Dr. Wainwright's Patient: A Novel

by Edmund Yates

Captain Alexis Derinzy made use of very strong language when he learned the exact amount of the legacy bequeathed to him by his father's will. He had been always given to understand, he said, that the governor was a hundred-thousand-pound man, and he thought it deuced hard that he shouldn't have had at least a third of what was left, specially considering that he was a married man with a family, whereas that money-grubbing old tradesman, his elder brother, had nobody but himself to look after. The statement of Captain Derinzy's marriage was so far correct. About two years previous to his father's death, the Captain being at the time, like another captain famed in song, "in country quarters," had made the acquaintance of a young lady, the daughter of a clever, ne'er-do-weel, pot-walloping artist, who, when sober, did odd bits of portrait-painting, and, among other jobs, had painted correct likenesses of Captain Derinzy's two chargers. Captain Derinzy's courtship of the artist's daughter, unlike that of his prototype in verse, was carried on with the strictest decorum, not, one is bound to say, from any fault of the Captain's, who wished and intended to assimilate it to scores of other such affairs which he had had under what he considered similar circumstances. But the truth was that he had never met anyone like Miss Gertrude Skrymshire before. A pretty woman, delicate-looking, and thoroughly feminine, she was far more of an old soldier than the Captain, with all his barrack training and his country-garrison experience. Years before, when she was a mere child of fourteen, she had made up her mind, after experience of her father's career and prospects, that Bohemianism, for a woman at least, was a most undesirable state, and she had determined that she would marry either for wealth or position; the latter preferable, she thought, as the former might be afterwards attainable by her own ready wit and cleverness; while if she married a bon bourgeois, she must be content to remain in Bloomsbury, Bedfordshire, or wherever she might be placed, and must abandon all hope of rising. When Captain Derinzy first came fluttering round her, she saw the means to her end, and determined to profit thereby. She was a very pretty young woman of her style, red and white, with black eyes and flattened black hair, altogether very like those Dutch dolls fashionable at that period, who were made of shiny composition down to their busts, but then diverged abruptly into calico and sawdust. She had a trim waist and a neat ankle, and what is called nowadays a very "fetching" style, and she made desperate havoc with Captain Derinzy's heart; so much so, that when she declined with scorn to listen to any of the eccentric--to say the least of them--propositions which he made to her, and forbade him her presence for daring to make them, he, after staying away one day, during which he was intensely wretched, and would have taken to drinking but that he had tried it before without effect, and would have drowned himself but that he did not want to die, came down and made an open declaration of his love to Gertrude, and a formal proposal for her hand to Skrymshire père.

Alick Derinzy had had Luck for his friend several times in his life; he had "pulled off" some good things in sweepstakes, and been fortunate in his speculations on "events;" but he never made such a coup as when he took Gertrude Skrymshire for his wife. She undertook the ménage at once, sold off his unnecessary horses, and paid off outstanding ticks; made him get an invitation for himself and her to Muswell Hill, and spent a week there, during which she ingratiated herself with the old gentleman, and specially with Paul; speedily took the reins of government into her hands, and drove her husband skilfully, without ever letting him feel the bit. When his father died, and Alick was for crying out at the smallness of his legacy, Gertrude stopped his mouth, pointing out that they had a sufficiency to live on, to which the sale of her husband's commission would add; that they could go and live in a small house in a good suburb of town, where they could make it very comfortable for Paul, who would doubtless see a good deal of them, and who, as he was never likely to marry, would most probably leave his enormous fortune to their Paul, their only son, who, of course without any definite views, had been named after his uncle.

It was a notable scheme, well-planned and well-executed, but it failed. Alick sold out, and they took a pleasant little house at Brompton, a suburb then not much known, and principally inhabited, as now, by actors and authors; and they furnished it charmingly, and Gertrude herself went down in her deep mourning into the City, and penetrated to Paul's sanctum in Gough Square, and insisted on his coming to stay a day or two with them, and gained his promise that he would come. On her return she said she had found Paul very much altered, but when her husband asked her in what manner, she could not explain herself. Alick himself explained it in his own peculiar barrack-room and billiard-table phraseology, after he had seen his brother, expressing his opinion that that worthy was "going off his head, by G--!"

