Doctor Phillips was a great favourite with the _beau sexe_. He was so
mild and courteous, so benevolent and sympathetic, that they felt sure
he might be trusted with their little secrets. Women, both old and
young, invaded his premises daily, and therefore it was no matter of
surprise to him, when, whilst he was still occupied with his breakfast
on the morning following Harriet Brandt’s flight from the Red House,
his confidential servant Charles announced that a young lady was
waiting to see him in his consulting room.
“No name, Charles?” demanded the doctor.
“No name, Sir!” replied the discreet Charles without the ghost of a
smile.
“Say that I will be with her in a minute!”
Doctor Phillips finished his cutlet and his coffee before he rose from
table. He knew what ladies’ confidences were like and that he should
not have much chance of returning to finish an interrupted meal.
But as he entered his consulting room, his air of indifference changed
to one of surprise. Pacing restlessly up and down the carpet, was
Harriet Brandt, but so altered that he should hardly have recognised
her. Her face was puffy and swollen, as though she had wept all night,
her eyelids red and inflamed, her whole demeanour wild and anxious.
“My dear young lady--is it possible that I see Miss Brandt?” the doctor
began.
She turned towards him and coming up close to his side, grasped his
arm. “I must speak to you!” she exclaimed, without further preliminary,
“you are the only person who can set my doubts at rest.”
“Well! well! well!” he said, soothingly, for the girl looked and spoke
as though her mind were disordered. “You may rely that I will do all I
can for you! But let us sit down first!”
“No! no!” cried Harriet, “there is no time, I cannot rest; you must
satisfy my mind at once, or I shall go mad! I have not closed my eyes
all night--the time was interminable, but how could I sleep! I seemed
to be torn in pieces by ten thousand devils!”
“My dear child,” said Doctor Phillips, as he laid his hand on hers and
looked her steadily in the face, “you are over-excited. You must try to
restrain yourself.”
He went up to a side table and, pouring out some cordial, made her
drink it. Harriet gulped it down, and sank back exhausted in a chair.
She was weak and worn-out with the excitement she had passed through.
“Come! that is better,” said the doctor, as he saw the tears stealing
from beneath her closed eyelids, “now, don’t hurry yourself! Keep quiet
till you feel strong enough to speak, and then tell me what it is that
brings you here!”
The allusion appeared to stir up all her misery again. She sat upright
and grasped the doctor by the arm as she had done at first.
“You must tell me,” she said breathlessly, “you must tell me all I want
to know. They say you knew my father and mother in Jamaica! Is that
true?”
The old doctor began to feel uncomfortable. It is one thing to warn
those in whom you are interested against a certain person, or persons,
and another to be confronted with the individual you have spoken of,
and forced to repeat your words. Yet Doctor Phillips was innocent of
having misjudged, or slandered anyone.
“I _did_ know your father and mother--for a short time!” he answered
cautiously.
“And were they married to each other?”
“My dear young lady, what is the use of dragging up such questions
now? Your parents are both gone to their account--why not let all that
concerned them rest also?”
“No! no! you forget that I live--to suffer the effects of their
wrong-doing! I _must_ know the truth--I will not leave the house until
you tell me! Were they married? Am I a--a--bastard?”
“If you insist upon knowing, I believe they were not married--at least
it was the general opinion in the Island. But would not Mr. Tarver be
the proper person to inform you of anything which you may wish to know?”
Harriet seized his hand and carried it to her forehead--it was burning
hot.
“Feel that!” she exclaimed, “and you would have me wait for weeks
before I could get any satisfaction from Mr. Tarver, and not then
perhaps! Do you think I could live through the agony of suspense. I
should kill myself before the answer to my letter came. No! you are the
only person that can give me any satisfaction. Madame Gobelli told me
to ask you for the truth, if I did not believe her!”
“Madame Gobelli,” reiterated the doctor in surprise.
“Yes! I was staying with her at the Red House until last night, and
then she was so cruel to me that I left. Her son Bobby is dead, and she
accused me of having killed him. She said that my father was a murderer
and my mother a negress--that they were both so wicked that their own
servants killed them, and that I have inherited all their vices. She
said that it was _I_ who killed Mrs. Pullen’s baby and that I had
vampire blood in me, and should poison everyone I came in contact with.
