Karl Rusoff had experienced a good deal of inward anxiety, which he was
very careful to keep entirely to himself, for several days before
Martin’s concert, for the thought of it, as the day got near, had
agitated and excited the latter to the point of making him lose his
sleep and his appetite. Though Karl knew quite well that an artist does
his best, as a rule, under the spell of excitement, more, that any
notable achievement can hardly be compassed without it, yet in the
present case Martin himself was naturally so highly strung and his
excitement had become acute so many hours before he was to make his
appearance that his master could not help silently wondering whether he
could stand the strain of it till the day came. At other times again
Karl, knowing Martin’s serene, splendid health, found consolation in
telling himself that the tighter and more tense his nerves got the more
wonderful would his playing be. Even during the last week or two he had
made such an enormous advance in his general grasp that Karl knew that
he himself would be bitterly disappointed if this extraordinary youth
did not on his very first appearance legitimately and justifiably take
musical London by storm. At the same time he knew that he himself would
give a very deep sigh of relief when Martin had got through, say, the
first three minutes of his recital. That safely past, he was sure that
the mere feel of the familiar notes would occupy him to the exclusion
of all agitation.
Only a quarter of an hour before he was to come on to the platform Karl
was with him in the artist’s room, trying to occupy his mind in talk,
but watching him with ever-increasing nervousness, as he walked up and
down like a caged animal between door and window. Once Martin took out a
cigarette, bit the end off as if it were a cigar, and threw it away.
Then he asked a question, paid not the slightest attention to the
answer, and finally sat down on the edge of the table. His face was
flushed, his eyes very bright; had not it been that Karl knew how
excited he was, he would have thought he was ill.
“I shall break down,” he said. “Look at my hands; look how they tremble.
I can’t keep them still. I could no more play a series of octaves than I
could fly. It would be like the ‘Tremolo’ stop on Chartries organ.”
“My dear boy, I have told you that that does not matter in the slightest
degree,” said Karl. “The moment you touch the notes that will cease
absolutely. Why, even now my hands always tremble before I begin!”
Martin apparently was not listening.
“And I have not the remotest notion how the ‘Études Symphoniques’
begin,” he said.
Karl tried to laugh, but he was not very successful. As a matter of fact
he was quite as nervous as Martin.
“That’s a great pity,” he said, “as you open with it. I don’t know
either.”
But Martin did not smile.
“What will you do if I break down?” he said; “if I can’t begin? It is
more than possible.”
“I shall hiss; I shall boo; I shall demand the return of my money,” said
he.
But Martin still remained perfectly grave.
“Ah, don’t,” he said; “the others may boo if they like, and I shan’t
mind--much. But I couldn’t stand it if you did.”
“Did you drink a good, stiff glass of whiskey-and-soda for lunch, as I
told you to?” demanded Karl.
“I tried to, but I should have been dead drunk if I had gone on. So what
will you do if I break down?” he asked again. “You told me, but I have
forgotten.”
Karl rose from his chair.
“I shall break my heart, Martin,” he said.
Then he spoke to him quickly, peremptorily, seeing he was really on the
verge of hysterics.
“We’ve had quite enough of this nonsense, my dear boy,” he said. “If you
give me any more of it, I shall lose my temper with you. You are not
going to break down, I forbid you, and you are to do as I tell you. You
are going to play your very best,--better than you have ever played
before. Now I must get to my place. Give them five minutes law before
you appear, and as soon as I see the top of your black head coming up
the stairs I shall have all the doors closed till the end of the Études.
We’ll have no interruptions; they are frightfully distracting. You know
where I shall be sitting, don’t you? Bow twice, right and left, walk
straight to the piano, and begin instantly, without playing any fluffy
arpeggios. It is going to be a great day for you. And for me.”
Martin looked despairingly round.
“Don’t leave me, don’t leave me,” he said. “Can’t you sit by me?”
“And hold your hand? Ah, this is altogether childish!”
For the first time the shadow of a smile crossed Martin’s face.
