Master Of His Fate
by
J. MACLAREN COBBAN
1890
Contents.
Chapter
I. Julius Courtney
II. A Mysterious Case
III. "M. Dolaro"
IV. The Man of the Crowd
V. The Remarkable Case of Lady Mary Fane
VI. At The Bedside of the Doctor
VII. Contains a Love Interlude
VIII. Strange Scenes in Curzon Street
IX. An Apparition And a Confession
To Z. Mennell, Esq.
My dear Mennell,
It has been my fortune to see something of the practice of the art
of healing under widely different conditions, and I know none who
better represents the most humane and most exacting of all
professions than yourself. The good doctor of this story--the born
surgeon and healer, the ever young and alert, the self-forgetful,
the faithful friend, gifted with "that exquisite charity which can
forgive all things"--is studied from you.
It is one of the greatest pleasures of my life to inscribe your
name on this dedicatory page, and to subscribe myself,
Your sincere friend and grateful patient,
J. Maclaren Cobban.
London, November 1889.
Chapter I.
Julius Courtney.
The Hyacinth Club has the reputation of selecting its members from among
the freshest and most active spirits in literature, science, and art.
That is in a sense true, but activity in one or another of those fields
is not a condition of membership; for, just as the listening Boswell was
the necessary complement of the talking Johnson, so in the Hyacinth Club
there is an indispensable contingent of passive members who find their
liveliest satisfaction in hearing and looking on, rather than in
speaking and doing. Something of the home principle of male and female
is necessary for the completeness even of a club.
The Hyacinth Club-house looks upon Piccadilly and the Green Park. The
favourite place of concourse of its members is the magnificent
smoking-room on the first floor, the bow-windows of which command a view
up and down the fashionable thoroughfare, and over the trees and the
undulating sward of the Park to the gates of Buckingham Palace. On a
Monday afternoon in the beginning of May, the bow-windows were open, and
several men sat in leather lounges (while one leaned against a
window-sash), luxuriously smoking, and noting the warm, palpitating life
of the world without. A storm which had been silently and doubtfully
glooming and gathering the night before had burst and poured in the
morning, and it was such a spring afternoon as thrills the heart with
new life and suffuses the soul with expectation--such an afternoon as
makes all women appear beautiful and all men handsome. The south-west
wind blew soft and balmy, and all nature rejoiced as the bride in the
presence of the bridegroom. The trees in the Park were full of sap, and
their lusty buds were eagerly opening to the air and the light. The
robin sang with a note almost as rich and sensuous as that of the
thrush; and the shrill and restless sparrows chirped and chattered about
the houses and among the horses' feet, and were as full of the joy of
life as the men and women who thronged the pavements or reclined in
their carriages in the sumptuous ease of wealth and beauty.
Of the men who languidly gazed upon the gay and splendid scene from the
windows of the Club, none seemed so interested as the man who leaned
against the window-frame. He appeared more than interested--absorbed,
indeed--in the world without, and he looked bright and handsome enough,
and charged enough with buoyant health, to be the ideal bridegroom of
Nature in her springtide.
He was a dark man, tall and well built, with clear brown eyes. His black
hair (which was not cropped short, as is the fashion) had a lustrous
softness, and at the same time an elastic bushiness, which nothing but
the finest-tempered health can give; and his complexion, though tanned
by exposure, had yet much of the smoothness of youth, save where the
razor had passed upon his beard. Thus seen, a little way off, he
appeared a young man in his rosy twenties; on closer view and
acquaintance, however, that superficial impression was contradicted by
the set expression of his mouth and the calm observation and
understanding of his eye, which spoke of ripe experience rather than of
green hope. He bore a very good English name--Courtney; and he was
believed to be rich. There was no member of whom the Hyacinth Club was
prouder than of him: though he had done nothing, it was commonly
believed he could do anything he chose. No other was listened to with
such attention, and there was nothing on which he could not throw a
fresh and fascinating light. He was a constant spring of surprise and
interest. While others were striving after income and reputation, he
calmly and modestly, without obtrusion or upbraiding, held on his own
way, with unsurpassable curiosity, to the discovery of all which life
might have to reveal. It was this, perhaps, as much as the charm of his
manner and conversation, that made him so universal a favourite; for how
could envy or malice touch a man who competed at no point with his
fellows?
