INFLUENZA
“Bob,” said Doris next morning, “Miss Lestrange has got the influenza.”
“How do you know?” asked Bob.
“I’ve been to her room, and she’s lying in bed crying. Bob!”
“Well?”
“It’s not the influenza.”
“What are you driving at?” asked Bob.
“Promise not to tell, and you’ll be in it too,” said Doris.
“I promise—go ahead. What are you driving at?”
“She’s going away.”
“Where?”
“To be married.”
“Heu!” said Bob in a disgusted tone.
“But that’s not all,” went on Doris. “She’s going with Mr Fanshawe, and
nobody knows about it, only me and you and she and Patsy. She told me if
we were good we might see her off; they are going at two o’clock in the
morning.”
“My eye!” said Bob, lighting up. “They ain’t running away, are they?”
“They are. They’re running away from the old General and Mr Boxall—going
to Dublin to be married. They’re going in the dogcart from the
stable-yard—but, mind you, don’t say a word to any one.”
“What do you take me for?” said Bob. “I say, Doris!”
“Yes?”
“Wouldn’t it be prime if the old General chased them?”
“Don’t!” said Doris.
“I was only thinking of him running after them with his great red face,
an’ shouting to them to stop,” said Bob. He was kneeling on the
window-seat of the schoolroom and looking out over the park. “I left
that motor-car in the hall yesterday,” went on Bob, “and he hit his toe
against it and sent it skidding across the floor, and he said, ‘Confound
those children! they’re always in the way when they’re not wanted, they
or their beastly toys.’ I was leaning over the banisters and I jolly
nearly dropped a marble on his head. Who’s that coming?”
“It’s Doctor O’Flaherty,” said Doris, kneeling up also on the
window-seat and looking out at the car which was coming up the drive at
a trot.
The car drew up at the door, and Dr O’Flaherty of Tullagh, an old
gentleman with grey side-whiskers, a clean-shaved physician’s mouth, and
a humorous grey eye, descended and went up the steps.
“Well, James,” said the doctor, as the door opened to him, “and what’s
the matter?”
“Her ladyship is poorly, sir, and there’s a houseful of influenza,”
replied James, who was not an optimist. “Which will you see first, sir,
the influenza or her ladyship?”
“_Seniores priores!_” said the country doctor cheerily, as he took his
stethoscope from his hat, hung his hat up and divested himself of his
overcoat. “Her ladyship, James, by all means.”
At this moment the door of the library opened and General Grampound came
out.
“I beg your pardon,” said General Grampound, “are you the doctor?”
“I am,” said the practitioner.
“May I have a word with you?”
“With pleasure!”
The General led the way into the library.
“My ward, Miss Lestrange, is down with the influenza,” said General
Grampound.
“I am told it’s in the house,” said Dr O’Flaherty.
“I believe the devil’s in the house!” burst out the General. “I had
intended leaving by the train this morning from Tullagh, and now this
turns up.”
“Influenza has that habit,” said the doctor. “It leaves its card on you
in the most unexpected manner.”
“I don’t believe it’s influenza at all!” broke out the General, “and
that’s just what I want to talk to you about. I believe it’s
malingering.”
“O ho!”
“Yes, sir. I have reasons to suspect that I am a dupe; however, I await
your diagnosis. Shall I show you to the door of my ward’s room?”
“_Seniores priores_,” replied the other rather stiffly. “Her ladyship
first, if you please—thank you, I know the house.”
He slipped out of the room; James was waiting for him in the hall.
“And who is the old gentleman at all, James?” asked Dr O’Flaherty, as
they passed down the corridor to Lady Seagrave’s room.
“That was General Grampound, doctor,” replied James.
“Faith, he looks it,” replied the other, as he tapped at the bedroom
door.
Lady Seagrave was sitting up in bed, with a lace cap on her head,
looking very grim and sombre.
“Come in,” said she. “Oh, that’s you—I expected you an hour ago—sit
down. There’s no use talking to me,” added she, with a blaze of
irritation, “for I’m deaf.”
“Faith, you’ve been a long time finding that out,” murmured O’Flaherty.
“It seized me yesterday morning,” went on the old woman. “I was quite
right when I got up; I could hear what my maid said when she brought me
my tea, and then it came on. Why don’t you answer me? You sit there
without moving your lips like an image.”
“Hum, hum!” said O’Flaherty, whose temper and bluntness were proverbial,
“you’ve been deaf in your ears and deaf in your senses all the time
_I’ve_ known you. Deaf! Faith, it’s a megaphone, not a trumpet, they’ll
want to raise you out of your coffin with when the time comes.”
“There you are!” said Lady Seagrave. “I can tell what you say by the
movements of your lips. It is not influenza—some doctors seem to have
influenza on the brain.”
“Faith, and that’s a disease you’ll never have,” said the practitioner,
taking a snuff-box from his pocket and a pinch.
Lady Seagrave objected to tobacco, but she did not mind a person taking
snuff in her presence. She was of that day.
“You think because there is influenza in the house I must have it. I
haven’t; I expect it’s a little cold. However, I haven’t sent for you to
tinker over my ears, but to see a patient. I have a guest who is down
with influenza—a Mr Boxall, a Member of Parliament—but he refuses to see
a doctor.”
“Then,” said O’Flaherty, “he must have more sense in him than the
ordinary Members of Parliament.”
“I know—it’s very foolish of him, but he is not going to pursue his
foolishness under my roof. He must be seen.”
O’Flaherty nodded his head.
“You had better go and see him now,” said her ladyship, “and not waste
any more of your time on me. If he is very bad you can tell James, and
he will let me know, and you’d better call again to-morrow. Good-day.”
She pulled a big bell-rope beside her bed to summon James, who was
lingering in the passage, and the doctor with an old-fashioned bow to
his patient and a grin on his lips left the room.
“The man’s a fool,” murmured the old lady to herself, as she settled
down in her bed, “but he’s respectful—the sort of country doctor I
remember when doctors called themselves apothecaries and knew their
proper places.”
“This room, sir,” said James. He knocked at the door next to Lady
Seagrave’s.
“Come in,” said a woman’s voice, and O’Flaherty found himself in the
presence of a pretty girl, fully dressed, seated in a basket armchair
and busily engaged in tearing up letters. A dressing-bag half stuffed
with things stood on a chair.
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Half an hour later, coming downstairs, Dr O’Flaherty met General
Grampound in the hall.
“Well, doctor,” said the General, drawing him into the library, “what’s
the diagnosis?”
“Just a chill.”
“Will she be able to leave here to-morrow?”
“She will,” replied the other, with a twinkle in his eye; “and, what’s
more, she’s anxious to go.”
“Hum! Have you seen my friend Boxall?”
“No,” replied the doctor, “but he saw me.”
“How do you know?”
“Through the keyhole, for he bolted his door.”
“I can’t make out what’s wrong with the man,” said General Grampound.
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