"The doctor at home?"
This to a quiet, sedate-looking man in livery, who opened the door of
one of the serious-looking houses in Finsbury Circus, where, upon a very
shiny brass plate, were in Roman letters the words "Dr Stonor." There
was not much in those few black letters, but many a visitor had gone up
the carefully-whitened steps, gazed at them, stepped down again with a
curious palpitation of the heart, and walked right round the Circus two
or three times to gain composure enough before once more ascending the
steps and knocking at the door.
There had been cases--not a few--where visitors had spent weeks in
making up their minds to go to Dr Stonor, and had reached his doorstep
only to hurry back home quite unable to face him, and then suffer in
secret perhaps for months to come.
For what would that interview reveal? That the peculiar sensations or
pains were due to some trifling disorganisation that a guinea and a
prescription would set right, or that the seeds of some fatal disease
had begun to shoot?
Daniel, factotum to Dr Stonor, had been standing like a spider watching
at the slip of a window beside the door waiting for sick flies to come
into the doctor's net.
"Old game!" said Daniel to himself, as he drew back from the window to
observe unseen, and without moving a muscle in his face. For it was
Daniel's peculiarity that he never did move the muscles of his face. He
would hold a patient for his master during a painful operation, be
scolded, badgered, see harrowing scenes, receive vails, hear praise or
abuse of the doctor--for these are both applied to medicine men--and all
without making a sign, losing his nerve, or being elated. Daniel was
always the same--clean, quiet, self-possessed; and he had seen handsome
fair-bearded John Huish descend from a cab, walk up to the door, pass by
and go slowly and thoughtfully on, passing his hand over his thick
golden beard, looking very tall, manly, and unpatientlike, as he passed
on round the Circus.
"He'll be back in ten minutes," said Daniel to himself, as he admitted a
regular patient and once more closed the door. It was a quarter of an
hour, though, before John Huish came to the house, asked if the doctor
was at home, was shown into the waiting-room, and in due course came
face to face with the keen, grey, big-headed, clever-looking little
practitioner.
"Ah, Huish, my dear boy! Glad to see you, John. Sit down. This is
kind of you, to look me up. I've only just come back from a fishing
trip--trouting. Old habit. Down this way?"
"Well, no, doctor," said the young man hesitatingly. "The fact is, I
came to consult you."
"Glad of it. I was the first person who ever took hold of your little
hand, and the tiny fingers clutched one of mine as if you trusted me.
And you always kept it up--eh? I'm very glad."
"Glad, sir?"
"Of course I am," said the doctor, taking out his keys and unlocking a
drawer. "What is it, my boy--a little cheque?"
"Oh dear no, doctor."
"Nothing serious, I hope."
"I hope not. I thought I would consult you."
"That's right, my lad. Well, what is it? Going to buy a horse--
speculate in the funds--try a yachting trip?"
"My dear sir," said Huish, smiling, "you do not understand me. I am
afraid I am ill."
"Ill? You? Ill?" said the doctor, jumping up and laying his hands on
the young man's shoulders as he gazed into his frank, earnest eyes.
"Get up, Jack. You were almost my first baby, and I was very proud of
you. Finest built little fellow I ever saw. There, put out your
tongue"--he was obeyed--"let's feel your pulse"--this was done--"here,
let me listen at your chest. Pull a long, deep breath;" and the doctor
listened, made him pull off his coat and clapped his ear to his back,
rumpled his shirt-front as he tapped and punched him all over,
concluding by giving the visitor a back-handed slap in the chest, and
resuming his seat, exclaiming:
"Why, you young humbug, what do you mean by coming here with such a
cock-and-bull story? Your physique is perfect. You are as sound as a
bell. You are somewhere about thirty years old, and you are a deuced
good-looking young fellow. What do you want?"
"You take my breath away, doctor," said the young man, smiling. "I want
to explain."
"Explain away, then, my dear boy; but, for goodness' sake, don't be such
an ass as to think the first time you are a bit bilious, or hipped, or
melancholy, that you are ill. Oh, by the way, while I think of it, I
had a letter from your people yesterday. They want me to have a run
down to Shropshire."
"Why not go?"
"Again? I can't. Fifty people want me, and they would swear to a man
if I went away that I was indirectly murdering them. But come, I keep
on chattering. Now then, I say, what's the matter? In love?"
The colour deepened a little on the white forehead, and the visitor
replied quietly:
"I should not consult a physician for that ailment. The fact is, that
for some while past I have felt as if my memory were going."
"Tut! nonsense!"
"At times it seems as if a perfect cloud were drawn between the present
and the past. I can't account for it--I do not understand it; but
things I have done one week are totally forgotten by me the next."
