At Kilsyth.
The routine of illness and anxiety, the dull monotony of an absorbing
care, had rapidly settled down upon Kilsyth, immensely alleviated, of
course, by the confidence imposed by Wilmot's presence. The influence
of his skill, the insensible support of his calmness and
self-reliance, were felt all through the household by those members of
it to whom the life or death of Madeleine was a matter of infinite
importance, and by those who felt a decent amount of interest, but
could have commanded their feelings readily enough. As for Wilmot
himself, he would have found it difficult to account for the
absorption of feeling and interest with which he watched the case, had
he been called upon to render any account of it to others. In his own
mind he shirked the question, and simply devoted himself day and night
to his patient, leaving the house only once a day for a brief time,
during which he would stride up and down the terrace in front of the
house, gulping in all the fresh air he could inhale; and then his
place in the sick-chamber was taken by an old woman, who had years
before been Madeleine's nurse, and who was now married and settled on
the estate. Not since the old days of his house-surgeonship at St.
Vitus's had Chudleigh Wilmot had such a spell of duty as this: the
fact of his giving up his time in this manner to a girl with whom he
had not exchanged twenty words, with whose friends he had no previous
acquaintance, in whom he could have no possible interest, came upon
him frequently in his enforced exercise on the terrace, in his long
weary vigils in the sick-room; and each time that he thought it over,
he felt or pronounced it to himself to be more and more inexplicable.
In London he made it an inexorable rule never to leave his bed at
night, unless the person sending for him were a regular patient, no
matter what might be their position in life, or the exigency of their
case; and even among his own connection he kept strictly to
consultation and prescription; he undertook no practical work, there
were apothecaries and nurses for that sort of thing. He had a list of
both, whom he could recommend, but he himself never paid any attention
to such matters. And here he was acting as a combination of physician,
apothecary, and nurse, dispensing the necessary medicines from the
family medicine-chest, sitting up all night, concocting soothing
drinks, and smoothing hot and uneasy pillows.
Why? Chudleigh Wilmot had asked himself that question a thousand
times, and had not yet found the answer to it. Beauty in distress--and
this girl, for all her mass of golden hair and her bright complexion
and her blue eyes, could only be called pretty--beauty in distress was
no more strange to Chudleigh Wilmot than to the hero of nautical
melodrama at a transpontine theatre. He was constantly being called in
to cases where he saw girls as young and as pretty as Madeleine
Kilsyth "hove down in the bay of sickness," as the said nautical
dramatic hero forcibly expresses it. Scarcely a day passed that he was
not for some few minutes by the couch of some woman of far superior
attractions to this young girl, and yet of whom he had never thought
in any but the most thoroughly professional manner, listening to her
complaints, marking her symptoms, prescribing his remedies, and
entering up the visit in his note-book, as he whirled away in his
carriage, as methodically as a City accountant. But he had never felt
in his life as he felt one bright afternoon when the wild delirium had
spent its rage and died away, and the doctor sat by the girl's
bedside, and held her hand, no longer dry and parched with fever, and
bent over her to catch the low faint accents of her voice.
"You don't know me, Miss Kilsyth," said he gently, as he saw her dazed
by looking up into his face.
"O yes," said Madeleine, in ever so low a voice,--"O yes; you are
Doctor--Doctor--I cannot recollect your name; but I know you were sent
for, and I saw you before--before I was--"
"Before you were so ill; quite right, my dear young lady. I am Dr.
Wilmot, and you have been very ill; but you are better now,
and--please God--will soon be well."
"Dr. Wilmot! O yes, I recollect. But, please, don't think because I
could not recall your name that I did not know you. I have known you
all through this--this attack. I have had an indefinable sense of your
presence about me; always kind and thoughtful and attentive, always
soothing, and--"
"Hush, my dear child, hush! you must not talk and excite yourself just
yet. You have had, as you probably know, a very sharp attack of
illness; and you must keep thoroughly quiet, to enable us to perfect
your recovery."
"Then I'll only ask one question and say one thing. The question
first--How is papa?"
