SOMETHING TOO MUCH FOR GRATITUDE.
By this time Mr. Hossack and his friend had come from the pleasant
country road into the shabbiest outskirt of Stillmington, that outskirt
which contained Marlow-street. Strange that even in so select a town as
Stillmington, Poverty will set up its tents.
The shop had been shut some time, but the door stood ajar, and a light
burnt dimly within. Geoffrey and his companion were expected. Miss
Grabbit was yawning over a tattered novel in her accustomed place
behind the counter.
‘O, is it the doctor, sir?’ she exclaimed, brightening. ‘Will you
walk up-stairs, please? Mother’s with the little girl, and she’s been
sleeping beautiful. I feel sure she’s took a turn.’
‘Is Mrs. Bertram up-stairs?’ asked Geoffrey.
‘No, she’s lying down a bit on our sofa in there,’ pointing to the
closed door of communication between the shop and parlour. ‘She was
right down worn out, and mother persuaded her to try and get a little
rest. Mother will take all your directions, sir,’ she added to Lucius.
That gentleman bowed, but said nothing. A curious mother this! The
mothers he knew were wont to hang upon his words as on the sacred
sentences of an oracle. He followed Geoffrey up the narrow stairs to
the little bedroom where the child lay asleep. The pure spotless look
of the small chamber struck him, and the beauty of the child’s face
was no common beauty. There was something in it which impressed him
curiously—something that seemed familiar—familiar as a half-remembered
dream. Good Heaven, was it not his dead sister’s face that this one
recalled to him—the face of the little sister who died years ago?
The fancy moved him deeply; and his hand trembled a little as he
lightly raised the bedclothes from the child’s throat and chest, with
that gentle touch of the doctor’s skilful hand, and bent down to listen
to the breathing. All was satisfactory. He went through his examination
calmly enough, that transient emotion once conquered; felt the slender
wrist, performed that unpleasant operation with a silver spoon to which
we have all submitted our unwilling throats at divers periods, and
then pronounced that all was going on well.
He had gone round the bed to the side facing the door, in order to get
nearer to his patient, who lay nearer this side than the other. He sat
by the pillow, and gave his directions to Mrs. Grabbit without looking
up from the little girl, whose hot hand lay gently held in his, while
his grave eyes were bent upon the small fever-flushed face. Geoffrey
had entered softly during the last few moments, and stood at the foot
of the bed.
When Lucius had finished his instructions as to treatment, he looked up.
The door opposite the bed was open, and a woman stood upon the
threshold—a tall slim figure dressed in black, a pale anxious face,
beautiful even in its sadness.
At sight of that silent figure, the surgeon started from his seat with
a smothered cry of surprise. The sad eyes met his steadily with an
imploring look, a look that for him spoke plainly enough.
Geoffrey looked at him wonderingly, perplexed by that startled movement.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
‘Nothing. But I saw a lady looking in at that door. The mother
perhaps.’
Geoffrey darted into the sitting-room. Yes she was there, standing by
the window in the wan light of a week-old moon, with tears streaming
down her face.
‘My dear Mrs. Bertram, pray, pray do not distress yourself!’ cried
Geoffrey, to whom the office of consoler was new and strange. ‘All is
going on well; nothing could be more satisfactory—Lucius says so. She
will be herself again in a few days.’
‘Thank God, and thank your friend for me,’ she said, in a voice choked
with sobs. ‘I could not rest down-stairs; I wanted to hear what he
said. Tell him I thank him with all my heart.’
‘Thank him with your own lips,’ pleaded Geoffrey; ‘he will value your
words far above mine. And you don’t know what a good fellow he is.’
‘Let Mrs. Bertram feel assured that I am only too happy to have been of
use,’ said the voice of Lucius from the threshold.
Mrs. Bertram hurried to the door, where the surgeon’s figure stood,
tall and dark, on the unlighted landing.
‘O, let me speak to him, let me take his hand!’ she cried, with
uncontrollable agitation; and the next moment stood face to face with
Lucius Davoren, with her hand clasped in his.
They could hardly see each other’s faces, but that was a lingering
handclasp. Geoffrey stood a little way apart, watching them with some
slight wonder, and thinking that quite so much gratitude could hardly
be necessary even for a doctor who had travelled over a hundred miles
to write a prescription for an idolised child.
‘It’s a pity I’m not in the medical line myself,’ he thought, somewhat
bitterly; and yet he had been anxious that Mrs. Bertram should
acknowledge his friend’s services.
He reflected that a doating mother was doubtless a foolish creature. He
must not be angry with his divinity if she seemed hysterical, or even
in a state bordering on distraction.