What does she mean? Tell me the truth, for God’s sake, for more depends
upon it than you have any idea of.”
“Madame Gobelli was extremely wrong to speak in such a manner, and I
do not know on what authority she did so. What can she know of your
parents or their antecedents?”
“But you--you--” cried Harriet feverishly, “what do _you_ say?”
Doctor Phillips was silent. He did not know what to say. He was not
a man who could tell a lie glibly and appear as if he were speaking
the truth. Patients always guessed when he had no hope to give them,
however soothing and carefully chosen his words might be. He regarded
the distracted girl before him for some moments in compassionate
silence, and then he answered:
“I have said already that if a daughter cannot hear any good of her
parents, she had better hear nothing at all!”
“Then it is true--my father and mother were people so wicked and so
cruel that their names are only fit for execration. If you could have
said a good word for them, you would! I can read that in your eyes!”
“The purity and charity of your own life can do much to wipe out the
stain upon theirs,” said the doctor. “You have youth and money, and the
opportunity of doing good. You may be as beloved, as they were----”
“Hated,” interposed the girl, “I understand you perfectly! But what
about my possessing the fatal power of injuring those I come in
contact with! What truth is there in that? Answer me, for God’s sake!
Have I inherited the vampire’s blood? Who bequeathed to me that fatal
heritage?”
“My dear Miss Brandt, you must not talk of such a thing! You are
alluding only to a superstition!”
“But have I got it, whatever it may be?” persisted Harriet. “Had I
anything to do with the baby’s death, or with that of Bobby Bates? I
loved them both! Was it my love that killed them? Shall I always kill
everybody I love? I _must_ know--I _will_!”
“Miss Brandt, you have now touched upon a subject that is little
thought of or discussed amongst medical men, but that is undoubtedly
true. The natures of persons differ very widely. There are some born
into this world who nourish those with whom they are associated; they
_give out_ their magnetic power, and their families, their husbands or
wives, children and friends, feel the better for it. There are those,
on the other hand, who _draw_ from their neighbours, sometimes making
large demands upon their vitality--sapping their physical strength, and
feeding upon them, as it were, until they are perfectly exhausted and
unable to resist disease. This proclivity has been likened to that of
the vampire bat who is said to suck the breath of its victims. And it
was doubtless to this fable that Madame Gobelli alluded when speaking
to you.”
“But have I got it? Have I got it?” the girl demanded, eagerly.
The doctor looked at her lustrous glowing eyes, at her parted feverish
lips; at the working hands clasped together; the general appearance of
excited sensuality, and thought it was his duty to warn her, at least
a little, against the dangers of indulging such a temperament as she
unfortunately possessed. But like all medical men, he temporised.
“I should certainly say that your temperament was more of the _drawing_
than the _yielding_ order, Miss Brandt, but that is not your fault,
you know. It is a natural organism. But I think it is my duty to warn
you that you are not likely to make those with whom you intimately
associate, stronger either in mind or body. You will always exert a
weakening and debilitating effect upon them, so that after a while,
having sapped their brains, and lowered the tone of their bodies, you
will find their affection, or friendship for you visibly decrease. You
will have, in fact, _sucked them dry_. So, if I may venture to advise
you I would say, if there is any one person in the world whom you most
desire to benefit and retain the affection of, let that be the very
person from whom you separate, as often as possible. You must never
hope to keep anyone near you for long, without injuring them. Make it
your rule through life never to cleave to any one person altogether, or
you will see that person’s interest in you wax and wane, until it is
destroyed!”
“And what if I--marry?” asked Harriet, in a strained voice.
“If you insist upon my answering that question, I should advise you
seriously _not_ to marry! I do not think yours is a temperament fitted
for married life, nor likely to be happy in it! You will not be
offended by my plain speaking, I hope. Remember, you have forced it
from me!”
“And that is the truth, medically and scientifically--that I must not
marry?” she repeated, dully.
“I think it would be unadvisable, but everyone must judge for himself
in such matters. But marriage is not, after all, the ultimatum of
earthly bliss, Miss Brandt! Many married couples would tell you it
is just the reverse. And with a fortune at your command, you have
many pleasures and interests quite apart from that very over-rated
institution of matrimony. But don’t think I am presuming to do more
than advise you. There is no real reason--medical or legal--why you
should not choose for yourself in the matter!”