"Horribly nervous about you, but very well. Constant in his tappings
at this door, unremitting in his desire to be admitted; to which
requests I have been obdurate. However, when he hears the turn things
have taken, he will be reassured."
"That's delightful! Now, then, all I have to say is to thank you, and
pray God to bless you for your kindness to me. I've known it, though
you mayn't think so, and--and I'm very weak now; but--"
He had his strong arm round her, and managed to lay her back quietly
on her pillow, or she would have fainted. As it was, when the bright
blue eyes withdrew from his, the light died out of them, and the lids
dropped over them, and Madeleine lay thoroughly exhausted after her
excitement.
What _was_ the reminiscence thus aroused? What ghost with folded hands
came stealing out of the dim regions of the past at the sound of this
girl's voice, at the glance of this girl's eyes? What bygone memories,
so apart from everything else, rose before him as he listened and as
he looked? He had not hit the trail yet, but he was close upon it.
The news that the extremity of danger was past was received with great
delight by the guests at Kilsyth. With most of them Madeleine was a
personal favourite, and all of them felt that a death in the house
would have been a serious personal inconvenience. The Northallertons,
Lady Fairfax, and Lord Towcester, were the only seceders; the others
either had arranged for later visits elsewhere, or found their present
quarters far too comfortable to be given up on the mere chance of
catching an infectious disorder. Some of them had had it, and laughed
securely; others feared that from the mere fact of their having been
in the house when the attack took place, they were so "compromised" as
to prevent their being received elsewhere; and one or two actually had
the charity to think of their host and hostess, and stayed to keep
them company, and to be of any service in case they might be required.
Charley Jefferson belonged to this last class. Emily Fairfax little
knew that by her selfish flight from Kilsyth she had entirely thrown
away all her hold over the great honest heart that had so long held
her image enshrined as its divinity. She never gave a thought to the
fact that when the big Guardsman used to hum in a deep baritone voice
the refrain of a little song of hers--
"Loyal je serai
Durant ma vie"--
he was expressing one of the guiding sentiments of his life. Colonel
Jefferson was essentially loyal; to shrink from a friend who was in a
difficulty, to shuffle out of supporting in purse, person, or any way
in which it might be requisite, a comrade who had a claim of old
acquaintance or strong intimacy, was in his eyes worse than the
majority of crimes for which people stand at the dock of the Old
Bailey. In this matter he never swerved for an instant. He never gave
the question of infection a thought; he had had scarlet-fever at Eton,
and jungle-fever out in India, and he was as case-hardened, he said,
as a rhinoceros. He took no credit to himself for being fearless of
infection, or indeed for anything else, this brave simple-minded good
fellow; but if anyone had been able to see the working of his heart,
they would have known what credit he deserved for holding to his grand
old creed of loyalty to his friend, and for ignoring the whispers of
the siren, even when she was as fascinating and potential as Emily
Fairfax. When some one asked if he were going, he laughed a great
sardonic guffaw, and affected to treat the question as a joke. When
the disease was pronounced to be unmistakably infectious, he at once
constituted himself as a means of communication between Dr. Wilmot and
the outer world; and his honour and loyalty enabled him to face the
fact that probably little Lord Towcester had followed Lady Fairfax to
her next visiting place, and was there administering consolation to
her with great equanimity. When Dr. Wilmot came out for his
half-hour's stride up and down the terrace, he generally found the
Colonel and Duncan Forbes waiting for him; and these three would pace
away together, the two _militaires_ chatting gaily on light subjects
calculated to relieve the tedium of the doctor, and to turn his
thoughts into pleasanter channels, until it was time for him to go
back to his duty. And when the worst was over, and Chudleigh Wilmot
could have longer and more frequent intervals of absence from the
sick-room, it was Charley Jefferson who proposed that they should
establish a kind of mess in the smoking-room, where the Doctor, who
necessarily debarred himself from communion with the others at the
dinner-table, might yet enjoy the social converse of such as were
not afraid of infection. So a dinner-table was organised in the
smoking-room, and Jefferson and Duncan Forbes invited themselves to
dine with the Doctor. They were the next day joined by Mrs. Severn,
who had all along wished to devote herself to the invalid, and had
with the greatest difficulty been restrained from establishing herself
_en permanence_ as nurse in Madeleine's chamber; and Mr. Pitcairn
asked for and obtained permission to join the party, and proved to
have such a talent for imitation and such a stock of quaint Scotch
stories as made him a very valuable addition to it. So the "Condemned
Cell," as its denizens called it, prospered immensely; and by no means
the least enjoyment in the house emanated from it.