“I know it is,” he said. “I can just, just see that. I think I had
better try to be a little man for a change.”
* * * * *
The hall was crammed to overflowing, as if some pianist of world-wide
fame was to make his appearance, and not a young man who had never
performed in public before. Several causes had contributed to this, the
first and most important being that Mr. Martin Challoner was actually a
pupil of Karl Rusoff’s, who for years had never consented to teach.
Furthermore, Karl Rusoff had the very highest opinion of
him,--exaggeratedly high perhaps, since he was his pupil,--and had not
only allowed, but wished him to give a concert. Surely, then, he would
run no risks; Martin Challoner must have some merit. In addition, no
English pianist of more than mediocre powers had appeared for years, and
patriotism called. Finally, for the last fortnight Lady Sunningdale had
worn her coachman to a shadow and her horses to skin and bones, so
incessantly and unintermittently had she driven about, first of all to
the houses of her intimates, then of her ordinary friends, and lastly of
the merest acquaintances, practically insisting that they should all
appear. Karl Rusoff had done what he could to discourage this, but his
efforts were totally void of effect, for Lady Sunningdale had told him
that it was her “duty” to do her best for Martin. She seldom used the
word “duty,” but when she did, it might be defined as anything she was
irrevocably determined to do, from which no argument could move her.
So for the first time Martin found himself in that unspeakable position
of being alone on the shore of a sea of faces, the owners of which had
paid money in anticipation of the pleasure he had undertaken to provide
for them. Opposite him, a few yards off only, but looking misty and
unreal, was the Steinway Grand, and he found himself wondering what on
earth it was for. When he remembered, he felt towards it as a condemned
man may feel when he sees the execution shed, at a few minutes before
eight. Then he bowed in answer to a very fair reception, and walked
straight to the piano. He glanced at his programme, and saw he had to
begin with Schumann’s “Études Symphoniques.” He sat down, waited a
moment for silence, and began.
He played one bar only and then stopped. He had not the very faintest
idea of how it went on, and in a sort of mild despair--he felt as if his
powers of feeling were packed in cotton wool--looked down to where Karl
was sitting in the third row. Those great grey eyes were fixed on him
with an expression of supreme appeal; he could see the master’s hands
clutching convulsively at the back of the seat in front of him. And at
that sight, at the sight of the agony Karl was in, Martin was able for
one moment to forget himself and all the bewildering crowd of faces. So,
fighting against the paralysis that was on him, no longer for his own
sake, but for Karl’s, he again turned to the piano.
But still he could think of nothing, nothing; he could not even
remember the first bar that he had played just now, and he bit his lip
with his teeth till the blood came, saying to himself, “It will break
his heart; it will break his heart.” The numb, dulled sense was gone, in
that half-minute he endured an agony of years.
Then, quite suddenly, like the passage of the sun from behind some black
cloud, all came back to him, and he sat still a moment longer, in sheer
happiness. At the concentrated thought of what Karl was suffering, his
nervousness, his paralysis of mind went entirely from him, and with
complete certainty, with the assured knowledge, too, that he was going
to play his very best, he began again.
At the end of the slow Thema he paused, looked up at Karl and smiled
nearly to laughing-point at him, pushed back the plume of hair that
drooped over his forehead, and--played. And at that smile and at the
gesture that was frequent with him, Karl gave one immense sigh of relief
that Martin could hear. But now it meant nothing to him: he was busy.
Martin’s face, during those few horrible moments, had grown absolutely
colourless, so that Karl had thought, and almost wished--for so the
public shame would be lessened and people would be compassionate--that
he was going to faint. For when for the second time Martin had turned to
the piano and still could not begin, he believed for that moment that
the boy could not pull himself together; that unless he fainted he would
simply have to walk off the platform again. But now the colour came
back, slowly at first, then, with sudden flushes, the dead apathy of his
face changed, and began to live again. Soon his mouth parted slightly,
as if wondering at the magic of the music which blossomed like roses
underneath his flying fingers. Once or twice between the variations he
brushed back his hair again; once he looked up at Karl, with the
brilliant glance his master knew and loved, asking with his eyes, “Will
that do? Will that do for _you_?” before he went on interpreting to the
breathless crowd the noble joy which must have filled the composer as he
wrote. Full of artistic triumph as Karl’s life had been, never before
had it mounted and soared so high as now, when not he, but his pupil,
held the hall enchained.
