His Grateful Patient.
She has destroyed herself! That was the keynote to all his thoughts.
Destroyed herself, made away with herself! Destroyed herself! He was
not much of a reading man--had not time for it in all his occupations;
but what were those two lines which would keep surging up into his
beating brain, and from time to time finding expression on his
trembling tongue--
"Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!"
Gone to her death! He repeated the words a thousand times. Dead now;
gone to her last account, as Shakespeare says, "with all her
imperfections on her head." Gone, without chance or power of recall;
gone without a word of explanation between them, without a word of
sympathy, without a word of forgiveness on either side. He had often
pictured their parting, he dying, she dying, and had imagined the
scene; how, whichever of them found life ebbing away, would say that
they had misunderstood the other perhaps, and that perhaps life might
have been made more to each, had they been more suitable; but that
they had been faithful, and so on; and perhaps hereafter they might,
&c. He had thought of this often; but the end had come now, and his
ideas had not been realised. There had been no parting, no mutual
forgiveness, no last words of tenderness and hope. He had not been
there to soothe her dying hour; to tell her how he acknowledged all
her goodness, and how, though perhaps he had not made much outward
manifestation, he had always thoroughly appreciated the discharge of
her wifely duties to him. He had not been present to have one
whispered explanation of how each had misunderstood the other, and how
both had been in the wrong; to share in one common prayer for
forgiveness, and one common hope of future meeting. There had been no
explanation, no forgiveness; he had parted from her almost as he might
from any everyday acquaintance; he had written to her such a letter as
he might have written to Whittaker, who had taken his practice
temporarily; and now he returned to find her dead! Worse than dead!
Dead probably by her own act, by her own hand!
Stay! He was losing his head now; his pulse was at fever-heat, his
skin dry and hot. Why had this terrible supposition taken such fast
hold upon him? There was the evidence of the ring and of the leaden
seal. Certainly practical evidence; but the motive--where was the
motive? Suppose now--and a horrible shudder ran through him as the
supposition crossed his mind--suppose now that this had become a
matter for legal inquiry? suppose--Heaven knows how--suppose that the
servants had suspected, and had talked, and--and the law had
interfered--what motive would have been put forward for Mabel's
self-destruction? He and she had never had a word of contention since
their marriage; no one could prove that there had ever been the
smallest disagreement between them; her home had been such as befitted
her station; no word could be breathed against her husband's
character; and yet--
"Anywhere, anywhere,
Out of the world!"
that was another couplet from the same poem that was fixed in his
brain, and that he found himself constantly quoting, when he was
trying to assign reasons for his wife's suicide. Was Henrietta
Prendergast right, after all? Had his whole married life been a
mistake, a Dead-Sea apple without even the gorgeous external, a hollow
sham, a delusion, and a mockery culminating in the semblance of a
crime? "Anywhere out of the world," eh? And "out of the world" had
meant at first, in the early days, when the first faint dawnings of
discontent rose in her mind,--then "anywhere out of the world" was a
poor dejected cry of repining at her want of power to influence her
husband, to make herself the successful rival of his profession, to
wean him from the constant pursuit of science to the exclusion of all
domestic bliss, and to render him her companion and her lover. But if
Henrietta Prendergast were right, that must have been a mere fancy,
which, compared to the wild despair that prompted the heart-broken
shriek of "anywhere out of the world" at the last, and which,
according to that authority, meant--anywhere for rest and peace and
quiet, anywhere where I may stifle the love which I bear him, may be
no longer a fetter and a clog to him, and might have to suffer the
knowledge that though bound to me, he loves Madeleine Kilsyth.