Lady Muriel, seeing more and more of Wilmot, as the closeness of his
attendance on his patient became relaxed by her advance towards
convalescence, and studying him with increased attention, learned to
regard him with feelings such as no man of her numerous and varied
acquaintance had ever before inspired her with. The impression he had
made upon her in the first interview was not removed or weakened, and
he presented himself to her mind--which was naturally inquiring, and
possessed considerably more intelligence than she had occasion to use,
in a general way, in her easy-going, prosperous, and conventional
life--in the light of an interesting and remunerative study.
Lady Muriel's faultlessly good manners precluded the indulgence of any
perceptible absence of mind; and she possessed the enviable faculty
which some women of the world exhibit in such perfection, of carrying,
or rather helping, on a conversation to which she was not in reality
giving attention, and in which she did not feel the smallest particle
of interest. The gallant _militaires_, the dashing sportsmen, the
_grands seigneurs_, and the ladies of distinction who were among her
associates, and the gentlemen, at least of the number of her admirers,
were accustomed to regard Lady Muriel's powers of conversation as
something quite out of the common way; and so indeed they were--only
these simpleminded and ingenuous individuals did not quite understand
the direction taken by their uncommonness. It never occurred to them
to calculate how much of her talking Lady Muriel did by means of
intelligent acquiescent looks, graceful little bows, sprightly
exclamations, a judicious expression of intense interest in the
subject under discussion when it chanced to be personal to the other
party to the discourse, and sundry other skilful and effective
feminine devices. It never dawned upon them that one half the time she
did not hear, and during the whole time she did not care, what was
said; that her graceful manner was merely manner, and her real state
of mind one of complete indifference to themselves and almost everyone
besides. Not that Lady Muriel was an unhappy woman. Far from it. She
was too sensible to be unhappy without just cause; and she certainly
had not that. She perfectly appreciated her remarkably comfortable lot
in life; she estimated wealth, station, domestic tranquillity and
respect, and the unbounded power which she exercised in her household
domain, quite as highly as they deserved to be estimated; and though
as free from vulgarity of mind as from vulgarity of manner, she was
not in the least likely to affect any sentimental humility or mistake
about her own social advantages. She could as easily have bragged
about them as forgotten them; but just because she held them for what
they were worth, and did not exaggerate or depreciate them, Lady
Muriel was given to absence of mind; and though neither unhappy, nor
imagining herself so, she was occasionally bored, and acknowledged it.
Only to herself though. Lady Muriel Kilsyth had no confidantes, no
intimacies. Hers was the equable kind of prosperous life which did not
require any; and she was the last woman in the world to acknowledge a
weakness which her truly admirable manners gave her power most
successfully to conceal.
