DUTY'S CALL.
Faith shares the future's promise; love's
Self-offering is a triumph won;
And each good thought or action moves
The dark world nearer to the sun.
Then faint not, falter not, nor plead
Thy weakness; truth itself is strong;
The lion's strength, the eagle's speed,
Are not alone vouchsafed to wrong.
Thy nature, which through fire and flood,
To place or gain finds out its way,
Has power to seek the highest good,
And duty's holiest call obey!"
WHITTIER.
England was just at this time engaged in a contest of which Donovan
very strongly disapproved, but perhaps his political views only
increased the desire which had arisen within him to go out as
assistant-surgeon to the seat of war. The belief that many hundreds
of Englishmen were being sacrificed in an unjust cause could not fail
to rouse such a lover of justice, and he lost no time in making
arrangements with an ambulance society which was sending out help,
and was in want of assistants. Charles Osmond, on the whole,
approved of his choice, though regretting very much that he should
for some time lose sight of him; but he felt that the life of action
would be quite in Donovan's line, and that the entire change of scene
would be good for him. Brian would have been only too glad to join
him, but his work was already cut out for him in London, where he was
to take the place of junior partner to an uncle of his who had a
large practice in the Bloomsbury district.
It so chanced that Stephen Causton, who had been hindered both by
illness and idleness, went in for his final examination at the same
time. All three passed successfully. The autumn had been a very
busy one, but Donovan was well and in good spirits, eager to begin
his fresh life, and too much engrossed with the present and future to
let the past weigh upon him. Still, as one January day he went in to
St. Thomas's to take leave of Trevethan, not even his strong will
could prevent a few very sad thoughts arising as he spoke of
Porthkerran and the Tremains. Trevethan's recovery had been very
slow, but he was now really well, and it had been arranged that he
should go down to Porthkerran with his little girl the following
week. His illness, and the kindness he had met with, had softened
him very much, and though his manner was still brusque in the
extreme, no one who really knew the man could have doubted his
gratitude. In his odd fashion he half worshipped Donovan, and it was
really from the desire to please him that he had overcome his shame
and reluctance, and written to ask his father to receive him again.
The blacksmith's intense happiness was so evident from the ill-spelt
but warmly expressed reply, that Trevethan the younger began to feel
drawn to him, and to look forward to his return with less
apprehension and more eagerness.
Having left him directions as to fetching little Gladys from the
Osmonds, Donovan took leave of him and went home to make his final
preparations, a trifle saddened by the conversation. But after all,
he reasoned with himself, he had more cause for rejoicing, for he had
certainly been of use to one of the Porthkerran villagers, and Gladys
would be heartily pleased to hear old Trevethan's good news. To have
helped even indirectly to please her was something to be thankful
for; besides, had he not renounced the thought of personal happiness
as such? had he not chosen the way of sacrifice and willed to find
his happiness in serving his fellow-men? And then once more he
returned with all his former eagerness to the anticipation of his
coming work, work which bid fair to call out all his faculties, and
which made his pulses beat quicker even to think of, for perhaps no
one but an awakened misanthropist can feel with such keenness the
delights of the enthusiasm of humanity.
His key was in the latch when the sound of a carriage stopping at the
door made him glance round; to his utter astonishment he saw his
mother. He hurried forward, surprise and not unnatural emotion in
his look and manner.
"Why, mother! this is very good of you," he exclaimed, helping her to
alight.
"My dear Donovan!" she said, in a hurried nervous voice, "let me come
in to your rooms for a minute, I am in dreadful trouble."
He brought her into the little sitting-room and made her sit down by
the fire, perplexed by her agitation. It was many years since they
had met, and time had altered Mrs. Farrant, she looked worn and
faded; there was something piteous in the alteration. Donovan bent
down and kissed the once beautiful face with a sort of reverence
which he had never felt before.
"How did you get leave to come to me?" he asked.
Then Mrs. Farrant's tears began to flow.
"Oh! the most terrible thing has happened," she said, vainly trying
to check her sobs. "Ellis, your cousin, has been unwell for some
days, and this morning the doctor declares that he has small-pox, and
if you will believe it, I have actually been in his room the whole
time! they said I had better leave for Oakdene, but I am so unnerved,
so shaken, I thought you would take me to the station and arrange
things. I thought I should like to see you and tell you. Oh!
