AH ME!
While a fact is under fifty years of age, surely it is early days to
despise it, as if in its dotage, and to traduce it as a mere tradition.
Yet this was already, at the time I speak of, done by the wiseacres of
Maiden Lane to the great, and well-established fact, that the Cholera,
when it first appeared in the year 1832, had avoided--as if it ran away
from the feeding smells, and pursued the opposite--every house, where a
man could say that he ever tasted our chimney-stack. On the other hand,
it had followed strictly, as on any good map can be shown, the main
lines of the sewage system, so far as these could yet be traced. For as
yet, they were very bold in places, and then vanished, without a mouth.
Now, if there had been any medical man, with power to think for
himself--as certainly some do, in every century--he might have chanced
to put these two facts together, and breed a conclusion. And the
conclusion must have been--increase your chimneys, issuing a fine
detergent smell, and abolish all drains, that bottle up and condense
destructive odours, sending them out with a fizz at the traps, to rush
into first-floor windows. But alas! there was no such man just then;
and I fear that even now he is hard to find. Drain, drain, drain, was
the cry of the period; and ventilate all your drains, that every one may
smell them, and inhale a rich interest for his sewage-rate.
My father had never been blessed with any scientific education. He had
thriven most stoutly, as his years increased, by dwelling in a feeding
atmosphere. In an unwise moment, he convinced himself, that a change of
inhalation would improve his lungs; which were as sound as a bell used
to be, in the days when people knew how to cast them. The only fault
anywhere near them was, that from the increase of "adipose deposit,"
they had not the room to swing, that in thinner years they had. But he
said to himself, and to my mother too--though she had the sense to say
'nonsense'--that a daily influx of entirely fresh odours would enable
him to holloa, as he used to do.
"Did you ever see Tommy look so well," he asked, "as when he came back
from the inside of the whale? I require something of that sort; and I
shall go, and smoke my pipe, every evening after tea, in the bracing air
of Joe Cowl's drain."
"That sounds very well," dear mother answered, "but I do think, Bubbly,
that you ought to ask Dr. Flebotham first, what he thinks about it."
To me it seems a sufficient proof, how grand my dear father's
constitution was, that for more than two months he pursued this medical
course, as he loftily termed it, without any visible harm to himself.
And to the last moment of his life--so stout and solid was his faith in
his own mind--he declared that his illness had nothing whatever to do
with the cause we assigned for it. But after looking blue in the face
one Sunday, and suffering from cold hands and feet, he came home at
night, with a desperate headache, such as he had never felt before. My
mother, in alarm, gave him brandy and salt; but he took the brandy, and
left out the salt. On the following day, he was terribly sick, and as
blue as the men at the Indigo works; and Dr. Flebotham pronounced it a
case of aggravated English Cholera. He ordered strong measures to be
taken at once, hot applications, and a bottleful of chalk, with opium in
large quantities.
"We must not be nervous, my dear madam," he said to my mother, who was
crying sadly; "our dear patient has an iron constitution, and great
strength of will, and a rare fund of courage. Why, he won't admit even
now, that there is much amiss with him; and nothing will make him stay
in bed. The recumbent position is the one he should preserve, to give
our therapeutic course fair play; yet he keeps on calling for his boots,
and would go to his work without them, if you left the door unlocked. We
must humour him, my dear madam; we must tell him that he shall go
to-morrow to his most useful, and in many ways I am sure--delightful
occupation; without which this neighbourhood would lose one of its
most--most pungent associations. Though Mr. Windsor certainly does, in
his smaller way, make a much stronger st--stimulate our olfactory powers
to even higher action, is what I mean. And it seems to be now very
generally admitted, apart from all incontrovertible statistics, I may
indeed say that it has been proved, _a priori_, by our new lights, that
the chemical constituents, which you liberate by rapid evaporation, are
for hygienic purposes the very ones which Nature has omitted to supply.
But bless me, I have a lady doing well with twins! You will remember all
my directions. I shall have no time to dine to-day. I hope to look in
again, at six o'clock."
He lifted his hat, and had scarcely time for me to run after him, and
say, "If you please, sir, mother does so hope that you will not be
offended, if we have a roast fowl on the table hot, when you come from
the poor lady, with the two babies."
