Dr. Wainwright's Patient: A Novel

by Edmund Yates

During that month the great house of Derinzy and Sons ceased to exist, and in the next issue of the great red book, the Post-Office Directory, the name which had been so respected and so highly thought of was not to be found. Certainly Paul Derinzy retained a share in its fortunes, but he sold the largest part of the business to Dockress and Schadow, whose friends came forth nobly to help them in the purchase, and it was under their joint names that the house was in future conducted.

Then Paul and his wife went away, and were only occasionally heard of. It had been their intention to travel about, and they were apparently carrying it out, for Paul's letters to Mrs. Alick, with whom he still corresponded, were dated from various places, and he could only give her vague addresses where to reply. They were passing the winter at Florence, when he wrote to his sister-in-law that a little daughter had been born to them, but that his wife had been in great peril, for some time her life had been despaired of, and even then, at the time of writing, she was seriously ill. Alick Derinzy guffawed again at this news, remarking that their Paul's nose was out of joint now, and no mistake. Their Paul, then a stalwart boy of four years old, who was playing about the room at the time, exclaimed, "No, my nose all right!" at the same time grasping that organ with his chubby hand; and Mrs. Derinzy checked her husband's unseemly mirth, and remarked that since his brother had married, it was more to their interest that his child should be a girl than a boy. There was an interval of six months before another letter arrived to say that Mrs. Paul remained very ill, that her constitution had received a shock which it was doubtful whether it would ever recover, but that the little girl was thriving well. Paul added that he was in treaty for a place on the Lake of Geneva of which he had heard, and that if it suited him the family would most probably settle down there. After another six months Mrs. Alick heard from her brother-in-law that they had settled on the Swiss lake, with a repetition of the statement that his wife was helplessly ill, and the little girl thriving apace. During the four succeeding years very nearly the same news reached the Alick Derinzys at the same intervals--Paul was still located in the Swiss chateau, his wife remained in the same state of illness, and his little girl still throve.

"No chance for our Paul," said Alexis Derinzy disconsolately.

"Our Paul" was growing into a fine boy, and his father gave himself much mental exercitation as to whether he could "stand the racket" of educating him at Eton or Harrow.

One evening a cab drove up to the door, and a gentleman alighted and asked for Mrs. Derinzy. Alick was, according to his usual practice, at the club, enjoying that pleasant hour's gossip so dear to married gentlemen who are kept rather tightly in hand at home, and which they relinquish with such looks of envy at the happy bachelors or more courageous Benedicks whom they leave behind. But Mrs. Alick was in her very pretty little boudoir, into which she desired the stranger might be shown.

He came in; a man who had probably been tall, but was now bent double, walking with a stick, and then making but slow progress; a man with snow-white hair and long beard of the same hue, wrapped from head to foot in a huge fur coat of foreign make. Mrs. Derinzy saw that he was a gentleman, but did not recognise him. It was not until he advanced to her and mentioned his name that she knew him for her brother-in-law, Paul. She received him very warmly, and he seemed touched and gratified, so far as lay in him. Where were his wife and his little daughter? she asked. They were--over there, in Switzerland, he said with an effort. He was alone, then, in London? He must come and stay with them. No; he had been in London three or four days. He came over on some special business, and he was about to return to the Continent the next day, but he did not like to go without having seen her. He fidgeted about while he stopped, and seemed nervously anxious to be off; but Mrs. Alick, with a woman's tact, began to ask him questions about his child, and he quieted down, and spoke of her with rapture. She was the joy of his soul, he said, the one bright ray in his life, of which, indeed, he spoke in very melancholy terms. Alick came home from his club in due course, and was as surprised as his wife had been at the alteration in Paul's appearance, and took so little pains to disguise his impressions, that Paul himself made allusion to his white hair and his bowed back, and said he had had trouble enough to have broken a much younger and stronger man. He did not say what the trouble was, and they did not like to ask him. Alick had thought it was pecuniary worry; that his brother had "dropped his money," as he phrased it. Mrs. Alick saw no reason to ascribe it to any such source. But she noticed that her brother-in-law said very little about his wife, and she felt certain that the marriage which had promised so brilliantly had turned out a disappointment, and that the shadow which darkened his life was of home creation.

Paul Derinzy bade adieu to his brother and his sister-in-law that night, and they never saw him again. About a month afterwards he wrote from Switzerland that his wife was dead, that he should give up the château on the lake, and travel for a time, taking the child with him. Ten years passed away, during which news of the travellers came but rarely to the residents in Brompton, who, indeed, thought but little of them. The ex-captain of dragoons had settled down into a quiet, whist-playing, military-club-frequenting fogey; Mrs. Derinzy managed him with as much tact as usual, and with rather a slacker rein; and young Paul, now eighteen years old, was just appointed to the Stannaries Office, when an event occurred which entirely changed the aspect of affairs. This was the elder Paul Derinzy's death, which was communicated to his brother by a telegram from Pau, where it happened. By this telegram Alick was bidden to come to Pau instantly, to take charge of Miss Derinzy, and to be present at the reading of the will. Alick went to Pau, and his wife went with him. They found Annette Derinzy--a tall girl of fourteen, "a little too foreign, and good deal too forward," Mrs. Derinzy pronounced her--prostrated with grief at her recent loss. And they were present at the reading of the will, under which they found themselves constituted guardians of the said Annette Derinzy, who inherited all her father's property, with the exception of a thousand a-year, which was to be paid to them for their trouble during their lives, and five thousand pounds legacy to their son Paul at his father's death. Their authority over Annette was to cease when she came of age at twenty-one, but up to that time they had the power of veto on any marriage engagement she might contract, and any defiance on her part was to be punished by the loss of her fortune, which was to be divided amongst certain charities duly set forth in the will.

"Only five thou. for our poor boy, and that not till we're dead! and Paul must have left over eighty thousand!" said Captain Derinzy to his wife, when they were in their own room at the hotel after the will had been read.

"Our Paul shall have the eighty thousand," said Mrs. Derinzy in reply.

"The devil he shall!" said the Captain. "Who will give it him?"