The two Doctors consult.
The doctor from Slowton had arrived at last. The horses, all smoking
with the break-neck speed at which they had been driven, stood at the
hall-door steps. The doctor himself, with Pratt and the nurse, were
up-stairs in the patient's room. The Rev. Dives Marlowe, looking
uncomfortable and bilious, hovered about the back stairs that led to Sir
Jekyl's apartment, to waylay the doctors on their way down, and listened
for the sound of their voices, to gather from their tones something of
their spirits and opinions respecting his brother, about whose attack he
had instinctive misgivings. The interview was a long one. Before it was
over Dives had gradually ascended to the room outside the Baronet's, and
was looking out of the window on the prospect below with the countenance
with which one might look on a bad balance-sheet.
The door opened, the doctors emerged--the Slowton man first, Pratt
following, both looking grave as men returning from the sacrament.
"Oh! Mr. Dives Marlowe--the Rev. Dives Marlowe," murmured Pratt as the
door was shut.
The lean practitioner from Slowton bowed low, and the ceremony over--
"Well, gentlemen?" inquired the Rev. Dives Marlowe.
"We are about to compare notes, and discuss the case a little--Doctor
Pratt and I--and we shall then, sir, be in a position to say something
a--a--definite, we hope."
So the Rev. Dives withdrew to the stair-head, exchanging bows with the
priests of Æsculapius, and there awaited the opening of the doors. When
that event came, and the Rev. Dives entered--
"Well, Mr. Marlowe," murmured the Slowton doctor, a slight and dismal
man of five-and-fifty--"we think, sir, that your brother, Sir Jekyl
Marlowe, is not in immediate danger; but it would not be right or fair
to conceal the fact that he is in a very critical state--highly so, in
fact; and we think it better on the whole that some member of his family
should advise him, if he has anything to arrange--a--a will, or any
particular business, that he should see to it; and we think that--we are
quite agreed upon this, Doctor Pratt?"
Pratt bowed assent, forgetful that he had not yet heard what they were
agreed on.
"We think he should be kept very quiet; he's very low, and must have
claret. We have told the nurse in what quantities to administer it, and
some other things; she's a very intelligent woman, and your servants can
take their directions from her."
Dives felt very oddly. We talk of Death all our lives, but know nothing
about him until he stands in our safe homesteads suddenly before us,
face to face. He is a much grizzlier object than we had fancied when
busied with a brother or a child. What he is when he comes for
ourselves, the few who have seen him waiting behind the doctor and live
can vaguely remember.
"Good Lord, sir!" said Dives, "is he really in that state? I had no
idea."
"Don't mis_take_ us, sir. We don't say he may not, if everything goes
right, do very well. Only the case is critical, and we should deceive
you if we shrank from telling you so; is not that your view, Doctor--Dr.
Pratt?"
Dr. Pratt was of course quite clear on the point.
"And you are in very able hands here," and the Slowton doctor waved his
yellow fingers and vouchsafed a grave smile and nod of approbation
toward Pratt, who wished to look indifferent under the compliment, but
simpered a little in spite of himself.
The Rev. Dives Marlowe accompanied the two doctors down-stairs, looking
like a man going to execution.
"You need not be afraid, sir," said Dives, laying his hand on the
Slowton leech's sleeve. The grave gentleman stopped and inclined his ear
to listen, and the three stood huddled together on the small landing,
Dives' nervous fingers in the banister.
"I don't quite see, sir," observed the doctor.
"I give him up, sir; you need not be afraid to tell me."
"You are right, perhaps, to give him up; but I always say exactly what I
think. Doctor--a--_Pratt_ and I--we tell you frankly--we think him in a
very critical state; but it's quite on the cards he may recover; and we
have given very full directions to the nurse, who appears to be a very
intelligent person; and don't let him shift his attitude unnecessarily,
it may prejudice him, and be in fact attended with danger--very
_serious_ danger; and Doctor Pratt shall look in at five o'clock--you
were so good as to say, Doctor Pratt, you would look in at five. Doctor
Pratt will look in _then_, and do anything that may be necessary; and if
there should be the slightest symptom of hæmorrhage send for him
instantly, and the nurse knows what to do; and I think--I think I have
said everything now."
"Hæmorrhage, sir! But _what_ hæmorrhage? Why, what hæmorrhage is
apprehended?" asked Dives, amazed.