His immediate neighbours, as he thus stood by the window, were a pair of
journalists, several scientific men, and an artist.
"Have you seen any of the picture-shows, Julius?" asked the painter,
Kew.
Courtney slowly abstracted his gaze from without, and turned on his
shoulder with the lazy, languid grace of a cat.
"No," said he, in a half-absent tone; "I have just come up, and I've not
thought of looking into picture-galleries yet."
"Been in the country?" asked Kew.
"Yes, I've been in the country," said Courtney, still as if his
attention was elsewhere.
"It must be looking lovely," said Kew.
"It is--exquisite!" said Courtney, waking up at length to a full glow of
interest. "That's why I don't want to go and stare at pictures. In the
spring, to see the fresh, virginal, delicious green of a bush against an
old dry brick wall, gives a keener pleasure than the best picture that
ever was painted."
"I thought," said Kew, "you had a taste for Art; I thought you enjoyed
it."
"So I do, my dear fellow, but not now,--not at this particular present.
When I feel the warm sun on my back and breathe the soft air, I want no
more; they are more than Art can give--they are Nature, and, of course,
it goes without saying that Art can never compete with Nature in
creating human pleasure. I mean no disparagement of your work, Kew, or
any artist's work; but I can't endure Art except in winter, when
everything (almost) must be artificial to be endurable. A winter may
come in one's life--I wonder if it will?--when one would rather look at
the picture of a woman than at the woman herself. Meantime I no more
need pictures than I need fires; I warm both hands and heart at the fire
of life."
"Ah!" said Kew, with a wistful lack of comprehension.
"That's why I believe," said Courtney, with a sudden turn of reflection,
"there is in warm countries no Art of our small domestic kind."
"Just so," said Kew; while Dingley Dell, the Art critic, made a note of
Courtney's words.
"Look here!" exclaimed Dr. Embro, an old scientific man of Scottish
extraction, who, in impatience with such transcendental talk, had taken
up 'The St. James's Gazette.' "What do you make of this queer case at
the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris? I see it's taken from 'The Daily Telegraph;'"
and he began to read it.
"Oh," said Kew, "we all read that this morning."
"Dr. Embro," said Courtney, again looking idly out of window, "is like a
French journal: full of the news of the day before yesterday."
"Have you read it yourself, Julius?" asked Embro, amid the laughter of
his neighbours.
"No," said Julius carelessly; "and if it's a hospital case I don't want
to read it."
"What!" said Embro, with heavy irony. "You say that? You, a pupil of the
great Dubois and the greater Charbon! But here comes a greater than
Charbon--the celebrated Dr. Lefevre himself. Come now, Lefevre, you tell
us what you think of this Paris hospital case."
"Presently, Embro," said Lefevre, who had just perceived his friend
Courtney. "Ha, Julius!" said he, crossing to him and taking his hand;
"you're looking uncommonly well."
"Yes," said Julius, "I am well."
"And where have you been all this while?" asked the doctor.
"Oh," said Julius, turning his gaze again out of window, "I have been
rambling everywhere, between Dan and Beersheba."
"And all is vanity, eh?" said the doctor.
"Well," said Julius, looking at him, "that depends--that very much
depends. But can there be any question of vanity or vexation in this
sweet, glorious sunshine?" and he stretched out his hands as if he
burgeoned forth to welcome it.
"Perhaps not," said Lefevre. "Come and sit down and let us talk."
They were retiring from the window when Embro's voice again sounded at
Lefevre's elbow--"Come now, Lefevre; what's the meaning of that Paris
case?"
"What Paris case?"
Embro answered by handing him the paper. He took it, and read as
follows:--
"About a month ago a strange case of complete mental collapse was
received into the Hôtel-Dieu. A fresh healthy girl, of the working
class, about twenty years of age, and comfortably dressed,
presented herself at a police-station near the Odéon and asked for
shelter. As she did not appear to be in full possession of her
mental faculties, she was sent to the Hôtel-Dieu, where she
remained in a semi-comatose condition. Her memory did not go
farther back than the hour of her application at the
police-station. She was entirely ignorant of her previous history,
and had even forgotten her name. The minds of the medical staff of
the Hôtel-Dieu were very much exercised with her condition; but it
was not till about a week ago that they succeeded in restoring to
any extent her mental consciousness and her memory. She then
remembered the events immediately preceding her application to the
police. It had come on to rain, she said, and she was hurrying
along to escape from it, when a gentleman in a cloak came to her
side and politely offered to give her the shelter of his umbrella.