"Tommy," replied Dr. Flebotham; "that is the very first nourishment,
your dear father should take, in a solid form. He must not touch it
to-day, of course; but a very small slice, quite cold, to-morrow. It
should be roasted this afternoon, and it must be excessively tender. It
might be as well, for me to judge of that myself. It should be a large
one, and yet very young--such as they call capons. Tell your dear
mother, that I will try it for him."
"Oh, thank you, sir, thank you! How very kind you are!" I exclaimed,
with the tears coming into my eyes. "Only please to be punctual at six
o'clock."
He made this promise; and made it good.
"Unless the case becomes complicated," said the Doctor, three days
afterwards, "with cardiac symptoms, or pulmonary, or possibly renal
derangement, or any other resultant cachexy of the organisms; we may
anticipate, my dear madam, a condition of gradual convalescence."
"Why, Doctor, he is ever so much better already!" my mother exclaimed
impatiently; "he has ordered our Tommy to go himself, as far as the shop
of the famous Mr. Chumps, and to try to be back by twelve o'clock, with
three pounds cut thick of tender rumpsteak, and two dozen of oysters
from Tester's. And he is coming downstairs, to dine at one o'clock. But
he is so weak, that I shall have to help him. Deary me, what a thing to
think of! And a week ago, he carried me up, when I slipped, and hurt my
ancle. And I am not so light as I was, you know, sir. All that I leave
now to my son Tommy. He will never be good weight."
"Very few medical men," replied the Doctor, with a pleasant smile at
both of us, "would like to have the question of diet so completely taken
out of their own hands. But as soon as therapeusis has reinstated our
patients, though it be but a little, they are apt to think themselves
quit of us. And then there comes the relapse, my dear madam; then there
comes the sad relapse; and the blame of it is cast on us."
"He has taken a great many bottles, sir, such as I never could have
believed;" my mother answered sorrowfully, "and it will be a little too
hard upon him, not to let him have his change. How much will you please
to allow him, sir?"
"Not an ounce, if I could help it--liquid nourishment for three days
more. Our poor stomach is still most delicate, and unfitted for solid
food. Restrict him, at any rate, to three ounces, and the like number of
oysters."
This was easier said than done. My father got through a good pound of
steak, and at least a dozen oysters; and after that, he felt so well,
that he had a pint of ale, and some of his healthy red returned to him.
My mother was so pleased with this, that she came to his chair, and
kissed him; and he said,
"My dear, I thought at one time, I never should kiss you no more, nor
Tommy neither. But the Lord has shown Himself most merciful. And I don't
see, as a pipe would hurt me."
The next day, he was so much better, that at nine o'clock I went back to
school, and worked with a light heart; trying to make up for the work I
had fallen back with. And Mr. Cope was most kind to me, and said that I
did very well.
I was let off, early in the afternoon, as mother had asked that I might
be; and with a good wind at my back, I made my way home, at such a pace,
that every one turned to look at me; for my lead had been laid aside,
through father's illness, which was weight enough. My mother was equally
short of breath, with pleasure and excitement, when she ran out to kiss
me. And she said,
"Oh, Tommy, your father is as well as ever, I do believe. He came
downstairs without a stick, and he wrote for an hour about something;
and then he made a capital dinner, and slept a little in the afternoon.
And Dr. Flebotham came and saw him, and said, 'My dear sir, not too
fast! You are getting well, at a wonderful rate, but you must avoid
excitement. You are not quite out of our hands yet.' And then he turned
to me, and said, 'We must be careful of the heart, dear madam. The heart
has had a sharp trial, and has borne it well; so far as we can see. But
we must not be too hard upon it, while its action is so weak. Any sudden
shock, for instance, might have very grave results.' Your father began
to laugh at this, until he remembered how very kind the doctor had been,
and so skilful. And then he begged his pardon, and shook hands with him;
and the doctor said, 'Not a bad grip that, Mr. Upmore, for a hand that
was like a swab, on Monday. Keep him quiet, and he will do. Ah, I shall
boast of this case, a little; and I am sure you will help me, madam.'