He loves Madeleine Kilsyth! As the thought rose in his mind, he found
himself audibly repeating the sentence. His dead wife thought that;
and in that thought found life insupportable to her, and destroyed
herself! His dead wife! Straightway his thoughts flew back through a
series of years, and he saw himself first married,--young, earnest,
and striving. Not in love with his wife--that he never had been, he
reflected with something like self-excuse--not in love with Mabel, but
actually proud of her. When he first commenced his connection, and
earned the gratitude of the great railway contractor's wife at
Clapham, and that great dame, who was the ruling star in her own
circle, intimated her intention of calling on Mrs. Wilmot, Wilmot
remembered how he had thanked his stars that while some of his
fellow-students had married barmaids of London taverns, or awkward
hoydens from their provincial pasture, he had had the good luck to
espouse a girl than whom the great Mrs. Sleepers herself was not more
thoroughly presentable, more perfectly well-mannered. He recollected
the first interview at his little, modest, badly-furnished house, with
the dingy maid-servant decorated with one of Mabel's cast-off gowns
(not cast off until every scrap of bloom had been ruthlessly worn off
it), and the arrival of the great lady in her banging, swinging
barouche, with her tawdry ill-got-up footman, and her evident
astonishment at the way in which everything was made the most of, and
at the taste which characterised the rooms, and her open-mouthed wonder
at Mabel herself, in her turned black-silk dress and her neat linen
cuffs and collar, and her impossibility to patronise, and her
declaration delivered to him the next day, that his wife was "the
nicest little woman in the world, and a real lady!"
Out of the gloom of long-since vanished days came a thousand little
reminiscences, each "garlanded with its peculiar flower," each
touchingly remindful of something pleasant connected with the dead
woman whom he had lost. Long dreary nights which he had passed in
reading and working, and which she had spent in vaguely wondering what
was to be the purport and result of all his labour. No sympathy! that
had been his cry! Good God!--as though he had not been demented in
fancying that a young woman could have had sympathy with his dry
studies, his physiological experiments. No sympathy! what sympathy had
he shown to her? The mere physical struggle in the race, the hope of
winning, the dawning of success, had irradiated his life, had softened
the stony path, and pushed aside the briers, and tempered the
difficulties in his career; but how had she benefited? In sharing
them? But had he permitted her to share them? had he ever made her a
portion of himself? had he not laughed aside the notion of her
entering into the vital affairs of his career, and told her that any
assistance from her was an impossibility? That she was self-contained
and unsympathetic, he had said to himself a thousand times. Now, for
the first time, he asked himself who had made her so;--and the answer
was anything but consoling to him in his then desolate frame of mind.
These thoughts were constantly present to him; he found it impossible
to shake them off; in the few minutes' interval between the exit of
one patient and the entrance of another, in his driving from house to
house, his mind instantly gave up the case with which it had recently
been occupied, and turned back to the dead woman. He would sit,
apparently looking vacantly before him, but in reality trying to
recall the looks, words, ways of his dead wife. He tried--O, how
hard!--to recall one look of content, of happiness, of thorough trust
and love; but he tried in vain. A general expression of quiet
suffering, which had become calm through continuance, varied by an
occasional glance of querulous impatience when he might have been
betrayed into dilating on the importance of some case in which
he happened to be engaged and the interest with which it filled
him,--these were his only recollections of Mabel's looks. Nor did his
remembrance of her words and ways afford him any more comfort. True
she had never said, certainly had never said to him, that her life was
anything but a happy one; but she had looked it often. Even he felt
that now, reading her looks by the light of memory, and wondered that
the truth had never struck him at the time. He remembered how he would
look up off his work and see her, her hands lying listlessly in her
lap, her eyes staring vacantly before, so entranced, so rapt in her
own thoughts, that she would start violently when he spoke to her. She
always had the same answer for his questions at those times. What
was the matter with her? Nothing! What should be the matter with
her?--What was she thinking of? Nothing, at least nothing that could
possibly interest him. Did her presence there annoy him, because she
would go away willingly if it did? And the voice in which this was
said--the cold, hard, dry, unsympathising voice! Good God! if he had
not been sufficiently mindful of her, if he had not bestowed such
attention and affection as is due from a husband to his wife, surely
there was some small excuse for him in the manner in which his clumsy
approaches had been received!
At times he felt a wild inexplicable desire to have her back again
with him, and fell into a long train of thought as to what he should
do supposing all the events of the past three months were to turn out
to have been a dream--as indeed he often fancied they would; and on
his return he were to go up into the drawing-room, whither he had
never penetrated since his return, and were to find Mabel sitting
there, prim and orderly, among the prim and orderly furniture. Should
he alter his method of life, and endeavour to make it more acceptable
to her? How was it to be done? It would be impossible for him now to
give up his confirmed ways; impossible for him to give up his reading
and his work, and fritter away his evenings in taking his wife to the
gaieties to which they were invited. Perkins might do that--did it,
and found it answer; but the profession knew that Perkins was a
charlatan, and he--What wild nonsense was he thinking of? It was
done--it was over; he should never find his wife waiting for him again
when he returned: she was dead; she had destroyed herself!