She accepted; the gentleman seemed old and ill. He asked her to
take his arm. She did so, and very soon she felt as if her strength
had gone from her; a cold shiver crept over her; she trembled and
tottered; but with all that she did not find her sensations
disagreeable exactly or alarming; so little so, indeed, that she
never thought of letting go the gentleman's arm. Her head buzzed,
and a kind of darkness came over her. Then all seemed to clear, and
she found herself alone near the police-station, remembering
nothing. Being asked to further describe the gentleman, she said he
was tall and dark, with a pleasant voice and wonderful eyes, that
made you feel you must do whatever he wished. The police have made
inquiries, but after such a lapse of time it is not surprising that
no trace of him can be found."
"Well?" asked Embro, when Lefevre had raised his eyes from the paper.
"What do you think of it?"
"Curious," said Lefevre. "I can't say more, since I know nothing of it
but this. Have you read it, Julius?"
"No," said Julius; "I hate what people call news; and when I take up a
paper, it's only to look at the Weather Forecasts." Lefevre handed him
the paper, which he took with an unconcealed look of repulsion. "If it's
some case of disease," said he, "it will make me ill."
"Oh no," said Lefevre; "it's not painful, but it's curious;" and so
Julius set himself to read it.
"But come," said Embro, posing the question with his forefinger; "do you
believe that story, Lefevre?"
"Though it's French, and from the 'Telegraph,'" said Lefevre, "I see no
reason to disbelieve it."
"Come," said Embro, "come--you're shirking the question."
"I confess," said Lefevre, "I've no desire to discuss it. You think me
prejudiced in favour of anything of the kind; perhaps I think you
prejudiced against it: where, then, is the good of discussion?"
"Well, now," said the unabashed Embro, "I'll tell you what I think.
Here's a story"--Julius at that instant handed back the paper to
him--"of a healthy young woman mesmerised, hypnotised, or somnambulised,
or whatever you like to call it, in the public street, by some man that
casually comes up to her, and her brain so affected that her memory
goes! I say it's inconceivable!--impossible!" And he slapped the paper
down on the table.
The others looked on with grim satisfaction at the prospect of an
argument between the two representatives of rival schools; and it was
noteworthy that, as they looked, they turned a referring glance on
Courtney, as if it were a foregone conclusion that he must be the final
arbiter. He, however, sat abstracted, with his eyes on the floor, and
with one hand propping his chin and the other drumming on the arm of his
chair.
"I'm not a scientific man," said the journalist who was not an Art
critic, "and I am not prejudiced either way about this story; but it
seems to me, Embro, that you view the thing through a very ordinary
fallacy, and make a double mistake. You confound the relatively
inconceivable with the absolutely impossible: this story is relatively
inconceivable to you, and therefore you say it is absolutely
impossible."
"Is there such a thing as an absolute impossibility?" murmured Julius,
who still sat with his chin in his hand, looking as if he considered the
"thing" from a long way off as one of a multitude of other things.
"I do not believe there is," said the journalist; "but--"
"Don't let us lose ourselves in metaphysics," broke in Embro. Then,
turning to Courtney, whose direct intelligent gaze seemed to disconcert
him, he said, "Now, Julius, you've seen, I daresay, a good many things
we have not seen,--have you ever seen or known a case like this we're
talking about?"
"I can't say I have," said Julius.
"There you are!" quoth Embro, in triumph.
"But," continued Julius, "I don't therefore nail that case down as
false."
"Do you mean to say," exclaimed Embro, "that you have lived all your
years, and studied science at the Salpétrière,--or what they call
science there,--and studied and seen God knows what else besides, and
you can't pronounce an opinion from all you know on a case of this
sort?"
"Oh yes," said Julius, quietly, "I can pronounce an opinion; but what's
the use of that? I think that case is true, but I don't know that it is;
and therefore I can't argue about it, for argument should come from
knowledge, and I have none. I have a few opinions, and I am always ready
to receive impressions; but, besides some schoolboy facts that are
common property, the only thing I know--I am certain of--is, as some man
says, '_Life's a dream worth dreaming_.'"