And so I will, Tommy, though I never can approve of being called
'Madam,' like a Frenchwoman; for your dear father is in such spirits,
that he has taken an ounce of bird's-eye with him, and gone to his
favourite corner, by the tree; where the wind brings down the smoke so
well, and what the people who write in the papers call the 'pestilential
fumes.' All he now wants to set him up, is that, and a quart of
fresh-drawn stout; and he said, that he would wait for that, till you
came home from school to fetch it. So don't stop now, to do anything, my
dear, except to put your slop-coat on, but run down to the tree, and
here is the eightpence--a couple of Joeys, as you call them--and there's
going to be a crab for supper, Tommy; such a beauty, from a friend of
yours! I'll tell you all about it, when you come back, and you shall
have his toes to suck, while you help me to do his cream."
I did love a crab, I always did. And as the greatest delight in oysters
hovers over opening them (for no delight does more than hover), so of a
crab, the finest hope is in getting him ready to be eaten, and in
tasting stolen bits of him.
"You may look at him, Tommy," my dear mother said; and there he lay
among lettuces, with his sweet legs clasped, as if in prayer for some
one to come and eat them, and his fat claws crossed, in resignation to
the mallet, or the rolling-pin.
It was not a sight to cause depression in the hungry human mind; neither
could that effect be got from a very well-browned backstone cake; which
mother allowed me to smell, before she put it back, to crisp a bit. Oh,
if she had only said, "My dear boy, put your belt on," what a difference
it would have made! But she never thought of it, any more than I did;
and I always tried not to think of it.
With all these things to set me up, and a holiday and a half to come,
out of the two ensuing days--for this was Friday afternoon--I set off,
rather at a dance than walk, with my arms thrown up, and lungs expanded;
and my broad-brimmed Leghorn giving flips at the wind, like a pigeon's
wing; and the tucks, and gathers, and quilted flounces of my blouse
lifting, and filling in the air, like clouds; and scarcely so much as a
thread of my curls--as mother was fond of expressing it--that did not
glisten in the sun, and hover like a crown of golden gossamer. Instead
of opening the gate, I flew over it, and could scarcely keep between the
walls below, and I heard mother calling,
"Oh, Tommy, dear Tommy, come back for your belt."
And I tried to do it; but the breeze was behind me, and I must go on.
Then, where the old weeping plane-tree stands, at the bottom of our
garden and enjoys the smoke, there was father on the bench, with his
back against the trunk, and his red plush waistcoat on, and a long
"churchwarden" in his mouth, and his favourite pewter waiting for the
stout, and his face so bright at seeing me, that I called out,
"Father is quite well again! As well as he ever was, in all his life!"
And he said--"Yes, Tommy, thank the Lord, I am. I've been thinking of
you all day, my boy. Come, and give me a kiss. Why, how wonderful you
look!"
For the joy was more than I could bear; and instead of being able to go
to him, I was lifted in a moment, from the surface of the earth, quicker
than I ever had gone up before. Now, the faster I go up, the faster I go
round,--this seems to be a law of my ascents--yet I do not remember to
have felt much fear; and indeed there was little to be afraid of, unless
it was a fall into our own chimneystacks. And in my vile stupidity, I
even called down--
"Now, father, now will you believe at last?"
Alas, that my very last words to him should have been of low, and
unfilial triumph! As I tried to look down at him, through the tree, to
show him how comfortable I was up there, I saw him rush out, with his
pipe in one hand, from the bower of the drooping branches; and he stood,
with his legs wide apart, and his hat off, and threw down his pipe, and
rubbed his eyes with both hands, and then lifted them up, and cried--
"The Lord forgive me--that He hath made a son of mine to fly!"
Before he had finished his exclamation, I could see him no more,
(because of the way in which I was carried round,) and thus escaped the
awful shock of seeing my own dear father fall. And before I could look
again in that direction, the briskness of the wind, which was
north-west, had taken me so far, that the plane-tree came between, and I
could not see the fearful thing that I myself had done.
Yet somehow, or other, my mind misgave me, that I had left some harm
behind; and my weight grew greater and greater; as I saw no more of
father, who ought to have run up the hill to watch me, as people do to a
balloon. This made me come down, at the bottom of our yard, when I might
have gone over the Regent's Canal. My flights are always cut short by
grief; but no other, by such a grief as this.