My name is Martin Dobrée. Martin or Doctor Martin I was called
throughout Guernsey. It will be necessary to state a few particulars
about my family and position, before I proceed with my part of this
narrative.
My father was Dr. Dobrée. He belonged to one of the oldest families in
the island--a family of distinguished _pur sang_; but our branch of it
had been growing poorer instead of richer during the last three or four
generations. We had been gravitating steadily downward.
My father lived ostensibly by his profession, but actually upon the
income of my cousin, Julia Dobrée, who had been his ward from her
childhood. The house we dwelt in, a pleasant one in the Grange, belonged
to Julia; and fully half of the year's household expenses were defrayed
by her. Our practice, which he and I shared between us, was not a large
one, though for its extent it was lucrative enough. But there always is
an immense number of medical men in Guernsey in proportion to its
population, and the island is healthy. There was small chance for any of
us to make a fortune.
Then how was it that I, a young man, still under thirty, was wasting my
time, and skill, and professional training, by remaining there, a sort
of half pensioner on my cousin's bounty? The thickest rope that holds a
vessel, weighing scores of tons, safely to the pier-head is made up of
strands so slight that almost a breath will break them.
First, then--and the strength of two-thirds of the strands lay
there--was my mother. I could never remember the time when she had not
been delicate and ailing, even when I was a rough school-boy at
Elizabeth College. It was that infirmity of the body which occasionally
betrays the wounds of a soul. I did not comprehend it while I was a boy;
then it was headache only. As I grew older I discovered that it was
heartache. The gnawing of a perpetual disappointment, worse than a
sudden and violent calamity, had slowly eaten away the very foundation
of healthy life. No hand could administer any medicine for this disease
except mine, and, as soon as I was sure of that, I felt what my first
duty was.
I knew where the blame of this lay, if any blame there were. I had found
it out years ago by my mother's silence, her white cheeks, and her
feeble tone of health. My father was never openly unkind or careless,
but there was always visible in his manner a weariness of her, an utter
disregard for her feelings. He continued to like young and pretty women,
just as he had liked her because she was young and pretty. He remained
at the very point he was at when they began their married life. There
was nothing patently criminal in it, God forbid!--nothing to create an
open and a grave scandal on our little island. But it told upon my
mother; it was the one drop of water falling day by day. "A continual
dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike," says
the book of Proverbs. My father's small infidelities were much the same
to my mother. She was thrown altogether upon me for sympathy, and
support, and love.
When I first fathomed this mystery, my heart rose in very undutiful
bitterness against Dr. Dobrée; but by-and-by I found that it resulted
less from a want of fidelity to her than from a radical infirmity in his
temperament. It was almost as impossible for him to avoid or conceal his
preference for younger and more attractive women, as for my mother to
conquer the fretting vexation this preference caused to her.
Next to my mother, came Julia, my cousin, five years older than I, who
had coldly looked down upon me, and snubbed me like a sister, as a boy;
watched my progress through Elizabeth College, and through Guy's
Hospital; and perceived at last that I was a young man whom it was no
disgrace to call cousin. To crown all, she fell in love with me; so at
least my mother told me, taking me into her confidence, and speaking
with a depth of pleading in her sunken eyes, which were worn with much
weeping. Poor mother! I knew very well what unspoken wish was in her
heart. Julia had grown up under her care as I had done, and she stood
second to me in her affection.
It is not difficult to love any woman who has a moderate share of
attractions--at least I did not find it so then. I was really fond of
Julia, too--very fond. I knew her as intimately as any brother knows his
sister. She had kept up a correspondence with me all the time I was at
Guy's, and her letters had been more interesting and amusing than her
conversation generally was. Some women, most cultivated women, can write
charming letters; and Julia was a highly-cultivated woman. I came back
from Guy's with a very greatly-increased regard and admiration for my
cousin Julia.
