A CALL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCE
MY visitor evidently noticed my stupefaction. She must have done, or she
would not have been a woman.
The reason of my sudden surprise was not because I recognized her, but
on account of her perfect and amazing beauty. Every doctor sees some
pretty faces in the course of practise, but having been asked to set
down the chief details of this romance, I must here confess that never
in all my life had I set eyes upon such a sweet and charming
countenance.
I judged her to be about twenty, and the manner in which she entered the
dingy consulting-room that reeked with the pungent odour of iodoform
showed that, although not well dressed, she was nevertheless modest and
well bred. She wore a plain, black tailor-made skirt, a trifle the worse
for wear, a white cotton blouse, a small black hat, and black gloves.
But her face held me fascinated; I could not take my eyes off it. It was
oval, regular, with beautifully-moulded cheeks, a small, well-formed
mouth, and fine arched brows, while the eyes, dark and sparkling, looked
out at me half in wonder, half in fear. Hers was a kind of half-tragic
beauty, a face intensely sweet in its expression, yet with a distinct
touch of sadness in its composition, as though her heart were burdened
by some secret.
This latter fact seemed patent to me from the very first instant of our
meeting.
“Is Dr. Whitworth in?” she inquired, in a soft, rather musical voice,
when I bowed and indicated a chair.
“No,” I responded, “he’s not. My name is Pickering, and I am acting for
the doctor, who is away on a holiday.”
“Oh!” she ejaculated, and I thought I detected that her jaw dropped
slightly, as though she were disappointed. “Will Dr. Whitworth be away
long?”
“Another fortnight, I believe. He is not very well, and has gone to
Cornwall. Are you one of his patients? If so, I shall be delighted to do
what I can for you.”
“No,” she responded; “but my brother is, and, being taken worse, wanted
to consult him.”
“I shall be very pleased to see him, if you think he would care for it,”
I said rather eagerly, I believe, if the truth were told.
She seemed undecided. When a person is in the habit of being attended by
one medical man, a fresh one is always at a disadvantage. People have
such faith in their “own doctor,” a faith that is almost a religion,
often misplaced, and sometimes fatal. The old-fashioned family doctor
with his out-of-date methods, his white waistcoat, and his cultivated
gravity still flourishes, even in these enlightened days of serums and
light cures. And in order to impress their patients, they sometimes
prescribe unheard of medicines that are not to be found even in
“Squire.”
“Dr. Whitworth has attended my brother for several years, and has taken
a great interest in his case,” she said reflectively.
“What is his ailment?” I inquired.
“An internal one. All the doctors he has seen appear to disagree as to
its actual cause. He suffers great pain at times. It is because he is
worse that I have come here.”
“Perhaps I can prescribe something to relieve it,” I suggested. “Would
you like me to see him? I am entirely at your disposal.”
“You are extremely kind, doctor,” she replied. “But we live rather a
long way off, and I am afraid at this time of night——”
“Oh, the hour is nothing, I assure you,” I laughed, interrupting her.
“If I can do anything to make your brother more comfortable, I’ll do
so.”
She was still undecided. Somehow I could not help thinking that she
regarded me with a strange fixed look—a glance which indeed surprised
me. Having regard to the strange _dénouement_ of the interview, I now
recollect every detail of it, and can follow accurately the working of
her mind.
“Well,” she said at last, rather reluctantly it seemed, “if you are
quite sure the distance is not too far, it would be most kind of you to
come. I’m sure you could give Frank something to allay his pain. We live
at Dartmouth Hill, Blackheath.”
“Oh, that’s not so very far,” I exclaimed, eager to be her companion. “A
cab will soon take us there.”
“Dr. Whitworth usually comes over to visit my brother once a week—every
Thursday. Did he tell you nothing of his case?”
“No. Probably he considers him a private patient, while I am left in
charge of the poorer people who come to the dispensary.”
“Ah! I understand,” she said, drawing the black boa tighter around her
throat, as though ready for departure.
I made some inquiries regarding the region where her brother’s pain was
situated, and, placing a morphia case and bottles of various narcotics
in my well-worn black bag, put on my hat and announced my readiness to
accompany her.
