‘SICK, SICK TO THE HEART OF LIFE AM I.’
‘HAVE you thought of the danger to yourself?’ asked the doctor,
startled by Cyril’s proposition.
‘I do not care about the danger--if there be any.’
‘There may be danger. You have been working night and day. You are by
no means a patient I should consider able to lose several ounces of
blood with impunity. You had better abandon the idea, Mr. Culverhouse.
Your life is more valuable than that poor fellow’s yonder.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Cyril. ‘That young man is all the world to
his widowed mother. I am all the world to nobody.’
‘But you are valuable to a great number of people. Think how much good
you have already done in this heathenish town. And you may go on being
useful to your fellow-men for the next fifty years, if you do not
waste your strength and health upon some benevolent folly. Joyce is in
the hands of Providence. Medicine has done all that it can for him.’
‘Medicine. Yes--meaning drugs. But science has done nothing. I believe
that science can save him. Will you perform this operation, Mr.
Saunders, yes or no?’
‘What if I say no?’
‘I shall go to every doctor in Bridford--down to the cattle
doctors--till I find the man who will do it.’
‘By the time you get to the end of your journey poor Joyce will have
started for the other world. But come, if you are absolutely bent upon
this--stay, let me feel your pulse. So strong and full. Yes, I think we
might risk it. But you must have a cab ready at the end of the alley to
take you home. You will be weak and faint after the operation; and you
will have to rest for an hour or so at Joyce’s before we move you.’
‘I’ll go and order a cab while you go and get the instruments for the
transfusion. There is no time to be lost. If that poor fellow sinks
into a state of collapse our efforts will be useless.’
Mr. Saunders went to his surgery, which was not far off, to fetch all
that was required for the experiment. He was governed and impelled by a
firmer spirit than his own, or he would hardly have done this thing.
‘I ought not to do it on my own responsibility,’ he said to himself.
‘Suppose both men were to die, and there were an outcry against me in
the newspapers. I should be ruined. If the air gets into the veins of
either subject he is a dead man. I must have some one with me. Old
Bolling would do. He’s just the man. He would cut off a patient’s head
for the sake of an experiment, if the chances of his putting it on
again properly were as one in fifty. He has killed more patients and
made more wonderful cures than any doctor in the north of England.’
Fortunately Dr. Bolling’s abode was not very remote. It was a shabby
old square red brick house in the market-place, and had never been
painted outside or inside within the memory of man. It was a house
of about twenty rooms. Old Bolling lived in two of them, and his
housekeeper occupied a third. Bats, mice, spiders, beetles, and such
small deer had free warren in all the others. There was a very fine
breed of cockchafers on which the old physician rather prided himself.
In the summer evenings they got into his lamp and candles, and made his
dingy old surgery musical. The furniture was a miracle of antiquity and
ugliness--tables as thick as tombstones--chairs that only a strong man
could move--horsehair and moreen upholstery so interpenetrated with
dust that brushing or beating would have been a mockery. Perhaps that
is why the old housekeeper never attempted either process.
Dr. Bolling seemed to have left off having his windows cleaned at
some early period of his professional career. Perhaps the subdued
light which crept through his opaque and smoke-darkened panes suited
him, just as smoke-coloured spectacles suit some people’s eyes. The
housekeeper had left off suggesting that the windows would be better
for cleaning.
‘What’s the use?’ Dr. Bolling had asked, years ago, when she hinted
that the operation would improve the general appearance of his house.
‘They’d get dirty again, wouldn’t they?’
‘Certainly,’ agreed the housekeeper. ‘They’d get dirty again--after a
time.’
‘Of course, and we should be no better off than we are now. I should
have spent money on cleaning them for no purpose. Besides, if the
windows were clean my old furniture might look shabby. Now in this
tempered light, it looks uncommonly well.’
