Dr. Wainwright's Patient: A Novel

by Edmund Yates

From his father's chambers in the Albany, George Wainwright went direct to the Derinzys' house. Mrs. Derinzy was at home, as was Miss Annette; but Mr. Wainwright could not on this occasion have the pleasure of seeing the Captain. So far, everything was propitious to that gentleman's wishes; and he entered the small back drawing-room, which no one but a house-agent or an upholsterer would have called a boudoir, where. Annette was usually to be found, lounging near a flower-crowded balcony, with the feeling of joy at seeing her again decidedly predominant. He was philosophic, but he was something more than a philosopher; and this afflicted girl had become inexpressibly dear to him, had inspired him with a love in which selfishness had a strangely small share.

Annette was in her usual place, and she rose to meet George with an expression of simple unaffected pleasure. Mrs. Derinzy, who was also in the room, greeted him with cold politeness. She was not so foolish as to persist in believing she could have carried her design to a successful issue in any case; but she vas quite sufficiently unjust to resent George's influence over Annette, though she knew it had never been employed against her, and though she felt a malicious satisfaction in contemplating the hopelessness of the affair.

"If anyone would marry an insane woman, knowing all about her, it certainly would not be a mad doctor's son," thought Mrs. Derinzy, and was pleased to feel that other people's plans had to "gang a-gley" as completely as her own.

George took Mrs. Derinzy's manner very calmly and contentedly. He did not care about Mrs. Derinzy or her manner. He was thinking of Annette, and reading the indications of health, or the opposite, in her pleased agitated face.

"Where have you been, and why have you stayed away so long?" was the first address to George; and she could hardly have selected one more embarrassing. But he got out of the difficulty by the plea which is satisfactory to every woman except one's wife--possibly because she alone can estimate its real value--the plea that "business" had taken him on a flying tour to Germany. He entertained her with an account of his travels, and had at least the satisfaction of seeing her brighten up into more than her customary intelligence, and assume an expression of happiness which had been singularly wanting in her sweet young face when he had first seen it, and which he believed he was the only person who had ever summoned up. It was not difficult for George, sitting near the handsome girl, so bright and so gentle for him alone, in the pleasant hush of the refined-looking room, to persuade himself that such a state of things would satisfy him, and be the very best possible for her. It was not difficult for him to forget that the Derinzys were not habitual inhabitants of London; and that if his relations with Annette were destined to assume no more definite form, he could have no valid excuse for presenting himself at Beachborough without the invitation which Mrs. Derinzy's demeanour afforded him no hope of obtaining.

But George's delusive content was not destined to be lasting. At a break in the conversation, which, with the slightest possible assistance from Mrs. Derinzy, he was carrying on with Annette, he asked the elder lady for news of Paul, adding that he had not written to his friend during his absence, and had not yet had time to apprise him of his return.

"We have seen hardly anything of Paul of late," said Mrs. Derinzy in a tone of strong displeasure. "My residence in London has not procured me much of the society of my son; and since you left town, I cannot say we know anything about him."

"This looks badly," thought George. "With all his determination to resist his mother, Paul would not neglect her if things were not going ill with him. I must see to him."

That visit was memorable, and in more ways than one. It was the last which George Wainwright made to Mrs. Derinzy in the character of a mere friendly acquaintance, and it confirmed him in his belief, as full of fear as of hope, that Annette loved him.

His absence had not been of long duration, but it sent him back with renewed zest to his painting, his books, and his music, and there was a strong need within him of a little rest and seclusion. He felt he must "think it out;" not in foreign scenes or amid distractions, but thus, amid his actual present surroundings, in the very place where he should have to "live it down." So it came to pass that he did not forthwith go in search of Paul, but contented himself with writing him a note and bidding him come to him--a summons which, to George's surprise, his friend neither responded to nor obeyed. His leave had not expired, and a few days of the solitude his soul loved were within his reach.