The touch of sorrow or anxiety is a sovereign remedy for _ennui_. It
will succeed when all the resources to which the victims of that fell
disease are accustomed to have recourse fail ignominiously. If Lady
Muriel had loved Madeleine Kilsyth, the girl's illness would have put
boredom to flight, with the first flush or shiver of fever, the first
dimness of the eyes, the first tone of complaint in the clear young
voice. But Lady Muriel did not love Madeleine, and did not pretend to
herself that she loved her. Indeed Lady Muriel never pretended to
herself. She had seen and understood that to deceive oneself is at
once much easier and more dangerous than to deceive other people, and
she avoided doing so on principle--on the worldly-wise principle, that
is, by which she so admirably regulated her life--and reaped a rich
harvest of popularity. She did not dislike the girl at all, and she
would have been very sorry if she had died, partly for the sake of
Kilsyth, whom she really liked and admired, and who would have broken
his stout simple heart for his daughter--"much sooner and more surely
than for me," Lady Muriel thought; "but that is quite natural, and as
it should be. She is the child of his first love, and I am his second
wife, and he is quite as fond of me as I want him to be;"--for she was
a thoroughly sensible woman, and would much rather not have had more
love than she could reciprocate. But she was perfectly equable and
composed. Throughout Madeleine's illness it did not cause her sorrow,
though her manner conveyed precisely the proper degree of stepmotherly
concern which was called for under the circumstances; and she did not
suffer from anxiety, being rationally satisfied that all the skill,
care, and indulgence demanded by the exigencies of the case were
liberally bestowed on Madeleine. Anxiety was quite uncalled for, and
therefore did not chase away the brooding spirit of _ennui_ from Lady
Muriel.
The first thing that struck her particularly with regard to Chudleigh
Wilmot was that she did not experience any sense of boredom in his
presence. In fact it dissipated that ordinarily prevailing malady; she
was really interested in everything he talked about, really charmed by
the manner in which he talked, and had no need whatever to draw on the
ever-ready resources of her manner and _savoir faire_.
When Wilmot began to make his appearance freely among the small party
at Kilsyth, and, after the usual inquiries--in which the serious and
impressive tone at first observed was gradually discarded--to enter
into general conversation, and to exercise all the very considerable
powers which he possessed of making himself agreeable, Lady Muriel
found out and admitted that this was the pleasantest time of the day.
The interval between this discovery and her finding herself longing
for the arrival of that time--dwelling upon all its incidents when she
was alone, making it a central point in her life, in fact--was very
brief.
With this new feeling came all the keen perception, the close
observation, and the nascent suspicion which could not fail to
accompany it, in such a "thorough" organisation as that of Lady
Muriel. She began to take notice of everything concerning Wilmot, to
observe all his ways, and to watch with jealous scrutiny the degree of
interest he displayed in all his surroundings at Kilsyth.
As Madeleine progressed in her recovery, Lady Muriel looked for some
decline in the physician's absorption in the interest of her case. He
would be less punctual, less constant in his attendance upon her; he
would be more susceptible to influences from the outside world: he
would be anxious to get away perhaps--at least he would no longer be
indifferent to professional duties elsewhere; he would begin to weigh
their respective claims, and would recognise the preponderance of
those at a distance over that which he had already satisfied more than
fully, more than conscientiously, with a fulness and expansion of
sympathy and devotion rare indeed.
Wilmot was extremely popular among the little company at Kilsyth.
Wonderfully popular, considering how much he was the intellectual
superior of every man there; but then he was one of those clever men
who never make their talents obnoxious, and are not bent on forcing a
perpetual recognition of their superiority from their associates. He
allowed the people he was with to enjoy all the originality, wit,
knowledge, and good fellowship that was in him, and did not administer
the least alloy of mortification to their pride with it. When Lady
Muriel forcibly acknowledged to herself, and would as frankly have
acknowledged to any one else, if any one else would have asked her a
question on the subject, that she held Dr. Wilmot to be the cleverest
and most agreeable man she had ever met, she did but echo a sentiment
which had found general expression among the party assembled at
Kilsyth.
As the days went by, Lady Muriel began to feel certain misgivings
relative to Wilmot. She did not quite like his look, his manner, when
he spoke of Madeleine. She did not consider it altogether natural that
he should never weary of Kilsyth's garrulity on the subject of his
darling daughter. The physician, taking rest from his long and anxious
watch, might well be excused if he had tired a little of questions and
replies about every symptom, every variation, and of endless stories
of the girl's childhood, and laudation of her beauty, her virtues, and
her filial love and duty. But Dr. Wilmot never tired of these things;
he would, on the contrary, bring back the discourse to them, if it
strayed away, as it would do under Lady Muriel's direction; and
moreover she noticed, that no circumstances, no social temptation had
power to detain him a moment from his patient, when the time he had
set for his return to her side had arrived.