Common report declared that Dr. Bolling was a miser. The popular mind
reasoned in this wise: that no man who was not a miser would live in
one corner of a dirty old house, wear clothes too shabby for a Jew
pedlar to chaffer for, and trot to and fro on his own feet from morning
till night, when he could have afforded to make his house spick and
span from basement to garret, clothe himself like a gentleman, and
drive about in a handsome carriage and pair. But the actual fact was
that Dr. Bolling did not care about fine furniture or good broadcloth,
and that he liked to use his own legs better than to sit behind a pair
of horses. He was a creature of habit. His mind was in his professional
work. He lived only for science. In the Middle Ages he would have
shut himself up in a laboratory and made all manner of uncanny
experiments, with retorts and crucibles, and alembics, and much waste
of quicksilver. In our enlightened age he confined his experiments
to other people’s bodies. He was a marvel of cleverness, experience,
enthusiasm; but in Bridford he did not stand nearly so high as Dr.
Simper, who wore unexceptionable black, drove a smart brougham in
winter, and a smarter curricle in summer, and had his shirts starched
by a French laundress.
Lights were shining through the round holes in Dr. Bolling’s shutters
when Mr. Saunders got to his door.
‘That’s lucky,’ thought the parish doctor. ‘The old man is in his
surgery.’
He rang, and the door was opened by Dr. Bolling himself, a shrivelled
little man, with a black velvet skull-cap on the top of his bald head.
‘Ah, Saunders, come in. Anything wrong?’
‘A poor fellow dying of cholera, that’s all.’
‘That’s bad. I’ve tried everything--but though I’ve pulled a good many
of my patients through, I’m not satisfied that I know much about the
disease. There must be a cure. Every poison has its antidote.’
‘Have you ever tried transfusion?’
‘In cholera? No. I’ve done it in cases of severe hæmorrhage--and
successfully.’
‘I want you to do it to-night.’
And then the parish doctor told Dr. Bolling about Emmanuel Joyce and
the curate’s offer.
‘Is your curate a strong man?’
‘I should take him to be a healthy man. He has been wasting his
strength a good deal lately in attendance upon the sick. But I should
judge him to be a fair subject for the experiment.’
‘We’ll try it,’ said the old man, his wizened face bright with energy
and mind. ‘I’ve known of its being tried in cholera cases. It was done
largely in Russia. Yes, I should like to see the effect. Cholera is a
deterioration of the blood--and a supply of fresh healthy blood----Yes,
I’ll do it.’
There was no more time lost in discussion. Dr. Bolling went to one of
the roomy old closets in his surgery, and fished out a particular form
of syringe: armed with this and his instrument case he was ready.
The two doctors saw a cab waiting at the mouth of the alley, and they
found Cyril Culverhouse standing in the doorway of the house that
sheltered the Joyces. They all three went in together.
Two hours’ later Cyril came out of that crowded den, very pale, and
leaning on the parish doctor’s arm. The two medical men had insisted
upon his taking a glass of brandy, and reposing for some time in a
horizontal position. The operation had been performed with every
indication of success. Dr. Bolling was remaining to watch the patient.
He was going to stay all night. Nobody knew better than Dr. Bolling’s
gratis patients whether or not the physician was a miser. He was
no niggard either of his time or his money when their welfare was
at stake. He would give as much attention to the case of a pauper
infant--a little half-fledged life that was positively valueless from
the political economist’s point of view--as he would have given to a
hypochondriacal duchess.
Mr. Saunders accompanied Cyril home to his lodgings, comfortable rooms
in a queer old panelled house in a narrow street shadowed by the
gloomy stone wall of the parish church. The rooms Cyril occupied were
large, tidily furnished in an old-fashioned heterogeneous way, and
scrupulously clean. The landlady was what is usually called a motherly
person, which seems to mean a woman whose easy temper has run into fat.
She had let her lodgings to curates for the last thirty years, her
husband, as parish clerk, having a vested right to church patronage.