‘Come, Lucius,’ he said; ‘Mrs. Bertram has gone through no end of
agitation to-day, or rather yesterday, for it’s past midnight. We had
better leave her to rest.’
‘Yes,’ said Lucius, in a slow thoughtful tone, ‘good-night. I will
come to see the little girl again early to-morrow morning—say at eight
o’clock—as I must leave Stillmington soon after nine.’
‘O, come,’ remonstrated Geoffrey, ‘you must give yourself a holiday
to-morrow.’
‘Impossible. Pain and disease will not give my patients a holiday.’
‘But surely their complaints can stand over for a day or so,’ said
Geoffrey. ‘Parish patients can’t have such complicated diseases. I
thought all the worst evils flesh is heir to came from high living.’
‘There are numerous diseases that come from low feeding, or almost no
feeding at all. No; I must go back by an early train to-morrow. But I
should like to see you at eight o’clock, if that will not be too soon,
Mrs. Bertram.’
‘Not at all too soon,’ she answered; and they departed, Geoffrey with
an uncomfortable foreboding that, so soon as the little girl recovered,
his occupation would be gone. What other excuse could he find for
intruding himself upon Mrs. Bertram’s solitude?
‘Well, Lucius,’ he began, as soon as they were clear of the house,
‘what do you think of her?’
‘I think she is very handsome,’ answered Lucius, with a thoughtful
slowness which was peculiarly irritating to his friend. ‘What more
can I think of her after so brief an interview? She seems,’ with an
almost painful effort, ‘very fond of her child. I am very sorry for her
unprotected and solitary position; but—’
‘But what?’ cried Geoffrey impatiently. ‘How you torment the soul of a
fellow with your measured syllables!’
‘I think the very wisest—nay, the only rational—thing you can do is to
forget her.’
‘Never! And why should I wish to forget her?’
‘Because all surrounding circumstances point to the conclusion that she
is no fitting wife for you. A woman so lovely, so accomplished, would
hardly lead so lonely a life—I don’t speak of her professional career,
since that is a natural use for a woman to make of a fine voice if she
wants to get her own living—if there were not some strong reason for
her seclusion—some painful secret in the past, some fatal tie in the
present. She knows you to be young, generous, wealthy, and her devoted
slave; yet she rejects your devotion. She would scarcely repulse such
a lover were she free to marry. Believe me, there is something in the
background, some obstacle which you will never overcome. Be warned in
time, my dear true-hearted Geoffrey; don’t waste the best years of your
life in the pursuit of a woman who can never reward your affection, who
was not born to make you happy. There are plenty of women in the world
quite as lovely, and—I won’t say better worthy of you,’ with ever so
faint a quiver of his voice, ‘but better able to bless your love.’
‘When I meet such a woman I will forget her,’ answered the other. ‘I
thought you were a better judge of human nature, Lucius; I thought you
would be able to recognise a good and pure woman when you saw one. True
that you had seen very little of this one; yet you saw her with her
fond mother’s heart bared before you; you saw her warm and grateful
nature. You had sneered at her as a heartless mother: see how facts
belied your unkind suspicion. You saw her moved to passionate tears by
the mere thought of your kindness to her child.’
‘For God’s sake, say no more about her!’ cried Lucius, with sudden
passion. ‘The subject will breed a quarrel between us. You wanted my
advice, and I have given it you—dispassionately. Reason, not feeling,
has influenced my words. Pure, good, true: yes, I would willingly
believe her all that, did I not—did not circumstances point to the
other conclusion. It is hard to look in her face and say, This is not a
woman to be loved and trusted. But are you the man to endure a shameful
secret in your wife’s past history? Could you face the hazard of some
cruel discovery after marriage—a discovery which should show you the
woman you love as a victim, perhaps, but not without guilt?’
‘I will never believe her less than she seems to me at this moment!’
cried Geoffrey. ‘What makes you speculate on her past life? why
suppose that there must be some ignominious secret? Only because she
gets her own living, I suppose; because she is obliged to travel about
the world without her own maid, and has no footman, or carriage, or
circle of polite acquaintances, and possibly has never been presented
at court. I wonder at you, Davoren; I could not have believed you were
so narrow-minded.’
‘Think me narrow-minded, if you like, but be warned by me. My voice
to-night is the voice of the majority, which always takes the narrowest
view of every question. You have asked for my advice, and you shall
have it, however distasteful. Don’t marry a woman of whom you know so
little as you know about Mrs. Bertram.’
‘Thanks for your advice. Of course I know you mean well, old fellow;
but if Mrs. Bertram would take me for her husband to-morrow, I should
be the proudest man in Stillmington, or in Christendom.’
‘I think I know enough of her to feel very sure she will never consent
to marry you,’ said Lucius.