Taking all these things into consideration, and combining them with
certain indications which she had noticed about Madeleine herself,
Lady Muriel began to think the return of Dr. Wilmot to London
advisable, and to perceive in its being deferred very serious risk to
her scheme for the endowment of her young kinsman with the hand and
fortune of her stepdaughter. She was not altogether comfortable about
its success, to begin with. Ramsay Caird had not as yet made
satisfactory progress in Madeleine's favour. It was not because the
girl had no power of loving in her that she had listened without the
smallest shadow of emotion to Mr. Ramsay Caird, but simply because Mr.
Ramsay Caird had not had the tact, or the talent, or the requisite
qualifications, or the good fortune to arouse the power of loving him
in her. Lady Muriel was far too quick an observer, far too learned a
student of human nature, not to read at a glance all that her
stepdaughter's looks revealed; and her knowledge of life at once
informed her of the danger to her scheme. What was to be done? Wilmot
must be got rid of, must be sent away without loss of time. His
business was over, and he must go. That must be treated as a matter of
course. He was called in as a professional man to exercise his
profession; and the necessity of any further exercise of it having
terminated, his visit was necessarily at an end. No possible suspicion
of her real reason for wishing to get rid of him could arise. A
married man, of excellent reputation, accustomed to being brought into
the closest contact with women of all ages in the exercise of his
profession--why, people would shout with laughter at the idea of her
bringing forward any idea of his flirtation with a girl like
Madeleine! And Kilsyth himself--nothing, not even the influence which
she possessed over him, would induce him for an instant to believe any
such story. It was very ridiculous; it must be her own imagination;
and yet--No; there was no mistaking it, that girl's look; she could
see it even then. Even if Ramsay Caird were not in question, it was a
matter which, for Madeleine's own sake, must be quietly but firmly put
an end to. Immensely gratified by this last idea--for there is nothing
which so pleases us as the notion that we can gratify our own
inclinations and simultaneously do our duty, possibly because the
opportunities so rarely arise--Lady Muriel sought her husband, and
found him busily inspecting a new rifle which had just arrived from
London. After praising his purchase, and talking over a few ordinary
matters, Lady Muriel said shortly:
"By the way, Alick, how much longer are we to be honoured by the
company of Dr. Wilmot?"
The inquiry seemed to take Kilsyth aback, more from the tone in which
it was uttered than its purport, and he said hesitatingly,
"Dr. Wilmot! Why, my dear? He must stay as long as Madeleine--I
mean--but have you any objection to his being here?"
"Il Not the least in the world; only he seems to me to be in an
anomalous position. Very likely his social talents are very great, but
we get no advantage of them; and as for his professional skill--for
which, I suppose, he was called here--there is no longer any need of
that. Madeleine is out of all danger, and is on the fair way to
health."
"You think so?"
"I'm sure of it. But, at all events, any doubt on that point could be
dissipated by asking the Doctor himself."
"My dearest Muriel, wouldn't that be a little _brusque_, eh?"
"My dear Alick, you don't seem to see that very probably this
gentleman is wishing himself far away, but does not exactly know how
to make his adieux. A man in a practice like Dr. Wilmot's, however we
may remunerate him for his visit here, and however agreeable it may be
to him" (Lady Muriel could not resist giving way in this little bit),
"must lose largely while attending on us. He is a gentleman, and
consequently too delicate to touch on such a point; but it is one, I
think, which should be taken into consideration."
Lady Muriel had had too long experience of her husband not to know the
points of his armour. The last thrust was a sure one, and went home.
"I should be very sorry," said Kilsyth, with a little additional
colour in his bronzed cheeks, "to think that I was the cause of
preventing Dr. Wilmot's earning more money, or advancing himself in
his profession. We owe him a deep debt of gratitude for what he has
done; but perhaps now, as you say, Madeleine is out of danger; and may
be safely left to the care of Dr. Joyce. I'll speak to Dr. Wilmot, my
dear Muriel, and make it all right on that point."