As this horrible thought burst upon him again with tenfold its
original horror, he buried his face in his hands, and bowed his head
upon the writing table in front of him in an agony of despair. He
could bear it no longer; it was driving him mad. If he only knew--and
yet he dared not inquire more closely; the presumptive evidence was
horribly strong, was thoroughly sufficient to rob him of his peace of
mind, of his clearness of intellect. Then the terrible consequences of
the discovery, the awful duty which it imposed upon him, flashed upon
his labouring consciousness. He dared not inquire more closely? No,
not he. As a physician, he knew perfectly well what the result of any
such inquiry would be. He knew perfectly well that in any other case,
where he was merely professionally and not personally interested, his
first idea for the solution of such doubts as then oppressed him, had
they existed in anyone else, would have been to suggest the exhumation
of the body, and its rigid examination. He knew perfectly well that,
harbouring such doubts as were then racking and torturing his
distracted mind, it was clearly his duty to insist on such steps being
taken. He was no squeamish woman, no nervous man, to be alarmed at the
sight of death's dread handiwork; that was familiar to him from
constant experience, from old hospital custom, from his education and
his studies. Should this dread idea of Mabel's self-destruction, now
ever haunting him, ever present to his mind--should it cross the
thoughts of anyone else, would not the necessity for exhumation be the
first notion that would present itself? Suppose he were to suggest it?
Suppose he were to profess himself dissatisfied with the accounts of
Mabel's illness given him by Whittaker, and were to insist upon
positive proof, professionally satisfactory to him, of his wife's
disease? Of course he would make a deadly enemy of Whittaker; but that
he thought but little of: his name stood high enough to bear any slur
that might be thrown upon it from that quarter, and his reputation
would stand higher than ever from the mere fact of his boldly
determining to face a disagreeable inquiry, rather than allow such a
case to be slurred over. And the inquiry made, and Whittaker's
statement proved to be generally correct, at best it would be thought
that Dr. Wilmot was somewhat morbidly anxious as to the cause of his
wife's death; an anxiety which would be anything but prejudicial to
him in the minds of many of his friends, while the relief to his own
overcharged mind would be immediate and complete. Relief! Ah, once
more to feel relief would be worth all the responsibility. He would
see about it at once; he would give the necessary information,
and--But suppose the result did not turn out as he would hope to see
it? suppose all the information given, the coroner's warrant obtained,
the exhumation made, the examination complete, and the result--that
Mabel had destroyed herself? The first step taken in such a matter
would be an immediate challenge to public attention; the press would
bear the whole matter broadcast on its wings; Dr. Wilmot and his
domestic affairs would become a subject for gossip throughout the
land; and if it proved that Mabel had destroyed herself, her memory
would, at his instance, remain ever crime-tainted. Even if the best
happened; if Whittaker's judgment were indorsed, would not people ask
whether it was not odd that a suspicion of foul play should have
crossed the husband's mind, whether Mrs. Wilmot in her lifetime may
not have used such a threat; and if so, might not the circumstances
which led to the supposed use of the threat be inquired into, the
motives questioned, the home-life discussed? Hour after hour he
revolved this in his mind, purposeless, wavering. Finally he decided
that he would leave matters as they were, saying to himself that such
a course was merely justice to his dead wife, on whose memory, were
she guilty of self-slaughter, he should be the last to bring obloquy,
or even suspicion. He felt more comfortable after having come to this
decision--more comfortable in persuading himself that he was guided by
a tender feeling towards the dead woman. He said "Poor Mabel!" to
himself several times in thinking over it, and shook his head
dolefully; and actually felt that if she had been prompted by his
neglect to take this step, his omitting to call public attention to it
was in itself some _amende_ for his neglect. But even to himself he
would not allow this soul-guiding influence in the matter. He blinked
it, and shut his eyes to it; refused to listen to it, and--was led by
it all the same. Chudleigh Wilmot tried to persuade himself, did
persuade himself that he was acting solely in deference to his dead
wife's memory; but what really influenced his conduct was the
knowledge that the arousal of the smallest suspicion as to the cause
of his wife's death, the smallest scandal about himself, would
inevitably separate him hopelessly, and for ever, from Madeleine
Kilsyth. The great question as to whether Mabel had destroyed herself
still remained unanswered. He was powerless to shake off the
impression, and under the impression he was useless; he could do
justice neither to himself nor his patients. He must get away; give up
practice at least for a time, and go abroad; go somewhere where he
knew no one, and where he himself was quite unknown--somewhere where
he could have rest and quiet and surcease of brainwork; where he could
face this dreadful incubus, and either get rid of it, or school
himself to bear it without its present dire effect on his life.