So, when my mother, with her pleading, wistful eyes, spoke day after day
of Julia, of her dutiful love toward her, and her growing love for me, I
drifted, almost without an effort of my own volition, into an engagement
with her. You see there was no counter-balance. I was acquainted with
every girl on the island of my own class; pretty girls were many of
them, but there was after all not one that I preferred to my cousin. My
old dreams and romances about love, common to every young fellow, had
all faded into a very commonplace, everyday vision of having a
comfortable house of my own, and a wife as good as most other men's
wives. Just in the same way, my ambitious plans of rising to the very
top of the tree in my profession had dwindled down to satisfaction with
the very limited practice of one of our island doctors. I found myself
chained to this rock in the sea; all my future life would probably be
spent there; and Fate offered me Julia as the companion fittest for me.
I was contented with my fate, and laughed off my boyish fancy that I
ought to be ready to barter the world for love.
Added to these two strong ties keeping me in Guernsey, there were the
hundred, the thousand small associations which made that island, and my
people living upon it, dearer than any other place, or any other people,
in the world. Taking the strength of the rope which held me to the
pier-head as represented by one hundred, then my love for my mother
would stand at sixty-six and a half, my engagement to Julia at about
twenty and the remainder may go toward my old associations. That is
pretty nearly the sum of it.
My engagement to Julia came about so easily and naturally that, as I
said, I was perfectly contented with it. We had been engaged since the
previous Christmas, and were to be married in the early summer, as soon
as a trip through Switzerland would be agreeable. We were to set up
housekeeping for ourselves; that was a point Julia was bent upon. A
suitable house had fallen vacant in one of the higher streets of St.
Peter-Port, which commanded a noble view of the sea and the surrounding
islands. We had taken it, though it was farther from the Grange and my
mother than I should have chosen my home to be. She and Julia were busy,
pleasantly busy, about the furnishing of it. Never had I seen my mother
look so happy, or so young. Even my father paid her a compliment or two,
which had the effect of bringing a pretty pink flush to her white
cheeks, and of making her sunken eyes shine. As to myself, I was quietly
happy, without a doubt. Julia was a good girl, everybody said that, and
Julia loved me devotedly. I was on the point of becoming master of a
house and owner of a considerable income; for Julia would not hear of
there being any marriage settlements which would secure to her the
property she was bringing to me. I found that making love, even to my
cousin, who was like a sister to me, was upon the whole a pleasurable
occupation. Every thing was going on smoothly.
That was till about the middle of March. I had been to church one Sunday
morning with these two women, both devoted to me, and centring all their
love and hopes in me, when, as we entered the house on our return, I
heard my father calling "Martin! Martin!" as loudly as he could from his
consulting-room. I answered the call instantly, and whom should I see
but a very old friend of mine, Tardif of the Havre Gosselin. He was
standing near the door, as if in too great a hurry to sit down. His
handsome but weather-beaten face betrayed great anxiety, and his shaggy
mustache rose and fell, as if the mouth below it was tremulously at
work. My father looked chagrined and irresolute.
"Here's a pretty piece of work, Martin," he said; "Tardif wants one of
us to go back with him to Sark, to see a woman who has fallen from the
cliffs and broken her arm, confound it!"
"For the sake of the good God, Dr. Martin," cried Tardif, excitedly, and
of course speaking in the Sark dialect, "I beg of you to come this
instant even. She has been lying in anguish since mid-day
yesterday--twenty-four hours now, sir. I started at dawn this morning,
but both wind and tide were against me, and I have been waiting here
some time. Be quick, doctor. Mon Dieu! if she should be dead!"
The poor fellow's voice faltered, and his eyes met mine imploringly. He
and I had been fast friends in my boyhood, when all my holidays were
spent in Sark, though he was some years older than I; and our friendship
was still firm and true, though it had slackened a little from absence.
I shook his hand heartily, giving it a good hard grip in token of my
unaltered friendship--a grip which he returned with his fingers of iron
till my own tingled again.
"I knew you'd come," he gasped.
"Ah, I'll go, Tardif," I said; "only I must get a snatch of something to
eat while Dr. Dobrée puts up what I shall have need of. I'll be ready in
half an hour. Go into the kitchen, and get some dinner yourself."
"Thank you, Dr. Martin," he answered, his voice still unsteady, and his
mustache quivering; "but I can eat nothing. I'll go down and have the
boat ready. You'll waste no time?"