She was of a soft and affectionate nature, and, not being blessed
with children of her own, lavished all her maternal feeling upon the
beardless, or newly bearded youths who succeeded one another, in an
endless procession, as occupants of her roomy first floor.
Lively curates had objected to the gloom of the dusky old panelled
rooms, with their deep window-seats and narrow windows. Aristocratic
curates had felt their personal dignity endangered by the shabbiness of
this narrow side street; but no curate had ever been able to resist the
insinuations of Mrs. Podmore’s maternal affection. They might complain,
but they could not leave her. She shed tears at the least hint of such
a desertion, and what curate, rightly minded, could resist a woman’s
tears?
In her earlier life Mrs. Podmore had been able to ‘do for’ her curates,
as she called it, with her own unassisted labour. She had cooked for
them, and Mrs. Podmore’s cookery was one of the charms by which she
subjugated the clerical mind; she had kept their rooms clean and neat,
and had even looked to their shirt buttons and darned their socks. But
with advancing years and increasing obesity, Mrs. Podmore found herself
compelled to take ‘a girl,’ and a series of neat-handed Phillises
followed one another in a line as long as Banquo’s issue. Mrs
Podmore’s requirements were high, and she demanded an amount of virtue
and industry from the genus girl which very few specimens of that class
were able to maintain for more than a twelvemonth at a stretch. Either
the girl was saucy, and ‘answered’ when Mrs. Podmore reproved her; or
she was slovenly, and left the flue in the corners of the rooms; or
she was that fearful animal, a breaker, and heralded her approach by
a crash of dropped crockery, or a shiver of smashed glass. For the
period of her service, however, Mrs. Podmore’s girl was always neat and
pleasant to see. She was generally fresh-coloured, and wore lavender
gowns, with the sleeves rolled up above the elbow, and her elbows as a
rule were rosier than Aurora’s fingers. To the curates she was rarely
saucy. They did not try her temper so severely as Mrs. Podmore tried it.
In these quiet old-world lodgings Cyril Culverhouse awoke on the
morning after the experiment. The bells were ringing for the early
morning service. Cyril’s usual hour for rising was full an hour
earlier. To-day it was only the sound of the bells close at hand that
awakened him. When he tried to lift his head from the pillow it was as
heavy as lead.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to be ill,’ he thought.
He got up, took his cold bath, which revived him a little, struggled
into his clothes, feeling weak and giddy and miserable all the while,
and ran across to the church. The choir boys were filing into the
chancel as he got to the vestry. The Vicar was looking glum.
‘I say, Culverhouse, as this early service is your fad, you might at
least be punctual,’ he grumbled, as Cyril was pulling on his surplice.
‘I’m sorry to be late, but I don’t feel well this morning.’
‘Eh? Nothing bad, I hope. You’re as white as your surplice. You go too
much among those poor creatures. Very proper, of course; but a man owes
something to himself, even if he hasn’t a wife and family to consider.’
Cyril got through his portion of the service somehow; but the gray
old church walls, the monuments to departed citizens, the draped
females leaning upon anchors, the chubby cherubs blowing trumpets,
the urns and tablets danced before his eyes, like a confused vision
of a stonemason’s yard turned upside down. He hardly knew what he was
reading. His own voice had a far-away sound, as if it belonged to some
one else, or were the echo of words he read yesterday. He had a curious
uncertainty of mind about times and seasons, and could not have told
whether it was winter or summer.
‘I’m afraid I shall not be able to attend to my parish work this
afternoon,’ he said, when the service was over.
‘No, no, my dear fellow,’ answered the Vicar, heartily. ‘Go home and
rest. You’ve worked hard enough to have earned a few days’ repose. I
dare say that will set you right.’
Cyril went home, and threw himself down on his bed, and lay there
helpless, inert, no one knowing anything about him, till Sarah, the
maid-of-all-work, came at six o’clock to lay the table for his frugal
dinner. Sitting-room and bedroom adjoined. Cyril had left the door
open, and Sarah was startled at seeing him lying on his bed, dressed as
he had come in from the church.