“Only--only--that those I cling to most nearly, will suffer from the
contact,” said Harriet in the same strained tones.
“Just so!” responded the doctor, gaily, “and an old man’s advice to you
is, to keep out of it as he has done! And now--if there is anything
more--” he continued, “that I can do for you----”
“Nothing more, thank you,” replied the girl rising, “I understand it
all now!”
“Will you not see your old friend, Mrs. Pullen, before you go?” asked
the doctor. “She and her husband are staying with me!”
“Oh! no, no,” cried Harriet, shrinking from the idea, “I _could_ not
see her, I would rather go back at once!”
And she hurried from the consulting-room as she spoke.
Doctor Phillips stood for a while musing, after her departure. Had
he done right, he thought, in telling her, yet how in the face of
persistent questioning, could he have done otherwise? His thoughts were
all fixed upon Ralph Pullen and the scenes that had taken place lately
with him, respecting this girl. He did not dream she had an interest
in Anthony Pennell. He did not know that they had met more than once.
He thought she might still be pursuing Ralph; still expecting that he
might break his engagement with Miss Leyton in order to marry herself;
and he believed he had done the wisest thing in trying to crush any
hopes she might have left concerning him.
“A most dangerous temperament,” he said to himself as he prepared to
receive another patient, “one that is sufficient to mar a man’s life,
if not to kill him entirely. I trust that she and Captain Pullen
may never meet again. It was evident that my remarks on marriage
disappointed the poor child! Ah! well, she will be much better without
it!”
And here the discreet Charles softly opened the door and ushered in
another lady.
An hour later, Anthony Pennell, who had projected a visit to the Red
House that afternoon, received a note by a commissionaire instead,
containing a few, hurried lines. “Come to me as soon as you can,” it
said, “I have left Madame Gobelli. I am at the Langham Hotel, and very
unhappy!” Needless to say that ten minutes after the reception of this
news, her lover was rushing to her presence, as fast as hansom wheels
could take him.
He was very desperately and truly in love with Harriet Brandt. Like
most men who use their brains in fiction, his work, whilst in course
of progression, occupied his energies to such an extent that he had
no time or thought for anything else. But the burden once lifted, the
romance written, the strain and anxiety removed, the pendulum swung
in the other direction, and Anthony Pennell devoted all his attention
to pleasure and amusement. He had been set down by his colleagues as
a reserved and cold-blooded man with regard to the other sex, but he
was only self-contained and thoughtful. He was as warm by nature, as
Harriet herself, and once sure of a response, could make love with
the best, and as he flew to her assistance now, he resolved that if
anything unpleasant had occurred to drive her from the Red House, and
launch her friendless on the world, he would persuade her to marry him
at once, and elect him her protector and defence.
His fair face flushed with anticipation as he thought of the joy it
would be to make her his wife, and take her far away from everything
that could annoy or harass her.
Having arrived at the Langham and flung a double fare to the
cab-driver, he ran up the high staircase with the light step of a
boy, and dashed into Harriet’s private room. The girl was sitting,
much as she had done since returning from her interview with the
doctor--silent, sullen, and alone, at war with Heaven and Destiny and
all that had conduced to blight the brightest hopes she had ever had.
“Hally, my darling, why is this?” exclaimed Pennell, as he essayed to
fold her in his arms. But she pushed him off, not unkindly but with
considerable determination.
“Don’t touch me, Tony!--don’t come near me. You had better not! I might
harm you!”
“What is the matter? Are you ill? If so, you know me too well to
imagine that I should fear infection.”
“No! no! you do not understand!” replied Harriet, as she rose from her
seat and edged further away from him, “but I am going to tell you all!
It is for that I sent for you!”
Then, waving him from her with her hand, she related the whole story
to him--what the Baroness had accused her of, and what Doctor Phillips
had said in confirmation of it, only that morning. Pennell had heard
something of it before, through Margaret Pullen, but he had paid no
attention to it, and now, when Harriet repeated it in detail, with
swollen eyes and quivering lips, he laughed the idea to scorn.
“Pooh! Nonsense! I don’t believe a word of it,” he exclaimed, “it is
a parcel of old woman’s tales. Phillips should be ashamed of himself
to place any credence in it, far more to repeat it to you! Hally, my
darling! you are surely not going to make yourself unhappy because of
such nonsense. If so, you are not the sensible girl I have taken you
for!”