"Not a moment," I promised.
I left my father to put up the things I should require, supposing he had
heard all the particulars of the accident from Tardif. He was inclined
to grumble a little at me for going; but I asked him what else I could
have done. As he had no answer ready to that question, I walked away to
the dining-room, where my mother and Julia were waiting; for dinner was
ready, as we dined early on Sundays on account of the servants. Julia
was suffering from the beginning of a bilious attack, to which she was
subject, and her eyes were heavy and dull. I told them hastily where I
was going, and what a hurry I was in.
"You are never going across to Sark to-day!" Julia exclaimed.
"Why not?" I asked, taking my seat and helping myself quickly.
"Because I am sure bad weather is coming," she answered, looking
anxiously through a window facing the west. "I could see the coast of
France this morning as plainly as Sark, and the gulls are keeping close
to the shore, and the sunset last night was threatening. I will go and
look at the storm-glass."
She went away, but came back again very soon, with an increase of
anxiety in her face. "Don't go, dear Martin," she said, with her hand
upon my shoulder; "the storm-glass is as troubled as it can be, and the
wind is veering round to the west. You know what that foretells at this
time of the year. There is a storm at hand; take my word for it, and do
not venture across to Sark to-day."
"And what is to become of the poor woman?" I remonstrated. "Tardif says
she has been suffering the pain of a broken limb these twenty-four
hours. It would be my duty to go even if the storm were here, unless the
risk was exceedingly great. Come, Julia, remember you are to be a
doctor's wife, and don't be a coward."
"Don't go!" she reiterated, "for my sake and your mother's. I am certain
some trouble will come of it. We shall be frightened to death; and this
woman is only a stranger to you. Oh, I cannot bear to let you go!"
I did not attempt to reason with her, for I knew of old that when Julia
was bilious and nervous she was quite deaf to reason. I only stroked the
hand that lay on my shoulder, and went on with my dinner as if my life
depended upon the speed with which I dispatched it.
"Uncle," she said, as my father came in with a small portmanteau in his
hand, "tell Martin he must not go. There is sure to be a storm
to-night."
"Pooh! pooh!" he answered. "I should be glad enough for Martin to stay
at home, but there's no help for it, I suppose. There will be no storm
at present, and they'll run across quickly. It will be the coming back
that will be difficult. You'll scarcely get home again to-night,
Martin."
"No," I said. "I'll stop at Gavey's, and come back in the Sark cutter if
it has begun to ply. If not, Tardif must bring me over in the morning."
"Don't go," persisted Julia, as I thrust myself into my rough
pilot-coat, and then bent down to kiss her cheek. Julia always presented
me her cheek, and my lips had never met hers yet. My mother was standing
by and looking tearful, but she did not say a word; she knew there was
no question about what I ought to do. Julia followed me to the door and
held me fast with both hands round my arm, sobbing out hysterically,
"Don't go!" Even when I had released myself and was running down the
drive, I could hear her still calling, "O Martin, don't go!"
I was glad to get out of hearing. I felt sorry for her, yet there was a
considerable amount of pleasure in being the object of so much tender
solicitude. I thought of her for a minute or two as I hurried along the
steep streets leading down to the quay. But the prospect before me
caught my eye. Opposite lay Sark, bathed in sunlight, and the sea
between was calm enough at present. A ride across, with a westerly
breeze filling the sails, and the boat dancing lightly over the waves,
would not be a bad exchange for a dull Sunday afternoon, with Julia at
the Sunday-school and my mother asleep. Besides, it was the path of duty
which was leading me across the quiet gray sea before me.
Tardif was waiting, with his sails set and oars in the rowlocks, ready
for clearing the harbor. I took one of them, and bent myself willingly
to the light task. There was less wind than I had expected, but what
there was blew in our favor. We were very quickly beyond the pier-head,
where a group of idlers was always gathered, who sent after us a few
warning shouts. Nothing could be more exhilarating than our onward
progress. I felt as if I had been a prisoner, with, chains which had
pressed heavily yet insensibly upon me, and that now I was free. I drew
into my lungs the fresh, bracing, salt air of the sea, with a deep sigh
of delight.