‘You are quick in forming conclusions,’ exclaimed Geoffrey, with a
somewhat distrustful glance at his friend, ‘considering that you saw
Mrs. Bertram for something less than five minutes.’
They arrived at the hotel, where Geoffrey, although displeased with
his friend, was not forgetful of hospitality’s sacred rites. He
ordered a spatchcock and a bottle of Roederer, and over this repast
the two young men sat till late, talking of that subject which filled
Geoffrey’s heart and mind. Like a child, he was one moment angry with
his friend, and in the next eager to hear all that Lucius could say
about his passion and its object—eager for advice which he had no idea
of following; bent upon proving, by love’s eloquent oratory, that
his divinity was all that is perfect among women. And so the night
waned; and Geoffrey and his guest were the last among the inmates of
that respectable family hotel to retire to their chambers in the long
corridor, where the old-fashioned eight-day clock ticked solemnly in
the deep of night.
* * * * *
Geoffrey would fain have presented himself in Marlow-street next
morning with his friend, but having no reasonable excuse for visiting
Mrs. Bertram at such an early hour, he contented himself with
accompanying Lucius to the end of the street and then walking on to the
station, there to await his coming.
He had to wait a good deal longer than he had expected, and as
the slow minute hand crept round the dial of the station clock his
impatience increased to fever point. He had a good mind to go back to
Marlow-street. What in heaven’s name could Lucius have to say about
that simple case of scarlatina which could not be said in a quarter of
an hour? Ten minutes had been enough last night; to-day he had been
more than an hour. Nine had struck on that slow-going station clock.
The next up-train went at 9.15. Did Lucius mean to miss it, after all
his talk about his London patients? As it was, he could not be in
London till the afternoon. It seemed to Geoffrey as if this morning
visit to the sick child was somewhat supererogatory, since Lucius had
declared the case to be one of the simplest.
Fretting himself thus he left the station, and on the windy high road
between trim hedges, in which the hawthorn was sprouting greenly, and
the little white flower-buds already began to show themselves, saw
Lucius hurrying towards him at a sharp pace.
‘I thought you meant to lose the next train,’ said Geoffrey somewhat
sharply. ‘Well, what’s your news?’
‘The little girl has passed a very quiet night and is going on
capitally, and you need have no farther alarm.’
‘I didn’t ask you about the little girl. You would hardly spend an
hour talking about the scarlatina—Keep her cool, and give her the
mixture regularly; and as soon as she is able to eat it let her have
the wing of a chicken—as if one didn’t know all that bosh. Why, you
doctors rattle it off just as we used to say our Latin verbs at
Winchester—_amo_, _amas_, _amat_, and so on. Of course, you have been
talking about other things—drawing Mrs. Bertram out, I suppose? Come,
Lucius, we’ve only five minutes. What did you think of her to-day?’
‘The same as I thought last night. That she is a beautiful and noble
woman, but that her past life has been overshadowed by some sad secret
which we are never likely to know.’
‘And you still warn me against her?’
‘Still, with all my strength. Admire her, and respect her for all that
is admirable in her nature, pity her for her misfortunes, but keep
aloof.’
‘Thanks for your remarkably disinterested advice,’ said Geoffrey, with
a bitter laugh. ‘After devoting an hour of your precious time to this
lady’s society, you arrive at the conclusion that she is the last woman
in the world for me. Yet you pay that child an unnecessary visit this
morning in order to see the mother once more, and you come to me with
a face as pale as—as the countenance of treachery itself.’
‘Geoffrey!’
‘However, as I don’t mean to take your advice it makes very little
difference. By the bye, here’s your fee, Lucius; I promised Mrs.
Bertram to see to that.’ And he tried to thrust a folded cheque into
the surgeon’s hand.
This Lucius rejected with infinite scorn.
‘What! you first ask my opinion, then call me a traitor because it
happens not to jump with your own fancy, and then offer me money for
a service for which you must know I could never dream of accepting
payment. How utterly this foolish infatuation has changed you! But I
have no time for discussion. Good-bye. There goes the bell, and I have
to get my ticket.’
They ran into the station. Geoffrey, penitent already, stuck close to
his friend until Lucius was seated in the second-class carriage which
was to take him back to London and hard labour. Then he stretched out
his hand.
‘Shake hands, old fellow,’ he said, with a remorseful look; ‘of course
I didn’t mean anything; or only in a Pickwickian sense. Good-bye.’
The train bore off its burden and left Geoffrey stranded on the
platform, perplexed, unhappy.
‘I daresay he is right,’ he said to himself, ‘and I _know_ that he is a
good fellow. Yet why did he stay so long with her, and why did he look
so pale and thoughtful when I met him?’