And in that moment his own ambitions, which he had so splendidly
realised for so long, dropped dead. He and Martin, he knew now, were
master and pupil no longer; it was the master’s turn--and with what
solemn joy he did it--to sit and learn, to hear--and he longed for a
myriad ears--what was possible, for even Martin had never played like
that before. Even admiration was dead; there was no room for anything
except listening. Admiration, wonder, delight, laughter of joy might
come when the last note had sounded, but at present to listen was
enough.
Martin held the last chord long. Then he took both hands off, as if the
keys were hot, and rose, facing the hall. For him, too, just then,
personal ambition was dead; he had played, as David played before Saul,
in order to drive from his master’s face the demon of agony that he had
seen there. And he looked not at Stella, not at Lady Sunningdale, not at
Frank and Helen, nor did his eyes wander over the crowded rows, but
straight at Karl, while the hall grew louder and louder, till the air
was thick with sound, still asking him, “Did I play it well?” And when
Karl nodded to him, he was content, and bowed in front of him and to
right and left, thinking “How kind they all are!” He caught Stella’s eye
and smiled, Frank’s, Helen’s, Lady Sunningdale’s. Then he sat down at
the piano again.
But it was quite impossible to begin, and for his own amusement (for
now, it must be confessed, he was enjoying himself quite enormously), he
struck an octave rather sharply and heard not the faintest vibration
from the strings above the uproar. So he rose again, bowed again, and
still bowed, and bowed still, till he felt like a Chinese mandarin, and
knew everybody must think so, too. Then he sat down and waited till the
phlegmatic English public had said “thank you” enough.
A ten minutes’ interval had been put down on the programme, and tea was
waiting for him in the room below. But he forgot all about it, and went
straight through. The recital was carefully chosen not to be too long,
and in the ordinary course of events the audience would have been
streaming out into the street again after an hour and a half. But they
refused to stream; Martin gave one _encore_, and after a pause a second,
but he was still wildly recalled. Once before in the summer he and Helen
had sent “London” mad about them; this afternoon he did it alone. And,
at last, in a despair that was wholly delightful, as the hush fell on
the house again, when he sat down for the fourth time, he played “God
save the King” solemnly through, and his audience laughed and departed.
Lady Sunningdale found that she had burst her left-hand glove and lost
her right-foot shoe when she came to take stock of what had happened, as
Martin finally retired after “God save the King.” Karl was sitting next
her.
“Don’t speak to me, anybody,” she said, “because there is nothing
whatever to say. That is Martin. I knew it all along. Yes, a shoe, so
tiresome, I don’t know how it happens. Thank you, Monsieur Rusoff.
Stella dear, we start from Victoria to-morrow morning, not Charing
Cross. What did I tell you when we talked last? Do you not see? That is
Martin. If any one speaks to me, I shall slap him in the face and burst
into floods of tears. I should like to see that darling for one moment,
just to tell him that he has not been altogether a failure. Which is the
way? I suppose he is drinking porter now, is he not? or is it only
singers who do that? Eight o’clock, Stella. Quarter to eight, Frank,
because you are always late. Dearest Helen, how is the Bear? Yet Martin
has only got eight fingers and two thumbs like the rest of us. And was
it not too thrilling at the beginning? I knew exactly how he felt. It
was pure toss-up for just one moment whether he would be able to play at
all or send us empty away like the “Magnificat.” Through this door,
isn’t it?”
Karl Rusoff showed her the way through the short passage into the room
where two hours ago he had sat with Martin on the verge of hysterics.
But now a great shout of boyish laughter hailed them, and Martin went up
to Karl, both hands outstretched.