“But, Tony,” said the girl, still backing from his advances, “listen to
me! It is not all nonsense, indeed. I know for myself that it is true!
Having been shut up for so many years in the Convent dulled my memory
for what went before it, but it has all come back to me now! It seems
as if what Madame Gobelli and Doctor Phillips have said, had lifted a
veil from my eyes, and I can recall things that had quite escaped my
memory before. I can remember now hearing old Pete say, that when I
was born, I was given to a black wet nurse, and after a little while
she was taken so ill, they had to send her away, and get me another,
and the next one--_died_! Pete used to laugh and call me the puma’s
cub, but I didn’t know the meaning of it, then. And--Oh! stop a moment,
Tony, till I have done--there was a little white child, I can see her
so plainly now. They called her little Caroline, I think she must have
belonged to the planter who lived next to us, and I was very fond of
her. I was quite unhappy when we did not meet, and I used to creep
into her nursery door and lie down in the cot beside her. Poor little
Caroline! I can see her now! So pale and thin and wan she was! And one
night, I remember her mother came in and found me there and called
to her husband to send the ‘Brandt bastard’ back to Helvetia. I had
no idea what she meant, but I cried because she sent me home, and I
asked Pete what a bastard was, but he would not tell me. And,” went on
Harriet in a scared tone, “little Caroline _died_! Pete carried me on
his shoulder to see the funeral, and I would not believe that Caroline
could be in the narrow box, and I struck Pete on the face for saying
so!”
“Well! my darling! and if you did, are these childish reminiscences to
come between our happiness? Why should they distress you, Hally? Madame
Gobelli’s insolence must have been very hard to bear--I acknowledge
that, and I wish I had been by to prevent it, but you must make excuses
for her. I suppose the poor creature was so mad with grief that she did
not know what she was saying! But you need never see her again, so you
must try to forgive her!”
“But, Anthony, you do not understand me! What the Baroness said was
_true_! I see it now! _I killed Bobby!_”
“My dearest, you are raving! _You killed Bobby!_ What utter, utter
folly! How could you have killed Bobby?”
Harriet passed her hand wearily across her brow, as if she found it too
hard to make her meaning plain.
“Oh! yes, I did! We were always together, in the garden or the house!
And he used to sit with his head on my shoulder and his arm round my
waist, I should not have allowed it! I should have driven him away! But
he loved me, poor Bobby, and it will be the same, Doctor Phillips says,
with everybody I love! I shall only do them harm!”
“Hally! I shall begin to think in another moment that you are ill
yourself--that you have a fever or something, and that it is affecting
your brain!”
“There was a sister at the Convent, Sister Theodosia, who was very
good to me when I first went there,” continued the girl in a dreamy
voice, as if she had not heard his words; “and she used to sit with
me upon her lap for hours together, because I was sad. But she grew
ill and they had to send her away up to the hill, where they had their
sanatorium. That made the fourth in Jamaica!”
“Now! I will not have you talk any more of this nonsense,” said
Pennell, half annoyed by her perseverance, “and to prove to you what a
little silly you are to imagine that everyone who falls ill, or dies,
or who comes within the range of your acquaintance, owes it to your
influence, tell me how it is that your father and mother, who must have
lived nearer to you than anybody else, did not fall sick and die also.”
“My parents saw less of me than anybody,” replied Harriet, sadly, “they
were ashamed of their ‘bastard’, I suppose! But old Pete loved me, and
took me with him everywhere, and he didn’t get sick,” she concluded,
with a faint smile.
“Of course not! See! what rubbish you have been talking--making
yourself and me unhappy for nothing at all! So now let me take you in
my arms and kiss the remembrance of it away!”
He was about to put his suggestion into execution, but she still shrank
from him.
“No! no! indeed you must not! It is all true! I cannot forget Olga
Brimont, and Mrs. Pullen, and the baby, and poor Bobby! It is true,
indeed it is, and I have been accursed from my birth.”
And she burst into a torrent of passionate tears.
Pennell let her expend some of her emotion, before he continued,
“Well! and what is to be the upshot of it all!”
“I must part from you,” replied the girl, “Indeed, indeed I must! I
cannot injure you as I have done others! Doctor Phillips said I was not
fit for marriage--that I should always weaken and hurt those whom I
loved most--and that I should draw from them, physically and mentally,
until I had sapped all their strength--that I have the blood of the
vampire in me, the vampire that sucks its victims’ breaths until they
die!”