"If they are bad things, so much the better."
"You treat it very lightly, sir, but it troubles me a great deal."
"My dear boy, I would not treat it lightly if I thought there was
anything in it; but you do not and never have displayed a symptom of
brain disease, neither have your father and mother before you. You are
not dissipated."
"Oh no! I never--"
"You may spare yourself the trouble of talking, John, my boy. I could
tell in a moment if you had a bit of vice in you, and I know you have
not. But come, my lad: to be serious, what has put this crotchet into
your head?"
"Crotchet or no," said the young man sadly, "I have for months past been
tormented with fears that I have something wrong in the head--incipient
insanity, or idiocy, if you like to call it so."
"I don't like to call it anything of the kind, John Huish," said the
doctor tartly, "because it's all nonsense. I have not studied insanity
for the last five-and-twenty years without knowing something about it;
so you may dismiss that idea from your mind. But come, let's know
something more about this terrible bugbear."
"Bugbear if you like, doctor, but here is the case. Every now and then
I have people--friends, acquaintances--reminding me of things I have
promised--engagements I have made--and which I have not kept."
"What sort of engagements?" said the doctor.
"Well, generally about little bets, or games at cards."
"That you owe money on?"
"Yes," said Huish eagerly. "I have again and again been asked for money
that I owe."
"Or are said to owe," said the doctor drily.
"Oh, there is no doubt about it," said Huish. "About a twelvemonth ago,
when this sort of thing began--"
"What sort of thing?" said the doctor.
"These lapses of memory," replied Huish. "Oh!"
"I used to be annoyed, and denied them, till I began to be scouted by
the men I knew; and at last one or two of them brought unimpeachable
witnesses to prove that I was in the wrong."
"Oh, John Huish, my dear boy, how can you let yourself be imposed upon
so easily!"
"There is no imposition, I assure you. I give you the facts."
"Facts! Did you ever know anyone come and tell you that he owed you
money, and pay you?"
"Yes, half a dozen times over--heavier amounts than I have had to pay."
"Humph! that's strange," said the doctor, looking curiously at his
visitor.
"Strange?--it's fearful!" cried the young man passionately. "It is
getting to be a curse to me, and I cannot shake off the horrible feeling
that I am losing my mind--that I am going wrong. And if this be the
case, I cannot bear it, especially just now, when--"
He checked himself, and gazed piteously at the man to whom he had come
for help.
"Be cool, boy. Supposing it is as you say, it is only a trifle,
perhaps; but it seems to me that there is a great deal of imagination in
it."
"Oh no--oh no! I fear I am going, slowly but surely, out of my mind."
"Because you forget things after a certain time, eh? Stuff! Don't be
foolish. Why, you never used to think that your brain was going wrong
when you were a schoolboy, and every word of the lesson that you knew
perfectly and said _verbatim_ to a schoolfellow dropped out of your
mind."
"No."
"Of course you did not; and as to going mad, why, my dear boy, have you
any idea what a lunatic is?"
"I cannot say that I have."
"Well, then, you shall have," said the doctor; "and that will do you
more good than all my talking. You shall see for yourself what a
diseased mind really is, and that will strengthen you mentally, and show
you how ill-advised are your fancies."
"But, doctor, I should not like to be a witness of the sufferings of
others."
"Nonsense, my boy. There, pray don't imagine, because I live at
Highgate, and am licenced to have so many insane patients under my care,
that you are going to see horrible creatures dressed in straw and
grovelling in cells. My dear John, I am going to ask you to a mad
dinner-party."
"A mad dinner-party?"
"Well, there, to come and dine with my sister, myself, and our patients.
No people hung in chains or straw. Perfectly quiet gentlemen, my dear
fellow, but each troubled with a craze. You would not know that they
had anything wrong if they did not break out now and then upon the
particular subject. Come to-night at seven sharp."
The doctor glanced at his watch, rose, and held out his hand; and though
John Huish hesitated, the doctor's eyes seemed to force him to say that
he would be there, and he began to feel for his purse.
"Look here, sir," said the doctor, stopping him: "if you are feeling for
fees, don't insult your father's old friend by trying to offer him one.
There, till seven--say half-past six--and I'll give you a glass of
burgundy, my boy, that shall make you forget all these imaginations."
"Thank you, doctor--"
"Not another word, sir, but _au revoir_."
"_Au revoir_," said Huish; and he was shown out, to go back to his
chambers thinking about his ailment--and Gertrude, while the doctor
began to muse.
"Strange that I should take so much interest in that boy. Heigho! Some
years now since I went fly-fishing, and fished his father out of the
pit."
Volume 1, Chapter VI.