‘I hope you are not ill, sir,’ said Sarah.
Cyril gave her a rambling answer. She ran quickly down, and told Mrs.
Podmore that Mr. Culverhouse had gone out of his mind. He was lying
on his bed, and talking ever so queerly. The landlady waddled slowly
upstairs, halting to pant at every landing, anxious, but too fat to
travel fast, even if the house had been blazing. Just as she reached
the first floor the street door bell rang. Sarah ran down to answer it,
and found herself face to face with Dr. Saunders.
‘Oh, sir, how lucky you’ve come!’ exclaimed the girl, ‘Mr. Culverhouse
has gone out of his mind.’
‘Nonsense, girl!’
The doctor ran upstairs and sat down by Cyril’s bed. He found him
very weak, and with a good deal of fever about him. He answered Dr.
Saunders’s questions with difficulty, and had a distressed and anxious
look about his brow and eyes.
‘I’ve some good news for you,’ said the doctor, cheerily. ‘Emmanuel
Joyce rallied considerably during the night, and it’s Bolling’s opinion
that he’ll mend.’
‘I’m very glad of that,’ said Cyril, faintly.
‘Now how about nursing?’ inquired Mr. Saunders.
‘This is a case of exhaustion and low fever. Mr. Culverhouse has been
overworking himself lately, and he’s thoroughly worn out. He will want
a great deal of care. Good nursing will be important.’
‘As far as my strength will let me he shall have every care,’ protested
Mrs. Podmore. ‘But I can’t boast of a strong constitution, and I’m
troubled with my breath if I move about much. But as to beef tea, and
chicken broth, and jelly, I can make them as well as any one.’
‘Beef tea and broth will be wanted; but the chief thing is to see that
he takes them. He must have nourishment every half-hour. Look here, my
good girl,’ said Dr. Saunders, turning to the servant, ‘you must help
your mistress to nurse this gentleman day and night, till we can get a
professional nurse.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Sarah.
‘I can make up a bed on the sitting-room sofa,’ said Mrs. Podmore, ‘so
as to be always close at hand.’
‘Yes, but that won’t be much use if you’re a heavy sleeper,’ answered
the doctor.
‘I’m a very light sleeper, sir. I sometimes hear the church clock
strike every hour of the night.’
‘Living so near the belfry I hardly wonder that you do,’ said the
doctor.
He gave full directions as to what was to be done for his patient. It
was not a case for drugs, but for care and nourishment. The loss of
blood, coming upon a constitution much worn with work and watching, had
caused a greater shock to the system than Dr. Saunders, or even Dr.
Bolling, had apprehended.
In the next street the parish doctor ran against Mr. Pudge, a man with
a pale fat face, greasy, smeared with printers’ ink, sub-editor of the
_Bridford Chronicle_.
‘How are your patients going on?’ asked Mr. Pudge. ‘Any abatement of
the epidemic?’
‘None, I am sorry to say: but I’ve got a patient in Church Street that
I’m more concerned about than all my cholera patients.’
‘Who is that?’
‘Mr. Culverhouse. He’s down with fever. Overwork and anxiety have
brought it on. He’s been working as hard as that French bishop you’ve
read about when the plague was raging at Marseilles.’
‘Ay, to be sure,’ said the sub-editor, who had never heard of the
bishop or the plague at Marseilles, and who booked the fact as a good
starting-point for his next leading article on the Bridford pestilence.
It was Friday afternoon, and Mr. Pudge was hastening to his office to
see the _Chronicle_ through the press. He did not forget to put in a
paragraph, with a side heading,--
‘SERIOUS ILLNESS OF THE REV. C. CULVERHOUSE.--We regret to hear that
this gentleman, whose indefatigable labours among our suffering poor
during the prevailing epidemic have been beyond all praise, has at
length broken down under the burden imposed upon him, and is confined
to his bed with a severe attack of fever.’