Donovan, do you think I shall take it? do you think it is infectious
at the beginning?"
It was the same selfish nature, the same incapability of thinking of
the well-being of others, which had caused Donovan so much pain all
through his life. His mother was, after all, only altered
externally. The hard look of his childhood came back into his face.
"Then you mean to go to Oakdene and leave your husband?" he asked,
with a severity in his voice which he could not disguise.
"Don't be hard on me," she sobbed, "I have such a horror of this; if
it were fever I would have stayed, but small-pox! No, no, it is
impossible, I must go, I must indeed. Besides, I am not strong
enough to nurse him. The doctor will send a trained nurse. Indeed!
you must not urge me to go back, Donovan, it would kill me."
Her agony of distress made him reproach himself for having spoken so
strongly; he paced the room in silence. It was unnatural of her to
leave her husband, but yet there was truth in her words, she would be
absolutely useless as a nurse, and her nervous terror would very
likely render her liable to infection. Besides, what right had he to
judge her? He could not trust himself to discuss the right and wrong
of the question, he felt that he must leave it to her own conscience,
and when he spoke it was merely to ask details of Ellis's state, and
the doctor's opinion of it.
"You had better rest here for a little time," he said, when she had
answered his questions in her unsatisfactory way. "It must have been
a great shock to you!" He spoke in a very different tone now, and
Mrs. Farrant, feeling all the comfort of having a stronger will to
repose upon, allowed herself to be made comfortable on the sofa, and
lay silently watching her son's movements with a sort of interested
curiosity, like a placid patient watching the preparations of a
dentist, or a sleepy child following with its eyes the nurse as she
sets the room in order for the night. Her son was very much altered;
he still set about everything in the same quiet methodical way, but
his angles had been rounded off, and the bitter cynicism which had
always alarmed and repulsed her seemed quite gone. He had taken
paper and ink and was writing hurriedly; presently he pushed his
chair back from the table, and folding the written sheet, came
towards her.
"I am just going to the hospital, and then to the telegraph-office
with this," he said. "I have ordered Mrs. Doery to have everything
ready for you. Presently I think you must let me vaccinate you. It
is something new to have a doctor in the family, isn't it?"
"I'm only so shocked that you should have been driven to it," sighed
Mrs. Farrant. "You should have gone into the army. You have grown
so like your father, Donovan."
He bent down once more and kissed her. Then, promising she should
not be disturbed, he hurried away with the telegram.
"So like your father!" The words rang in his ears, but never had he
felt farther from any likeness to the noble, calm, self-governed man
whose image stood out so clearly in his memory, the three days'
intercourse with the pure mind having left a deeper impress than
months and years of intercourse with those of lower type. But just
now his mind was in a seething chaos, his whole world shaken, whether
by conflicting duties or conflicting passions he hardly knew, only he
feared it was the latter. Rapidly walking along the crowded streets
he tried to fight the battle out, mechanically taking off his hat to
an acquaintance, mechanically going through his business as people
must do even when the deadliest mental conflict is raging, even
when--perhaps unknown to them--the decision for good or evil, for
life or death is hanging in the balance. Previous arrangement and
strong inclination drew him almost irresistibly towards the
fulfilment of his engagement to the ambulance. Of course other men
would willingly take his place at a day's notice, but his whole mind
was set on going out to the war, the thought of foregoing it was
almost unendurable. And yet a perverse voice within him kept urging
on him that others might go out to the war, but that he was the only
man called to take charge of a poor neglected wretch in a certain
West-End Square.
Yet did not the fellow deserve his fate? Donovan would have suddenly
changed natures if the justice of the thing had not struck him. Was
it not perfectly satisfactory? Here was Nemesis at last--his foe
would be justly punished! And then, being exceedingly human, he drew
one of those fascinating little mind pictures which, if delineated by
men, are certainly engraved by the devil. In this picture self, the
hero, went out to the war, won unheard of honours, received
honourable wounds, and then was greeted with the news that his enemy
had perished miserably in a luxurious house which he had no right to
be in. "So like your father," with the sharpest satire the words
again rang in his ears.
God be thanked that the devil's alluring pictures cannot stand side
by side with the image of a true, noble, whole-hearted man! God be
thanked that the ideal man has lightened the world's darkness!
