Doctor Cupid: A Novel

by Rhoda Broughton

Though she has begun so early, Prue is writing nearly all day; writing sitting up in bed—writing when the eastern sun is pouring in his rays from the gates of day—writing when he has climbed the zenith—writing when he is reddening westwards. She has asked to be left alone, so as to be quite undisturbed; and when, at intervals, unable longer to keep away, Peggy returns from her sad and aimless rambles about the dahliad garden, and, pushing the door, looks softly in, the same sight always greets her eyes. Prue, with a fire-spot on each cheek, writing—writing. And yet when the postman comes to take the letters, it is only one small letter that he carries away. She is very loth to let it go, even then. No sooner is it out of her hands than she would have it back. There is a phrase in it that she would fain have altered, that he may think unkind. It vexes her all through the night, that phrase. It keeps sleep away from her, even if the oppression on her chest, caused by the heavy cold she has contracted through standing in the draught at the Hartleys' hall-door, would allow slumber to approach her eyes. In the small hours, indeed, she wanders a little; and would be up, and walk after the postman to take her letter from him. At dawn she falls into a broken doze; and Peggy, who has sat by or hung over her all night, poulticing, giving her drink, holding her hand, and assuring her with tears that there is nothing in her poor sentence that could wound Freddy's feelings, rises, stiff and cold from her vigil, and sends Alfred off on the pony for the doctor.

He comes, and prescribes, and goes away again, leaving behind him that little fillip of cheerfulness that the doctor's visit always gives; and another day wears on. Prue talks a great deal throughout it, though her laboured breathing makes speech difficult. She is very restless: would get up; would go down into the hall; out into the garden; would sit under the Judas-tree. She sheds no tears, gives no sign of depression; indeed, she laughs many times at recollected absurdities told her by Freddy. But the fire-spots blaze on her cheeks, and the fever-flame glitters in her eyes.

Another night follows; sleepless as the previous one, and with stronger delirium. She is going out riding with her lover. He has lent her the bay mare, which he has taken from Miss Hartley for her sake! He is waiting for her!—calling to her! and she cannot find her whip or her gloves. Oh, where are they? Where can they be? Will not Peggy help her to look for them? And Peggy, with death in her heart, feigns to search, through the chill watches of the night, for that whip and those gloves whose services it seems so unlikely that their young owner will ever need again. With morning her delusions die; and, as the forenoon advances, she falls into a heavy sleep. Such as it is, it is induced by opiates.

Peggy has not been in bed for three nights, and an immense lassitude has fallen upon her. It is not that she is conscious of feeling sleepy; but her head is like a lump of lead, and her hands are ice-cold. She would be all right if she could get into the open air for five minutes. A greedy longing to drink in great draughts of the fresh wind that she can hear outside frolicking so gaily, yet gently too, with the tree-tops, lays hold of her; and, since Prue still sleeps heavily, she gives up her place by the bedside to Sarah, and walks drearily out into the garden. It is only two days since she had been last in it; but it seems to her as if years had rolled by since she had last trodden that sward, seen Jacob digging, and watched the birds pecking at the sunflower-seeds, and the wasps pushing their way through the netting into the heart of the peaches. It appears to her a phantasmal garden, with an atmosphere of brilliance and joyousness that may have their home in that realm where Thomas the Rhymer lived; but can have no relationship to her bitter realities. But when she reaches the seat under the Judas-tree, the kingdom of Thomas the Rhymer is gone, and reality is here in its stead. As she looks at it, her hands clench themselves, and a tide of rage and misery surges up in her heart.

'You have killed her!' she says out loud; 'killed her as much as if you had cut her poor throat! When she is dead, I will tell you so!'

She walks on quickly; rapid motion may make her burden easier to bear. But, alas! her domain is small; and no sooner has she left Prue and the Judas-tree behind, than the hawthorn bower and Talbot face her. The creamy foam of flowers that had sent its little pungent petals, shaped like tiny sea-shells, floating down upon their two happy heads, has changed to lustreless red berries.

'They are not more changed than I!' she says; and so sinks, helplessly sobbing, upon the rustic bench, her cheek pressed against the gnarled trunk. 'They are all the same!—all the same!' she moans. If it were not so, would she be lying with her head achingly propped against this rough bark? Would not it have been resting on her love's breast? Would not he have been telling her that Prue will get well? She has no one now to tell her that Prue will get well; and when she tells herself so, it does not sound true.

The tears drip from under her tired lids. One moment she is here, with aching body and smarting soul; the next she is away—how far, who shall say? Away, at ease; all her sorrows sponged out, for God has sent her His lovely angel—sleep.

It is two hours later when she wakes with a frightened start, and springs—half unconscious of her whereabouts at first—to her feet. The position of the sun in the sky, the altered angle of the shadow cast by her may-bush, tell her to how much longer a period than she had intended her five minutes have stretched. She begins to run, with a beating heart, back towards the house. Prue will have missed her! Prue will have been crying out for her! How stupid, how selfish of her to fall asleep!

She has entered the hall, when the noise of a closing door—her ear tells her Prue's—reaches her; and by the time she gets to the foot of the stairs she is confronted by a person coming quickly down. It is not Sarah, nor yet the doctor. It is the person to whom, beside the Judas-tree, she had framed that bitter message. She can give it now if she chooses. Freddy's hair is all ruffled, and the tears are streaming down his face—real, genuine salt tears.