”

“But Clara will know,” objected Phœbe. “If it is anything wrong she would fret so.”

“Oh, you are absurd,” said Jeannie, frankly. “Supposing nothing is wrong, you need never tell her. But supposing you ought to see a doctor, how she would blame herself for not having insisted. Where is the pain?”

Miss Phœbe, with much diffidence, alluded distantly to her collar-bone.