“Doctor Phillips be damned!” exclaimed Pennell, “what right has he
to promulgate his absurd and untenable theories, and to poison the
happiness of a girl’s life, with his folly? He is an old fool, a
dotard, a senseless ass, and I shall tell him so! Vampire be hanged!
And if it were the truth, I for one could not wish for a sweeter death!
Come along, Hally, and try your venom upon me! I am quite ready to run
the risk!”
He held out his arms to her again, as he spoke, and she sank on her
knees beside him.
“Oh! Tony! Tony! cannot you read the truth? I love you, dear, I love
you! I never loved any creature in this world before I loved you. I did
not know that it was given to mortals to love so much! And my love has
opened my eyes! Sooner than injure you, whom I would die to save from
harm, I will separate myself from you! I will give you up! I will live
my lonely life without you, I _could_ do that, but I can never, never
consent to sap your manhood and your brains, which do not belong to me
but to the world, and see you wither, like a poisoned plant, the leaves
of which lie discoloured and dead upon the garden path.”
Never in the course of their acquaintanceship had Harriet Brandt seemed
so sweet, so pathetic, so unselfish to Anthony Pennell as then. If he
had resolved not to resign her from the first, he did so a thousand
times more now. He threw his arms around her kneeling figure and
lowered his head until it lay upon the crown of her dusky hair.
“My darling! my darling! my own sweet girl!” he murmured, “our
destinies are interwoven for ever! No one and nothing shall come
between us! You cannot give me up unless you have my consent to doing
so. I hold your sacred promise to become my wife, and I shall not
release you from it!”
“But if I harmed you?” she said fearfully.
“I do not believe in the possibility of your harming me,” he replied,
“but if I am to die, which is what I suppose you mean, I claim my right
to die in your arms. But whenever it happens, you will have neither
hastened, nor retarded it!”
“Oh! if I could only think so!” she murmured.
“You must! Why cannot you trust my judgment as much as that of Madame
Gobelli or old Phillips--a couple of mischief-makers. And now, Hally,
when shall it be?”
“When shall ‘what’ be?” she whispered.
“You know what I mean as well as I do! When shall we be married? We
have no one to consult but ourselves! I am my own master and you are
alone in the world! These things are very easily managed, you know. I
have but to go to Doctors’ Commons for a special license to enable us
to be married at a registrar’s office to-morrow. Shall it be to-morrow,
love?”
“Oh! no! no! I could not make up my mind so soon!”
“But why not? Would you live in this dull hotel all by yourself, Hally?”
“I do not know! I am so very unhappy! Leave me, Anthony, for God’s
sake, leave me, whilst there is time! You do not know the risk you may
be running by remaining by my side! How can I consent to let you, whom
I love like my very life, run any risk for my sake! Oh! I love you--I
love you!” cried the impassioned girl, as she clung tightly to him.
“You are my lord and master and my king, and I will never, _never_ be
so selfish as to harm you for the sake of my own gratification. You
must go away--put the seas between us--never see me, never write or
speak to me more--only save yourself, my beloved, save yourself!”
He smiled compassionately, as he would have smiled at the ravings of
a child, as he raised her from her lowly position and placed her in a
chair.
“Do you know what I am going to do, little woman?” he said cheerfully.
“I am going to leave you all alone to think this matter over until
to-morrow. By that time you will have been able to compare the opinions
of two people who do not care a jot about you, with those of mine who
love you so dearly. Think well over what they have said to you, and
I have said to you, and you have said to me! Remember, that if you
adhere to your present determination, you will make both yourself and
me most unhappy, and do no one any good. As for myself, I venture to
say that if I lose you my grief and disappointment will be so great,
that, in all probability, I shall never do any good work again. But be
a sensible girl--make up your mind to marry me, and give the lie to
all this nonsense, and I’ll write a book that will astonish the world!
Come, Hally, is it to be ruin or success for me?--Ruin to spend my life
without the only woman I have ever cared for, or success to win my
wife and a companion who will help me in my work and make my happiness
complete?”
He kissed her tear-stained face several times, and left her with a
bright smile.
“This time to-morrow, remember, and I shall come with the licence in my
pocket.”