“Ah, it was you who pulled me through,” he said. “I couldn’t have begun
otherwise. But it hurt you so dreadfully. I--I felt it hurt you. And
shall I ever play like that again? I never played like it before!”
Karl looked at him a moment without speaking. Then he raised the boy’s
hands to his lips and kissed them.
“I mean that,” he said. “Ah, Martin, how I mean that!”
Martin stood quite still. Had such a thing ever suggested itself as
possible to him he would have felt ready to sink into the earth with
sheer embarrassment. But now, when the unimagined, the impossible had
happened, he felt no embarrassment at all.
“You did it all,” he said, simply. “Thank you a hundred thousand times.”
Then the pendulum swung back again, and he was a boy himself, and
boyishly delighted with success.
“Oh, I enjoyed it all so,” he said. “After that first terrible minute, I
just revelled in it. Can’t I give another concert this evening?”
Here Lady Sunningdale broke in,--
“You not only can, but you must, after dinner,” she said. “Martin, you
played really nicely to-day. I am going to begin to practise to-morrow
morning. Scales. No, not to-morrow morning, because I shall be otherwise
engaged on the English Channel. Why can’t they run a large steam-roller
over the sea between Dover and Calais? Nobody can tell me. However, I’m
told it is rather healthy than otherwise. My dear, red velvet sofas, tin
basins, Stella, and I. Also Suez Canal. Sahara is not yet in a fit
state. It is too terrible. Eight o’clock to-night, Martin. And I shall
never forgive you for this afternoon. You gave me the worst five minutes
I ever had.”
“I tried to make up for it,” said he.
Lady Sunningdale turned quickly back in the doorway.
“I adored you,” she said. “And next time I shall wear large eights.
Perhaps they will not burst quite so soon.”
Martin turned a thirsty eye on Karl when she had gone.
“And can I have my whiskey-and-soda now?” he asked. “I want it
frightfully.”
Then quite suddenly his face changed, as if a lamp had been put out. He
looked tired, worn out.
“And I have such a headache,” he said. “I think I have had it two days,
but was too excited to think about it. It went away altogether when I
was playing. But it has come back in force!”
Karl rang the bell.
“Yes; you want a good rest,” he said; “you are tired without knowing it;
you have been living on your nerves the last day or two. But anything
worth doing is worth being tired over. Dear boy, I hope your headache is
not really bad. Anyhow, you have done the thing worth doing. Don’t go
out to-night. Go back home, and go to bed early.”
Martin shook his head, smiling.
“Ah, I won’t give up an hour of to-day for fifty headaches,” he said.
“Besides, Stella and Lady Sunningdale leave to-morrow. My father was not
at the concert, I suppose?”
“No; not that I know of.”
“I sent him a ticket, although I thought he would not come. He does not
even approve of my wasting my time at the piano,” he added, with an
irritability to which this horrible stabbing pain in his head
contributed.
He drank his whiskey-and-soda with feverish thirst.
“And I had better have left that unsaid,” he remarked. “Now I shall go
home, I think, and sleep off my headache before dinner. But I must just
look at the platform once more.”
He ran up the steps, and looked round the empty hall. The lights were
being extinguished, and gangway carpets being rolled up. The Steinway
Grand still stood there, and he felt somehow as if he were saying
good-bye to it.
“Well, that is done,” he said to himself.
* * * * *
Lady Sunningdale and Stella left London for the Riviera next morning,
and later in the day Martin went down to his uncle’s at Chartries, and
Helen back home to the vicarage. The reaction from the excitement of the
last few days had left him, naturally enough, rather indolent and tired,
and also, naturally enough, rather irritable and disposed--not to put
too fine a point on it--to be cross. He found the railway carriage
insufferably hot, and pulled down a window; that, however, made it
draughty, and he changed his seat, and sat with his back to the engine.
This was no good, because for some unexplained reason it made him feel
ill, and changing back once more, he fell into a heavy sleep that lasted
till they got to their station. Even then the stopping of the train did
not arouse him, and Helen had to shake and poke him into consciousness,
for which kind office she got growled at.