As I turned again to her I could not fail to notice that the colour in
her face a moment before had all gone out of it. She was ashen pale,
almost to the lips. The change in her had been sudden, and I saw that as
she stood she gripped the back of her chair, swaying to and fro as
though every moment she might collapse in a faint.
“You are unwell,” I said quickly.
“A—a little faintness. That is all,” she gasped.
Without a moment’s delay I got her seated, and rushing into the
dispensary obtained restoratives, which in a few minutes brought her
back to her former self.
“How foolish!” she remarked, as though disgusted with herself. “Forgive
me, doctor; I suppose it is because I have been up two nights with my
brother and am tired out.”
“Of course; that accounts for it. You have over-taxed your strength.
Have you no one who can take your place?”
“No,” she responded, with a strange sadness which seemed an index to her
character; “I have, unfortunately, no one. Frank is rather irritable,
and will have nobody about him except myself.”
Brother and sister appeared devoted to each other.
She spoke of him in a tone betraying that deep fraternal affection which
nowadays is not common.
I waited while the boy Siddons closed the surgery and put out the
lights, and then, having locked the outer door, we walked together to
the cab-stand at the top of Beresford Street and entered a hansom,
giving directions to drive to Blackheath.
The man seemed rather surprised at such an order at such an hour, but
nevertheless, nothing loth to take a fare outside the radius, he whipped
up, and drove straight down the Boyson Road, through into Albany Road,
one of the decayed relics of bygone Camberwell when the suburb was
fashionable in the days of George the Third, and on into that straight,
never-ending thoroughfare, the Old Kent Road.
Seated side by side our conversation naturally turned upon
conversational subjects, and presently she remarked upon the great heat
of the day just closed, whereupon I told her how oppressed I had been by
it, because of my recent voyage where the sea breeze was always fresh
and the spray combined with the brilliant sunshine.
“Ah!” she sighed, “I would so much like to go abroad. I’ve never been
farther than Paris, and, after all, that’s so much like London. I would
dearly like a voyage up the Mediterranean. The ports you put into must
have been a perfect panorama of the various phases of life.”
“Yes,” I said, “the Italian is so different from the Syrian, the Syrian
from the African, and the African from the Spanish. It is all so fresh
and new. You would be charmed with it. The only disagreeable part is the
return to hot and overcrowded London.”
“Myself, I hate London,” was her remark. “The fresh open country always
appeals to me, and Blackheath, you know, is better than nothing at all.”
I had to confess that I was not acquainted with Blackheath. Apart from
my term at the hospital and a year or two doing _locum tenens_ work in
London I knew more of the country than of the Metropolis. Unless one is
a London-born man one never knows and never in his heart loves London.
He may delight in its attractions, its social advantages, and its
pecuniary possibilities, but at heart he shudders at the greyness of its
streets, the grime of the houses, and the hustling, whirling, selfish
crowds. To the man country-born, be he peer or commoner, London is
always intolerable for any length of time; he sighs for the open air,
the green of Nature, the gay songs of the birds, and the freedom of
everything. Unfortunately, however, the country is not fashionable, save
in autumn for shooting and in winter for hunting, even though the London
season may be, to the great majority, an ordeal only to be borne in
order to sustain the social status.
I ask of you, my readers—who perhaps work in the City and go to and
from the suburbs with clock-work regularity—whether you would not be
prepared to accept a lower wage if you could carry on that same
profession in the country and live in a house with a real garden instead
of one of a row of jerry-built “desirable residences” so crowded
together that what was once a healthy and splendid suburb is nowadays as
cramped as any street in Central London? You know your house, a place
that was run up in six weeks by a speculative builder; you know your
garden, a dried-up, stony strip of back yard, where even the wallflowers
have a difficulty in taking root; you know your daily scramble to get
into a train for the City—nay, the hard fight to keep a roof over your
head and the vulpine animal from the door. Yes, you would move into the
country if you only could, for your wife and children would then be
strong and well, instead of always sickly and ailing. But what is the
use of moralizing? There is no work for you in the country, so you are
one of millions of victims who, like yourself, are compelled to stifle
and scramble in London, or to starve.