"You're too high-falutin for me, Julius," said Embro, shaking his head.
"But my opinion, founded on my knowledge, is that this story is a
hallucination of the young woman's noddle!"
"And how much, Embro," laughed Julius, rising to leave the circle, "is
the argument advanced by your ticketing the case with that long word?"
"To say 'hallucination,'" quoth Lefevre, "is a convenient way of giving
inquiry the slip."
"My dear Embro," said Julius,--and he spoke with an emphasis, and looked
down on Embro with a bright vivacity of eye, which forewarned the circle
of one of his eloquent flashes: a smile of expectant enjoyment passed
round,--"hallucination is the dust-heap and limbo of the meanly-equipped
man of science to-day, just as witchcraft was a few hundred years ago.
The poor creature of science long ago, when he came upon any
pathological or psychological manifestation he did not understand, used
to say, '_Witchcraft_! Away with it to the limbo!' To-day he says,
'_Hallucination_! Away with it to the dust-heap!' It is a pity," said
he, with a laugh, "you ever took to science, Embro."
"And why, may I ask?" said Embro.
"Oh, you'd have been great as an orthodox theologian of the Kirk; the
cocksureness of theology would have suited you like your own coat. You
are not at home in science, for you have no imagination."
It was characteristic of the peculiar regard in which Julius was held
that whatever he said or did appeared natural and pleasant,--like the
innocent actions and the simple, truthful speech of a child. Not even
Embro was offended with these last words of his: the others laughed;
Embro smiled, though with a certain sourness.
"Pooh, Julius!" said he; "what are you talking about? Science is the
examination of facts, and what has imagination to do with that? Reason,
sir, is what you want!"
"My dear Embro," said Julius, "there are several kinds of facts. There
are, for instance, big facts and little facts,--clean facts and dirty
facts. Imagination raises you and gives you a high and comprehensive
view of them all; your mere reason keeps you down in some noisome
corner, like the man with the muck-rake."
"Hear, hear!" cried the journalist and the artist heartily.
"You're wrong, Julius," said Embro,--"quite wrong. Keep your imagination
for painting and poetry. In science it just leads you the devil's own
dance, and fills you with delusions."
Julius paused, and bent on him his peculiar look, which made a man feel
he was being seen through and through.
"I am surprised, Embro," said he, "that one can live all your years and
not find that the illusions of life are its best part. If you leave me
the illusions, I'll give you all the realities. But how can we stay
babbling and quibbling here all this delicious afternoon? I must go out
and see green things and beasts. Come with me, Lefevre, to the
Zoological Gardens; it will do you good."
"I tell you what," said Lefevre, looking at the clock as they moved
away; "my mother and sister will call for me with the carriage in less
than half an hour: come with us for a drive."
"Oh yes," said Julius; "that's a good idea."
"And I," said Lefevre, "must have a cup of tea in the meantime. Come and
sit down, and tell me where you have been."
But when they had sat down, Julius was little inclined to divagate into
an account of his travels. His glance swept round and noted everything;
he remarked on a soft effect of a shaft of sunshine that lit up the
small conservatory, and burnished the green of a certain plant; he
perceived a fine black Persian cat, the latest pet of the Club, and
exclaimed, "What a beautiful, superb creature!" He called it, and it
came, daintily sniffed at his leg, and leaped on his lap, where he
stroked and fondled it. And all the while he continued to discuss
illusion, while Lefevre poured and drank tea (tea, which Julius would
not share: tea, he said, did not agree with him).
"It bothers me," he said, "to imagine how a man like Embro gets any
satisfaction out of life, for ever mumbling the bare dry bones of
science. Such a life as his might as well be passed in the receiver of
an air-pump."
"Still the old Julius!" said the doctor, with a smile. "Still dreaming
and wandering, interested in everything, but having nothing to do!"
"Nothing to do, my dear fellow?" said Julius. "I've all the world to
enjoy!" and he buried his cheek in the soft fur of the cat.
"A purpose in life, however," said Lefevre, "gives an extraordinary zest
to all enjoyment."
"To live," said Julius, "is surely the purpose of life. Any smaller, any
more obvious purpose, will spoil life, just as it spoils Art."
"I believe, my boy, you are wrong in both," said Lefevre. "Art without a
purpose goes off into all sorts of madness and extravagance, and so does
life."