But he had come to Chartries with the definite object of seeing his
father, and while Helen’s luggage was being put into the pony-cart from
the vicarage the two talked this over.
“It’s no use putting it off,” he said, “so will you tell father that
unless I hear from him to stop me, I will come over to-morrow afternoon
to see him. And I hope,” he added, with his usual candour, “that my
temper will be a little improved by then. Lord, how cross I feel! And
this time yesterday I was in the middle of it all.”
Helen looked at him a moment rather anxiously.
“You’re all right, aren’t you, Martin?” she said; “not ill?”
“Ill? No. But I’m all on edge and I’ve got two headaches. It’s rather
cold waiting here. I think I’ll walk on and let the carriage catch me
up. Good-bye, Helen; see you to-morrow.”
* * * * *
Martin woke next morning, after long, heavy sleep, with the same sense
of lassitude and tiredness which had oppressed him all the day before
and the same headache lying like a hot metallic lump inside his head,
pressing the back of his eyes. The man who called him had brought him a
couple of letters and a note from his father, which had been sent over
from the vicarage. He opened this first.
“MY DEAR MARTIN,--Helen has given me your message, that you wish to
see me. I have thought about it very carefully, and I wish to tell
you quite candidly the conclusion I have come to.
“You know what I felt about your going over to the Roman Church; I
feel that all still, and as strongly as ever. You have deliberately
left your own church, and for reasons, as far as I can understand,
which are frivolous and unessential. And I am afraid--I know in
fact--that if I saw you I should, without being able to help
myself, express to you what I feel. Now, I do not think this would
do any good, it would only widen the gulf between us; and one of
the great aims of my life now is to do the opposite. I do not
suppose my opinion will ever change, it cannot, in fact, but in
time I shall, I suppose, get more used to what has happened, and
shall be able to see you without bitterness. At present I am
unwilling to tear open a wound which may be beginning to heal. But
all this is to me still so keen a daily and hourly pain that I feel
sure we should be wiser not to meet yet. But Helen, of course, is
quite free to come and see you, and you to come and see her.
“It gives me great pain to write this. But I cannot separate you
from what you have done.
“I am rejoiced to hear from her of the great success of your
concert. Personally, as you know, I have no educated taste in
music, but I gather that your master is satisfied both with your
progress and your industry, which is more important than success.
“My dear boy, I wish I could see you; I wish I could trust myself!
“Your affectionate father,
“SIDNEY CHALLONER.
“P.S.--Your Aunt Clara, I am sorry to say, is in bed with a sharp
attack of influenza.”
Martin read this through twice before he got up; then he dressed, his
cold bath making him shiver, and went downstairs. The sight of his own
face in the looking-glass, as he brushed his hair, was somehow rather a
shock to him; it did not look exactly ill, but it was unfamiliar, it
looked like the face of somebody else. His uncle was not yet down, and
he strolled out on to the terrace, waiting for him, into the warm, windy
sunshine of the April morning. But here again he had the same impression
of unfamiliarity: the sun did not feel to him the same, nor did the
sunshine look the same,--both light and colour had an odd dream-like
unreality about them. It was as if some curious, hard barrier had been
put up between his sense of perception and that which he perceived.
Then, with a feeling of relief, he remembered his father’s postscript.
Probably he had influenza, too.
That explanation, or the divine freshness of the morning, made him feel
rather better, and half-laughing at himself for his vague fear that
there was something really wrong with him, he went indoors again. People
were coming to stay at Chartries that afternoon, but this morning he and
his uncle were alone. Lord Flintshire was already seated at breakfast
when he came in.
He gave him his father’s letter to read, unconscious that his uncle
looked rather closely at him as he entered, being also struck by a
curious drawn look in his face, but he said nothing on the subject, and
read the letter through.
“I think your father is wrong about it,” he said, “and if you approve, I
will tell him so. There is surely no need to enter into theological
discussion. You want just to see him and shake hands with him.”
Martin had taken some fish, but gave it up as a bad job, and drank tea
instead.