Donovan's struggle was by no means over by the time he returned to
his mother; it raged all the time that he was attending to her, all
the time that he talked quiet commonplaces, brought her tea and toast
and all that the house would afford, soothed her nervous terrors as
to infection, and quoted small-pox statistics.
"Could you not come down with me to Oakdene?" said Mrs. Farrant,
suddenly. "You say your course is over, why not come with me now?"
He knew then that the supreme moment had come.
"I will see you safely into the train," he said; "but I can't come to
Oakdene."
"Why not?" urged Mrs. Farrant.
There was a minute's silence, then, as quietly as if he had been
speaking of an afternoon stroll, Donovan replied,
"Because I'm going round to Connaught Square presently."
Mrs. Farrant stared at him. Perhaps he hardly felt inclined just
then for inquiry or argument; muttering some excuse, he left the
room, drew a long breath, and walked slowly upstairs.
In his bed-room were all the preparations for the coming
journey--travelling gear, books, instruments; he felt a sharp pang as
he realised that all his plans were changed--perhaps there was even a
slight fear lest his resolution should be shaken, for he began to
toss some clothes into a portmanteau in a hurried and unmethodical
way quite unnatural to him; but he quieted down as he took Dot's
miniature from its place. For a minute he looked at it intently, and
afterwards there was no more haste in his manner.
Mrs. Farrant could not resist questioning him when he came downstairs
again.
"Do you really think you are wise to go?" she urged. "Why put
yourself to such a risk?"
"You forget I am a doctor," he said, smiling a little.
Mrs. Farrant of course knew nothing of her husband's real treachery,
but she knew that he and Donovan were sworn foes, and could not
understand her son's resolution.
"But he has a trained nurse," she continued, "and I should have
thought that, disliking each other as you do, it would be unlikely
that you could do much for him; he may not like to have you there."
"Possibly," said Donovan, "but I must go and see."
"And then you will have been in the way of infection for nothing,"
urged his mother. "Come, change your mind. Why must you go?"
"Because it is right," said Donovan; and there was something in his
tone which kept Mrs. Farrant from further objections.
She looked uneasy and troubled; perhaps for the first time it struck
her that there could be an absolute right and wrong in such a
question--perhaps she was a little doubtful about her own conduct.
It was at any rate with a feeling of relief that she parted with
Donovan at the Paddington Station, for people whose consciences are
just enough awake to know that they are half asleep never feel
comfortable with those who have and obey an imperative conscience.
When the Greyshot train had started, Donovan hurried off to make
arrangements with the ambulance, to hunt up a substitute, to find the
old captain and tell him his change of plans, to write notes, give
orders, and make Waif understand the parting. How much he disliked
it all, how intensely he shrank from the work before him, he hardly
allowed himself time to think.
Late that evening, as Charles Osmond was sitting in his study hard at
work over the parish accounts, Brian hurried in, an open letter in
his hand.
"Just look here!" he exclaimed, too full of his subject to notice
that he interrupted his father half-way up a column. "Would you have
believed the fellow could have thrown it all up?"
Charles Osmond held out his hand for the note, and read as follows:--
"DEAR BRIAN,
"After all, I'm not going south. Smithson was only too thankful to
step into my shoes, and will sail on Friday. If you can, get him to
trade for some of my goodly Babylonish garments, as I can't well
sport them in England. I only saw him for five minutes this
afternoon, when we'd other matters to talk over. Ellis Farrant is
down with small-pox, and I'm going to see after him. Look in now and
then on Waif and the captain, if you can; they are in the depths.
"Ever yours,
"D. F."
"My grand old Roman!" exclaimed Charles Osmond, half aloud. "You've
grown a good deal since the day we climbed Snowdon."
"But it's such folly to throw up this just at the last moment," said
Brian. "Besides, he's fagged with the exam, and now, instead of
having the voyage to set him up, he goes straight into this
plague-house all for the sake of one wretched man."
"You may be quite sure that Donovan was very certain of the right
before he took such a step," said Charles Osmond; "he's not the sort
of fellow to change his mind or his plans lightly, whereas you----"
He laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
Brian smiled too, for it was the family proverb that he was the most
impetuous and impulsive of mortals.