"You really think so?" said Julius, his attention fixed for an instant,
and looking as if he had set up the point and regarded it at a distance.
"Yes; perhaps it does." But the next moment his attention seemed given
to the cat; he fondled it, and talked to it soothingly.
"I am sure of it," said Lefevre. "Just listen to me, Julius. You have
wonderful intelligence and penetration in everything. You are fond of
science; science needs men like you more than the dull plodders that
usually take to it. When you were in Charbon's class you were his
favourite and his best pupil,--don't I remember?--and if you liked you
could be the greatest physician of the age."
"It is treason to yourself to say such a thing."
"Your fame would soon eclipse mine."
"Fame! fame!" exclaimed Julius, for an instant showing irritation. "I
would not give a penny-piece for fame if all the magicians of the East
came crying it down the streets! Why should I seek fame? What good would
it do me if I had it?"
"Well, well," said Lefevre; "let fame alone: you might be as unknown as
you like, and do a world of good in practice among the poor."
Julius looked at him, and set the cat down.
"My dear Lefevre," said he, "I did not think you could urge such common
twaddle! You know well enough,--nobody knows better,--first of all, that
there are already more men waiting to do that kind of thing than can
find occupation: why should I go down among them and try to take their
work? And you know, in the next place, that medical philanthropy, like
all other philanthropy, is so overdone that the race is fast
deteriorating; we strive with so much success to keep the sickly and the
diseased alive, that perfect health is scarcely known. Life without
health can be nothing but a weariness: why should it be reckoned a
praiseworthy thing to keep it going at any price? If life became a
burden to me, I should lay it down."
"But," said Lefevre, earnestly, "your life surely is not your own to do
with it what you like!"
"In the name of truth, Lefevre," answered Julius, "if my life is not my
own, what is? I get its elements from others, but I fashion it myself,
just as much as the sculptor shapes his statue, or the poet turns his
poem. You don't deny to the sculptor the right to smash his statue if it
does not please him, nor to the poet the right to burn his
manuscript;--why should you deny me the right to dispose of my life? I
know--I know," said he, seeing Lefevre open his mouth and raise his hand
for another observation, "that your opinion is the common one, but that
is the only sanction it has; it has the sanction neither of true
morality nor of true religion! But here is the waiter to tell you the
carriage is come. I'm glad. Let us get out into the air and the
sunshine."
The carriage was the doctor's own; his mother, although the widow of a
Court physician, was too poor to maintain much equipage, but she made
what use she pleased of her son's possessions. When Lady Lefevre saw
Julius at the carriage-door, she broke into smiles and cries of welcome.
"Where have you been this long, long while, Julius?" said she. "This is
Julius Courtney, Nora. You remember Nora, Julius, when she was a little
girl in frocks?"
"She now wears remarkable gowns," chimed in the doctor.
"Which," said Julius, "I have no doubt are becoming."
"My brother," said Nora, with a sunny smile, "is jealous; because, being
a doctor, he must wear only dowdy clothes of dingy colours."
"We have finished at school and college, and been presented at Court,"
laughed Lady Lefevre.
"And," broke in the brother, "we have had cards engraved with our full
name, _Leonora_."
"With all this," said Lady Lefevre, "I hope you won't be afraid of us."
"I see no reason," said Julius. "For, if I may say so, I like everything
in Nature, and it seems to me Nature has had more to do with the
finishing you speak of than the schoolmistress or the college
professor."
"There he is already," laughed Lady Lefevre, "with his equivocal
compliments. I shouldn't wonder if he says that, my dear, because you
have not yet had more than a word to say for yourself."
By that time Lefevre and Julius were seated, and the carriage was
rolling along towards the Park. Julius sat immediately opposite Lady
Lefevre, but he included both her and Nora in his talk and his bright
glances. The doctor sat agreeably suffused with delight and wonder. No
one, as has been seen, had a higher opinion of Courtney's rare powers,
or had had more various evidence of them, than Lefevre, but even he had
never known his friend so brilliant. He was instinct with life and
eloquence. His face shone as with an inner light, and his talk was
bright, searching, and ironical. The amazing thing, however, was that
Julius had as stimulating and intoxicating an influence on Nora as, it
was clear, Nora had on him. His sister had not appeared to Lefevre
hitherto more than a beautiful, healthy, shy girl of tolerable
intelligence; now she showed that she had brilliance and wit, and,
moreover, that she understood Julius as one native of a strange realm
understands another. When they entered the Park, they were the observed
of all. And, indeed, Leonora Lefevre was a vision to excite the worship
of those least inclined to idolatry of Nature. She was of the noblest
type of English beauty, and she seemed as calmly unconscious of its
excellence and rarity as one of the grand Greek women of the Parthenon.