He would do that, and do it at once. The death of his wife would
afford him sufficient excuse to the world, which knew him as a highly
nervous and easily impressible man, and which would readily understand
that he had been shattered by the suddenness of the blow. As to his
practice, he was well content to give that up for a short time: he
knew his own value without being in the least conceited--knew that he
could pick it up again just where he left it, and that his patients
would be only too glad to see him. He had felt that when he was at
Kilsyth.
At Kilsyth! The word jarred upon him at once. To give up his practice
even for a time meant a temporary estrangement from Madeleine; meant a
shutting out, so far as he was concerned, of sun and warmth and light
and life, at the very time when his way was darkest and his path most
beset. His mind had been so fully occupied since his return, that he
had only been able to give a few fleeting thoughts to Madeleine. He
felt a kind of horror at permitting her even in his thoughts to be
connected with the dreadful subject which filled them. But now when
the question of departure was being considered by him, he naturally
turned to Madeleine.
To leave London now would be to throw away for ever his chance with
Madeleine Kilsyth. His chance with her? Yes, his chance of winning
her! He was a free man now--free to take his place among her suitors,
and try his chance of winning her for himself. How wonderful that
seemed to him, to be unfettered, to be free to woo where he liked! Last
time he had drifted into marriage carelessly and without purpose--it
should be very different the next time. But to leave London now
would be throwing away for ever his chance with Madeleine. He knew
that; he knew that he had established a claim of gratitude on the
family, which Kilsyth himself, at all events, would gladly allow, and
which Lady Muriel would probably not be prepared to deny. As for
Madeleine herself, he knew that she was deeply grateful to him, and
thoroughly disposed to confide in him. This was all he had dared to
hope hitherto; but now he was in a position to try and awaken a warmer
feeling. Gratitude was not a bad basis to begin on, and he hoped, he
did not know it was so long since the days of Maria Strutt--and
thinking it over, he looked blankly in the glass at the crows'-feet
round his eyes and the streaks of silver in his dark hair; but he
thought then that he had the art of pleasing women, unfortunate as was
the result of that particular case. But if he were to go away, the
advantageous position he had so luckily gained would be lost, the
ground would be cut away from under his feet, and on his return he
would have great difficulty in being received on a footing of intimacy
by the family; while it would probably be impossible for him to regain
the confidence and esteem he then enjoyed from all of them.
Was, then, Madeleine Kilsyth a necessary ingredient in his future
happiness? That was a new subject for consideration. Hitherto, while
that--that barrier existed, he had looked upon the whole affair merely
as a strange sort of romance, in which ideas and feelings of which he
had never had much experience, and that experience long ago, had
suddenly revived within him. Pleasantly enough; for it was pleasant to
know that his heart had not yet been enough trodden down and hardened
by the years which had gone over it to prevent it receiving seed and
bearing fruit;--pleasantly enough; for an exchange of the stern
reality of his work, a dry world with the bevy of cares which are
ready waiting for you as you emerge from your morning's tub, and which
only disappear--to change into nightmares--as you extinguish your
bedroom gas--an exchange of this for a little of that glamour of love
which he thought never to meet with again, could not fail to be
pleasant. But the affair was altered now; the occurrence which had
made him free had at the same time rendered it necessary that he
should use his freedom to a certain end. Under former circumstances he
could have been frequently in Madeleine's company,--happy as he never
had been save when with her,--and the world would have asked no
question, have lifted no eyebrow, have shrugged no shoulder. Dr.