No doubt Paul Derinzy was a changed man. It was not that he looked much older than his years--that he had always done; but his skin was discoloured, his eyes lustreless, his head bowed, his spirit gone. He said himself that twenty years' incessant labour without any holiday had told upon him, and that he was determined at last to take some rest. He should start immediately with Herr Schadow, one of their largest customers, for Berlin and St. Petersburg, and should probably be away for some months. Dockress, who had been brought up from boyhood in Gough Square, and who knew every trick and turn of the trade, would manage the business during his absence, and he should go away perfectly satisfied that things would go on just as smoothly as if he were there to overlook them.

Paul Derinzy carried out his intention. He went away to the Continent with Herr Schadow, and Mr. Dockress took charge of the business in Gough Square. He heard several times from his principal within the next few weeks, letters dated from various places, their contents always relating to business. Mrs. Alick had also several letters from her brother-in-law, but to her he wrote on different topics. He seemed to be in wonderful spirits, wrote long descriptions of the places he had visited, and humorous accounts of people he had met; said he felt himself quite a different man, that he had just begun to enjoy life, and looked upon all his earlier years as completely lost to him. He loathed the very name of business, he said, and hated the mere idea of coming back to England. He should certainly go as far as St. Petersburg, and prolong his stay abroad as long as he felt amused by it. He arrived in St. Petersburg. Dockress heard of him from there relative to consignment of some special skins which he had been lucky enough to get hold of, and which his old business instinct, not to be so easily shaken off as he imagined, prompted him to buy. Mrs. Alick also heard from him a fortnight later; he described the place as delightful, the society as charming, said he was "going out a good deal," and was thoroughly enjoying himself. Then nothing was heard of him for weeks by the family in the pretty little house at Brompton, and Mrs. Alick became full of wonderment as to his movements. Dockress could have given her some information. It is true that he had had no letters from his chief, but a nephew of Schadow's, who was a clerk in the Gough Square house, had had a hint dropped to him by his uncle that it was not improbable that the head of the house would, on his return, which would be soon, bring with him a wife, as he was supposed to be very much in love with a young French lady, a governess in a distinguished Russian family where he visited. Schadow junior communicated this intelligence to Dockress junior, who sat at the same desk with him, who communicated it to Dockress senior, who whistled, and, as soon as his son was out of hearing, muttered aloud that it was "a rum go."

"Rum" as it was, though, it was true. A short time afterwards Dockress received official intimation of the fact, and the same post brought the news to Mrs. Alick. Paul's note to his sister-in-law was very short. It simply said that she and Alexis would probably be surprised to hear that he was about to be married to Mdlle. Delille, a young French lady, whom he had met in society at St. Petersburg. They were to be married at once, and would shortly after set out for England, not, however, with the intention of remaining there. He infinitely preferred living abroad, so that he should merely return for the purpose of settling his business, and should then retire to the Continent for the rest of his life.

Alick Derinzy gave a great guffaw as his wife read out this epistle to him, and chaffed her in his ponderous way, referring to the counting of chickens before they were hatched, and the hallooing before you were out of the wood, and other apposite proverbs.

"That's rather a bust-up for your scheme, Gertrude," he said with a loud laugh, "old Paul going to marry; and he's just one of those fellows that have a large family late in life; and a neat chance for our Paul's coming in for any of the old boy's money. That game is u-p, Mrs. Derinzy."

But Mrs. Derinzy, though she looked serious at the news which the letter contained, and shook her head at her husband's speech, said there was no knowing what Time had in store for them, and they must wait and see.

They waited, and in due course they saw--Paul's wife, Mrs. Derinzy: a pretty, slight, fragile little woman, with large black eyes, olive complexion, and odd restless ways. Mrs. Alick set her down as "thoroughly French;" Alick spoke of her as a "rum little party;" but they neither of them saw much of her. Paul brought her to dine two or three times, and the women called upon each other, but the newly-married pair were so thoroughly occupied with theatre-goings, and opera-visitings and society-frequenting, that it was with the greatest difficulty they could be induced to find a free night during the month they stayed in town. London did not seem capable of producing enough pleasure or excitement for Paul Derinzy. He was like a boy in the ardour of his yearning for fresh amusement, he entered into everything with wild delight, and seemed as though he should never tire of taking his pretty little wife about, and what Alexis called "showing her off."