She had, however, a sensuous fulness and bloom, a queenly carriage of
head and neck, a clearness of feature, and a liquid kindness of eye that
suggested a deep potentiality of passion.
They drove round the Row, and round again, and they talked and laughed
their fill of wisdom and frivolity and folly. To be foolish wisely and
gracefully is a rare attainment. When they had almost completed their
third round, Julius (who had finished a marvellous story of a fairy
princess and a cat) said, "I can see you are fond of beasts, Miss
Lefevre. I should like to take you to the Zoological Gardens and show
you my favourites there. May we go now, Lady Lefevre?"
"By all means," said Lady Lefevre, "let us go. What do you say, John?"
"Oh, wherever you like, mother," answered her son.
Arrived in the Gardens, Julius took possession of his companions, and
exerted all his arts to charm and fascinate. He led the ladies from cage
to cage, from enclosure to enclosure, showed himself as familiar with
the characters and habits of their wild denizens as a farmer is with
those of his stock, and they responded to his strange calls, to his
gentleness and fearlessness, with an alert understanding and confidence
beautiful to see. His favourites were certain creatures of the deer
species, which crowded to their fences to sniff his clothes, and to lick
his hands, which he abandoned to their caresses with manifest
satisfaction. His example encouraged the queenly Nora and her sprightly
mother to feed the beautiful creatures with bread and buns, and to feel
the suffusion of pleasure derived from the contact of their soft lips
with the palm of the hand. After that they were scarcely astonished
when, without bravado, but clearly with simple confidence and enjoyment,
Julius put his hand within the bars of the lion's cage and scratched the
ears of a lioness, murmuring the while in a strange tongue such fond
sounds as only those use who are on the best terms with animals. The
great brute rose to his touch, closing its eyes, and bearing up its head
like a cat.
Then came an incident that deeply impressed the Lefevres. Julius went to
a cage in which, he said, there was a recent arrival--a leopard from the
"Land of the Setting Sun," the romantic land of the Moors. The creature
crouched sulking in the back of the cage. Julius tapped on the bars, and
entreated her in the language of her native land, "Ya, dudu! ya,
lellatsi!" She bounded to him with a "_wir-r-r_" of delight, leaned and
rubbed herself against the bars, and gave herself up to be stroked and
fondled. When he left her, she cried after him piteously, and wistfully
watched him out of sight.
"Do you know the beautiful creature?" asked Lady Lefevre.
"Yes," answered Julius quietly; "I brought her over some months ago."
Lefevre had explained to his mother that Julius had always been on
friendly or fond terms with animals, but never till now had he seen the
remarkable understanding he clearly maintained with them.
"Look!" said Lady Lefevre to her son as they turned to leave the
Gardens. "He seems to have fascinated Nora as much as the beasts."
Nora stood a little aloof, regarding Julius in an ecstasy of admiration.
When she found her mother was looking at her, her eyes sank, and as it
were a veil of blushes fell over her. Mother and son walked on first,
and Julius followed with Nora.
"He is a most charming and extraordinary man," said the mother.
"He is," said the son, "and amazingly intelligent."
"He seems to know everything, and to have been everywhere,--to have been
a kind of rolling stone. If anything should come of this, I suppose he
can afford to marry. You ought to know about him."
"I believe I know as much as any one."
"He has no profession?" queried the lady.
"He has no profession; but I suppose he could afford it," said Lefevre
musingly.
"You don't like the idea," said his mother.
"Not much. I scarce know why. But I somehow think of him as not having
enough sense of the responsibility of life."
"I suppose his people are of the right sort?"
"I suppose they are; though I don't know if he has any people," said he,
with a laugh. "He is the kind of man who does not need parents or
relations."
"Still, hadn't you better try to find out what he may have in that
line?"
"Yes," said Lefevre; "perhaps I had."