Wilmot was a married man, and his professional position warranted his
visiting Miss Kilsyth, who was his patient, as often as he thought
necessary. But now it was a very different matter. Here was a
man, still young, at least quite young enough to marry again; and
if it were said, as it would be, that he was "constantly at the
house," people---those confounded anonymous persons, the on who do
such an enormous amount of mischief in the world--would begin to talk
and whisper and hint; and the girl's name might be compromised through
him, and that would never do.
Did he love her? did he want to marry her? As he asked himself the
question, his thoughts wandered back to Kilsyth. He saw her lying
flushed and fevered, her long golden hair tossing over her pillow, a
bright light in her blue eyes, her hot hands clasped behind her
burning head--or, better still, in her convalescence, when she lay
still and tranquil, and looked up at him timidly and softly, and
thanked him in the fullest and most liquid tones for all his kindness
to her. And he remembered how, gazing at her, listening to her, the
remembrance of what Love really was had come to him out of the faraway
regions of the Past, and had moved his heart within him in the same
manner, but much more potently than it had been moved in the days of
his youth. Yes; the question that he had put to himself admitted but
of one answer. He did love Madeleine Kilsyth; he did want to marry
her! To that end he would employ all his energies; to secure that he
would defer everything. What nonsense had he been talking about giving
up his practice and going away? He would remain where he was, and
marry Madeleine!
And Henrietta Prendergast? The thought of that woman struck him like a
whip. If he were to marry Madeleine Kilsyth, would not that woman,
Henrietta Prendergast, Mabel's intimate and only friend--would not she
proclaim to the world all that she knew of the jealousy in which the
dead woman held the young girl? Would not his marriage be a
confirmation of her story? Might it not be possible that the existence
of such a talk might create other talk; that the manner of her death
might be discussed; that it might be suspected that, driven to it by
jealousy--that is how they would put it--Mrs. Wilmot had destroyed
herself? And if "they" put it so, it would be in vain to deny it. The
mere fact of his having been successful in his profession had created
hosts of enemies, who would take advantage of the first adverse wind,
and do their best to blast his renown and bring him down from the
pedestal to which he had been elevated. Then bit by bit the scandal
would grow--would permeate his practice--would become general
town-talk. He would see the whispers and the shoulder-shrugs and the
uplifted eyebrows, and perhaps the cool manner or the possible cut.
Could he stand that? Could a man of his sensibility endure such talk?
could he bear to feel that his domesticity was being laid bare before
the world for the comment of each idler who might choose to wile away
his time in discussing the story? Impossible! No; sooner keep in his
present dreary, hopeless, isolated position, sooner give up all
chances of winning Madeleine, sooner even retrograde. He had no
children to provide for, and could always have enough to support him
in a sufficient manner. He would give it all up; he would go away; he
would banish for ever that day-dream which he had permitted himself to
enjoy, and he would--
A letter was brought in by his servant--an oblong note, sealed with
black wax, in an unfamiliar handwriting. He turned it over two or
three times, then opened it, and read as follows:
"_Brook-street, Thursday_.
"DEAR DR. WILMOT,--We have heard with very great regret of your sad
loss, and we all, Lady Muriel, papa, and myself, beg you to receive
our sincere condolence. I know how difficult it is at such a time to
attempt to offer consolation without an appearance of intrusion; but I
think I may say that we are especially concerned for you, as it was
your attendance on me which kept you from returning home at the time
you had originally intended. I can assure you I have thought of this
very often, and it has given me a great deal of uneasiness. Pray
understand that we can none of us ever thank you sufficiently for your
kindness to us at Kilsyth. With united kind regards, dear Dr. Wilmot,
your grateful patient,
"MADELEINE KILSYTH.
"P.S. I have a rather troublesome cough, which worries me at night.
You recollect telling me that you knew about this?"
So the Kilsyths were in town. His grateful patient! He could fancy the
half-smile on her lips as she traced the words. No; he would give up
his notion of going away--at least for the present!