“Yes, just that,” he said. “I hate being on bad terms with anybody,
especially him.”
Lord Flintshire looked at him again.
“The boy’s ill,” he said to himself. Then aloud,--“Well, let us walk
over after breakfast, if you feel inclined. You can see Helen while I go
in and talk to your father. You don’t look particularly fit this
morning, Martin. Anything wrong?”
“I feel beastly,” said Martin, with directness. “I shouldn’t wonder if I
had got influenza, too.”
“Are you sure you feel up to coming over? Yes, your father mentions that
Clara has got it. If the doctor is there, he might just have a look at
you. Or, if you don’t feel up to coming, I would send him back here.”
Martin pulled himself together. The tea had made him feel quite
distinctly better.
“Oh, no, I’m quite up to it,” he said. “Probably the doctor will tell me
to go for a long walk and eat a big dinner. And I should like to see my
father as soon as possible, and get it over. It will all be easier after
that.”
His uncle got up.
“Shall we start in half an hour, then? We shall be sure to catch him
before he goes out. Cigarette?”
“No, I think not, thanks,” said Martin.
* * * * *
Their way lay down through the woods where Helen and Frank had met a
month ago, and the gracious influence of springtime had gone steadily
forward with the great yearly miracle of the renewal of life. The green
that had then hung mist-like round the trees was now formed and definite
leaf, exquisitely tender and clear, and in this early morning hour
shining with the moisture and dews of night. Daffodils still lingered in
sheltered places and the delicate wood-anemone flushed faintly in the
thickets. Below the chalk-stream, where Martin last summer had spent
that hour of self-revelation, was brimful from bank to bank of hurrying
translucent water, which combed the subaqueous weeds and turned to
topazes the yellow pebbles and into heaps of pearl the beds of chalk
that flashed beneath the water. But this morning he was heavy-eyed and
clogged of brain; he felt that somebody else was seeing these things,
that somebody else was putting foot in front of foot, while he himself
had dwindled to a mere pin-point set in the centre of a great lump of
hot metal which filled his head. Sometimes this body that was once his
felt sudden flushes of heat, sometimes it shivered for no reason. Then,
after an interminable walk, so it seemed to him, they turned through the
church-yard and went up the gravel path that ran to join the carriage
sweep in front of the vicarage door. And, in spite of all, it was with a
wonderful sense of coming home that Martin saw the grey creeper-covered
walls again, the long box-hedge, and the croquet-lawn wet and shining
with dew in the sun.
“I’ll wait out here while you see my father,” said he. “Perhaps you
would tell Helen I am here.” And he sat down all of a heap on a garden
seat.
This tired, spiritless boy was so utterly unlike Martin that his uncle
felt suddenly anxious.
“Are you feeling bad, Martin?” he asked. “Do you feel faint? Hadn’t you
better come indoors?”
“Oh, no. I shall be better when I’ve rested a minute. But my head aches
so. Lord, it gets worse every minute.”
Lord Flintshire left him and went straight to Mr. Challoner’s study,
where he was at work.
“Good-morning, Sidney,” he said. “I have come over with Martin, who
wants to see you. I also want you to see him; but we can talk of that
afterwards. Now, is the doctor in the house? Martin is not at all well.
He looks to me very ill. He----“
But at that word there was no longer any thought of “talking of that
afterwards.” All that was human and tender, all that was loving, all
that there was of “father” in Mr. Challoner sprang to that call.
“Dear lad, where is he?” he said. “Yes; the doctor is with Clara now. He
will be out in a minute. But where is Martin? I must go to him.”
Lord Flintshire just laid his hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“I knew you would, Sidney,” he said. “He is outside by the front door.”
Martin had dropped heavily on to the garden seat, and sat there with his
eyes closed. That lump of hot metal in his head had grown larger and
hotter; he felt as if something must burst. And he was so terribly
tired; his walk had not done him the least good. Then he heard quick
steps behind him on the gravel, but simply could not be troubled to look
round. And then came his father’s voice.