"Internal or external it may occur," said the doctor; and Pratt,
coughing and shaking his chops, interposed hurriedly and said--
"Yes, there may be a bleeding, it may come to that."
"He has bled a great deal already, you are aware," resumed the Slowton
doctor, "and in his exhausted state a return of that might of course be
very bad."
"But I don't understand," persisted Dives. "I beg pardon, but I really
must. What _is_ this hæmorrhage? it is not connected with gout, is it?"
"Gout, sir! no; who said gout? A bad wound, that seems to run toward the
lung," answered the Slowton man.
"Wound! how's this? I did not hear," and Dives looked frightened, and
inquiringly on Pratt, who said--
"Not hear, didn't you? Why, Sir Jekyl undertook to tell you, and would
not let me. He took me in for a while, poor fellow, quite, and said
'twas gout, that's all. I'm surprised he did not tell you."
"No--_no_--not a word; and--and you think, sir, it may begin bleeding
afresh?"
"That's what we chiefly apprehend. Farewell, sir. I find I have not a
moment. I must be at Todmore in three quarters of an hour. A sad case
that at Todmore; only a question of a few days, I'm afraid; and a very
fine young fellow."
"Yes," said Dives--"I--I--it takes me by surprise. Pray, Dr. Pratt,
don't go for a moment," and he placed his hand on his arm.
"Farewell, sir," said the Slowton doctor, and putting up his large gold
watch, and bowing gravely, he ran at a quiet trot down the stairs, and
jumped into his chaise at the back entrance, and vanished.
"You did not tell me," began Dives.
"No," said Pratt, promptly, "he said he'd tell _himself_, and did not
choose me."
"And you think--you think it's very bad?"
"Very bad, sir."
"And you think he'll not get over it?"
"He may not, sir."
"It's frightful, Doctor, frightful. And how was it, do you know?"
"No more than the man in the moon. You must not tease him with
questions, mind, to-day. In a day or two you may ask him. But he said,
upon his honour, no one was to blame but himself."
"Merciful Heavens! sir. To think of his going this way!"
"Very sad, sir. But we'll do all we can, and possibly may pull him
through."
With slow steps Dives began to ascend the stairs toward his brother's
room. He recollected that he had not bid Pratt good-bye, and gave him
his adieux over the banister; and then, with slow and creaking steps,
mounted, and paused on the lobby, to let his head clear and to think how
he should accost him.
Dives was not a Churchman to pester people impertinently about their
sins; and out of the pulpit, where he lashed the vice but spared the
man, he was a well-bred divine, and could talk of sheep, and even of
horses, and read everything from St. Paul to Paul de Kock; and had
ridden till lately after the hounds, and gave _recherché_ little
dinners, such as the New Testament character whose name, with a
difference in pronunciation, he inherited might have praised, and
well-iced champagne, which, in his present uncomfortable state, that
fallen gentleman would have relished. And now he stood in a sombre mood,
with something of panic at the bottom of it, frightened that the ice
upon which men held Vanity Fair, and roasted oxen, and piped and danced,
and gamed, should prove so thin; and amazed to see his brother drowning
among the fragments in that black pool, and no one minding, and he
unable to help him.
And it came to him like a blow and a spasm. "The special minister of
Christ!--am I what I'm sworn to be? Can I go in and talk to him of those
things that concern eternity with any effect? Will he mind me? Can I
even now feel the hope, and lead the prayer as I ought to do?"
And Dives, in a sort of horror, as from the pit, lifted up his eyes, and
prayed "have mercy on me!" and saw a misspent hollow life behind, and
judgment before him; and blamed himself, too, for poor Jekyl, and felt
something of the anguish of his namesake in the parable, and yearned for
the safety of his brother.
Dives, in fact, was frightened for himself and for Jekyl, and in those
few moments, on the lobby, his sins looked gigantic and the vast future
all dismay; and he felt that, bad as poor Jekyl might be, _he_ was
worse--a false soldier--a Simon Magus--chaff, to be burnt up with
unquenchable fire!
"I wish to God the Bishop had stayed over this night," said Dives, with
clasped hands, and again turning his eyes upward. "We must send after
him. I'll write to implore of him. Oh, yes, he'll come."
Even in this was a sense of relief; and treading more carefully, he
softly turned the handle of the outer door, and listened, and heard
Jekyl's cheerful voice say a few words to the nurse. He sighed with a
sense of relief, and calling up a sunnier look, he knocked at Jekyl's
half-open door, and stepped to his bedside.