All this we discussed quite philosophically as we rode together through
that hot summer’s night, first past shops and barrows where lights still
burned, and then away down the broad road, dark save for the long row of
street-lamps stretching away into the distance.
I found her a bright and interesting companion. She seemed of a rather
reflective turn of mind, but through all her conversation ran that vein
of sadness which from the first had impressed itself upon me. From what
she led me to believe, her brother and she were in rather straitened
circumstances, owing to the former’s long illness. He had been head
cashier with a firm in Cannon Street, but had been compelled to resign
three years ago and had not earned a penny since. I wondered whether she
worked at something, typewriting or millinery, in order to assist the
household, but she told me nothing and I did not presume to ask.
It is enough to say that I found myself charmed by her, even on this
first acquaintance. Although so modest and engaging, she seemed to
possess wonderful tact. But after all, now that I reflect, tact is in
the fair sex inborn, and it takes a clever man to outwit a woman when
she is bent upon accomplishing an object.
She told me very little about herself. In fact, now I recall the curious
circumstances, I see that she purposely refrained from doing so. To my
leading questions she responded so naïvely that I was entirely misled.
How is it, I wonder, that every man of every age will run his head
against a wall for the sake of a pretty woman? Given a face out of the
ordinary rut of English beauty, a woman in London can command anything,
no matter what her station. It has always been so the whole world over,
even from the old days of Troy and Rome—a fair face rules the roost.
We had crossed a bridge over a canal—Deptford Bridge I think it is
called—and began to ascend a long hill which she told me led on to
Blackheath. She had grown of a sudden thoughtful, making few responses
to my observations. Perhaps I had presumed too much, I thought; perhaps
I had made some injudicious inquiry which annoyed her. But she was so
charming, so sweet of temperament, and so bright in conversation, that
my natural desire to know all about her had led me into being a trifle
more inquisitive than the circumstances warranted.
“Doctor,” she exclaimed suddenly, in a strange voice; “I hope you will
not take as an offence what I am about to say,” and as she turned to me
the light of a street lamp flashing full on her face revealed to me how
white and anxious it had suddenly become.
“Certainly not,” I answered, not without surprise.
“Well, I have reconsidered my decision, and I think that in the
circumstances you had better not see my brother, after all.”
“Not see your brother!” I exclaimed, surprised.
“No. I—I’m awfully sorry to have brought you out here so far, but if
you will allow me to get out I can walk home and you can drive back.”
“Certainly not,” I answered. “Now I’m so close to your house I’ll see
your brother. I can no doubt relieve his pain, and for that he would
probably be thankful.”
“No,” she said, involuntarily laying her hand upon my sleeve, “I cannot
allow you to accompany me farther;” and I felt her hand tremble.
Surely there is no accounting for the working of a woman’s mind, but I
certainly believed her to be devoid of any such caprice as this.
I argued with her that if her brother were in pain it was only right
that I should do what I could to relieve him. But she firmly shook her
head.
“Forgive me, doctor,” she urged anxiously. “I know you must think me
absurdly whimsical, but this decision is not the outcome of any mere
whim, I assure you. I have a reason why I absolutely insist upon us
parting here.”
“Well, of course, if you really deny me the privilege of accompanying
you as far as your house I can do nothing but submit,” I said very
disappointedly. “I shall tell Dr. Whitworth of your call. What name
shall I give him?”
“Miss Bristowe.”
“And are you quite determined that I shall go no farther?” I asked
earnestly.
“Quite.”
I saw some hidden reason in this decision, but what it was I failed to
make out. She was certainly most determined, and, further, she seemed to
have been suddenly filled with an unusual excitement, betrayed in her
white, almost haggard, face.
So I stopped the cab at last, just as we reached the dark Heath.
“I must say that I am very disappointed at this abrupt ending to our
brief acquaintanceship,” I said, taking her hand and helping her out.
“Ah! doctor,” she sighed. Then, in a voice full of strange meaning, she
added: “Perhaps one day you will learn the real reason of this decision.
I thank you very much for accompanying me so far. Good-night.”
She allowed her hand to rest in mine for a moment; then turned and was
lost in the darkness, leaving me standing beside the cab.