“My dearest lad,” he said, “come indoors at once.”
Martin sat up with a jerk, and some chord of old memory twanged on the
surface of his brain.
“You’re not angry with me, father?” he said, nervously.
Mr. Challoner bit his lip to stifle the exclamation of pain that rose
bitterly within him.
“Angry?” he said. “What put that into your dear old head? There, Martin,
take my arm, and lean on me. Come inside out of the wind. There, old
boy, steadily; there’s plenty of time. I hope we shan’t have you down
with influenza, too. But it’s the luckiest thing in the world. The
doctor is here now with your aunt, and he shall have a look at you.”
But it needed all Mr. Challoner’s courage to get through with this
cheerful chattering. Martin looked terribly ill to him. But he got him
into his study, arranged the cushions on the sofa he so seldom used
himself, and made him lie down.
“Ah, that’s better,” said Martin. “Thanks, thanks ever so much, father.”
He held out his hand to his father, who pressed it, and his voice
trembled a little as he answered.
“God bless you, my dear lad, for wanting to come and see me,” he said.
“Now, is there anything you want? I shall send Dr. Thaxter to you as
soon as he leaves your aunt.”
Dr. Thaxter was a merry, rosy-faced little man with a manner so
reassuring that one felt quite well directly, and in a few minutes he
came bustling into the room.
“Ah, Mr. Challoner,” he said, “your father tells me you are a bit
knocked up. Not uncommon in this spring weather. Quite right to lie
down. There, put that under your tongue, and don’t bite it.”
He adjusted the thermometer and went chattering on.
“And you’ve walked over from Chartries with your uncle, have you? Fine
place that, and a fine healthy situation. Of course, you only came down
yesterday. I saw the account of your concert in the paper. Ah, I wish I
had been there. Now, I think we’ve given the thermometer long enough.
Thank you. And you feel rather----“
The little doctor stopped suddenly in the middle of his sentence when he
saw what was recorded on it.
“You have a headache, I think your father said.”
“I have nothing else, I think,” said Martin.
Dr. Thaxter drew a chair close to the sofa, and sat down, looking at him
very closely.
“Ah, yes; that is to be expected with a little fever. You are rather
feverish. Now, when did you begin to feel ill? When did you first feel a
headache? Try to tell me all about it.”
“Oh, five days ago now. No, six, I think. I don’t think I felt anything
else, except that everything seemed rather queer all the time.”
He made a movement to sit up, but the doctor gently pressed him back
again.
“Better not sit up,” he said. “You’ll be far more comfortable lying
down. And you can tell me nothing else? Just a bad headache.”
“Am I ill?” asked Martin, suddenly. “Really ill, I mean? What’s the
matter with me?”
“My dear Mr. Challoner, I can’t possibly tell you, because I don’t know.
And when one doesn’t know, one takes precautions against anything that
it may conceivably be. Perhaps it is influenza. If it is, it’s a pretty
sharp attack. I wonder at your being able to walk over this morning.
Now, will you promise me to lie quite still while I just go and talk to
your father and settle with him what we shall do with you.”
The little doctor went quietly out of the room and across the hall to
the drawing-room. Helen, her father, and Lord Flintshire were all there.
He did not look quite so brisk and cheerful as he had done before he saw
Martin.
“He has a very high temperature,” he said; “much higher than I like. It
may, of course, be an attack of influenza. I have seen cases of it with
temperatures higher than that. But he must be nursed as if something
more serious was the matter. He has probably had a temperature for
nearly a week.”
Mr. Challoner turned to him almost fiercely.
“What is it?” he said.
“It may be several things. Perhaps I can tell you when I have seen him
again, when we have got him to bed. Now, there is a good spare-room in
this house?”
“Yes; his own,” said Helen.
“Very well; he must be moved there, just as he is, without getting up.
If you and Lord Flintshire will help me, we will do it at once. And is
there a room where a nurse can sleep?”
Helen took a step nearer him.
“Is it typhoid?” she asked.
“I am afraid it may be. It looks very like it.”